The Red Zone (Assassin/Shifter) by Sandrine Gasq-Dion

[reviews_and_ramblings]

In perfect harmony with all the series that is now a classic among the gay romance fans, The Red Zone plays again the card of the hot cop falling in love for the younger college student who needs to be reined (a little like the story of Preston and Wyatt). Actually Sebastian Price is Wyatt’s former boyfriend, the one that in Wyatt’s story doesn’t make a really good impression on the readers: he is abusive, prone to shifts in moods that make him unreliable. Only that now Sebastian is trying to make amend, and he is involved in various supporting groups for LGBT youths, plus he is the quarterback of his college football team. Being him on the spotlight as poster gay boy is also making him an easy target for homophobic pranks that escalate in danger, until the time police is involved and Nicholas Stevens enters the scene. A werewolf, he soon recognizes Sebastian as his mate.

I like the unexpected role play the author picked for her character: while Nicholas is a werewolf, a cop, and older than Sebastian, he is also someone who doesn’t believe in no strings attached relationships, and so he is basically almost a virgin, basically waiting for his own mate to show up to build a 2.5 kid white fence house in the suburbs scenario. That doesn’t make him weak, or in need of an alpha male beside him, it’s more a choice of mind, a life attitude that he has decided to take. On the other side Sebastian may be a little more reckless in love, not to the level to make him a slut, only more “friendly”, but at the same time he is young, so he hasn’t had really the time to become disillusioned by love; he is ripe to be picked, and ready to commit. This matching of state of mind make the meeting of Nicholas and Sebastian perfect in time, plus it shortens their difference in age, making it almost nonexistent.

I’m not reading this series in order, so I’m the good example that it’s not necessary to engage for the whole series, but for sure this is a choral series, and all the characters from the previous and future books make appearances here and there, so to entice reader to go back or to continue in reading it.

Amazon: The Red Zone (Volume 11)
Amazon Kindle: The Red Zone (Volume 11)
Paperback: 252 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (November 28, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1480156760
ISBN-13: 978-1480156760

Series: Assassin/Shifter
1) A Marked Man: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1866493.html
2) Alaska, with Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1878006.html
3) By the Light of the Moon
4) Half Moon Rising
5) Best Laid Plans
6) For the Love of Caden
7) The General’s Lover
8) Russian Prey: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1737908.html
9) An Ignited Passion: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/1777760.html
10) Reflash: elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2788763.html
11) The Red Zone

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle