Review: Johnnie (Siphon Collection #1) by Cardeno C.

A Premier lion shifter, Hugh Landry dedicates his life to leading the Berk pride with strength and confidence. Hundreds of people depend on Hugh for safety, success, and happiness. And at over a century old, with more power than can be contained in one body, Hugh relies on a Siphon lion shifter to carry his excess force.

When the Siphon endangers himself and therefore the pride, Hugh must pay attention to the man who has been his silent shadow for a decade. What he learns surprises him, but what he feels astounds him even more.

Two lions, each born to serve, rely on one another to survive. After years by each other’s side, they’ll finally realize the depth of their potential, the joy in their passion, and a connection their kind has never known.



I loved the original take on shifters! After reading a few series' some things start to become redundant, so it was refreshing to read something different.

Hugh is the Premier lion shifter, which is like the alpha. A Premier can live much, much longer if it has a Siphon. A Siphon is a lion that takes on the Premier's extra energy and if something were to happen to the Siphon, the Premier would also suffer. This makes Siphons really precious and protected. 

Sounds like a good deal, right? No, not really. Especially not for Johnnie.

He was so protected that nobody really saw him as anything other than The Siphon. He didn't even have a name, FFS! They just called him 'The Siphon', made sure he was fed, and basically ignored him. All this made it really hard for me to like Hugh. I couldn't get past how he treated Johnnie for years. Yeah, he acknowledged his mistakes and made up for them, but it still got under my skin quite a bit.

But I did like seeing Hugh start to pay more attention to Johnnie, to realize that he's a person and appreciate him. There was a nice slow progression of their relationship and it made what they finally had together that much sweeter.

I really like CC's kind of romance. It's always sweet and you can betcher ass it's gonna be sexy as hell. It was borderline cheesy at times, but still it's a cute and light story.  


A copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

1 comment:

  1. Only just getting into Cardeno C, so I'm going to give this a go (don't mind a bit of cheese if it's cute cheese).

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