I did not enjoy the chemistry, it all went too fast for my liking. i did not get much character development.

Elaine White's A Touch of Danger is a well written read. The author's writing style is wonderful. I didn't love the storyline though, so this one just isn't for me.

** spoiler alert ** I wasn’t expecting to like this one so much but I’m a sucker for undercover stories. Starts of simple with Drew getting roped into going undercover and Riley opening the door to let him in. This one has dark parts but more soft dark hurt/comfort. There is a mention of rape but nothing graphic, drug abuse, and a domestic abuse relationship.

It’s a new world where shifters are either half human, made or animals trapped in human bodies. It’s pretty open with the support characters so anything could happen.

The two together was sweet, I liked how much they helped each other emotionally and the way their relationship went. I also liked the house dynamics, Lorcan and K. Favourite part was the end reunion and bonding with Selly. Really enjoyed this one.

Drew is a mid-20s out gay man who's been shunned by his homophobic family for years. The only reason a recent reconciliation was made was because his wealthy and powerful father required a token gay attendee at work events. Having supported himself and his education by scraping by--and surviving an abusive D/s relationship--Drew is amenable to a bit of familial support, even if it comes with ties. Right now, he's earning it going undercover for his brother Sheffield, a detective investigating a college frat for exotic animal smuggling. Drew is the perfect mole to discover if the gay frat brothers are keeping or selling big cats on the black market; he's worked in zoos rehabilitating abused felines and is seeking a graduate degree in veterinary science.

Drew turns up on the doorstep of the frat and is welcomed on a temporary basis by the house captain, Rylee, who also offers him a spare bed in his own room. It's a weird night with an inconvenient attraction and a blatant invite for sex from Rylee who manages his attraction to Drew in an awkward display. Yeah. Weird. In the next days, Drew is invited to stay more permanently, especially as Rylee senses that Drew has a secret lurking beneath his skin. Drew's attempts to uncover the smuggling operation yield more questions than answers--and a tighter bond with his new house mates.

This was meant to be a mystery, I think, with the investigation that Drew is hatching, but his answers don't make sense--lot many of the plot points. Drew learns that many of his housemates are refugees from a realm called Vihaan, a land where people are cat shifters. These men have arrived in the human realm because they couldn't conform to mating females, and same-sex matings are illegal in Vihaan. Before escaping Vihaan, Rylee had a male lover, who conveniently turns out to be the same Dom who had kidnapped Drew, kept him in a drug-addled state, and raped him. Now in the human realm, Rylee and his compatriots cannot shift, but they still have cat DNA, which keeps the cops returning to the house looking for animals. Rylee is nervous that Drew's experience with a Vihaan on Earth will lead to Drew developing cat abilities.

Drew's afraid that his brother will come into the house and arrest Rylee and the rest of the Vihaan refugees. It's a likely scenario, even if there isn't evidence of any smuggling going on. The residents are all aliens, with false documentation and there are some shenanigans with recently arrived Vihaan that is highly incriminating. This also setting aside the Vihaan's distant relation Foame brethren who live in-house and CAN partially shift.

The story was really confusing, and relied so heavily on convenience that I got distracted easily and wasn't satisfied with the mystery plot the blurb hinted at. The tension was low, the sexytimes were awkward, and there was a LOT of explanations to sort out the other frat house members and their plights--definitely hinting at future stories way too hard. In all, I found it incomprehensible as either a mystery or a romance. The characters felt stereotypical and the love story forced. Drew found everything way too fast, with little difficulty and zero tension. Rylee was creepy-weird and his antics extra strange. Despite the repetition and over-description issues, I still felt like I didn't understand the hows and whys of Vihaan, and how these refugees managed to finance the charity work they did to support other Vihaans in this realm. I didn't think that Drew was touched by danger so much as disaster.

