Leopard’s Scar (Leopard 13) by Christine Feehan-Review, Excerpt Giveaway
LEOPARD’S SCAR
Leopard 14
by Christine Feehan
Release Date: November 29, 2022
Genre: adult, contemporary, erotic, paranormal, romance
Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / Chapters Indigo / Google Play /
ABOUT THE BOOK: November 29, 2022
The moment Meiling sees Gedeon she knows he’s a leopard shifter—just as she knows she can’t trust him. Meiling doesn’t take chances, life has taught her better than that. So why does she find herself rescuing this deadly, gorgeous man, when she knows she’d be better off leaving him to die?
Gedeon is used to women throwing themselves at him, not throwing his injured body over their beautiful, deceptively strong shoulders and carrying him to safety. He might be embarrassed, if he wasn’t so aroused by the very thought of this feisty lotus blossom.
As they strike up a working relationship that suits them both, Gedeon starts to rely on Meiling for just about everything. But when her hidden nature rises to the surface, the connection that links them shifts into an all-consuming desire. And neither will escape unmarked. . . .
••••••
REVIEW: LEOPARD’S SCAR is the fourteenth instalment in Christine Feehan’s contemporary, adult LEOPARD erotic, paranormal romance series. This is fixer/Leopard shifter Gedeon Volkov, and Meiling Chang’s story line. LEOPARD’S SCAR can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary but for back story and cohesion, I recommend reading the series in order.
WARNING: Due to the nature of the story line premise there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.
Told from dual third person perspectives (Meiling and Gedeon) LEOPARD’S SCAR follows the building but contemptuous relationship between leopard shifters Gedeon Volkov, and Meiling Chang. Meiling was too late to rescue her ‘cousin’ from a human trafficking ring but the appearance of a Leopard male shifter meant Meiling had only a matter of time to make her escape. A series of explosions destroying the compound and all survivors left Gedeon Volkov temporarily blinded and unable to walk, and Meiling found herself nursing the shifter back to health. Desperate for Meiling’s help, Gedeon offers Meiling a job, a partnership ‘fixing’ that which cannot be fixed but a partnership in business terms only. Gedeon suspects Meiling is a Leopard shifter who has yet to reach the Han Vol Dan (female leopard’s first heat), and in this, Meiling’s continual denial of herself threatens the relationship between our leading couple. Gedeon’s leopard is dangerous, dark and in constant need of sexual gratification but he refuses to cross the line with the woman with whom he will fall in love instead opting for a series of meaningless women, inciting jealousy in our story line heroine. As Meiling and Gedeon work together on a number of search and rescue assignments, Meiling struggles to keep her leopard under control knowing Gedeon is their mate but a man who has issues with a monogamous relationship. What ensues is the slow building relationship between Meiling and Gedeon, and the potential fall-out as the past continues to hunt for our story line heroine.
Both Meiling and Gedeon lost their families to murder at the hands of an assassin leaving our couple the only surviving members of their Leopard clans. Meiling and Gedeon are descended from a long line of powerful shifters, and in this, Meiling has been targeted by the people at the top. Gedeon has been biding his time, exacting revenge against the Leopards who destroyed his family and his Lair but never expected the betrayal to come from someone he knew.
The relationship between Meiling and Gedeon is a slow building relationship predicated upon revenge and betrayal, desperation and need. Meiling suspects Gedeon is her mate but Gedeon refuses to place Meiling in danger knowing his Leopard is demanding and deadly. Refusing to accept Meiling as their mate, Gedeon continues to push away the woman with whom he will fall in love. The $ex scenes are erotic, provocative and intense.
There is a large ensemble cast of powerful and familiar secondary and supporting characters including but not exclusive to the Amurov Leopard Crime Family Evangeline and Fyodor Amurov (Leopard’s Blood #8), Timur and Ashe Amurov (Leopard’s Run #10), Elijah Lospostos, Jake Bannaconni, and Drake Donovan. The requisite evil has many faces.
LEOPARD’S SCAR is a story of betrayal and vengeance, power and control, greed and hunger, violence and death, acceptance and love. The premise is edgy and dramatic; the romance struggles in the face of perceived betrayal; the characters are numerous, powerful and determined.
Now to address a new ‘revelation’- a species of Leopard with the ability to create and control dragon fire, a group known as the Dragon Throne Justice. I am not sure where the author is going with this new plot twist but it is beginning to sound too much like the Carpathian series.
Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Wild Rain
Burning Wild
Wild Fire
Savage Nature
Leopard’s Prey
Cat’s Lair
Wild Cat
Leopard’s Fury
Leopard’s Blood
Leopard’s Run
Leopard’s Wrath
Leopard’s Rage
Copy supplied by Netgalley
Reviewed by Sandy
Excerpted from Leopard’s Scar by Christine Feehan Copyright © 2022 by Christine Feehan. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Her body shook as if she had tremors that were uncontrollable. There was no fixing that, so she just accepted it, as she did anything she couldn’t change, and looked around her. The cabin was gone. Flattened. No, it was a hole in the ground. The forest around it was gone, the trees lying in piles of rubble and leaves everywhere. It looked like a war zone.
