Book Reviews

Book Blurb

RODNEY has fifty-three thousand reasons to stand on the auction platform. Gambling debt to shark shifters. A week to pay. And exactly one option that doesn’t involve three years of scrubbing floors: walk into Las Vegas’s most exclusive shifter kink club, put on a blindfold, and let a stranger buy his night.

He’s never submitted to anyone. He’s not sure he can. But the alternative is the Playground, a no-rules warehouse in the desert, and the sharks have made it clear that’s where he’s headed if he can’t pay.

MORDECHAI hasn’t set foot in Kinky Kritters in over a year. The panther shifter and high-powered attorney came back for one night, not a relationship. But the panda on the platform, blindfolded, shaking, and stubbornly refusing to break, gets past every wall he’s built. The way Rodney’s skin holds a bruise. The way he whimpers right before he cums. The way he asks questions no sub has ever thought to ask.

One night becomes a week. Mordechai starts rewriting his entire life around a man who makes terrible financial decisions and the best sounds he’s ever heard.

But the polar bear who lost the auction isn’t finished. He’s found the sharks. He’s bought a private session at the Playground. And Rodney doesn’t get a safe word.

What Mordechai does to the men who touch what’s his will change both of them. What they build after will change everything.

 

Book 1 of Kinky Kritters: Las Vegas. Explicit M/M shifter romance with on-page BDSM, negotiated power exchange, a found family that takes consent as law, and a Dom who discovers that the most dangerous thing a panda can do is make you fall in love with him.

 

First edition published at eXtasy Books, May 2016.

 

Book Review

If you know me at all, then you know there's no possible way for me to pass over a book titled 'Punishing the Panda'. I was lucky to even find out about the series and it's thanks to a dear friend who likes the same taste in books that I do. I have enjoyed many books by Caitlin Ricci in the past, and I'm interested to see if the partnership between her and A.J. Marcus leads me to another new-to-me author.

Rodney is exactly, at least in my mind's eye, what I imagine a panda shifter would be like. He's sweet, naïve, a little gullible, a little round around the middle, and way out of his element when he leaves Arkansas for Las Vegas. Of course he has no choice in leaving, as he was disowned, but perhaps Sin City isn’t the perfect place for him. He had no idea he has a gambling problem until the casinos entice him, and now he's $50K in the hole to sharks, and I'm not using the term euphemistically, these are shark shifters.

When Rodney discovers that Lady Leo, owner of Kinky Kritters, has paid his gambling debt so she can include him in her auction, he has no idea what is about to occur. Poor Rodney. He is so horribly confused, nervous, scared, and freaking adorable. At least to me. He thinks the leather cock ring he was given to wear for the auction was a hair tie. I just wanted to snuggle him. Rodney hasn't got the first clue about BDSM or kink.

A man who was on display, who obviously didn’t enjoy anything about the experience, but for some reason was there anyway. Mordechai had to know more. His curiosity was piqued.

Mordechai is a loner, a wealthy panther shifter, who never plays with the same shifter twice. He isn't thrilled when he discovers that Lady Leo walked a fine line in terms of Rodney's consent to the night's activities. Mordechai is entranced by Rodney even more than he thought he would be. Rodney learns quickly and has submissive tendencies he wasn't even aware of. It makes Mordechai start to wonder if maybe Rodney could be the one permanent sub for him, someone he could train to his own specifications versus trying to correct others’ poor training.

Oh, I adored this first book, even more than I thought I would. Mordechai definitely has a little insta-attraction going on which seemed odd considering the first descriptions of him, but it actually made sense once I realized how lonely he was. Rodney is adorable from head to toe and I loved him. This was a great beginning, very sweet and sensual, with a little drama and a lovely happy ever after. I can definitely recommend this book.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. The first edition of this book was purchased by the reviewer.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	Novella, 193 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	23-April-2026
Price	$0.99 ebook
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GTWMGFSV