Untamed by Sara Humphreys

SHumphreys-UntamedMy favorite paranormal creatures are shifters. I love reading anything with shifters in it. I love the Amoveo series because Ms. Humphreys has created an awesome mythology for her shifters. Unfortunately, I can’t stand the heroines in each of her books and Untamed, the third book in the series by Sara Humpreys has the worst heroine of all. Layla made me so mad I wanted to throw my Kindle out the window. (I didn’t because my love for my Kindle outweighs my hate for Layla. But just barely.)

The Amoveo are an ancient race who’ve lived secretly among humans for thousands of years. They are beautiful and incredibly strong but their race is extremely fragile—each has until the age of 30 to find their soul mate, before their bodies start to die a slow, painful death.

Layla Nickelsen has spent her life running from a mate she didn’t choose, until William Fleury finally confronts her. Normally stoic and unemotional, William finds himself befuddled by Layla: his growing feelings for her and his driving need to protect her. And Layla has to admit that William might be everything she’s always wanted after all…

I love strong, independent heroines. I like it when they don’t let a man walk in and sweep them off their feet. So, at first, I really liked Layla. But Layla pushed Dante away for all but the last 2% of the book. So the entire book was her telling him she didn’t like him, didn’t want him in her life and picked a fight with him over everything; it was really, really annoying. Especially since Dante was literally giving up everything for her, bending over backwards to make her happy and she did nothing to reciprocate it, or even acknowledge it! He literally stopped wearing suits (his preferred choice of clothing) for her, and all she could do was bitch and complain. Yes, she had a bad childhood, but she ended up in a wonderful foster home with a woman who couldn’t be a more perfect mom and two other kids who become closer than actual siblings to Layla. But when Layla found out that she was purposely placed in this house, she went off about how she was moved around like a pawn on a chessboard her whole life.

Was being placed in this house a bad thing? No, it was basically a perfect place for her to grow up. So why was Layla so upset? I have no freaking clue. If anything, she should be thanking the people who put her in that house, instead of yelling at them. It was things like that, in addition to her treatment of William, that made me hate Layla so much. I just wanted to shake her and tell her to grow the freak up.

William, on the other hand, won me over instantly. In the previous books, he was always so reserved but he opened up and showed all these different sides of himself in Untamed. He was soft and not afraid to show his emotions to Layla. Yet, if there was any hint of a threat to her or her family, William went into instant protective mode and proved time and time again that he was a warrior.

The plot was weighed down by Layla’s bitching to be fast-paced. It wasn’t dull, by any means, but there wasn’t a lot of external conflict. An elitist group of Amoveo who believe that shapeshifters should never mate with humans come after Layla because her mother was a human. Though the king of the Amoveo declared all humans and half-breeds safe, the purists keep trying to kill off all half-breeds. This has been going on since the first book in the Amoveo series, but finally escalates at the end of Untamed.

Like I said before, I do like the mythology of the Amoveo shifters. I liked the plot and the ever growing threat of a shifter civil war kept me hooked. I adored William. If not for Layla, Untamed would have been a perfect book for me. Instead, I spent most of the book cursing Layla and the rest of the time telling William he shouldn’t have to put up with that.

Read Order
Unleashed
Untouched
Undenied
Untamed
Undone
Unclaimed (Dec 3, 2013)

About Casey 203 Articles
Casey is the founder of Heart Full of Ink, Director at Reading Until Dawn Con, and a full time cheese addict. She's been ranting and reviewing for Literary Escapism since 2010, and is part of the trio #3Bloggers1Series podcast. When she's not reading, looking for new books, or stalking authors online (waiting for more books), she can be found binge watching Netflix. But really, her life is all about DEM BOOKS!