So, this one had promise, but I just couldn’t connect with the characters. Could be a “it’s not the book, it’s me” thing? I think that the main problem I had with A Touch of Danger was the world building. It’s not that it wasn’t great… it was just a little confusing. It got better the farther into the story that I got, so patience is a necessity with this one. *sigh*

As for the characters, they grew on me too. I liked Drew from the start, mainly because of his circumstances. He was in a no win situation when it came to his family, which is why he jumped on Sheffield’s offer. Even though he was basically using him and putting him in potential danger.

There’s more than meets the eye in A Touch of Danger. The residents of the house are just as much of a misfit in their world as Drew seems to be in his. Which is one of the many reasons that Drew seems to connect with them as quickly as he does. Rylee fights that connection as long as he can, but some things… well, you’ll just have to read this one to figure that one out.

As I said in my initial review when I finished A Touch of Danger, regardless of how I felt about this first book, I’m more than willing to give the rest of the series a try. I have a feeling that as the series continues, things will become clearer.

I'm interested to see where this series will go. Overall I liked the characters, however I got hung up on a few things. Such as how the five steps in the process of the relationship seemed a little murky and rushed at times.

3.5 Stars

I was really looking forward to reading A Touch of Danger (Surviving Vihaan Book 1) by Elaine White. The premise was fascinating and I could not wait to dive into the pages. The story however, left me somehow wanting and slightly disappointed.

I didn't know much about this going in and was super excited for some paranormal-mystery-romance. The premise sets us up anticipating some undercover action between Drew, a naive struggling college student, and Rylee, an alpha type fellow student.
This started off relatively well, but it did not keep my attention long. Some parts seemed a bit too juvenile and unrealistic for my tastes. Granted the plot is paranormal in nature, but even with that in mind, it was too much for me. Unfortunately this was not a good fit for what I was looking for at the time.

I liked that this book had a different take on shifters, but i did think the world building was a little inadequate and i ended up filling in blanks with assumptions about shifters from other books (I read a lot of this sort of thing). I liked Drew and felt his back story was explained well, but i didn't get the same connection with Rylee, which spoilt their romance for me. Not that it was particularly romantic, they seemed to jump from lust to you're the one for me in no time. The story line was quite good - up until the final confrontation - i agree with another reviewer that Drew was TSTL confronting Aniel and the recording bit was just odd. All in all, the book just didn't grab me enough to look for the next in the series.

From almost the beginning I was never able to get over the "frat house" labeling. Maybe frat houses work different in different areas, but long term residents seem to be entirely contrary to the point. With the UK style spellings maybe it's a Canadian frat house and the system is entirely different, but it just felt weird to me. There was a lot I was confused about and things that just didn't really connect. The ex was one aspect that I didn't understand at all, as well as can they go back or not? It sounded like they would die, but it also sounded like the ex went back and forth at some point? I was just confused a lot.

I realize the inherent oddity of disliking a gay shapeshifter romance thriller because it lacks believability, but "A Touch of Danger" fails to be convincing in the most mundane elements of its execution. Emotions run high and amok (moreso than I'd expect even from college-age characters), there's a surfeit of telling versus showing, and Drew is so knee-jerk defensive that he's hard to understand, even when the text is narrated from his point of view.

I am possibly less tolerant of the "misunderstanding shapeshifters as escapees from a cult" thing, because I have some experience with matter, and the way White belabors the metaphor is slightly insulting. Sorry to say this is unenjoyable, especially since, as far as escapist gay romance tropes go, this one is usually at least fun. Feels slightly canned.

