Bite Me

Pride, Book 9

By: Shelly Laurenston

Narrated by: Charlotte Kane

Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Livy Kowalski has no time for idiots. When you shapeshift into a honey badger, getting through life's irritants is a finely honed skill. Until she gets stuck housing her nutso cousin and dealing with her dad's untimely and unexplained demise.

That's where Vic Barinov comes in-or his house does. Vic can't step outside without coming back to find Livy devouring his honey stash and getting the TV remote sticky. It gets his animal instincts all riled up. But he'll have to woo her at high speed: All hell is breaking loose, and Livy is leading the charge…

©2014 Shelly Laurenston (P)2014 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Hot shape-shifters and even hotter passion." (Gena Showalter, New York Times bestselling author)

what happens next?

What will come next how is having babies. And what trouble have they caused. I what to know.

Charimain

Love it was funny funny keep the story coming do a new series like this one

love love love this collection!!!!!!

I've listened to books 1 through 9 and it was a stellar series from beginning to end , the story was romantic and funny and the narrator was a joy to listen to , its a ten out of ten for me across the board. so take some time to enjoy a great series, your going to love this collection

I love this series

This is one awesome,amazing,funny series and I am sad this is the last book so far I really really hope there will be more Pride series book. I want to say Ms Laurenston is an amazing author who puts every ethnicity in her book, most romance novels by popular authors only write about really white Caucasian girls and guys but I love how her books have Asians, African Americans thank you!

Funny, innovative, You HAVE to read these!!

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” – George Carlin

Poor Livy. Being a honey badger shifter is really the pits sometimes. Let’s take her father’s funeral.

“So how did it go?"

“Fistfight on the casket. Poisonous snakes in the backyard. My father’s ex-girlfriend head-butted by my mother… The usual really.”

Wow. Growing up in a family known for being enemies to … well … everyone, isn’t actually all that easy. Especially when you have no interest in learning the finer skills of pickpocketing at age three or how to best break in to a safe, steal the swag and get away clean by the time you are a preteen. Huh. Livy isn’t interested in the family business of breaking every local, state, federal and international robbery law on the books – she just wants to be a photographer. And she is a really good one at that. But family business rears its ugly head, no matter how carefully Livy tries to stay away. And her father’s death will lead to a return to the family business, will she or nil she. Thank goodness she has good friends to back her up. And, believe it or not, her family as well. Of course, when her old friend Vic, a bear-tiger hybrid, shows up along with his friend and sometimes business partner Shen, the giant panda, things get even stickier.

Livy: “Your feline is showing.”
Vic: “Because you’re not being rational and there’s an eight-foot four-hundred-pound whiny baby over there begging me to claw the holy shit out of him.”

Polar Bear Hockey Player (and aforementioned whiney baby): “You are Rude!”

Livy has no interest in a ‘relationship’ with anyone – especially when said hybrid makes her insides feel funny. But sometimes what we want and what we need are very different. And having a mammoth sized hybrid on her side turns out to be rather a good thing after all.

I read the first two of Shelly Laurenston’s “Pride” series quite some time ago and remember liking them, and finding them rather funny. “Bite Me” is sooo much more! I laughed so hard all through the book I had tears running down my face. The story is great, but the characters make the book. From Tennessee hillbillies (and proud of it) to savants in everything from art to music to science, Shelly takes what could be cliché characters and make them so much more. There is tremendous humor here, but also depth – the love of family and friends, the sacrifices friends are willing to make, and a lot about love and duty, greed and egotism – and the best way to break into an unbreakable vault, of course.

Yes, the first ones were OK but Book Nine? Priceless! It is now on my “to be read immediately when feeling sad” shelf. And I am going to go back and read the rest as well. The first two were more of the typical ‘paranormal romance’ with some humor thrown in – lots of sex and not as much story. This one? LOTS of story, lots of laughs, and a tiny bit of very well-done sex – lagniappe rather than main course!

Highly recommended. Have fun! Oh, and please note. Just because Shelly’s wonderful cover artists couldn’t figure out the best way to make Vic look sexy in his hybrid form, (he really is quite terrifying in his shifted form! All. That. FUR!!) and put that gorgeous tiger on the cover instead, doesn’t mean that Shelly doesn’t respect her friends, the hybrid shifters!

