Rated 3.5 Stars

I liked Pretty Little Lion but I didn’t love it like I did the first one. Part of it was I wasn’t fully invested in the main characters, that said I’m still looking forward to reading the third book in the series.

I highly suggest you read the first book in this series first because it will help you understand Third Shift a little better. This world really. It's engrossing and before you know it you've read a few chapters. We get little glimpses into other members of Third Shift and at first, it was a little confusing because I wasn't sure who the book was going to focus on.

Elijah Richter is co-founder of Third Shift. He's a lion shifter and he is planning to get close to and seduce the woman dating an arms dealer. Then use her to find out what the man is planning.

What he doesn't realize is the Meghna is more than just a celebrity influencer. She's also a shifter, trained as an assassin and spy, with her own agenda for infiltrating the man's inner circle.

When she catches him watching her at a party. She invites him to meet her for a little tryst. And when they extend their tryst the morning after is interrupted by their target's right-hand man. Putting them both at risk, leaving them little choice but to team up.

In this second addition to the Third Shift series, the hero is set on a seduction mission to infiltrate a global terrorist organization. His target is the heroine, who he falls in love with. However, the heroine is a trained assassin/spy with her own mission, though she does feel an attraction to the hero. What will they do when their missions are jeopardized and they must make new decisions about their future?

This is my first Suleikha Snyder book and I enjoyed reading about this world the author created. Though I had not read the first book yet, there are enough information to make this book a "stand-alone" in the series. The book has action, romance, and characters that brings mixed feelings. I enjoyed the romance, both the main and secondary. There were some great secondary characters that surrounded the main couple. I did require more details in some parts of the book but that's a personal preference of mine. Overall, it's a solid paranormal series that I look forward to reading in the future.

**Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions and thoughts in the review are my own.**

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

📖 Q: Halloween this or that! Chocolate candy or fruity candy; Doing the “Thriller” dance or watching someone else do it; funny costume or scary?

This book doesn’t mess around.

If you like your PNR dark & grim with characters who wrestle with their own morality, white supremacy, & the weight of their pasts, with loads of steam & scenes that will fog up your ereader & a core of redemption glittering throughout, you might like Suleikha Snyder’s upcoming release Pretty Little Lion, second in her Third Shift series.

This series is bold & ferocious, two of the biggest reasons why I like it so much.

Pretty Little Lion features Meghna Saxena-Saunders, a beautiful supernatural working undercover who often has sex with her deplorable targets and/or kills them in order to ultimately save lives & do some good in the world & Elijah Richter, a former military lion shifter who’s now head of Third Shift, a black ops group, & is attempting to infiltrate the same group Meghna is.

The book opens with them propositioning each other, each thinking of the other as a “Target.”

Skewering white privilege, racism, & misogyny & offering deadly leads who are POC & all too aware of what they provide “a country that didn’t even want her [them]” Pretty Little Lion isn’t afraid to interrogate, question, critique, or annihilate.

I love it. This is all enhanced by the lushness & heat of the many physical scenes & the final moment when *both* leads are willing to confess their love—which is very hard-won.

But there’s a storyline here that doesn’t add much to the actual story for me & that takes up a lot of space & in general things feel like they could have been pared down some (thanks to @literaryillusions for helping me by sharing her own thoughts regarding this aspect of the plot!).

Overall, this is a compelling series that kinda grabs a reader by the throat.

4 ⭐️. Release date: 10/26.


[ID: an ebook is on top of an open hardback placed on top of a bright yellow coat. A copy of the first book in the series—Big Bad Wolf—is on top of the coat as well & above the ebook of Pretty Little Lion.]

This was ok. I wasn't wowed or anything but it was decent. The characters weren't anything spectacular and the story was just ok. I had high hopes for this so I'm sad it didn't pan out.

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 26, 2021 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Pretty Little Lion is the second book in Suleikha Snyder's paranormal romance series "Third Shift". If you're one of the probably like 5 people who actually follow this blog, you might have noticed that I never reviewed the first book - that's because I picked this one up on Netgalley before I realized it was part of a series, and thus have not read book 1 (the book's description does not make clear this is a series, although if you look it up on amazon, it's at least listed as one). Needless to say, this is not the intended way to read this book, so take this review for what it's worth - BUT the book works quite well even if you do jump into the series with this one, with the characters both new and presumably old ringing true (a look at the prior book's description suggests that the main pairing from that book is a minor presence really in this one, which helps).

So yeah, I actually liked Pretty Little Lion as a fun enjoyable SF/F romance....well as much as such a romance in a dystopian alternate present version of our world can be. This is a story where the shapeshifters and supernatural beings are known to exist, and the 2016 election resulted in a fascist dark present for America even worse than our current world, making things difficult for the cast of mostly supernatural freedom fighters. The characters, both the good guys and the one neutral one who gets POV segments, are all well done, and I really liked reading about their relationships as they worked together to try and fight against a racist gangster with plans for shapeshifters and the world. The biggest complaint is that the sex scenes aren't particularly great, even though the book has a bunch of them, but everything else is good enough to make me want to catch up with book 1 eventually.


----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
To the world, Meghna Saxena-Saunders is a celebrity influencer, ex-wife of a famous Hollywood himbo, and a piece of eye candy with more looks than sense, which might explain why she's now hanging on the arm of dangerous racist arms dealer Mirko Aston, a man with little care for those who are non-white...like Meghna. Of course Meghna is secretly something else - an Apsara capable of seducing others with her magical beauty, working for a network of supernatural beings, the Vidrohi as a spy and assassin. Mirko is just her latest target....and her most important, having been responsible for the disappearance of a good friend and fellow supernatural agent.

For Elijah Richter, lion shifter and secret co-founder of the anti-fascist org Third Shift, Meghna seems the perfect way to get an in on Mirko Aston. If he seduces her, he can find out Aston's secrets, and take action to stop him from furthering his terrorist empire. But when his attempt at seducing Meghna goes wrong, he discovers that she is far more than he could have imagined, and now both of them have their missions seemingly blown at the worst possible time.

To make up for it and to find her friend, Meghna will have to work with Third Shift, despite her distrust of anyone working with a team....and the irresistible mutual attraction she feels with Elijah, which goes against everything she knows in life....
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Pretty Little Lion is centered around the pairing of Meghna and Elijah, but it spends a good deal of its time dealing with relationships between other characters as well. And so while most of our story takes place from Meghna/Elijah's POVs, we also have parts from Grace's POV* - the human doctor who forms the backbone secretly for Third Shift and has a relationship with Vampire agent Finn and human attorney Nate - and from Tavi's POV, the more neutral Vampire with past connections to Finn and who has his own agenda as an enforcer for Mirko's group. Tavi's is the only perspective that isn't really romantic in any way (although he has his own connections), but he's an interesting change of pace, who will undoubtedly show up more in future books in this series.

*I should point out that practically everyone is a person of color here - Elijah is Black, Meghna is Indian, Grace is Black/Asian, etc

But again the major parts of this novel are the primary relationship of Meghna and Elijah and the secondary relationship of Grace and Finn (with Nate as well taking a smaller role in that trio). And they're all really likable and enjoyable - Elijah is the team player, really the team leader, who has a lot of bravado and tries to do the best he can with his team to fight the fascist rise in the setting - where the US is basically fractured due to its fascist national government, making traveling out of New York a pain for a black guy like Elijah - and while he finds himself unable to shake his attraction to Meghna, he never underestimates her or acts like she can't handle herself, but instead tries his best to get her to believe they can work together as a team.