Trigger warning discussion of extreme domestic violence/abuse. A pretty good start to a new series & I can't wait for more. We have a completely different take on shifters in this one & I really enjoyed that. The true "shifters" come from a place called Vihann, which is like an alternate universe, where they are in their animal forms. When they are exiled to our world, they shift into human form & are unable to take their animal form again, even though they can feel them. That made me very sad. Also, once they have crossed over they can never go back, except for a special type of shifter who can cross back and forth without any problems or issues. To say Vihann is homophobic is an understatement. Rylee has been exiled to our world because he is gay. He opened a safe harbor for others of his kind in a frat house on campus. Drew's family are douches, his father trots him out to events to show how homo accepting he is, when he isn't. His brother doesn't show him any real love and only uses him to help his case. Sheffield is investigating a possible animal smuggling operation being done out of the frat house. He asks his brother to go undercover and get into the house & find evidence. What we then have is watching Drew & Rylee open up their hearts and grow to trust each other. Also Drew slowly becomes friends with the others in the house. I'm glad that Drew didn't have a huge freak out when he finds out what they truly are. Plus there is a surprise with Drew that I loved. When we find out what is really going on and the extent that someone from the past plays in it, I never saw what was really going on, coming. Sheffield does show Drew that he really cared for him and that made me happy.

DNF @ 27%
This unfortunately didn't work at all for me.

The plot interested me, but the rest just felt awkward.
Dialogue was unnatural and awkward, which made the weird hot-and-cold blossoming romantic subplot uncomfortable and stilted. A lot of things didn't make sense or directly contradicted each other, particularly Drew's background and what he tells the house mates about himself. All the stuff around Vihaan was confusing because I couldn't tell how the shifting fit in and if Drew suspected anything because any sort of world-building was missing.
I was also confused by the characters' ages. I'm not an expert on the US school system, but 25 and 30 doesn't seem to be usual college age, and it further didn't fit with the characters' backgrounds.

While I would like to know how the entire police investigation ends and how things turn out with Drew and Vihaan, A Touch of Danger failed to make want to keep reading when its writing made it unappealing to me.

This was so good, and so different from the average “shifter” books, and that’s what made it great. I loved all the guys, I’m hoping we get their stories too! I also love when the bad guy gets his karma.

Disclaimer : I received an ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

This book was unexpected, unfortunately not in the best way possible. I read paranormal romances or romances in general to put me in a good mood, to read a love story where I know for a fact that my OTP (one true pairing) will end up together.
I went into this novel not knowing much about it which did make it a lot better than it would've been otherwise.
I loved Drew and how he is willing to do anything to keep his family safe, I enjoyed the romance overall though Rylee was way too oblivious at times and that felt unrealistic because of how he is presented and portrayed the rest of the time.
Another good thing was the unique take on shifter romance, and shifters transformation. While it was unique, it was also confusing and I felt like I was jumping in the dark following the author who had forgotten to explain a lot of how things work during the transformation stages which left me confused and feeling like I had skipped a chapter or two. It was also a heavily packed book, honestly a bit too sad at times for me. The cover made me believe this would be a happy, cute romance. What I got was an insta love with a rocky relationship at times, sad moments and devastating consequences.
This is not a "I will escape to an happy place reading this" kind of book. That being said, overall it's not a bad story, the world building was well done for the most part.
In the end it is not a story I will pick back up to read favourite moments or parts of it.
If you are looking for a unique take on shifters and an emotional rollercoaster of a book I recommend this, if on the contrary you want cute moments with a fluffy happy ending then don't pick this up !
Bookarina

I would rate this 2.5 stars.

When cops can't get undercover in the LGBT frat house, Sheffield taps his brother Drew to help the police on their exotic animal smuggling case because he has a degree in animal psychology, specialising in felines...which the reader only finds out about later. Drew poses as someone in need of shelter, which the frat is know to help LGBT students with. This get weird, intense, and sexual right away with how Rylee acts when Drew arrives. What the reader is shown and told about Drew and sex at the beginning of the book conflicts entirely with the second half of the book. For instance, while Drew does allude in his thoughts to an abusive past at the beginning of the book, he was horny because he hasn't had sex in two years and wonders if seducing Rylee is a good idea to get evidence. If this is because the fated mate trope is supposed to override his normal insticts or judgment, it's not well written enough for that to come across. In fact, I think it is because fated mates still resemble dubcon to some, that the author differentiates this pairing much later in the book as true mates, but that might be me trying to make sense of the behavior. After only a few days, they give in to passion, but they had been avoiding each other, so I never really felt the sexual tension build. None of the sex scenes nor the romance worked for me at this point. Once the whole second half of the book focuses on his rape and abuse by a former boyfriend, all of the sudden he was so afraid of men he couldn't look them in the eye for a year. I thought the memory of rape Rylee pulls from Drew's mind was unnecessary, but I think that is meant to have Rylee automatically be on Drew's side and believe him. Apparently it was also videotaped and sent to the press, yet no one on campus saw it?

