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A review by kimmag92
The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson
Did not finish book. Stopped at 48%.
After reading The Nanny by Lana Ferguson I did not have high hopes for The Fake Mate and boy did it fall short. For the 48% I read I felt like the author was expecting the reader to have read a lot of paranormal werewolf romances and already know about scenting, mating, alphas, omegas, etc. I have not so I felt very confused most of the time as none of this is explained. As well, werewolves don't live in secret in this book. They are integrated into the world which I thought was a cool concept but she doesn't explore that in the least or if there are other paranormal creatures in the world.
I could not for the life of me what the plot of this book was. We get to the fake dating straight away in the first few pages of the book as Mack wants to stop her Gran from setting her up on dates and Noah is facing possible disciplinary action for not disclosing he's an alpha werewolf (apparently being an alpha and an omega are genetic and that isn't explained at all). Noah wants to find out who outed him but that plot point is dropped nearly immediately. After that I could not see where this book was going and not in the fun way but in like the "wtf is this going and why do I care" way.
As well, Noah and Mack falling for each other makes no sense. They have not spoke to each other outside of strictly work related matters until the start of this book and then suddenly they cannot stop thinking of each other. Their chemistry was non-existent and they hardly spoke about anything outside of their fake relationship.
Edit: Apparently, this book is part of the "omegaverse" which I had to google to learn what it was. It's a fanfiction subgenre and I think this explains the lack of explanation in this book. The author expects their reader to be well versed in this subgenre and hence doesn't explain anything. As this is a traditionally published book the author could have used this book as an introduction to the subgenre and that could have worked but instead they chose to publish essentially a fanfic with no supporting information. (I have nothing against fanfiction. I read a lot of it as a teenager and loved it but if you're going to traditional publish fanfiction then I think it needs all the supporting pieces.)
Now for the sex and dear lord was it bad. Apparently alpha werewolves have an extra super special werewolf penis that has a "knot" at the base and it's alluded that it makes sex mindblowingly good. What this knot is and why alphas have it or why it feels so good is not explained. Apparently, when an alpha has sex with an omega and he finishes this knot blows up like a balloon and causes his penis to become stuck in the woman's vagina like a plug, like a plug in a sink and they're stuck like that for an unknown amount of time. Neither Noah or Mack have experienced this as an alpha and an omega hooking up is incredibly rare and the author could have done some exploration of what this meant and their experience with this but nope they don't. They have sex and fall asleep stuck together like they do it all the time. In The Nanny her depiction of sex felt real and I understood that the two people were into each other. In The Fake Mate the sex didn't feel real and I did not believe they were into each other. Overall, it was just bad.
I could not for the life of me what the plot of this book was. We get to the fake dating straight away in the first few pages of the book as Mack wants to stop her Gran from setting her up on dates and Noah is facing possible disciplinary action for not disclosing he's an alpha werewolf (apparently being an alpha and an omega are genetic and that isn't explained at all). Noah wants to find out who outed him but that plot point is dropped nearly immediately. After that I could not see where this book was going and not in the fun way but in like the "wtf is this going and why do I care" way.
As well, Noah and Mack falling for each other makes no sense. They have not spoke to each other outside of strictly work related matters until the start of this book and then suddenly they cannot stop thinking of each other. Their chemistry was non-existent and they hardly spoke about anything outside of their fake relationship.
Edit: Apparently, this book is part of the "omegaverse" which I had to google to learn what it was. It's a fanfiction subgenre and I think this explains the lack of explanation in this book. The author expects their reader to be well versed in this subgenre and hence doesn't explain anything. As this is a traditionally published book the author could have used this book as an introduction to the subgenre and that could have worked but instead they chose to publish essentially a fanfic with no supporting information. (I have nothing against fanfiction. I read a lot of it as a teenager and loved it but if you're going to traditional publish fanfiction then I think it needs all the supporting pieces.)