Samhain Publishing, $4.50, ISBN 1-60504-133-5
Fantasy Romance, 2008
In the first twelves pages of Fated, I count ten characters to keep track of, including our heroine Megan Warden, and I do not count the names of characters that are mentioned in passing. This is probably one of those books that works best when you have some familiarity with at least a few of the previous books in Lauren Dane’s Cascadia Wolves series. Otherwise, you may feel like a gatecrasher in a party full of strangers, who knows.
This one is a relatively relaxed story compared to some of the other stories in this series. Megan Warden and Shane Rosario happen to attend the same wedding, which means that their ears are burning from constant reminders that they are both single and therefore not creating future characters that Ms Dane can write about in upcoming books in this series. By chapter three they have beaten the bride and bridegroom to the honeymoon knockout, though, so while they are not married, it’s not like they are not having fun in the process. However, they have some things to work out before they settle down, though, such as their expectations of what they are looking for in a mate and such.
This is a pretty unusual entry into the series in that this one could have easily been a contemporary romance without the werewolf trappings. It’s so unusually normal for a Cascadia Wolves entry that I can’t help but to be charmed. The characters rush headlong into sex way too early in my opinion and I’m still not sure whether these two are really in love at the end of the day. But that’s okay, I can believe that they like each other at the very least. Also, the author addresses some issues that stand between those two and a happy ending in a credible way that bodes well for the romance.
I’m not so sure about some of things that come out of Shane’s mouth, though.
“Thank you, honey. I feel the same way about you. Everything in the universe is totally fucked up but for the first time in my entire life I am completely at ease. Satisfied. Full and proud. I’ve waited so long for you I began to wonder if you were just a figment of my imagination.”
Those are pretty words indeed, but I have a hard time imagining a guy saying them at the spur of the moment.
Fated is a pretty entertaining contemporary romance pretending to be a werewolf urban fantasy romance, all things considered.
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