Synopsis:

Mackenzie hasn’t had a successful date in months. She’s only a year out of residency, and her grandmother’s obsession with finding the perfect mate threatens to drive her barking mad, so it should be a small thing when she lies about meeting someone . . . until she blurts out the name of the last man she would ever Noah ‘The Big Bad Wolf of Denver General’ Taylor.

Noah, interventional cardiologist and all-round grump, has spent his entire life hiding what he is – an unmated alpha. But when an anonymous tip brings everything to light, he’s left with two come clean to the board and risk his career or find himself a mate. So, when the chatty, overly friendly ER doctor asks him to be her fake boyfriend the same day he’s called to meet the board, it must be kismet, right?

Mackenzie gets her grandmother off her back, and Noah gets the chance to prove he can continue to work without a real mate – it’s a mutually beneficial business transaction. But when the fake-mate act turns to a very real friends-with-benefits arrangement, lines start to blur, and they quickly realise love is a whole different kind of animal.

Review:

The Fake Mate was the first ever shifter romance I’ve read, I think. Well, it’s definitely the first spicy one I’ve ever read (more on that later in this review).

I’ll admit that I only picked this up because it promised fake dating and on that front it did deliver. They kept up the act for most of the book, but they discovered their feelings for each other quite early on–their physical attraction that is, the emotional feelings came a little later.

The spice didn’t show up until around halfway and then you couldn’t get away from it. I don’t mind a little spice every now and then but I’m talking back to back chapters of multiple instances. It was a lot. Thankfully, it wasn’t too cringeworthy but the every time ‘alpha’ was said was a little gross. It is in context though, so not as bad as it could have been.

I didn’t understand some of the terminology as shifter romances are not something I read. Can’t lie, I was too scared to Google some of the words, so I’ll never know what they mean. I also can’t imagine I’ll pick up another book like The Fake Mate any time soon.

I’m not sure if it’s because they were in a STEM environment but Mackenzie and Noah really reminded me of Olive and Adam from The Love Hypothesis or Bee and Levi from Love on the Brain. Basically, I’m saying this felt a lot like an Ali Hazelwood book character-wise. Mackenzie had that quirky nature that I’ve come to expect from Ali Hazelwood and Noah had that brooding, giant of a man type. They were both interesting characters.

I’m not sure if this is technically a trope but it is something I hate in romance books: the third act break up. It always goes hand in hand with miscommunication and it makes me so angry. Why do people in romance books never talk to each other about anything? It could have been solved by a simple conversation because guess what happens a few short chapters later? They talk about it and everything is fine.

I decided to not take The Fake Mate too seriously when I picked it up and that made the experience far more enjoyable. I finished it in less than 24 hours, which is pretty good for me at the moment.

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