October Group Read: Stray by Rachel Vincent

It was a close race this month for the group read pick, but Rachel Vincent’s Stray won by three votes.

Regular VBC readers will know Vincent is one of my favorite authors. She has a knack for writing emotional stories that will both gut and thrill you, occasionally at the same time. Whether you’ve read her engaging YA Soul Screamers series or devoured her paranormal romance Unbound series—still in awe of Shadow Bound—you know she is all about the emotional rollercoaster.

This month we’ll be reading the first book in her Shifters series. It’s urban fantasy and filled with plenty of the drama we love about her books. Whether it’s a first-time read for you or you’re revisiting the series, I hope you’ll join me and the other VBC folk in reading Stray this month.

Expect discussion topics posted up at the Goodreads group each week.

Stray (Shifters #1)
Rachel Vincent
Published: 2007 (Mira)
Purchase at: Book Depository or Amazon
Read Chapter 1

There are only eight breeding female werecats left . . . And I’m one of them.

I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.

Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.

I’d been warned about Strays — werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female, and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.

This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back . . . for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I’m no meek kitty. I’ll take on whatever — and whoever — I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays — ’cause I got claws, and I’m not afraid to use them . . .