The POV switching from Drew to Rylee is abrupt thoughout the book, happening seemingly at random as opposed to by scenes or chapters. Rylee is the only one out of twelve characters that comes close to being described physically enough for me to attempt to picture. Of those twelve the largest roles go to Keon who become Drew's friend, Lorcan who is Rylee's best friend, Sheffield who is Drew's not very nice brother who seems to only care about making arrests for his own career, Selly who is one of the trans frat brothers, and Aniel as the villian. The writing is convoluted and unfocused trying to keep secrets from the reader with one plot twist after another until each big reveal. Unfortunately there are plenty of plot points that are contradictory or not explained at all. This is an interesting take on shifter mythos, it's just not well executed.

It's foreshadowed from the beginning that Drew is likely a shifter too. When the paranormal element to the story comes to the fore, they have to have sex or something terrible will happen! The main confusion is caused because Rylee believed Drew had been raised by Vihaan expats who hadn’t taught him how things worked there. Drew is the only one in the frat house not from Vihaan, which he believes is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere that has a cult all of his frat brothers escaped from. Vihaan is never explained to my satisfaction. It apparently has cat, wolf, and fox shifters that live in different towns and that is as far as it went. I'm going to save you a lot of trouble and say the full blood shifters have different abilities that the half blood shifters called Foame, which is super important to know or you won't understand any explanations of the comings and goings of Vihaan for most of the book. Speaking of Vihaans, WTH happened to Rylee's sister?

Sheffield’s boss is threatening to "pull the plug on his undercover work and drag his ass off campus, revealing his dirty secret." Why? Drew is actually an enrolled student there and his father is paying his tuition. "Vihaan’s never meet a human who isn’t a guide or a potential mate. If we met a human by accident, the human was one of those things.” They are all students on a college campus! How does that even work? The humans don't see the food truck, that is parked on campus because it is run by a Vihaan? Can't humans see the line for food, especially if it has Foames in it?! The final confrontation is crazy. Drew as a civilian puts himself in a dangerous situation and when he calls the police, the police woman says, “I understand, Mister Colley. God be with you.” Does that sound logical? Why would Drew let someone beat him up if the cops are going to come and take him to the hospital, where he can't go because he has cat DNA? Even worse, is that his brother doesn't take him to the hospital. Even if the exotic animal case is closed, the cops wouldn't just drop this whole case when they know none of the people in the house really exist. They all have fake IDs. By the time the University conveniently sells them the house next door to expand their frat house, I am just sad that the intriguing blurb didn't live up to it's promise.

3* Lacking a bit too much in backstory, and it threw me into something I struggled to... visualise.

This is nicely written, but rather confusing, unfortunately. It's a tale that takes place in our human earth, which turns out to be a kind of sanctuary for... creatures from a place called Vihaan. I liked the former, but I was confused about the latter, even at the end, as what and where Vihaan is is never explained. I didn't know if it was another realm invisible to human eyes (a bit like Faerie is made out in tales) or if it was a planet that we're meant to believe is out there, or what. I noted belatedly that this is book 1 in a series of tales featuring creatures from Vihaan, but tbh, this was a bit too confusing for me to want to read more.

I did have to suspend disbelief that a police op would plant a civilian into a situation so that he could go undercover, but the reasoning did make some sense in theory, and once in, Drew seemed to be able to look out for himself. My first encounter of his co-lead, Rylee, made me unsure if I'd actually met the other lead of the tale; he didn't impact on me, and I didn't really know what to make of him. He was described a little like he'd loved and lost, and I wondered if he was about to find that lost love.

