Her Perfect Mate

by Paige Tyler

I don't know. I didn't really get it. Plot and characters were wonky. Landon and Ivy were alright I guess but I didn't really feel inspired by their romance or relationship. It was pretty meh. Clayne is an absolute jerk and his one apology for being a jerk at the end wasn't really enough to redeem him. He almost kills Landon on two separate occasions. He says his Ivy's friend and he cares about her but all's he seems to do is give her a hard time. Plus one part really baffled me.

And Landon?” “Yeah?” He already knew what she was going to say. “Make it work with Clayne. For Ivy’s sake.”

Tyler, Paige. Her Perfect Mate (X-OPS Series Book 1) (p. 243). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.

I didn't remotely get it. Clayne and Ivy had literally no decent civil interactions - why the hell would Ivy care? And Landon didn't even instigate anything - he was always just defending himself from being killed. Yeah okay, it could be referring to Clayne helping to get her out of there - but it also didn't really seem that necessary for Clayne specifically to be there.

Kendra is a very weak side character who makes a few appearances but adds no depth to the plot or her own being. There's a two second scene near the beginning where Declan (some other guy - this was his whole introduction) asks her out and she rejects him as she has apparently been doing a lot. Declan is all hung up on her. No clue why. But she's not interested because Kendra is all hung up on Clayne which also makes no sense and Clayne is hung up on Ivy. It was all very high school to be honest. Plus the blurb for Her Lone Mate reveals that Clayne is supposedly all hung up on Danica? Whoever Danica is. The thing that irritates me is that this series includes soulmates - if Danica is his soulmate - why the hell is he so interested in Ivy for any period of time? Seems to detract from OTP feels. In fact all the characters seem rather flimsy and wishy-washy with their feelings. If I'm going to believe characters are in love I need to see commitment

I've read the prequel and none of the thin plot about Adam or other shifter organisation was mentioned or referred to. There was slightly more information about how Ivy and other shifters are "born". They have past DNA that has mixed and sometimes presents animal characteristics. The whole mate thing was glossed over. It wasn't really explored, explained or mentioned. They've known each other for like three days - it was pretty unbelievable they fell in love. I don't know, just didn't feel it.

The plot was iffy. It wasn't anything new to the genre. Scientists experimenting and creating shifter hybrids is all very standard. It wasn't really explained why Jeff was involved. Or how he got past the psych evals to work with the DCO - I mean the whole thing is built around shifters - how can you possibly run an organisation where a bunch of your staff actively hate other staff for something they can't change? It doesn't exactly scream happy workplace. And why he didn't send them after Ivy to start with - Stutmeir is looking for shifters - she's a shifter - he can identify other shifters in the department - why didn't he send them after them before going after doctors and scientists to create hybrids.

It just had a lot of plot holes, flimsy characters and a hard to believe love story. 2 stars.