BREAKING BADGER is the fourth book in Shelly Laurenston’s “Honey Badger Chronicles”. This book, like others in this series, will appeal to romance fans and those who wouldn’t normally pick up a romance alike. Unlike the previous three books in this series, which were centered around the MacKilligan sisters, BREAKING BADGER focuses on Max MacKilligan’s basketball teammates (and BFFs) – specifically her friend Mads. All the MacKilligan sisters and the basketball friends are at least part honey badger shifter. The honey badger lineage, the MacKilligan connection, and the Malone’s quest for vengeance, all make for an epic good time.

The Malone brothers - Siberian tiger shifters all – are a force to be reckoned with. Like something out of a classic Toshiro Mifune film, or out of a Shakespearian tale, the brothers are united in their desire to find out who killed their father and satisfy their need for revenge as well as simply getting much-needed answers. The other thing they’re in agreement about, despite their brotherly spats, is that they should always look out for their half-sister (and half MacKilligan honey badger) Natalie. Mads and her basketball BFFs are thrown into the path of the Malone brothers. Mads has her own family drama to sort out in BREAKING BADGER. In addition to being half honey badger, Mads is also half Hyena. Her mother and maternal grandmother are jerks who have tormented Mads to varying degrees until she was able to break away from them. Now, rather than be allowed to grieve over the loss of her beloved but tough great-grandmother, prepare for basketball finals, and just generally live her life, she must deal with attacks from the maternal side of her family as well as random craziness from associating with the daughter of trillion time loser Freddy MacKilligan. I have to say, as much as I hate all the trouble Freddy makes for everybody, especially his daughters, it draws them closer together having to deal with the fallout. The romance element of this story kind of sneaks up on you. There is so much going on in BREAKING BADGER – all of it wildly entertaining as expected – that the romance that develops between Finn Malone and Mads is not the focus. Rather than an insta-attraction from the very beginning, an attraction slowly builds as this couple ends up hanging out and killing baddies together. Normally, I prefer for a romance to be the focus in a story, but everything is so well-choreographed, the storytelling is amazing, and it’s just so much fun that it all works beautifully the way it is.

BREAKING BADGER is a mix of manga-style crazy fantabulous, a wild west vengeance tale, a compelling tale of sisterhood in all forms, with a fun romance as a cherry on the sundae. I hope to hear more about the Malone brothers and their vengeance quest in future books. Yay! I eagerly await Shelly Laurenston’s next shifter epic extravaganza.

This is book 4 in the Honey Badger Chronicles and I would absolutely read the previous books before this one as these characters are all introduced in those books and events that happened in them are talked about in this one. In this one we get Finn and Mads story! Finn jumped in to help the badgers when they needed it. But he definitely doesn't want them in his house and rudely kicks them out. But when it turns out that they are the only ones who may be able to help him, he has to figure out a way to get back into their good graces. Mads knows her teammates, and knows that they don't forgive. But she also knows that Finn isn't that bad and she understands his need for vengeance. So she decides to help him settle a score all while being able to avoid her own family. Besides she likes fighting next to him, among other things!

I absolutely love this series!! When I read Max's book I was hoping that her friends would all get books and this one definitely didn't disappoint!! Mads and Finn definitely seem like they wouldn't fit but they absolutely do in a way that kept me not only laughing but just enjoying the ride! Mads has some crazy relationship with her family but when she decides enough is enough-holy cow!! Not only are the main characters great but the side characters are also great! This author has a way of telling stories that not only suck you in and make you want to keep reading them but also laughing and just enjoying yourself! I can't wait for the next in the series!!

I LOVED this book. I love the honey badger's. They are all absolutely insane. I laughed so much. This is the 4th book in this series and you have to read the first 3. But this one kind of continues on with the series. Each book is about a different couple but they all go together.

Anyways I can't say a whole lot with out spoilers but I will say this.. I almost wouldn't call this a romance. I mean there was technically a "romance" but it felt like an after thought. And usually this would bug me because this author writes very spicy romances but I enjoyed this story so much, that I didn't care that much. It was chaotic and I loved every second. I can not wait to see what happens in the next one.

