The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson

The Fake Mate
Author: Lana Ferguson
Check it Out: Goodreads

Mackenzie Carter has had some very bad dates lately. Model train experts, mansplainers, guys weirdly obsessed with her tail—she hasn’t had a successful date in months. Only a year out of residency, her grandmother’s obsession with Mackenzie finding the perfect mate to settle down with threatens to drive Mackenzie barking mad. Out of options, it feels like a small thing to tell her grandmother that she’s met someone. That is, until she blurts out the name of the first man she sees and the last man she would ever date: Noah Taylor, the big bad wolf of Denver General.

Noah Taylor, interventional cardiologist and all around grump, has spent his entire life hiding what he is. With outdated stigmas surrounding unmated alphas that have people wondering if they still howl at the moon, Noah has been careful to keep his designation under wraps. It’s worked for years, until an anonymous tip has everything coming to light. Noah is left with two options: come clean to the board and risk his career—or find himself a mate. The chatty, overly friendly ER doctor asking him to be her fake boyfriend on the same day he’s called to meet the board has to be kismet, right?

Mackenzie will keep her grandmother off her back, and Noah will get a chance to prove he can continue to work without a real mate—a mutually beneficial business transaction, they both rationalize. But when the fake-mate act turns into a very real friends-with-benefits arrangement, lines start to blur, and they quickly realize love is a whole different kind of animal.

I’ve been going back and forth about my rating on this one. I’m sitting at a 3.5 but rounding to 4. I still enjoy Ferguson’s writing and how easy it is to get drawn into her books.

I adored the dynamic of Noah and Mackenzie’s relationship. I’m a sucker for grumpy sunshine and this delivered and satisfied my cravings. I’m so glad this was dual POV because reading Noah’s train of thoughts made this much more enjoyable and I enjoyed reading about him realizing he was falling in love with Mackenzie. Chemistry? These two had that in waves. The sex scenes here were quite spicy. The cover of this book may be cute, but goodness was it hot!

So what didn’t work for me? I read a lot of omegaverse so I felt the overexplanation was a bit much. It made it come off as too descriptive. Along with that, it only seemed like it was used as a trope instead of actually being the way this world worked. While speaking of the characters; I love a good sex scene, this was a bit much. We honestly had more sex scenes than character development at times.

I don’t want to be too critical, but I saw the third act break up coming from a few pages into the book. It was predictable and I had the same feelings about her debut as well.

Now don’t get me wrong, even with the issues I had, I still enjoyed it for the most part. All in all, Ferguson’s writing was good as always and this story was easy to follow. The characters were good and I’m excited for her upcoming release next year.

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