Skin Walkers: Monroe

By: Susan A. Bliler

Narrated by: Erin Mallon

Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

When Game Warden Eden St. Cloud goes up against CEO Monroe StoneCrow, she encounters the most intimidating, powerful, and sexy man she's ever seen. Unaware of the fact that Monroe is the Dominant Skin Walker in North America, it isn't until Eden becomes enmeshed in his life that she realizes it's too late to escape. Worse, she's drawn the children under her care into the lair of the beast and must now succumb to Monroe's desires or risk losing her children forever.

CEO Monroe StoneCrow is a man tormented by his obsession with creating a haven for his Skin Walkers. Determined to form a community where his Walkers can exist in peace, he has no time or desire to seek out his own mate, his angel. When Eden St. Cloud crosses his path, there is no denying his instant attraction, or his overwhelming animalistic urge to claim her. His affliction is so intense that even his own medical experts are at a loss to ease his symptoms. With his Skin Walker refuge in danger of collapse due to his preoccupation with Eden, Monroe is stymied by his inability to do what he's always done...simply take what he wants.

©2013 Susan A Bliler (P)2014 Susan A Bliler

Oh the breathy-ness of it all!!

Would you try another book from Susan A. Bliler and/or Erin Mallon?

Yes, I will listen to other books by Susan Bliler as long as they are NOT read by Erin Mallon!

Who was your favorite character and why?

I really didn't latch on to any one character in particular.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Erin Mallon?

There are soooo many! I really like Jill Redfield. I think she would have done an excellent job. Erin sounded like she was either going into or coming out of an orgasm all the time!!

Was Skin Walkers: Monroe worth the listening time?

Yes, it was a decent.

2.5; Exaggerated tale; domineering H

The story started off well; it was interesting. And I liked the main characters okay. This is yet another paranormal tale about a paranormal being—this time a skinwalker—finding his mate. And, of course, the mating doesn’t come easy; they, naturally, dislike each other initially.

This was supposed to be the tale of a strong woman, Eden, the h, meeting a savage, beautiful skinwalker/man who was so powerful and so impacted her through sexual desire that she became a different woman, a woman who wanted, even needed, to become what he (Monroe) called his whore while he became to her, what she called, “her god” b/c they were fated mates. But it didn’t go over that way to me. That’s a hard sell for any author, and I don’t think the attempt succeeded here.

Eden, the h, was a strong female character. That was good. When the story moved to Monroe showing himself to be primal and animalistic in acting on his desire for Eden as his mate, I was almost done with the story. It was waaaaayyy over the top. Monroe frequently acted like an inconsiderate, insistent ass. Even killing others was treated lightly by everyone as long as they got their way. And I’m not a fan of the out-of-control male of any species. Using mating or heat or whatever doesn’t make it any more palatable for me. I get the animal and primal nature which is of import in many paranormal tales, but I prefer the characters who successfully struggle with their “nature” to choose better, to act better. Then, to have Eden struggle between being both turned on and attracted to forced sex was presented in a way that was a bit too much for me. I completely get the fact that a woman can be both; sexual ambivalence is nothing new. And plenty of women have “rape” fantasies, even strong women. So the author’s attempt to showcase this is ok. And it was an admirable attempt. But something still didn’t quite work for me. Maybe it was everything that occurred before it, leading up to it and the chase. Some of the things Monroe said during this incident, in sort of explaining it, messed up the scene for me too. Maybe if the scene was focused more on Eden’s struggle, her ambivalence and not Monroe’s patronizing her and talking about trying to let her be a “good girl” while insisting that he was going to f*** her either way, it would’ve been easier to swallow. It was supposed to be sexy, as though he soooo desired her that he was out of control. But instead, for me, it was patronizing, controlling (not in a good way), frightening, and un-sexy. To have a strong woman like Eden succumb soooo completely to her sexual desire with an ass, a guy she didn’t even like 2 seconds ago, and do so without much of a fight was unbelievable and sordid instead of sexy. I like domination tales ok but when insult and degradation in the name of mating and even love takes place, I’m turned off. Monroe said, “It’s ok to be my whore” and admitted to sexual coercion, which he said was different from force. But his words and actions, as well as her first reaction to both, resembled force more than anything. This was one f***ed up dom-sub relationship. There’s more, but I’ll leave it there. Just my $.02.

Add to all of this the fact that Monroe played games with Eden concerning her kids too. In multiple ways he tormented her, and she didn’t seem to recognize it. What a heaping pile of mess! Yet all of that wasn’t enough. The author added other dramatic aspects, like Monroe’s “affliction” and drama from Eden’s past. Enough already! No more contrivances please!
Redundancy was also a problem. Witness it through these dialogue examples: “Sexy as hell;.” “Annoying as hell;” “Smart as hell;” “Distracting as hell;” “A living hell.” And all of these were said sequentially almost; they were not spread out.

