Deep Desires Press, $0.99
Fantasy Romance, 2021

Charli Mac’s His Cautious Mate is set in an urban fantasy setting that reprises the spectacularly original premise of shifters versus vampires.

Mind you, this conflict is nothing more than an excuse for Gregor, our shifter hero, to be beaten up so bad that for a second I wonder whether he’s truly the hero because romance authors are often allergic to their main man showing even a hint of weakness and be nursed back to health by our heroine.

Ah yes, the ever reliable tale of a hero that is stuck in bed so that there is no way he can flee the heroine even if he wanted to.

Mind you, Gregor really doesn’t come off well in that initial fight. One, he never takes into account that vampires can apparently fly and hairy horny wolves go, so ooh, look at that thing take to the air. Then, he is jumped by the vampire when he takes a corner without paying attention. 

The author’s writing gets super weird early on in this story. 

It was quiet, the row of shops Gregor had parked in front of all closed, their lights off. There were one or two lights on in the apartment block across the way but he didn’t see any faces peering down at him. He crossed the road, hands in his pocket, head down. Vampires had super senses—even better than shifters—so he doubted his arrival had been missed. Hopefully the vamp would just think he was heading into the apartment block, on his way to a late-night assignation. Gregor bloody wished. Since his cousin had found a mate, his wolf had lost all interest in meaningless, casual sex. He’d tried to convince it that a little bit of fun was good for them, but the beast was refusing to play ball—literally.

Gregor’s pursuing the vampire. So why is he suddenly thinking about his cousin? How is that “Gregor bloody wished” sentence linked in any way that sentence about his cousin too busy shagging some mate to be a proper… whatever?

Given the bloke’s apparent propensity to daydream about male family members having sex while he’s supposedly chasing a vampire burglar, I suppose I should be relieved that he’s just beaten up enough to require the heroine Beatrice’s bedside TLC.

Then, there is the “humor”.

“You’re going to be stiff in the morning,” I told him. I absolutely did not look at his cock, outlined in his tight-fit boxers when I said it. And if I did, I definitely didn’t notice that it was long and thick looking even in repose. Disgusted with myself—I needed to get laid, like, a year ago—I took the throw blanket I’d crocheted during my many hours of not having sex and threw it over him. He stirred in his sleep, burying his nose into it and sniffing deeply. I guess he liked what he smelled because he was tenting it before my very eyes.

“You get off on crocheting,” I joked quietly. “That’s not weird at all.”

Wait, so he is into big peens but the heroine is a female wolf? Wait, does she have a penis or not? 

Thankfully, I don’t have to flip through too many pages to find out, as Bea’s idea of bedside TLC is to spread them wide to him before I can even blink three times—mate bond, so who cares about courtship and foreplay, it’s time to bang and call it true love—and no, she doesn’t have a big, throbbing twenty-inch peen. Ugh, she doesn’t have a fake one to peg the hero with!

Weirdly enough, in spite of this one being marketed as a hot read, the story soon gets bogged down by dull and tedious pack drama. It’s like the author had forgotten about the more interesting premise of vampires versus horny closeted hairballs. I think the author has also forgotten that this one is supposed to be a sexy story.

Most importantly, why is the hottest scene in this straight romance being the one in which the hero drools over a chubbing peen?

So, in the end, take away the cringe-inducing “humor” and sloppy writing that lacks continuity or flow in some many places, and this one still ends up coming off like the dreaded boring mate bond thing forcing the hero into a punishing life of sticking it into hoo-hoos when we all know all he really wants is a big marshmallow dipped into his chocolate fountain.

What is this, an allegory for life as a Mormon or something?