Review: Exodus (Valens Pack #2) by Bailey Bradford

Survival of the fittest? Not when chaos rules.

Rivvie does his best as beta, but he’s lonely and secretly nursing a broken heart. He fell for Matthew instantly, to no avail. Matt was too busy screwing every female in sight. He didn’t give one whit about Rivvie. Well, he told Rivvie he wasn’t interested. Rivvie just didn’t think he meant it.

Matt’s whole life has changed. He was the good son, the village hero, and the village stud. Now he’s just a man in a pack full of exceptional men. He’s a human—smaller, weaker and slower than the shifter males he lives with. External chaos has nothing on the internal crap he deals with every day.

When Rivvie and Matt are paired together for a task, sparks fly. It’s just possible that there’s more to sex—and more to Rivvie—than Matt ever suspected.

While Rivvie is dancing around an attraction to a certain human male, his brother, Valen is trying to lead his pack and take care of his own mate, Aaron. Just when he thinks he’s got everything under control, that very control is yanked from him by a powerful series of natural disasters, and soon Valen’s leading his pack on an exodus he’d never expected.

Reader Advisory: This book contains scenes of BDSM, spanking, CBT and biting.


The reader advisory for this story called to me like a siren’s song.

I should start by saying I have not read the first in the series, Run with the Moon. That being said, I had no trouble following along with the overall story arc in Exodus. I’m not generally a big fan of diving into a series, mostly because I have the attention span of a hamster and by the time the next book comes out I’ve lost enough details in my brain to be thoroughly confuzzled as I try and keep up. But, Bailey Bradford is really good at keeping you locked in to one of her series’ which is probably why I stick with hers pretty faithfully. The next book will always give you just enough recap and detail without feeling like a regurgitation of the first story and it flows organically through the second (or third, or fourth) enough so that it becomes part of that story.

My only niggles I’m sure are because I didn’t read the first though, so I’m going to be shining those on somewhat. Valen and Aaron (the focus of Book 1) play a big part in Exodus, so I felt like I knew them pretty well. From what I can gather, Matt and Rivvie were pretty prominent in Book 1 as well so I’m definitely going back to read it to get their full character development. Either way, I really like the two of them together. Putting humans and shifters together in one pack has led to some interesting dynamics just by the nature of their species and the adjustment is hard on every one. Shifters are bigger, stronger, faster and usually nekkid. The humans don’t really know what to do with that. Just because Matt was top dog in the human village, doesn’t mean he quite measures up when they merge with the shifters and it makes him seriously pissy. But underneath, he’s just an insecure dude who’s kind of lost his way, reading about him finding and accepting himself was a great part of the story.

Rivvie is just plain awesome. He’s smarter than he gives himself credit for and so he’s got his own insecurities to deal with. Valen has the idea to pair up one shifter with one human to complete tasks around the village and to try and develop some cohesiveness with the two species. Guess who gets to work together? Yep, it’s Rivvie and Matt and the two of them are constantly on the edge of either fucking or fighting. It becomes a big part of their acceptance of themselves and each other and shows what a smart alpha Valen really is.

I’m really loving the world building and overall story with this series already. There is an illness spreading through the remainder of the human population and no one knows what it really is, how contagious it is or how to prevent it. It’s basically a death sentence for anyone who contracts it (a really ugly and awful death sentence) and for all they know all the humans in their pack may already have the disease, it just hasn’t presented itself in them yet. So, not only are they trying to survive the new landscape and the pack dynamics, they have this pall hanging over them with no real answers.

Now, as far as Rivvie and Matt together and the aforementioned reader advisory. I love nothing more than when two characters have a bit of a kink and then find each other. Both these cats love that extra little bite of pain where too much is just enough and they’ve both hidden it away forever. So, thank the gods and goddesses they’ve found each other, because damn do these boys fit one another. It’s nothing too terribly extreme or squinch-worthy, in fact it kind of felt like just the beginning of their kink adventure. I hope they get to explore more in book 3.

The intro of characters at the end of this one has me completely hooked on the series. I’m not even going to say what happened because you’ve got to check it out for yourself, but if that doesn’t hook you nothing will. So, I’m off to read the first one because I want all the details and am anxiously awaiting the third installment.

For more info on Exodus, Valens Pack #2, check it out over at Goodreads.




**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**

3 comments:

  1. Still got book 1 on my TBR list, think I'll move it up the list a bit!

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    1. Great! I can't wait to see what you think!

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    2. I'll let you know when I've finished it.

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