Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson

125 reviews

salinafloye's review against another edition

adventurous emotional lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a 4/5 spicy book for those interested or disinterested in that kind of thing where 1 is a single kiss to seal the deal and 5 is smut on every page. It is a book that I needed as a palate cleanser in between grad school reading, although the train enthusiast slander is not called for imo. The characters were loveable, you know pretty much the exact plot from the word go and that is exactly what I want in my romance books 99% of the time. It would possibly be a good introduction for people wanting to expand their romance reading into pararomance or fantasy romance if they like their romance heavy on the smut because it is very much romance centric with sprinklings of fantasy until like halfway through. The third act conflict is the only thing that wasn't super strong for me and it leans on deception which is like, bottom of the list for me. Very Twilight "I left you for your own good" vibes.

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yasmin_reads's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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meripm's review against another edition

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funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

The writing was incredibly sloppy. The punctuation was all over the place and sometimes not even the grammar was correct. It felt like a first draft, not a published book.

Oh, and you can always tell when a book used to be Reylo fanfiction: the author will not stop telling us how big and enormous the male love interest is compared to the tiny main character.

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rshearon's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

DELIGHTFUL!!! I am OBSESSED. I am wary about Omegaverse becoming mainstream in trad publishing but if they’re all gonna be this fun, bring em on!!! It was nearly perfect to me. The MMC was so adam driver-coded that I was questioning the origins of this story. But goddamn he was so hot. And she was a fun FMC. It was a little bit like Omegaverse Lite but that’s probably just due to the traditional publishing. Can’t be too deep into the lore for a standalone rom com as compared to a 1M word ff. I will definitely be checking out everything by this author from now on though!

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cassiebartelme's review against another edition

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fast-paced

3.0

Well that escalated quickly. I didn’t know what the Omegaverse was but now I do. I’m not mad, I just went in blind (cute cover and all that) and you might not want to.

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readerbystarlight's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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etymoye's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

Genres: Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

Tropes: Fake Relationship, Forced Proximity, Friends to Lovers, Grumpy/Sunshine, Magic, Omegaverse, Praise Kink, Shapeshifters, Workplace/Office

Moods: Funny, Lighthearted

The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson is a cute, fluffy, smutty fake-dating book with werewolves, though tbh, the werewolves thing is pretty minimal and is basically just there to explain the omegaverse thing. I’m not usually a fan of omegaverse, but I gave this a shot, and I’m glad I did. A lot of the omegaverse stuff is pretty toned down for more mainstream romance audiences, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on what you like.

I dropped a star for two reasons, under spoiler tags below:

Reason 1: that break up at 80% was SO. STUPID. The couple was doing so well at communicating…until they weren’t. Grrr. Yet another “I have to break up with you for your own good and lie to you” conflict. At least it was resolved fairly quickly.
Reason 2: We didn’t see the mating?? I actually had to reread the last 20% to see if I missed it. What? Who skips over the mating/wedding in a romance novel?

Otherwise, though, a really cute, enjoyable book.

Safety Stats:

Ages:

Mackenzie is 29, Noah is 36.

Cheating:

None.

Other OM/OW:

None.

Separation:

Temporary break up (see above). Neither is with anybody else, though OM does confess his feelings to Mackenzie. She doesn’t reciprocate.

Triggers:

None.

HEA/HFN?:

HEA. Mated by the end (see above).

Content Warnings

bookwitchgwen's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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jhabelita's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

90% smut; 10% plot 😂

Reading this simultaneously with an audiobook is a bomb!!!! the moans made my ears hot 🥵 I obviously enjoyed it after a series of historical fiction reads and several DNFs.

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sakeriver's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

I don't really know how to talk about a book like this, but it was entertaining? And very smutty. Tbh, I found myself skimming the sex scenes after a while, but the rest of the story was a lot like watching a popcorn romcom, except that most of the main characters are wolf people.

I will say, the word "alpha" has enough bad associations for me that it made the book a bit less enjoyable for me, especially since the "alpha/omega" thing is both a big part of the plot and, from what I understand, the specific subgenre. Which, I don't mean to yuck anybody's yum, truly. I guess I'm just finding that certain romance tropes are not to my taste, particularly ones that involve a type of masculinity that has to do with dominance. But, to each their own.

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