Review: Some good plot twists but not-so-smart heroine
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 5, 2013
The Mating starts out with an interesting premise: in order to secure a political alliance among different packs and to ensure a larger roaming area the last remaining daughter of one pack (Elise) is married to the new Alpha of a nearby pack (Kane).  Proof of their first night of marriage is reviewed in the same way people did in the Dark Ages - checking for blood on the sheets.  Thus begins a story of an arranged marriage that soon spirals into environmental issues, land grabs, a fight for power, and jealous lovers.The story premise began with promise.  Who doesn't love to see a hero and heroine thrown together due to circumstances but eventually fall in love?  I love a good paranormal romance, and Ms. Charles does a good job of explaining the rush of animalistic instinct in the change from human to wolf.  There are also interesting tidbits about their past that drew me in: the death of Elise's mother after being caught in a trap and the subsequent withdrawal of her father and Kane's need to find a place to call home.  The external plot twist about the issues surrounding their land also added depth to the story.Yet the story fails in several respects.1) As other readers have noted, Elise isn't the brightest tool in the shed.  There were certain points where I was surprised at just how dumb she was.  Readers are smart and I didn't need her to catalog all of her clues in solving some of the mysteries in the story.  Ms. Charles (through Elise) gave us a laundry list of everything that had happened in the last few chapters as though we weren't paying attention; as though she thought we were as dumb as Elise.  Her "naive" questions could be brushed off as young (she's only 19 years old) but her blatant lack of understanding of communication with her husband makes me wonder if she isn't just self-absorbed and/or plain stupid.  There were several chapters that could have been omitted if she had just had a conversation with her husband.2) Kane's POV came much, much too late.  I kept waiting for a chapter from Kane's voice.  I wanted to know what he was thinking about bringing home some young woman from another pack.  What was going through his head?  What really makes this guy tick?  But I waited in vain until way late into the novel (last third) before Kane's voice finally appeared.  I cheered, happy that I finally got to dig into his head a little.  Yet it was too little, too late.3) The backstory and external conflict begged for more. I wanted to know more about how Kane and Elise's past affected them.  The past added a new dimension to the story in the beginning yet it was lost halfway through the book.  We never really got to see how Elise's mother's death affected her relationship with Kane.  We never got to hear Kane's story until our focus was already driven to the villain and the H/H's victory.  The ending felt like a mad dash to the finish where the story lost much of the richness that it had in the first third.4) Finally, call me practical, but I wanted to know how these people survive in the harsh human world.  Where is this money coming from?  What do these people do for a living?  The one person that was apparently in university was the "smart one."  Does that mean the rest of these people/werewolves were drop-outs?  Just one or two lines could have brought it all together.  And the story needed it - especially as money became an issue with solving the problems encountered by the characters.3.5 of 5 stars but I rounded down due to the issues above.  It's still an okay story and a fast read.  The writing was decent with a few errors here and there.