Genre: Paranormal, Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Tony
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About The Book
Vietnam War vet turned deep-sea treasure hunter Digger Sullivan scratches out a living, and this new commission is just another job—albeit an exciting one—off the Florida coast in 1977. But while exploring the area, Digger and his crew encounter one shark too many.
Reef and his shark shifter clan are charged with protecting a vital, magical secret—two of four scrolls that, when brought together, could annihilate shifters across the world. But Reef can’t keep his head in the game around this intriguing diver, and it’s not long before Digger takes one of the scrolls topside. Reef now has two missions: seduce Digger and recapture the scroll. Despite his attraction to Digger, Reef’s priority must be reclaiming the scroll.
For Digger’s part, he can’t keep his eyes off the flirty young man on his boat. While he doesn’t know what Reef could want with a scarred old vet, he’s not going to pass up an opportunity of pleasure. Unfortunately for Reef, he loses sight of his duty and all his plans go awry. Then Digger’s crew is captured by the very person who commissioned them, and Reef and his shark clan are the only things standing between them and death.
Second Edition with revised and expanded text.
The Review
Predator and Prey is a period piece set in 1977, in the world of post Vietnam War America off the eastern coast of Florida. It is book nine in the Shifter Chronicles and book three in the Scrolls sequence.
Reef is a young shark shifter – a great white shark shifter, to be more accurate. He has to guard the miniscule remains of ship garbage currently clogging a reef. He is so bored, but that changes when the Sea Hag enters the waters above the reef.
The captain of the Sea Hag is Digger. Digger and his crew (Jewel, Filipe, Angie, Hook, Kevin) are treasure hunters, though they wouldn’t like me to call them that. They dive sunken ships in the hopes of making a living, either on orders or of their own volition.
Digger’s a Vietnam veteran, as is Hook. Both guys are outsiders, as a result of being snubbed or berated for fighting on their return home. The sea is their escape and their home.
The rest of the crew are equally outsiders. But unlike the two main protagonists, Digger and Reef, they’re not much more than ciphers. They interact somewhat, but their main function is to get Digger to question himself. Sadly this is not really about character development so much as backfilling gaps in the story lines. It is all about getting the scrolls somewhere acquirable by evil hands.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s an enjoyable interlude, with some different characters from the norm.
Heiress Diana Knight has hired Digger and his crew to investigate a wreck off Florida, to look for what she calls a family heirloom. The fact that her surname is Knight is very telling, if you have been following the series. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that she is after the scrolls that were lost at sea in ‘Hunted Guardian’ (Book 7).
Reef has been tasked in protecting them, and he makes an error of judgement. He has to make things right, or at least attempt to put things right. The problem is that he is up against Digger, who is one cool ‘old’ dude, as well as Knight and her cronies. Added to that is the attraction Reef feels for Digger, an attraction he can see that Digger reciprocates.
I like their interaction – it’s sparky, hot and dangerous. There are some great set pieces and amazing action, so this book hits the mark. All in all, this is an enjoyable read, and sets up what is to come in the next two books in the series.
The Reviewer
Tony is an Englishman living amongst the Welsh and the Other Folk in the mountains of Wales. He lives with his partner of thirty-six years, four dogs, two ponies, various birds, and his bees. He is a retired lecturer and a writer of no renown but that doesn’t stop him enjoying what he used to think of as ‘sensible’ fantasy and sf. He’s surprised to find that if the story is well written and has likeable characters undergoing the trails of life, i.e. falling in love, falling out of love, having a bit of nooky (but not all the time), fending off foes, aliens and monsters, etc., he’ll be happy as a sandperson who has just offloaded a wagon of sand at the going market price. As long as there’s a story, he’s in. He aims to write fair and honest reviews. If he finds he is not the target reader he’ll move on.