Review: Western steampunk erotic paranormal romance? Somehow it worked.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 10, 2011
Wilder's Mate kicks off the new sexy Bloodhounds paranormal romance series set in an alternate old West. The world building is intriguing with a touch of steampunk, vampire bad guys and the Hounds - scientifically created vampire hunters who maintain a leash on their inner beasts for the most part but are still a bit wild and driven by instinct.Satira is the daughter of a 'whore', raised by a Hound, and unofficially apprenticed to an inventor who has been kidnapped by vampires.  Satira will do anything to rescue her mentor, but doesn't really have a chance of success until Hound Wilder takes up the search and Satira manages to convince Wilder to let her go along. Having been raised around Hounds, and been intimate with several, Satira doesn't see Wilder as less than a man - in fact she is more that willing explore the heat that rises between them and is not daunted by the thought of helping to satisfy his wilder once-a-month urges.I liked Satira, she is mixture of capable and vulnerable, but she is also smart and uses her brain to come up with clever solutions to keep herself alive against their supernatural adversaries, but also has the common sense to follow Wilder's orders to allow him to keep her safe.  But while I liked Satira, I just loved Wilder. He's a great combination of wild and dangerous, but he keeps control of his power and is at times very sweet with Satira, despite his animal urges.I've come across a few Moira Rogers' shorts before, so going into Wilder's Mate I had a suspicion that the novella would be a bit more erotic than my normal fare. But the touch of steampunk in the Kindle sample along with the heroine's first encounter with the dangerous 'Hound' Wilder had me hooked - I just had to give it a try.Wilder's Mate did hit a couple of areas that generally keep me away from erotic romance - cruder sensual language, body fluids and brief backdoor forays are just not my 'thing'. Actually, except for one unfortunate juxaposition of scenes - hopefully there was some cleanup done in between - on the whole Rodgers handles the hot stuff deftly. Instead of having a zillion pages of detailed love scenes, there are some that are the equivalent of full course meals and others that are just tasty appetizers, which I appreciated since "enough is as good as a feast" - actually most of the time it's better.So, since there was much to like about the characters and a nice balance between the hot stuff and the story, I ended up enjoying Wilder's mate even with the step outside of my comfort zone.