Finally, the narrator was irritating too. The way this narrator pronounces words, sort of dragging them out, maybe in an attempt to add drama or something, was so grating! Add to that the kind of breath she puts at the end of words, and you have a very bad, especially irritating, unwanted combination in narration. Her emotion all sounds so contrived.

Oookayyy

This had so much potential to be a great read, but the gaps in time and the lack of real connection of the main characters made this just okay. potential steamy moments, but definitely fell short. the narrator was okay as well, not great, but not terrible either.

Decent narration, so-so storyline.

It's clear that the author's goal is to just feed you tidbits of a story, in order to keep you buying more books, but I tend to at least expect a relatively full tale within each tidbit. This one had so many holes. Several aspects of real life were just ignored, in favor of hurrying to shoehorn that romance in. It feels like this should just be a few chapters out of a real book. It's fine as a part of Audible Escape, but I'd have been pissed to waste a credit.
*SPOILERS* Seriously, what happened with her job, home, coworkers, friends? She had a life before they met. The children were legally hers. Government officials don't just let random millionaires claim "dibs" on people's children because they're injured!

GRRREAT.... A NEW WERE-SHIFTER SPECIES

A new were-shifter community has arrived (lucky us) as it's got some super-sexy Alphas, a decent plot and hot sex. However, Audible sometimes release books out of order and this is actually book 4 of the Skin Walkers series but you'd never know as the story can easily be a stand alone listen.

Feisty, stubborn Game Warden Eden and an uber-controlling, confident, arrogant, handsome, rich multi-wereshifter Munroe (who's the Dominant over all of the North American Shifters) go head-to-head and, at first, they battle, argue and the friction between them is intense. But when they eventually warm to each other and the sexual chemistry becomes too much then it's clothes off as the Game Warden becomes fair game in a hot, passionate and very needy way because the collar round Munroe's neck has just announced that Eden is his mate and he's desperate to claim what's his.

Good secondary characters - especially her children and an enjoyable, if slightly flawed, plot which tells of sacrifices made and the power that love has in all it's forms. Strong language, including the four letter C variety, narration was ok but lots of gasps between sentences however hero's voice was sexy and there were sexual dom/sub scenes as a strong very Alpha male meets his fated Angel.

Worth a credit? Although Munroe was a jerk to begin with thankfully he redeemed himself half way through into a loveable caring hero (who's an animal in the bedroom) which easily made this a creditworthy listen and I will watch out for future books.

Book 4 in the Skin Walker Series.

I really like this book, but I didn't love it. Partly because this book is in the middle of a series and I'm a big stickler for reading books in order. After a while of listening I realized this was a series and I looked up where this book is in the series and this book is listed as #4 on Amazon. Also I would have like to have seen more action with the bad guys. I liked all the characters and the world building was good, I just think it needed a little something extra to have made it better. Don't get me wrong I will be reading the remaining books in the series, but since Audible doesn’t have them I will have to look to my kindle. The characters are great and as a romance this is an excellent book, even if there was a bit more dominance in it than I normally like. I did manage to get this with the whispersync program for 3.95 total and it was defiantly worth that price. Narrator was okay, I didn't mind her but she is a bit breathy which might bother some people.

Great story!

Makes you want more. The narrator was great but I would have liked to hear a male voice as well on some or the story lines.

OH YEA - This was smoking !!

Any additional comments?

Monroe is a very Hot and Alpha Dominant Skin Walker that can change into an animal at will... Eden, who is a very strong willed lady, is a Game Warden for the State's Dept of Fish, Wildlife and Park and is is also considered a law enforcement officer... Put these two together with a bunch of friction, animosity and sexual tension then watch the Sparks Fly...

I really enjoyed this book. Susan Bliler is a new author for me and i will defiantly be grabbing the rest of this series once released on Audible. It's a bit of a shame we didn't get to start this series from the first book in the Skin Walkers series...

Read By a Porn Star; Written by Genius

According to Amazon this is actually book 7; that explains all of the confusing details the story assumed we knew about other characters and past plots. Thanks for letting us know Audible.

On a different note, it is very hard to take this book seriously due to the narrator. I would highly suggest you find this book at your local library or get it on your tablet. The story is great and captures you quickly enough, but the narrator ruins the story by gasping, like she's acting out the future sex scenes, at the end of every sentence!! I kid you not, she speaks one sentence and gasps for air. I couldn't decide if the narrator had COPD or if she was an out of work porn star who was narrating a book for the first time. I know it can't be easy to read an entire book out-loud, but one assumes that the audio company will delete breathy parts of a recording or use a narrator well practiced at hiding their breathing.

So, for those of you interested in this plot, I highly encourage you to read the story instead of listening to it. Save your credit or money; unless of course you don't mind the gasping ;-)

Amazing book

I LOVED this book, and I can't wait to read more. I'm sad that more of the series isn't on Audible and sad that it didn't start with the first book. However the writing was amazing, the narration was spot on and I would totally recommend this book!