Black Beast by Nenia Campbell

Black Beast by Nenia Campbell

First in the Shadow Thane series

4.5 stars

Catherine Pierce is apart has a lot on her plate. She’s a shifter. When a witch and Council member of the Otherkind named, Finn, comes across a file that is incomplete of a shifter he decides to hunt her down and take matters into his own hands. Catherine has a lot of problems- her biggest one is that she never took a form after hitting puberty. She’s still shifting and now a witch is after her and dark magic hangs in the air around her. Slayers are hunting and things could spin out of control for the Otherkind. I have two quick notes to make before proceeding with my review:
1) Nenia is a friend of mine and this in no way affects my rating or review.
2) Dear Nenia, stop writing so well and making me read your books in one day. There's no sequel yet and this is torture.

Sincerely,

A Broken Reader


Seriously this book was awesome. I won this in a giveaway and I’m so happy I decided to pick this one up. Nenia knows how to write a good paranormal with touches of urban fantasy in her story. I fricken love the world created her. It’s full of prejudice, contempt, and paranormal awesomeness. This is a YA, but I would recommend it for 15 and up. It has more of an urban fantasy vibe with teenagers. I love this mixture. I don’t come across it very often and it’s fun when I discover gems like this.


The main female character is Catherine. Catherine was a pretty badass character. She works in a bookstore and is a shifter! I liked the whole Shifter aspect. My favorite thing about Catherine is the fact that she’s a Shifter who doesn’t have an exact form. I like even more what is brought up at the end as to why this may be. The one thing that bothered me about her is how she just had to do this prank. It was just kind of boring, to be honest. If that whole scene wasn’t in the book I probably would’ve given Black Beast a 5 star rating. Catherine’s high school high jinks are just boring and it’s the reason I struggled with this novel.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 9

The main male character is Finn. He’s a prick. I don’t like him, but at the same time I hate him so much I like him. I like characters like that. It’s really weird to say I hate a character so much it makes me like him because if I met Finn in person I would hate his guts. As a character, I like him and I enjoy what he brings into the world of the Otherkind.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 6 (cause y’know he’s kind of jerk)

The Villain- Well, I think there’s a huge villain hinted at continuously throughout this novel, but at the moment Finn is the bad guy. He can pretty scary so it fits him. I’m honestly curious to see if he continues to be a villain or if he becomes a hero.


Villain Scale: 8

The characters introduced in this novel show promise, but most of them were not touched on all too much. I’m anxious to see more of these characters.


Character Scale: 7

I love UF worlds and this for me felt very action packed. The first 65%ish was intense and had me captivated. I couldn’t put my Kindle down! Then something happened. I didn’t enjoy the last few chapters as much. Instead of the intense action packed story I was introduced to, Catherine became friends with a long lost friend and possible romance blooms. So does a really boring plan of high school stupidity. The story lost its flare a bit for me. I loved the action packed chase scene with Finn and Catherine. It was intense and something I would’ve enjoyed to have happened again. The last part of the epilogue though. It definitely caught my attention. I love where this story is going and I can’t wait to read the next book in the Shadow Thane series.


Cover Thoughts: This cover is absolutely gorgeous. I mean look at it. It fits how I pictured Catherine and it has a shifter feeling to it.