And Meghna is her own really great character - a loner who lost her teenage idealism when her mother came back into her life at 16 and introduced herself as a supernatural commander, leading to her secret role as an assassin in the public guise of a celebrity...an assassin used to working alone and having no one she can trust. And so while the idea of her attraction to another is just as foreign to her as it is to Elijah, it's more because she doesn't feel she can trust anyone, and the idea of working with someone both personally and professionally, at least not from arm's length, is entirely foreign to her. She's entirely capable on her own, but the teamwork and camaraderie of Third Shift is both attractive and confusing to her, and so much of this book involves her learning to get used to it...and to allow herself to like it.

I should add that the secondary relationships, taking place in Grace's point of view, are almost better than the primary one, as Grace is just fantastic, even if her story probably started last book (and thus before I started reading this series), when she fell into bed with Nate and vampire Finn, an omnisexual vampire who makes moves on seemingly everyone, but somehow wound up with her. And Grace has to deal with what she feels about that (especially as Finn deals with a past relationship in Tavi showing up at the same time) to go with her professional feelings about her dual role as a Third Shift operative, their backbone and planner really, and a doctor for a public organization. Her role, both romantically and otherwise, is just really really well done, and I really hope she gets a center stage feature in a later book.

Really I have only two complaints about this book. The first is that while the book has an abundance of sex scenes....and they're not particularly great in my opinion. I'm not really going to get too far into that, other than to say they're more matter of fact than actually....great. The second is that while this book is accessible as the second book in a series, and it ends decently well in terms of how it handles the romance, it leaves the general spy/action plot pretty much inconclusive in the end, just dropping it at a certain point and leaving it for a later book to conclude. It's not a fully satisfying ending as a result.

Still, this is an enjoyable book overall if you're looking for paranormal romance, and I will be going back to book 1 to see what I missed....which is pretty much the most I usually hope for when I pick up a book like this. Recommended.

I am not a paranormal type of person, but this one was so hot, steamy and intriguing that I stayed up two days to finish it. Meghna and Elijah had so much chemistry that it was undeniable. The twist of having them fall for each other and their ulterior motives was so good. I cant wait for the next installment

A sharp paranormal romance full of suspense, Pretty Little Lion follows Elijah as he attempts to seduce Meghna, the girlfriend of a dangerous arms dealer that he needs to get close to.

I had a bit of trouble with the characters in this book and found I didn't really connect with them. The action was brilliant though, and prevented the plot going stale.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.

Pretty Little Lion is an ambitious follow-up to the amazing Big Bad Wolf. While this one largely focuses on a different couple, it is highly dependent on the world building of the previous book, so I would highly suggest reading that one first. And like the first, it’s akin to a police procedural, but with shifters and also more politically conscious. While more than likely a coincidence due to issues of timing, I got some Law and Order: Organized Crime vibes with this one.

I liked further exploration of worldbuilding, and while the author made obvious parallels to the political situation in the previous book, the more recent developments have allowed for more stark commentary about the state of the world. While I know it’s going to annoy some people, I like that Snyder is boldly making her politics known in this series. Escapism is all well and good, but not everyone can do that, especially people from marginalized groups, and that needs to be respected.

This book is busy, and I had conflicting feelings about that. On the one hand, I was never bored, as there’s constant action going on, what with the constant state of suspense.

However, it’s also busy from a character side of things. This is pitched as Meghna and Elijah’s book, and I did enjoy and invest in their developing relationship, as it’s super sexy and complicated, in a similar way to the relationship at the center of Big Bad Wolf. Meghna is a badass heroine, which is always a plus, and I loved the insights into both of their backgrounds sprinkled throughout. But they’re sharing page time with other characters, in particular a secondary developing romance between Finn, Grace, and Nate, and while I’m curious as to where that goes, I found it hard to split my interest between the two.

While this book didn’t completely deliver for me, I did still enjoy some of the same elements that carried over from the first book. If you enjoyed the first book, there is still a chance you’ll enjoy this one, especially if you like the mashup of romantic suspense, dystopian, and paranormal, and don’t mind the focus being on more than one romance.

DISCLAIMER: I received an ARC of this book (which thank you very much) however it in no way affects my opinion, my thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. While I hadn't read the first book in the series it reads really well as a standalone, while the language "sup" referring to supernatural people did get on my nerves. The perspective changes while not as well handled as they could've been did not hinder too much my enjoyment.

As long as you don't go into this expecting a masterpiece but rather expecting a classic paranormal romance, with some forbidden love and mystery in it this is good. I enjoyed that the FL wasn't weak or powerless , but rather this strong assassin and spy. Their chemistry was great and the sex scenes well written.

Overall it was a nice read that I most likely won't remember in details later but have a good feeling about when I think about it.
3/5 stars.
Bookarina

This book is a trip. I read the first book and was excited to see another installment released. High heat, action packed, one than more romance; it's a lot going on. I think there will be more books in this series and I will definitely read them. It's part shifter romance and part mystery. An easy enjoyable read that makes you want to know what comes next.

Sex, spies, secrets, and oh yeah, shifters. This second installment in the Third Shift series barely lets you take a breath before the black ops agency is off to save the world from a secret shifter serum. Elijah is sent to honeypot Meghna Saxena-Saunders, a minor celebrity influencer and total paranormal nymph badass. Elijah, our fearless Jamaican-British former military shifter and Third Shift co-founder, is enamored from the first minute these two dance around each other and their secret identities. Even when the gloves came off, Elijah was always in awe of her, even when learning she was an aspara:

“You’ll find tales of us all over South and Southeast Asia. Cambodia…Bali. Always beautiful. Always accomplished in the arts. Somewhere in the past two thousand years, we became accomplished at more.” They’d formed the Vidrohi with other supernatural women from around the region. Left behind the heavens to help those on earth. They’d weaponized for themselves what cisgender men had used for millennia.

Elijah doesn't seem to care that Meghna was essentially a weaponized sex worker ordered to seduce and kill in order to further the Vidrohi secret society's goals; he just knows this sleek, smart, deadly woman is it for him. The thing is, Meghna and Elijah's relationship isn't the real romance here, its actually the confounding, confusing throuple of Third Shift operative Grace, vampire Finn, and poor hapless mortal lawyer Nate. Just like the first book, the secondary romance here is way more mesmerizing than the main couple. And as Grace, Finn, and Nate seems to end on a vague HFN, I can only hope to see more of their story unfold in future Third Shift installments.

The world building, action, and suspense are all blockbuster movie level and are perfect for the reader who is frankly more than a little bit fed up with our modern political landscape. The author's deft, snarky jabs at America today are balm for anyone wishing for peace and maybe, just maybe, a world with hot black op shifters.

This is the second book in a paranormal shifter romance series. The first book was just OK for me but it prepared me for the tone/style of the series. I liked this one better since I already knew the world building and I could ignore the things that annoyed me in the first book.

The suspense is intense, and I like the MCs, we get to see more of the abilities of the supernatural beings (I still don't like the abbreviation sup used in the book). Everything was on high level here - high stakes chase, high heat and chemistry. The romance itself was great. It started with intense chemistry between two supernatural beings with unique abilities and gradually grew into honest intimacy and care for one another.

I liked getting to know better the rest of the Third Shift crew. We get a side romance between Finn, Grace and Nate and liked seeing the complexities of that budding relationship. I wish they had gotten a book of their own though.

On the plus side, this story has a more developed paranormal aspect, dives deeper into this new dystopian world, gives us a better look into the maze of relationships in the 3S team. The juxtaposition of messed up vs loving supporting family dynamics was another in this story that I enjoyed.

On the negative side, I have the same complaints as with the first book in the series - too many news quotes and current (US) media discord. For me this series reads more like romantic suspense/mafia romance with very in-your-face political messages rather than an escapist shifter romance.

It is a solid action packed, high heat, diverse romance but it is not my favourite shifter romance I have read.

Sometimes, I think timing has a lot to do with how someone responds to a book. I was really not in the right headspace to read this book and yet, I sort of forced myself to read it and I think maybe at a different time, I might’ve responded differently to the book than I did by reading it now. There are things I really liked about this book and things that didn’t work so much for me. I adore Suleikha’s writing. She’s masterful with words and an exceptional storyteller.

