Frayed by Blakely Chorpenning

Synopsis

Fray loves being a semi-pro fighter and free spirit. However, when a deadly faction begins abducting supernatural teens in the Blue Hills of North Carolina for excruciating experiments, she quickly learns there is more to life than glitzy opponents and late night trysts. Fray and a crew of unlikely allies must rescue the children before they are dissected alive. Being a leopard shapeshifter helps. Confronting personal prejudice and traversing feelings for a tempestuous ex do not mix. But Fray is willing to go all the way to stop her world from changing. That is, until the ultimate sacrifice forces her to realize just how overdue change is. 

Her most shocking discovery: Everyone’s human. At least a little…

Review:

I am normally not a person who really falls in love with novellas. And the reason for that is I always want more, I start to like the characters or I want to learn more about the world, and novellas just aren't enough time for authors to really do that. But this novella may be my exception to that rule, because I really enjoyed this book, I just wish it was longer. 

I'm going to start with the one thing that bugged me in the novella, and then go on to the good things about it. There is a scene about 3/4 of the way through the book, where all the action takes place. And this is the most important part of the action, but the problem I had was Fray jumps into the action, and I almost felt like their was like 3 pages or so missing of build up. It was like Fray arrived on the scene got in trouble and then started searching around, within such a short period of time and it didn't feel believable. 

Other than that the book is great. I love Fray, she is truly a badass, but she is by no means the perfect girl. She almost reminds me Faythe in Rachel Vincent's shifters series. And not just because they are both shifters, but because they are both women who fight for those who can't fight for themselves. They are the reluctant leaders, the ones who don't want the power, but can't help but to step up and do the right thing when it is put in front of them. 

This novella deals with someone that I think all readers can identify with, which I think is the reason why this novella is one I enjoyed more, because I connected with the story. No one wants to think about what horrible things people could do to children, and in this book it is children who are targeted. It gets everyone's blood boiling not just the characters in the book, but I think it will do the same thing for the readers as well. 

The characters are also really well written for such a short period of space. I feel like Fray was given the opportunity to grow and she did. I feel like Blaire was a good strong leader type, who I want to see more of in the future. Darien was the older brother we all would expect when you have a little sister. And there is a whole cast of room mates that bring more interesting situations to the book. But the one character I think that was the most striking, I can't really tell you much about without ruining the novella. But I will say it's one of the children, they say children are resilient and that is especially true for this girl, and she has more strength than she even realizes. 

Overall this was a great book to read, and I am really looking forward to the sequel, I want to know what happened next. I want to know how the shifter community is going to react, are they going to come together or are they going to be torn apart. And what is going to happen to Fray. There is so much I want to know. And when you read a book that leaves you wanting more, you know it was a good book. So check it out.