Shelly Laurenston is known for ridiculous and hilarious shifter stories and this one takes the cake! The first of the book is absolute chaos. You discover how the group of basketball playing honey badger friends came about. We get a whole lot of interaction with the gals and their nutty life with Max, Charlie and Stevie MacKilligan that have found their loves. This is Mads story who is half honey badger and half hyena. Her hyena family hates her for just being. She was mostly raised by her Viking grandmother. This story is also how she and Finn Malone became a couple, almost by accident. I rolled my eyes, burst out laughing and shared parts of the story with my husband because I just had to share them with someone.

Finn and his brothers Keane & Shay, known as the Black Malone Brothers, are looking for whoever murdered their father. Mads and her teammates are trying to win the woman's shifter league basketball championship. They end up on an black ops mission helping the Malones escape captors. With the craziness of these stories they start working and socializing together throughout this story. The Malone's little sister, 17 year old Nat, is also a half MacKilligan, sharing their father and his unpredictable DNA. There are several story threads but in the end the Malones end up helping Mads have it out with her family once and for all. And Mads convinces Max & team to help the Malones solve the mystery of their Dad's murder.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

✦Review: BREAKING BADGER (The Honey Badger Chronicles) by Shelly Laurenston https://wp.me/p3d0RZ-bRc
Publication Date: AUGUST 31, 2021
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Reviewed by: Reading in Pajamas/ Donna
Rated 4 Stars

I enjoyed this wild ride of a story. Granted it had a lot of things going on with a lot of different point of views, but it was fun. Mads and Finn made an unlikely pair, which is a hallmark of this series, I think. The romance itself was more of an afterthought, building super slowly and only became physical once. I am not complaining about that as it was hot. I can’t really explain about the basic storyline of this installment as it had so many different things going on. I am guessing that this was to lead into backstories for future books. As with all Laurenston’s books, it is filled with a ton of snarky humor, wild and crazy action, and the camaraderie that comes from a tight knit group. I can’t wait to get this on audio…I love the banter.

*Review copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Kindle $9.99 https://amzn.to/3gdxYyf

✦The Honey Badgers Chronicles by Shelly Laurenston✦
✦Book 1: HOT AND BADGERED ➢ Kindle http://amzn.to/2uHjosV | Review 5 Stars https://wp.me/p3d0RZ-aFx
✦Book 2: IN A BADGER WAY ➢ Kindle https://amzn.to/2NWklY7 | Review 5 Stars https://wp.me/p3d0RZ-b4N
✦BOOK 3: BADGER TO THE BONE ➢ Kindle https://amzn.to/2NbpFHN | Review 5 Stars https://wp.me/p3d0RZ-bsL
✦Book 4: Breaking Badger ➢ Kindle https://amzn.to/3gdxYyf

The Honey Badger Series is a spin-off series from Shelly Laurenston’s Pride Series. Here’s the series link and a link to a blog post with some of our favorite quotes.
✦The Pride Series by Shelly Laurenston
Amazon Series Link: https://amzn.to/2unBuRM
Blog Post Fav Quotes: http://bit.ly/2Ggy4BY

Hilarious and wildly entertaining…

Family complications has never been seen like this. No, Honey Badger Chronicles has taken everything you know about love, loyalty, bloodlines, betrayal and put it in a brand-new category all its own. Relationships like you’ve never imagined. Dialogue that will make you laugh, sputter and giggle even as your jaw drops from the raw, honest and laughter-inducing straight speaking. Centering around family groups of shifters you will never, ever look at a badger, a tiger, a hyena – any animal for that matter – in the same way again…

Finn and his brothers were on a mission and the McKilligan sisters had to help them. Getting their cooperation involved a bit of groveling, some tasty bakery products and a whole lot of back-tracking as they tried to work their way into their good graces. Mads had a soft spot it seemed for Finn, she let him live, right? That had to mean something. As they fought, bickered and (somehow) grew closer, the battles they waged were part psychological and completely physical as danger stalked them. And they stalked it back…

This story, this series, is the wildest shifter world I’ve ever had the fortune to get lost in. I simply love these characters and the craziness they inspire and create. Blood-thirsty they may be but you will never find smarter, stronger or more loving people (in their own zany way of course).