She started to turn away when she caught movement under one of the stacks of leaves and branches. It was a human leg and arm moving, the arm trying to throw the branch off the leg. She heard the curse. The groan. The branch settled back over the leg. The man cursed again, and she heard the raw pain in his voice.
Gedeon. Meiling closed her eyes. Naturally he would live through it. He was a leopard and probably had more than nine lives. If she helped him, he would most certainly reward her by killing her. He was Amur. What else would he do? If she didn’t help him, she would forever remember him taking on all those horrid men to free the women. She would never get the sight of him kneeling on the porch weeping from her mind. The latter two things didn’t fit with him being Amur leopard. Now she was the one cursing.
She made her way back to him, picking her way through the debris. “I’ve got a gun, and if you make one wrong move, I’m going to shoot you right through the heart. Do you understand? If you just behave, I’ll move the branch, leave you your clothes and you can go on your way.” Meiling made certain she didn’t speak until she could do so without the slightest tremor in her voice. She was still shaking like a leaf, but he couldn’t see her—at least she hoped he couldn’t.
There was a small silence and then she heard him sigh. “Lady, get the hell out of here while you can. I’m blind. My leg is broken. The branch is too heavy for you to lift, and I can’t help you with my leg like this. I’m naked, by the way. If you did manage to get me free, I got a good look at you and I weigh three times your weight. How are you going to get me out of here? On your back? That’s ludicrous. No doubt there are men on their way right now to see what the hell happened to their moneymaking operation, and you don’t want to be here when they get here. If by some miracle you did manage to save my life and I regained my eyesight and didn’t die of infection, I’d have to hunt you down, which I’m very good at, and kill you because I don’t leave witnesses. On top of everything else, my cat hates everybody and I’m pretty damned weak right now and I might not be able to hold him back. So get out of here.”
“You really aren’t telling me anything new other than the eye thing and broken leg. If you aren’t going to be useful, less talking, please. I’ve got to figure this out fast.” She put his clothes down and considered the branch. It was large, but it was mostly the angle that was going to give her trouble. If she dropped it on his leg a second time after she picked it up, it was going to cause considerably more damage.
She was strong, and unfortunately, the moment she showed him just how strong she actually was, he would guess she was more than she seemed. That meant the moment she could, she would have to run. She’d planned on doing so anyhow, but that knowledge would double his incentive for coming after her.
She caught ahold of the end of the branch, lifted and maneuvered it off his leg, closing her ears to the sound of his hastily cut off groan. The branch was cracked in several places and made horrid creaking and cracking noises, threatening to break into several large pieces, the offshoots shivering, throwing twigs and leaves raining down. She didn’t hesitate at all but kept the thick branch moving until it was completely away from Gedeon’s body. When she dropped it to the ground, it did break into pieces.
For the first time, she allowed herself to look at the man’s face to see if he was telling her the truth. His gorgeous jade-green eyes were definitely damaged in some way. Hastily, she tore a strip from his shirt, soaked it in the water from her backpack and slowly approached him.
“I’m going to tie this around your eyes. It’s all I’ve got at the moment to help. Then I’ll stabilize your leg to move you.”
“Why aren’t you afraid of my leopard?”
“I have a way with them. Is he acting up?”
“As a matter of fact, no.”
Meiling did feel a little smug at that. He sounded shocked. She wasn’t that surprised. She did have a way with large cats.
“How the hell do you think you can move me?” Now he was back to irritable.
“Does it matter? I’m getting you out of here unless you’d rather I leave you the gun and you take care of doing yourself in. Otherwise, stop whining and let me get this done. I don’t want to be here with you any longer than I have to.”
“I have to hand it to you, little doll, you have guts.”
Christine Feehan is a #1 New York Times bestselling author multiple times over with her portfolio including over 70 published novels, including five series; Dark Series, Ghostwalker Series, Leopard Series, Drake Sisters Series, the Sisters of the Heart Series and Torpedo Ink. All of her series have hit the #1 spot on the New York Times bestselling list as well. Her debut novel Dark Prince received 3 of the 9 Paranormal Excellence Awards in Romantic Literature (PEARL) in 1999. Since then she has been published by various publishing houses including Leisure Books, Pocket Books, and currently is writing for Berkley/Jove. She also has earned 7 more PEARL awards since Dark Prince.
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Christine’s Feehan’s publisher Penguin/Random House/ Berkley Romance and The Reading Cafe are graciously offering a paper copy of LEOPARD’S SCAR to ONE (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.
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