Day 2! I'll be Mated for Christmas

Today's review is for I'll be Mated for Christmas by Rebecca Royce.  The first thing you need to know is that this is a story from Decadent Publishing's 1 Night Stand line.  The premise behind all of the 1 Night Stand books is that Madame Eve is a bit magical, and she runs a 1 Night Stand dating service.  While many of the clients believe they're committing to a one night situation, Madame Eve is actually pairing them with their happily ever after (HEA).  I was a bit hesitant to read a book in the 1 Night Stand line, as I'm a big fan of the HEA, and didn't really see that coming out of a one night stand.  Once a fellow reader explained to me that they were actually magical matchmaking stories, I was willing to try a few.  What I enjoy most about the 1 Night Stand stories is that they're a quick read, something that I can start and finish at night when I'm relaxing before bed.

In I'll be Mated for Christmas, we meet Bethany.  She is a human, and her human mother married a werewolf after she was born.  So she has two half-siblings who are werewolves, and she lives at the pack with her half-siblings and step-father.  Her mother died when she was little, killed by a rogue wolf.  Her step-father, unfamiliar with raising human children, gave Bethany a rather cold childhood.  Bethany recently lost a lot of weight, and now she's told her siblings that she's moving away.  She just has to have a 1 night stand first.

In the mythology created by Ms. Royce, the werewolves can recognize their mate by smell.  When the new Alpha enters the house, he immediately knows Bethany is his mate.  But Bethany as already taken off.  Luke happens to know Madame Eve, and gets set up as her 1 night stand.  If you like stories about women losing their virginity, then that appears in this book when Bethany and Luke hook up.  I'm not a big fan of the plot device personally, but it shows up frequently in Romance novels, so obviously some people enjoy this type of story.  Of course, Luke and Bethany find their HEA.

Overall, this book was only ok.  There wasn't a lot of Christmas magic in it, it just took place around Christmas.  That is a complaint I have about a lot of books that sell themselves as Christmas stories.  I want the holidays to be a key plot device, not a holiday that could really be interchangeable with other holidays.  

Bethany's character has a lot of emotional damage, and I wasn't sure that in such a short story, we were really given a chance to see her move beyond that damage.  There is also a back story with Luke that I felt like we never got all the details.  I'm not sure that the short 1 Night Stand story format was best for their love story.

There are two additional related stories, both 1 Night Stand stories by Rebecca Royce. Believe in Me is about Bethany's half-brother, and Paging Dr. Wolf, about Bethany's half-sister.  I haven't read Believe in Me, though I think it has been ranked low on Amazon, a bit unfairly by a reviewer who didn't realize I'll be Mated for Christmas is first in the series.  Paging Dr. Wolf was better than I'll be Mated for Christmas in my opinion, but didn't have a holiday theme.  In Paging Dr. Wolf, Cara has signed up for a 1 Night Stand, hoping to have the same luck as her siblings.  Before the date can occur, he's attacked by a rouge werewolf, and starts changing.  When him and Cara meet, he's a hot mess of instinctual need for his mate, and a human wanting to act "proper".  Cara has to help him come around to his wolf, and the pack ways.  I enjoyed seeing her doing a little bit of guiding.

Overall, if you're looking for a few enjoyable quick reads, I'd check out all three books.  But with a price tag of $2.99 a pop, and less than 40 pages per story, I think there are better ways to spend your ebook budget. I hope to be posting about some of those in the upcoming days leading up to Christmas!