However, I do think this book suffers from having too much plot. There is so much that happens in this book, and so many characters to keep track off, I’ll be honest, at a certain point, I felt a bit lost. I also think, the two MCs, Meghna and Elijah, got a little lost in the shuffle between two much plot and too many characters. I was way more invested in what was seemingly the “B” romantic subplot between Finn, Grace, and Nate. (Also, the fact that Meghna shares her name with a cousin sister of mine really did wreck my ability to enjoy certain scenes in this book).

However, Suleikha also introduced a lot of characters in this book who I hope, if there are more books in this series, that they too get their own stories. Tavi, and especially that final scene when he arrives on that island, makes me desperately long for his book. I also think Finn/Grace/Nate deserve another book that’s focused on the progression of their relationship. And, I also think the wrench Suleikha threw into this book with who is pulling the strings behind 3S is a real twist I didn’t see coming and that makes me hope this series is far from over.

ARC courtesy of publisher, opinions are all mine.

Just finished the ARC of PRETTY LITTLE LION by
@suleikhasnyder
and I am so in love with LIJE

The story continues to bust balls and all …

Thank you so much Sourcebooks Casablanca, NetGalley and Author for this amazing chance to read the advanced ebook copy!

Pretty Little Lion has it all.... mystery, lots of action, supernatural, romance!
Such a fast, fierce, and gripping combo of romance and action-packed that's nearly impossible to put down.!
The author has added so many great characters that I simply hope that their is a third book to the series!
This book is smart in all the best ways and I’m very much looking forward to reading more from Suleikha Snyder.
It's a well-plotted, well-developed story that kept me turning pages all night!
Now I've gotta read book one!

Thank You!

I had no clue this was the second book in a series. There was a lot of perspective changes that were fast paced and helped moved the story along. I didn’t feel a connection to any of the characters though. I’m not sure I’d read another book in this series as I didn’t feel any genuine connection to any part of the story or characters.

This is a great read! Meghna is on a quest when she collides with Elijah. Sparks fly and soon there is no going back. I love how the book got it's title. So many diverse characters and twisted scenarios.

The Third Shift series is my first shifter series/paranormal/supernatural series and it was a really interesting introduction to the series. The entire premise of this series is pretty intriguing--using the 2016 election and the conflicts that arose from it as a backdrop for this world. I thought it was pretty cool how Snyder integrated these aspects of our real world into her paranormal one. I did appreciate all the commentary about police brutality, racism, and classism from the characters of color in this book, which felt authentic and genuine from an author of color. At times though, some paragraphs felt a little info dump-y and I had a hard time trying to piece together Elijah and Meghna’s backstories. Nevertheless, Elijah and Meghna were both super cool, bada$$ characters by themselves and I loved how they aren’t afraid to be open, honest, and vulnerable, with each other. I look forward to reading more of Snyder’s works!

Listen. How in the world does Suleikha Snyder even DO this?!

In the second in this series (after Big Bad Wolf, which I adored) Snyder has created yet another book packed with action, adventure, and the same post-apocalyptic (from real event) vibe that was so fascinating in Big Bad Wolf.

Without any spoilers, I can say that everyone (and I mean everyone) will love Meghan and Elijah. If you didn’t like the insta-love romance in Big Bad Wolf, you’ll love the rivalry here… This book hits zero to sixty REAL fast, but mellows out into an achingly lovely story.

The piece in both these books that I admire most is the way that Snyder tells a horror story of an apocalypse that a) could have happened and b) did/is happening for many people in the USA. The way her books run parallel to real-life events, while weaving in these impossible elements (like shifters) makes a mind-boggling narrative that causes the reader to question reality, in the best way. These books are not an escape, but a poignant social critique, and I’m absolutely in love. Thanks, NetGalley, for my copy of this lovely book!

Look for Pretty Little Lion, releasing October 26th!