#gladiator bear

"Dr. Anna Liffey had been up unexplored rivers and down dormant volcanoes, but she'd honestly never been anywhere like the gala hall where the people who funded her work got together."

-- Gladiator Bear

"Shannon Kavanaugh's hip hurt, and probably always would. That's what the doctors had told her, anyway, along with the news that she'd never be able to compete at international levels again."

-- Gladiator Cheetah

"Susan Connolly had known about shapeshifters forever. Practically, forever, anyway. Since before her son was born, anyway."

-- Gladiator Hawk

"The smell of sweat and beer mingled with the roar of laughter and cheers from the stadium seating. There were thousands--tens of thousands--of people crowded into the seats."

-- Gladiator Wolf

"Elissa's phone rang with a number she didn't know, and like an idiot, she answered it."

So my experience with shifter romance is pretty minimal still (not a trope you usually get in an English Lit PhD, so consider this the beginning of a self-study course), but Gladiator Bear was a treat. The background on these shifters generally is that their ancestors were the gladiators who fought with animals in the arena, and who bonded with those animals. Hence, their descendents are shifters. These shifters are still governed among themselves by the laws of the arena, and most of them feel a need to engage in fights in early adulthood; some stay in fights in a professional capacity, others choose not to. The other key thing about shifters is that they have fated mates, which is exactly what it says on the tin. However, the finding and relationship building with fated mates is what this book--and the broader series--focus on. So let's meet our competitiors.

Dr. Anna Liffey is a conservationist at a high enough level that she is stuck schmoozing millionaires and billionaires to fund her work. Which is how she finds herself at the Gladiator Gala--the annual ball/fundraiser for the Gladiator Foundation--accidentally punching Garius Beren in the stomach.

In addition to being the head of the Gladiator Foundation and having the MOST BEAR NAME in human history, Garius is himself a shifter. He helps maintain the list of shifter lineages, families, and individuals, and he helps the Gladiator Foundation protect shifters in general. He is also the most adorably introverted thing in the whole dang world, so when Anna accidentally punches him at the Gala, he is doing his damndest to hide his six-foot, bulit-like-a-bear frame in a corner behind a plant. That is going about as well as you think it would and is adorable and darling.

Anna and Garius are one of the most endearing, sweet couples I've had the privilge and joy to read about, and I love watching them hammer out being fated mates and what that means for their position with a foot in the modern world and a foot in the shifter world, which realistically occupies a liminal space of 2,00 years. But Anna and Garius aren't the only thing that pulled me through this book; the worldbuilding is phenomenal for a shifter romance novel.

Lawless constructs a detailed, clear, backstory for shifters, and then does the work of taking it through the years and working it into the modern world in a real, practical way that made me want to know more and keep reading--and the world just keeps expanding in the subsequent four novels.