His Darkest Hunger (Jaguar Warriors)

I was supposed to be working at home today. But then this book - the book I read the first few chapters of online and then immediately ordered - was delivered to my door. And I didn't do any work. There are so many - too many - shifter romances out there these days, and most have little to distinguish them from each other. This one is wholly original, and is not bogged down in too much world building, or too much focus on the magic of it all rather than the story. I could pick the book to pieces and complain about word usage, a few too many adjectives, or other minor things. But when it comes down to it, I read this in one sitting, and I simply couldn't put it down. Juliana Stone has created a supernatural world that exists very closely with ours. Shifters and other supernatural people work for government security agencies. Jaxon is a jaguar shifter, and Libby is a human who worked with his unit. She disappeared for three years, after an apparent betrayal of Jaxon and the rest of the team, and now that she's finally been found, not only does she have no memories of the past, but she has clearly been tortured for a long time. There's not much that can top a story where the hero wants the heroine dead! I might be sick and twisted, but with that as the opening hook, I knew I was going to love this story. I loved both lead characters in this book. Libby can be damaged and frightened and yet still find her strength. Jaxon is wonderful, but conflicted and angry enough to make him interesting. Stone does an excellent job of something so many other authors - including popular series writers such as Kresley Cole - have not managed to do. She has created a complex world and yet manages to explain it without a single information dump. The story never once lets up to give us pages of detailed explanation of how the world works. Instead we learn things as the story goes on, as we need to know them. This was incredibly well done. My hesitation with starting new paranormal series is that they usually come with too much unnecessary world building. That isn't the case here. There is another book coming out in this series later this year, and I have already ordered it.

Libby Jamieson can't remember anything except pain and fear and that is only from the last two months. Everything else has disappeared from her memory just leaving scars and questions that Libby can't answer. She exists day by day until the evening a sexy, dark man sits in her section of the restaurant and all heck breaks loose - literally. Jaxon Castille is a jaguar warrior - that is a shifter who was born with markings to make him a warrior and an assassin in order to protect his clan and those he is charged to protect. After a personal hunt that has lasted three years, Jaxon has finally found the woman he has been searching for - his only desire is to kill her like the assassin he can be. At the last minute something makes him stop his kill shot and to investigate instead. That decision will change both their lives forever. Unsure what is going on, Jaxon decides to take Libby with him and starts to put people and things back together the way they were before the day three years ago Libby disappeared and a team member was killed. The team begins to discover things right away but it only leads to even more questions on what happened so long ago. A couple of things are for sure, someone(s) wants to take out Jaxon and Libby, and their passion never faded when anger showed up. On the run again Jaxon and Libby search for answers for the last three years, and hopefully Libby's missing memory before their enemies catch up with them again. But when the pieces begin to fall into place and answers are found, will it help matters or just raise more and harder questions? And what of the love that was stolen away three years ago? Death leads to anger and hatred where passion once ruled. His Darkest Hunger brings two lost lovers back together again with explosive results. Libby's memory is exactly two months long. Jaxon's memory is long and as strong as is his determination to destroy Libby for the destruction of his team and betrayal of him. I was swamped by the emotional waves that surrounded Jaxon and Libby from the minute they met until the last page. Their roller coaster involved life threatening danger, smoldering passion, anger and mistrust - and that was just the beginning. Jaxon and Libby's story had a strong hold on me and I finished it in one day. The inventiveness of a fresh world that used parts of mythology, paranormal and the contemporary was a combination I couldn't resist. His Darkest Hunger has red hot passion, deadly danger and a instinctive hunt for the unknown that makes it an absolute must read. It is also Joyfully Recommended by me with the hope that the next book isn't too far away so none of us go crazy with the wait Jo Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

