Lynx

Title: Lynx
Author: Joely Skye
Publisher: Samhain
Genre: M/M Contemporary Paranormal romance
Length: Novel
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

A guest review by Jenre

Summary Review
Fans of Joely Skye’s Minders series are going to love this book which follows the enigmatic Trey and his path to love. For those who haven’t read the series, this is still a well written story of love between a young lynx and older wolf shifter.

THE BLURB

The only way to break free is to let go.

In order to protect his shifter kin, FBI agent Trey Walters hides his ability from his employers. For him, a vacation means a whole midwinter month in the Canadian wilderness, free to live in his wolf skin.

When he happens upon a rare lynx shifter, he’s fascinated. And his protective instincts kick into overdrive. The young man needs to be shielded from werewolves and humans alike, whether he likes it or not.

Jonah can hardly wrap his head around the fact that other shifters exist, much less endure the presence of a stranger in his lonely sanctuary. Blaming himself for his brother’s death, he lives in self-imposed isolation. Trust? Forget it. Yet Trey’s patience penetrates Jonah’s fear, and it doesn’t take long for him to fall like a rock for the wolf.

Trey hadn’t planned to embark on an intense, passionate affair, but he finds himself vowing to return after his next undercover mission is over. As months stretch into years, however, Jonah fears that Trey has broken faith with him—or is dead. There’s only one way to find out. Leave the safety of his lair and venture into a dangerous, deadly world…

THE REVIEW

I picked up Lynx because I had enjoyed the previous book by this author, Feral.  Like many of the readers of this series, I had been intrigued by the character of Trey, who appeared towards the end of Feral and has been a constant presence throughout the whole of the Minders series.  This book is Trey’s story and in terms of timeline begins before the first Minders book Beautiful Monster.  The story then takes place over about four years and encompasses all the events that happens in the next six novels in the series.  It’s a large undertaking by the author to fit Trey’s story around these events, but I felt it worked quite well.  Apart from Feral, I haven’t read the other books in the series and didn’t feel it was particularly necessary to do so either as the focus of this book is Trey’s relationship with a lynx shifter, Jonah.

Wolf shifter, Trey is taking a bit of a working holiday.  He’s heard rumours of a giant lynx being sighted in a wildlife preserve in Canada, so he sets off to see whether it is a lynx, or whether it’s an isolated shifter.  Trey’s FBI job involves him seeking out feral shifters and killing them should they prove to be dangerous to the human population.  When he finally tracks down the lynx, he finds that it is a shifter, and although Jonah is isolated and lonely, he’s far from feral.  Trey gains Jonah’s trust, and it isn’t long before feelings grow between the two men.  Unfortunately, Trey’s job means that he has to leave Jonah, for longer than he anticipated, leading to dire circumstances for Jonah and the possibility that Trey may lose him forever.

One of things I liked most about this book is the way that the character of Jonah changes and develops as the story progresses.  When we first meet him he is naive and innocent.  He has suffered tragedy in the past through the deaths of his mother and brother, and he has even killed, but emotionally he is very immature.  He tells himself that he cannot trust anyone, but it doesn’t take long for Trey to break down those defences.  The way that he falls deeply in love with Trey so quickly is another sign of his immaturity.  Despite this, Jonah is a very sympathetic character and it was difficult not to like someone who shows great strength of character, as Jonah does through the book.  As events unfold, Jonah changes, losing his innocence and becoming withdrawn and hardened.  There are good reasons why this happened and I liked that it took a long time for Trey to regain Jonah’s trust and to break through the barriers that Jonah places between them as this gave a realistic edge to their interactions.

Trey himself remains a bit of a closed book during the story.  He falls for Jonah despite trying not to.  He tells us time and time again that he loves Jonah, that Jonah is his mate but there’s still a slight detachment in his dealings with Jonah.  On one hand I could understand this, Trey fears getting too close because he knows that his job will lead to long separations for them, but on the other hand it meant that he did come across as quite emotionally cold at times.  All this meant that I never warmed to Trey as much as I did Jonah.

The story itself has a slightly claustrophobic edge to it as much of the action take place in enclosed places.  It’s also heavily reliant on character interaction.  This means that the emotional content of the story is high, another thing I liked a great deal about the book.  I also liked that the story takes place over a long period of time, allowing us to see the shifts and changes in character, connect this story with some of the events from previous books, and feel all of Jonah’s fear, boredom and frustration at being left behind and unable to contact Trey.  It made for an interesting and at times compelling read.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, more than I did Feral.  The characters were well drawn and the intensity of the interaction between the heroes was absorbing.  I would highly recommend this book to all those who have read the other books in the Minders series, and also recommend for those who are looking for a paranormal shifter story which is high on emotional content.