Off-beat and insanely entertaining, the romance is low but super hot when it shows itself so… I don’t try to label what these stories are anymore. Instead I set the calendar to ‘do not disturb’ because I am not stopping until the last page has turned…

A "Mads" ride!

A Shelly Laurenston book guarantees 3 things - action, romance, and laughter. The 4th honey badger book features Mads, a basketball playing commando honey badger hyena hybrid. With a character like that her match has to be something special.

Re-enter the world of shifters and hybrids. Meet new characters and revisit old friends. When the MacKilligans are involved, an adventure will ensue

I would not be surprised to learn that Shelly Laurenston watched a lot of the Three Stooges and the Marx brothers growing up.

I laughed so much while reading this book (and winced a few times) and enjoyed seeing Mads and her teammates take center stage. They were mentioned in the earlier Honey Badger books that featured three half-sisters who share a disreputable father. If you are new to the series, I'd recommend reading the first books in the Honey Badger series before reading this one. Ms. Laurenston also wrote the Pride series, and some characters from that series also appear in this one. To me, one of the best features of her books is how interconnected they are. She really did create a book universe. I am looking forward to the next book to see how some of these plot strings play out.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley and was pleased to voluntarily read and review it.

I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. I have been a fan of this series for a few years, but there is something special about the honey badger books. All of her books are funny, but the honey badgers are outrageous. Now that we've finished the initial story arc about the the McKilligan sisters, I've enjoyed moving on to getting to better know Max's teammates, and Mads was an excellent place to start.
From the beginning, Mads and Finn were a delight to watch. They are both smart, independent, funny, and fairly dense about anything that does not relate to their interests. When they finally work together, it's fantastic, but I am now anxiously waiting to watch Keane fall like a rock for a honey badger.
This is definitely not a stand alone book, and the sheer number of points of view can occasionally get clunky, but despite that, I enjoyed almost every minute of this story. The characters and the action are over the top, and I laughed my rear end right off. This book is a wild ride, and sometimes, that is exactly what you need to read, especially when the world is a bit gnarly. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I hope you do too.

Shelly Laurenston is always a hit with me. I go in, knowing her books are insanely over the top, violent and out of this world. The romance usually takes second string to the antics in her books and I’m okay with that. The same is true for Breaking Badger. I needed an escape and humor and this book is all of that and more. We were introduced to Max’s honey badger basketball team friends (and special ops team) in the previous book and Mads, the heroine, is one of them. The one who actually takes their basketball career seriously. Mads is a half-honey badger, half hyena, with all the inopportune time giggling to go with it. She has a horrible family and the team is really her friends. On a special ops mission, she meets Finn Malone, a tiger, who, with his brothers, in looking into their father’s death. Finn and Mads get thrown together through all the crazy hijinks in this book and throughout that time, start to fall for each other. It’s hard to describe the humor of these books without reading them. I mean, it’s a book about a honey badger shifter, you just know it’s going to be over the top in all the best ways. In the midst of the non-stop action, there is friendship and sibling support and those heartwarming moments just give the series more depth. I’m so excited this series seems to be continuing with the rest of the honey badger team. Sign me up every time!

The honey badgers strike again! This highly entertaining, wonderfully intriguing, and expectedly unexpected story involves Max MacKilligan’s team, not friends, and specifically Mads. This Viking from Chicago comes from a family of hyenas who have never appreciated her honey badger ways. Fate threw the team together with the Dark Malone brothers, and Mads and Finn somehow always seem to end up seeking each other out after that first encounter. They find out they really fit well together, have steamy times, and fall for each other. They also bring lots of laughs and chuckles, with and at each other, their teams, and his family. New mysteries to be solved, seriously, there are like three that we know of, and only one of them is solved, and one has no explanation! Lots of time at the sports complex as we get some greatly entertaining shifter sports. Some previous favourites show up and of course, this is the honey badgers, so the MacKilligan sisters and their mates, and Kyle, are all around. Fast paced (don’t blink) and packed with a wide array of emotions, I loved it all!

Breaking Badger is another crazy adventure with the MacKilligan sisters to add to the awesome world that Shelly Laurenston creates in zany New York. This latest installment involves basketball crazy, honey badger, Mads Galendottir, and Siberian tiger, Finn Malone (of the Black Malones & half-brother to the youngest MacKilligan sibling, Natalie).