I love this book

I'm sorry this series is over!!! I loved the whole series,it's funny ,entertaining and you get to see the storyline continue in every book!

Great listen!

Any additional comments?

One word......brilliant!!!! Laurenston does a fabulous job with this book. Love the new characters & the old!!! I am a badger & hybrid fan! Excellent read with a great story line and sex scenes!

Love This Crazy Family

This is the craziest family of them all! Livey is not the happiest of people but vic knows how to handle her. She finds out how much she needs her family and vic. Enjoy

Best Ever Audio Book

Best narrator ever! The voice for each character is unique and perfect—I bought and have listened to the whole series

Very good addition to the series :D

4 stars

This was a very good story. I liked Vic and Livy in previous books of the series and I liked the way their story came together. This was a very good addition to the series.

Livy is a honey badger shifter, a breed which doesn't associate with the other shifters a lot and is known for being very fierce and tough. Most honey badgers are also known for being criminals but Livy isn't interested in that life and instead has embraced her creative side and become a photographer. She currently has a regular job taking pictures of the shifter hockey team (for publicity shots and such) but she actually an artist and her photography is shown in art galleries. Livy actually has a show coming up soon but she's stressing because she feels like she's lost her creative muse (mostly because she's worried about being a sellout for taking a job to pay the bills) and doesn't think she has anything worthy of being in the show.

Vic is a shifter that's a hybrid of a Tiger and a Bear. He used to be in the service and now does freelance jobs in the mercenary/secret agent type that have him traveling all around the world. He's done some work with some of the main characters from previous books and that's how Vic and Livy meet. They have become friends although Vic gets frustrated when Livy keeps breaking in to his house and stealing all of his honey.

When the story begins, Livy is not having a good time as her dad just died and at his funeral, the family situation is tense to say the least. She goes back home after the funeral and things still aren't great. People think she's upset because of her dad's funeral but she's really freaked because she has an art show coming up soon for her photography and hasn't been able to get inspired and has no decent photos for the show. She's been doing jobs like being the photographer for the local shifter hockey team and feels it's been taking away from her creativity (although she does need the work to pay bills). She's even more stressed when Blaine asks her (and who can say no to Blaine) to photograph her wedding because Livy is an artist and not a wedding photographer! Needless to say Livy is unthrilled and Vic notices her being upset and it bothers him. Vic thinks it's because of her dad and tries to be there for her, even bringing her gifts of exotic honeys and other stuff in an attempt to cheer her up. While all this is going on, Vic gets a lead on a guy that's responsible for capturing shifters and letting humans hunt them for money. He asks Livy to check out an apartment for him and she agrees (although she's not a thief she has definite skills for getting in and out of places unseen). Livy is surprised and pissed when she goes to check out the apartment and finds evidence there that indicates her father was killed in a much different way than what everyone thought.

Livy ends up calling in her whole family about the issue and when they find out about what happened and the person responsible, they decide to take him down and make him pay. Vic tries to get them to leave it up to the shifter led authorities but someone in power seems to have pushed this case down in priority and Livy and her family aren't about to leave someone else to take care of the issue or not. Livy and Vic started out as friends but things escalated when they went on a trip to an all bear run town called Honeyville and they end up in bed together. Once she decides that her and her family are going after the bad guy, Vic decides he's not going to let Livy do this on her own and is there to back her up. I really liked how Livy and Vic's relationship grew. They were both rather busy with everything else that was going on but they both were able to recognize that their instincts seemed to be leading them to each other instead of away. They may not have been looking for love but once they realized it was coming up on them they didn't fight it but embraced it (although somewhat reluctantly at times). They had some really good moment together...I especially loved when Vic bought Livy the new camera and how he gave it to her. He's so sensitive to Livy's wants and needs... *sigh* And he even helped Livy to get her muse back. There are some interesting times as Livy's family plans and executes their revenge on the bad guy. This bad guy has been one that the shifters have been after for a while in this series so it's cool to see him get what he has coming. Once everything is concluded, Livy and Vic are solidly together and starting their HEA.

This was a very enjoyable story. I really liked Vic and Livy together, they made a good couple. The story was interesting and concluded a long term series story line. I'll be interested to see what plots show up in the next books in the series. I'd recommend this book. Thumbs up. :)