The Awakening

💬: "The breath slammed out of her lungs. Flames shot through her body, from her breast to her deepest core. The strange roaring was back in her head. Need was on her. Not some gentle emotion, not a pleasant feeling, but a raging tidal wave of hunger, of craving."

Feehan, Christine. The Awakening: The Novella That Introduced the Leopard People (Leopard series Book 1) (p. 51). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: fantasy, romance, urban fantasy, paranormal, shapeshifters

📚Page Count: 121

🎧Audiobook Length: 3h 38min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ - 2.5/5

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The Awakening by Christine Feehan is a novella and it's the first story in her series "Leopard People". Maggie inherits a house in the jungle and if I read this correctly, she just "wakes up" or "awakens" in the jungle (I'm unsure of how she actually got there.) Maggie is on the cusps of a physical and mental evolution, and she meets a man named Brandt who's supposed to help, he also says he's her mate.

It was really evident that this was a novella with the rushed pacing. The two main characters talk for what seems like a day and after that, it seems like Maggie already trusts him. At one point Maggie mentions that she used to be asexual (or at least she thought she was asexual) but now she's having sexual cravings for Brandt and she can't explain why. Before evening knowing if she was interested Brandt kind of flashes her while he sits in the nude in her house or bungalow, he claims that she's his mate so I guess he thinks this is acceptable.

The spicy scenes were alright, it was hard to get into them because the male protagonist was so pushy with his sexual advances, the part where he surprises and flashes her with his nude body really bothered me, he didn't even know if she was truly interested at that point. I'm giving the spicy scenes two chilies 🌶️🌶️ out of five chilies

Overall this story was a bit strange and baffling. I wish the pacing was a little smoother, and it would have been nice if we saw the characters interact with each other outside of their sexual cravings. I will read the next book in the series and give this series another chance, as of now I'm giving THIS novella 2.5 out of 5 stars.

⭐️⭐️ - 2.5/5 Stars

I listened to this for free on [Libbyapp.com]