There were quite a few other characters that got introduced here, including one that seemed more feral than the others, and it was only very, very belatedly that I began to understand about the Vihaans. The romance between the leads didn't really feel like romance in the traditional sense, but more like matings in were tales and I'm not sure that I saw it - what they had seemed to stop-start and stutter a lot, so I didn't get a clear picture of them.

The ending is where the tale let itself down a lot. Yes, there was a bad guy but for the latter to be entirely absent and then for what happened to supposedly go down as it did? Nope, not in my book, pun not intended. I mean, it verged on the TSTL with Drew's blatantly not-believable explanation for why he wanted to tape the bad guy, and the bad guy's over-inflated ego supposedly allowed this, giving the cops a very convenient and no-holds-barred confession on tape, which hey presto, would be admissible in court.

This tale had potential but I didn't feel as if the Vihaan concept or the frat house or the cover story was developed clearly enough for a first tale in a series. There are times when an infodump is needed, and this was one of them. I spent most of the first third of the book confused and wondering if I should continue.

ARC courtesy of NineStar Press and NetGalley, for my reading pleasure.

An entertaining read, well-written, with a lot of wonderful, diverse characters.
The world-building is original and very detailed, well thought out, but some of the mythology and its consequences were a bit too sad for me and took away a little of the magic & escape I look for in a shifter romance. There’s an unfairness, a haunting lack of possibilities and a point of no return aspect to the world of Vihaan that broke my heart a little for the characters.
I didn’t like the way in which the “villains” were portrayed, just too one-dimensional and not that intriguing. I also found it hard to understand that Rylee would have been so oblivious, and for so long, to the true nature of one of them.
The draw between Rylee and Drew is intense and immediate, but their actual relationship flounders a little sometimes and could have been a bit more developed. A lot of the focus goes to Drew finding his place with the Vihaan expats so to speak, and discovering who they are, which is interesting and fun to read, laying the groundwork for coming books in the series.

When this novel opens, Drew is sick of pretty much everything. He's tired of trying to live up to the standards of his family. His father isn't supportive of Drew being Gay...unless, of course, there's an important business event that requires a show. His brother? Same story. But when Drew's brother requests his help with a case in a frat house that may be trading in exotic cats, Drew signs up. He's always had an interest in animals in spite of his father disapproving, and this will get him out of the house.

Drew doesn't count on meeting Rylee when he arrives at his undercover assignment. There's a spark-tactic insta-connection between Drew and Rylee. In fact... if Drew were the kind of guy who believed in strange things... he'd be certain he saw Rylee's eyes flash red when they first met.

It turns out that this frat house isn't at all what Drew's brother though it would be. I'm sure I'm not giving anything away at this point... the frat house is a shelter for were cats. Now, there's the part where things get interesting. White has come up with something I know I haven't read before. These cats are from another world... Vihaan. The issue is that once they leave Vihaan, their cat retreats within them and they can't transform anymore.

There's some really cool world-building going on in this novel. I am hoping that the series is going to branch out into the world of Vihaan. There are some very cool differences between the cats of Vihaan and cats in other books I have read. I'm not going to lay it all out here because I want you to be able to read it and enjoy it.

Drew and Rylee are a great couple. They are drawn to each other for reasons that will become clear as you read. It's intriguing and not nearly as straightforward as I thought it would be going in. I really liked Rylee - part-psychologist and part-house dad. He's a lovely character.

Drew has a complex background. He's definitely had more tan his fair share of abuse and pain in his life. His family isn't supportive at all and he had a terrible relationship in his past. It was a relationship that left him with physical and emotional scars.

In short, I really enjoyed this novel and would definitely pick up a copy of the next one in the series!

A refreshingly different take on the two natured. This story is built on the premise that earth is a sanctuary for LGBT shifters from a place called Vihaan that forbids same-sex relationships. Drew is angsty as heck but he has reason to be. It took me a bit to warm up to Rylee but eventually he one me over. This is a terrific start to a new series. I love the world building and am looking forward to more adventures Surviving Vihaan.