Finn and his brothers have a mission to find out who murdered their father. However for the brothers to learn anything, they need Max’s connections. Every step of the story takes you down a convoluted path of murder, mayhem, random shifters, and the craziness of the MacKilligans’ family plots.

The interactions between Max MacKilligan’s basketball team and the Black Malones is laugh out loud funny. It’s a great ride of a book. I can’t believe how much fun and havoc this latest installment of honey badgers could get into, and I look forward to the the continuing books in Laurenston’s shifter series.

Breaking Badger is another great addition to my Shelly Laurenston’s library.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the advanced copy of Breaking Badger!

#BreakingBadger #NetGalley

The Honey Badger Chronicles is a hilariously entertaining series and book 4 was no different. Breaking Badger focuses on Mads and Finn. These two couldn't be more opposites and it shows in every interaction these two have. As everyone knows opposites really do attract and Finn and Mads definitely do in the most laugh out loud kind of ways. With Mads and her teammates always finding themselves in the wildest situations and Finn and his brothers who seem to feed off of mayhem, mixing these off the wall characters together can only lead to a riotous action packed read that you'll find hard to put down. I am loving this series and can't wait to see which honey badger story is up next!

Shelly Laurenston is one of the only authors that can make me laugh out loud while reading! She creates this world of quirky shifters that is so well written and fun! I've read many of her books and love the characters she creates and how she matches them up together. She matches up characters that you wouldn't peg as being a couple and the ensuing banter is hilarious!

Finn is a tiger shifter who is looking for answers about his father's death. Finn and his brothers discover that a group of honey badgers may be their only chance at finding those answers. Mads is one of the honey badger shifters and views helping Finn as a fun opportunity. I really enjoyed these characters and all the side characters that are introduced. So much fun to read and you can't help but to get drawn into the story with so much drama, action and comedy! Very well done and highly recommended!

Breaking Badger is a wacky, violent, high-octane thrill ride from beginning to end. It’s chaotic in only a way Shelly Laurenston’s honey badgers can be, in that in any other author’s hands this level of craziness would likely be a mess but Laurenston mostly keeps it together.

Mads is a honey badger/hyena hybrid with some nightmare family members out to get her. Fortunately, she has her beloved sport, basketball, and – since middle school – her honey badger teammates. The five of them work hard and play harder but after landing in the middle of a firefight with some tigers, Mads finds herself often in the path of the Black Malones. Finn Malone and his brothers are determined to find out who killed their father and their best shot at getting information requires some help from the honey badgers. If only his brother hadn’t pissed them off… But Mads seems like one of the more sane badgers so he goes to her for help. What follows is a violent, sometimes disjointed ride with action that almost never stops.

I admit, it took me a while to get into Breaking Badger. I don’t mind violent action scenes but it felt at times like overkill and honestly Mads doesn’t have a whole lot to do for much of this story. She seems like an afterthought in her own book, which is a pity. There’s a lot of potential to her and I felt like some of the things about her past that were hinted at (her relationship with her father, for example) were missed out on. It’s not a good sign that Mads could have been dropped from this book and not all that much would have been lost. Finn is an angry, growly tiger who doesn’t have as much of a personality as I would have hoped for (Mads’s coyote easily stole the show from him). He’s interesting when he’s with Mads and when the two of them are alone they actually start to come alive. I would have loved to see more of their romance but it was skimped on in favor of the action. Around the halfway point the book picks up and there feels like order in the chaos and starting there, I was in for the ride.

Though ostensibly this is a book about Mads and Finn, it really is about the MacKilligan sisters with a dash of Malone family drama and a whole host of cameos from the Pride series. I love the MacKilligans, so I didn’t mind spending more time with Max, Charlie, and Stevie. They’re funny and endearing in their own scary ways and I was highly entertained by them. Breaking Badger is the kind of book it’s hard for me to put a rating on because there are some things I really enjoyed. Even with the issues I had with the plot and lack of romance, Laurenston’s writing is entertaining, unique, and left me looking forward to the next installment of The Honey Badger Chronicles.

