Review: NOT a "Romance", just a "travel story"- Not sure? Buy "Fated Mates:The Alpha Shifter Boxed Set" so you don't feel cheated later!
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2014
I was going to put two stars, since I am not sure I can say that I "Hated it" except that I didn't even finish it because it wasn't what it claimed to be.This book is put in the "paranormal romance" section. Well the "romance" doesn't happen until at least 75% of the way through, and even then it isn't really "romance" so much as "sex". The paranormal part, at least on the 'heroes' point of view, doesn't happen until then either. So I have to agree with one of the other 2 star reviewers... this REALLY needs to be re-classified since it is NOT a paranormal romance.What is it? Well it's the story of two people that meet and happen to be going the same way, and the chick pushes her way into hanging out with him, even though he clearly doesn't want to hang out with her, and what happens after that.Normally I love romance stories that have the male point of view as well as the female and actually prefer them. This one started out that way, but then quickly became more just about her and what she thought. (Now, might be spoilers after this so just warning you.......) For one, she is supposedly a BBW who has issues because of an old boyfriend. Yet she is really bold in pushing herself on him, when he clearly wants NOTHING to do with her. Personally if I'd been through what she had, and a guy treated me the way Liam treats Terry at the beginning of this book, that would have been the end of the story. I wouldn't have kept after him, pushing to hang out with him. I'm not a glutton for punishment, but it seems Terry is. And you don't really know WHY she is either, since there is no "romance" going on, even on her part.In fact, you don't get ANY romance really until it's well into 75% of the way through the book. And to be honest, I'm shocked I even read THAT far. I kept waiting for something to happen, for the romance, for him to look at her with passion or desire, for there to be SOMETHING that happened. I was starting to think that this was just a travel story when FINALLY they had sex. That was the beginning of the "romance" part, though how that comes about also was a shocker. I mean... (okay spoiler here) he FINALLY shifts so that she knows what is going on, AFTER letting her know that he used to have a wife, 200 years ago, and she still gets all hot and heavy with him, even though in her mind she's mad that he isn't sad over his dead wife. Huh? It really confused me and right after that I quit reading it.  When I first started reading it (In the Fated Mates: The Alpha Shifter Boxed Set) it said that I had 4 hours and 15 minutes to the end of the book. When I stopped reading it I only had 57 minutes left. THAT was how long it took to get to the romance and THAT is how bad it is that I would just walk away, after wasting my time reading all that other stuff. But after the romance FINALLY started, it just couldn't hold my interest any longer.So, even though I didn't totally "HATE" it... I couldn't see myself clear to giving it another star. The story is confusing from the start (why is she really leaving London? Just because someone wanted her to print lies about celebrities? That would make her really upset? To the point of running? It wasn't like they asked her to print fake cash or something...?) and it keeps getting more so the very very few times you get any insight into what he's thinking (why in God's green earth did the book start with him talking to a man who was more a monster, half shifted, about a 'Hunter' that as of 75% through the book he NEVER runs across or she even runs into - unless it was the creep at the border crossing, but then they are all creeps that she runs into except for him) and in the end by the time I gave up reading it, the romance was nonexistent, the story was blah, and I could care less that they finally had sex since there was nothing but sex really, no 'instant falling for each other' or any passion, he just 'wanted' her.  Oh and when did that happen? In the first, what little you got to understand of his side of things, he didn't want her. He wanted nothing to do with her. He didn't feel heat from their touch or anything remotely that would make you go "Hmmmm sounds like fireworks are going to happen between them."  Instead you get a needy woman who tries to follow him around like a puppy dog and then when he does tell her what he is, she doesn't believe him, but then cause he shows her, then they have sex.Suffice it to say, I'm glad I got this is a boxed set so that I didn't actually pay for JUST it.