His Darkest Hunger is the exciting debut novel from Juliana Stone and the beginning of her Jaguar Warrior series. Jaxon is a jaguar-shifter and the leader of a governmental paranormal anti-terrorism unit (PATU) whose members also include a vampire, sorcerer and a human named Libby who is Jaxon's former lover. Three years earlier, the team is ambushed and a fellow teammate and shifter, Diego, is killed. The team then discovers that Libby has disappeared. They believe she has betrayed them by giving information of their location to an organized crime family of shifters. For the next three years, Jaxon is consumed with hatred for Libby and the need to find her and have his revenge. Jaxon finally gets the opportunity to punish Libby when he is given intel on her whereabouts presumably from his supervisor and told to kill her. But his desire to know the truth keeps him from pulling the trigger. The Libby that he finds is but a shell of the woman he once knew. She is physically weak, emotionally fragile and has no memory beyond two months ago. As he is studying Libby, an attempt is made on his own life. Though his hatred for Libby remains, a seed of doubt has been planted in his mind. He takes her back to PATU headquarters in New York in hopes that her memory will return. Once her past becomes clear, Jaxon realizes that all is not as it seems. His Darkest Hunger is a fast-paced, heart-wrenching story of love and betrayal. The author builds an exciting world full of Azetc myth and dark magic. Jaxon is the ultimate alpha male hero. At first it may appear that Libby is weak and needs to be saved, but we soon discover how strong and brave she is. Ultimately the two must put aside their animosity and learn to trust each other again to fight the dark forces bent on destoying them both. The story ends with a nice opening for the next book in the series, His Darkest Embrace. I'm looking forward to reading more!

For the seriously addicted, you will more than understand. 'His Darkest Hunger' has the PERFECT amounts of Angst, followed through with exact needed amount of HOPE! Some books have too much and not enough follow through with the other. Ms. Stone has created a story that from the 1st sentence lays the Angst out. Internally you are 'awwwwwww-ing' and 'ohhh-ing'. SHE perfectly throws in that much needed ray of HOPE, thus forcing you to turn that page. You HAVE to know!!!! You are so taken by her characters, Jaxon and Libby, and the heartache that has plagued one of them, that you are left drooling for, what happened? Why did it happen...OMG!!! SO be warned, once you start, nothing else will be going on until its done. I've already visited her website to MAKE sure that who I hope is up next...is!!! 5-Stars without a doubt. Pefect amounts of love, angst heat, lust and sorrow create the perfect tale of a heart wrenching love story with paranormal twists. His Darkest Hunger

If you are a fan of the `Jason Bourne' movies, then imagine him with the preternatural ability to shape-shift into a black jaguar with extraordinary strength, cunning and hunting instinct, and you have the hero of "His Darkest Hunger" Jaxon Castille. Not only that, sensuality literally oozes from his pores and he possesses an aura that is dark, extremely powerful. Jaxon is a jaguar warrior, a predator who is the descendant of an ancient race created by the Aztecs through dark majick. Jaxon has a magnificent physique, and clan tattoos that color his left shoulder and curve down around his abs. There is something frightening about Jaxon that as a reader I found literally palpable, I think that it is how Ms. Stone has characterized his nature, his jaguar claws at him just below the surface, he is a hunter, cold, calculating and lethal, and, he is an elite assassin. Jaxon is the leader of an covert government `paranormal antiterrorism unit' (PATU) and works with team members, Declan, a powerful practitioner of magick; Ana, a three hundred year old vampire; and Cracker, a lethal ex-military man whose heritage is a mystery. Three years before the opening of the story in a secret operation gone wrong, Jaxon's shifter cousin, fellow team member and Ana's lover, Diego, was murdered. Jaxon's lover Libby Jamieson, a human, and a member of PATU was felt to have betrayed the operation. When the team returned from the mission, Libby had vanished off the face of the earth. Jaxon has hunted for her for 3 years with one objective, revenge. An emotionally and physically frail Libby and has no memory of her life before she arrived in a small town in Michigan 2 months earlier. Prone to anxiety and panic attacks she is functioning minute by minute working in a diner, owned by kind elderly, Pete who took her in and cared for her. Little does Libby know but Jaxon has her in his sniper site, and is ready to end her life. As Jaxon watches Libby through his scope waiting for the right moment to `take her out' he senses something isn't right. She is thin, favors her side and appears emotionally and physically exhausted, frightened, not the strong, kick ass, operative he knew intimately. It is because of this sense of unease that Jaxon abandons his sniper post and heads to the restaurant, to evaluate her face to face. Where has she been for the past 3 years? What happened to her? Following a hair raising action scene Jaxon takes an agitated and terrified Libby to PATU headquarters where what is learned from a medical examination very nearly brings him to his knees. Libby has been tortured and abused physically and emotionally over an extended period. In addition she is under the influence of a mind block from powerful black majick that has caused her amnesia. My heart broke for Libby, Ms. Stone portrays, her fear, panic, confusion, and embarrassment graphically. I could feel Libby's disorientation and terror and wondered how Ms. Stone was going to effectively mould h