Whenever I start a Shelly Laurenston book, I know going in that (1) it's going to be fun, and (2) I'll have no idea what is going to happen. Happily, Breaking Badger brought both of those elements.
I'm not clear if this is a new trilogy for the Malone brothers or series for Mads' basketball team (who readers were introduced to in Max's book). I definitely think readers should read at least Max's book to understand events in this one, though they may want to read the entire honey badger sisters' trilogy.
Finn Malone, the hero, is investigating his father's death with his brothers, and being hunted along the way.
Mads, the heroine, has her own family stuff - her mother and grandmother neglected to tell her the great-grandmother who partially raised her has died.
So there's basketball, family drama, attempted murder, real estate purchases, and honey badger shenanigans. As per usual with Laurenston, just settle in and enjoy the ride. Breaking Badger is a fun book, and Laurenston fans will be delighted.

There is nothing that can break a reading slump better than a shifter book by Shelly Lawrenceton. This is the third in the honey badger series. Here the heroine is one of Max’s teammates Mads. The hero is Finn Malone who is the brother of Natalie who is the half sister of Max and the family ties make this book even more entertaining.
Unfortunately for Finn the honey badgers are the only ones who can help him solve the mystery of his father’s death. The honey badger though are angry because they were kicked out of Finn’s house by his brothers. Mads wants to help thin because she thinks he’s cute as well as it takes away from her own family drama.
As usual a Shelley Lawrenceton book is like driving a race car you never stop moving. Even while trying to find solve the mystery of a death there is drama and entertainment galore.
Finn and Mads have great chemistry. Fin also helps Mads deal with her own crazy family who has never accepted. It’s fun to see how our found family is sometimes even closer than the one we are born into but it just leads to more entertainment as well.
The side story of the McKilligan sisters dealing with their new half-sister Natalie’s antics is also very entertaining. Shelley Lawrence and manages to mix her old characters with the new ones and creates a read that is hard to put down. I’m looking forward to the next book.

I love this author and have read every book by her so it’s no surprise that I finished the book the same day I got approved to receive an ARC. This book was entertaining and funny of course but it wasn’t the best one by this author. You still saw the characters you love in the series including the triplets and Charlie while getting to know some past side characters better. This book was a little too chaotic and lacking in the romance department. It’s still a fun read and more entertaining then the majority of books but compared to her other books it wasn’t great. It was great to see more of the McKilligan family and this book set up the next few in the series it seems to have a continuous plot.

I loved this story. It didn't focus quite enough on the romance between Finn and Mads but it read quickly and had a lot of the fun that readers expect from a Laurenston book with just the right amount of exclamation marks (they were a little thick on the ground in the last book.)
The Malone brothers have been divided from most of the rest of the shifter community since their father was murdered and no one else acknowledged it as such. The oldest three are working to figure out who did the actual deed. They don't care so much about the why (at least that I read) as they do about justice.
Mads and her teammates (they're certainly not friends!) have been sent to a mysterious island where they once again encounter the Malone brothers (you don't HAVE to have read the previous books in this series but why wouldn't you?). When the Malones figure out that the only way they might find out what happened to their father means kissing up to the badgers, Finn is nominated to be the one to do the kissing which is going to be especially hard since his brother kicked the badgers out after they brought thank you pastries (I just love this idea so much.)

Four stars
Follows Badger to the Bone
This book comes out August 31st, 2021
ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

I love Laurenston and her shifter series but this series seems to be losing steam for me. Maybe because we are now on Max's team members for whom I have little interest. I really wish she would have introduced the other Malones in Max's story and then started back with the Jean Louis Parkers. But, it is what it is.

Per usual, we are immediately dropped into a high octane adventure with plenty of action, chaos, and the occasional chuckle. In here we are introduced to Finn Malone and his family. He joins the badger basketball teammates when a sitch goes wrong and he finds himself reluctantly rescuing them. Of course, his rudeness makes them mortal enemies for life but when Mads finds herself falling for him-his rudeness and all-all bets are off.

I honestly feel this story was more a setup for the Malone/Jean-Parker romance that is to come. The storyline felt weak and I couldn't help but feel I had been here before. Regardless, it was a fast easy read that never fails to entertain...especially when the MacKiligansisters get involved.