Had to redo this review after reading my original review from last year and finding it to be pretty crappy and non-informative. 
 Stray is the start of a fun, action packed series featuring a very kick butt heroine and a yummy love triangle. The female lead can hang with the boys (and pretty much does, since there aren't many females hanging out at their compound). Faythe can fight like a man, and has the balls of a man when it comes to bravery. She has her stupid and selfish moments, but I also feel like she had to go on the journey to become a better a person in the end, even if it meant making decisions that came across as self-serving to start. 
 Comparisons have come up between this book and book 1 of Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series. There are some similarities, but after the first book, both series branch off into opposite directions. It seems that people tend to have preferences based on which one they read first. Since I read this one first (even though Armstrong wrote her book first), I prefer Stray. Both Jace and Marc are appealing for different reasons, and the black panther/werecat concept is so much more fun than "overdone" werewolves. I also prefer Faythe's family structure hands down over Elena's. I didn't care for the side characters in Bitten, whereas I love every single side character in the Shifters series (except for the one sadistic brother). Something about being in Faythe's head every time she shifts also sends chills through me. Vincent made me feel as if I was shifting right along with Faythe. 
 I actually enjoyed the series from book 1, but some people don't start feeling the love until around the third book. The first in the series is the weakest of all the books, and they do get progressively better, but I still felt hooked on my werecats from the start. Even with this being over a year later and reading other series that I have liked better, I refuse to drop my original 4 star rating for book 1. These books will always hold a special place in my heart for being the first adult UF series to get me excited about the genre.