Booklog 24/2025: Murphy Lawless: Gladiator Bear – Gladiator Shifters #1

[jacey]

Murphy Lawless, pseudonym for C.E. Murphy, has written a whole series of shapeshifter romances. This is the first. Anna is a conservationist who spends her time on expeditions observing and protecting rare animal species. She's mostly funded by the Gladiator Foundation owned by the reclusive Garius Beren, who just happens to be a bear shapeshifter tied into the tradition of Roman gladiators. Within hours of meeting (at a gala for the foundation) Garius and Anna fall instantly in love and are kidnapped together by Remus, a wolf-shifter and Garius' enemy, who runs illicit arena games on a secret island off the Italian coast. Anna proves up to the task of outwitting Remus and releasing Garius (in bear form) from the arena. But that's just the start. It seems that Anna and Garius are fated mates (that's a thing in the shifter world) but Garius is overprotective and it nearly causes disaster. This is a fun read, tightly written and a real page-turner. Lawless is an assured writer and not a word is wasted. I read it on kindle which meant I could ignore the tacky half-naked male torso on the cover. I hate those kind of covers, but I guess the reader knows exactly what they're getting.