Review: Mate Claimed by Jennifer Ashley

Mate Claimed
(Shifters Unbound #4)
by Jennifer Ashley
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: Oct. 2, 2012
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:

As a wildcat Shifter and leader of his Shiftertown, Eric Warden knows his own kind. When he sees Iona Duncan, he realizes that although she appears human, she is a half-Shifter wildcat living without a Collar—and that if she doesn’t acknowledge her true nature and her mating hunger, it may kill her…

Iona finds the mysterious and powerful Eric alluring, even though she has vowed never to reveal her Shifter side, lest her mother pay the price for hiding her all these years. But her mating hunger is rising, and with Eric so close, she may not be able to resist…and her desire may lead to the very doom they are fighting to deny…

 

 

 

Shifters Unbound is a series that I’ve jumped around in. I’ve read the first couple of books and didn’t really care for them. Then I read some of the latest releases and fell in love with the world. So, here I am jumping back to the beginning. I decided to skip to Mate Claimed because I loved the sound of an Alpha finding his mate in a half-breed shifter who is pretending to be a human in order to go undetected by the government, who would like nothing more than to collar her and throw her into a Shiftertown.

While the synopsis sounds all good and dandy, there is so much more to this story. There’s an entire shifter population about to move into the local Shiftertown. While you would think this would be fine, each Shiftertown has it’s own leader and Alpha. If you know anything about shifters, they do not share the title Alpha, nor do two Alpha’s co-exist side-by-side peacefully. So, Eric has a lot on his plate with the new group of shifters who come in and start to cause trouble right out of the gate. He’s also taken it upon himself, as the local Alpha and leader, to keep an eye on Iona. He can sense that she’s at her mating hunger stage. She’s starting to lose control and fall back on her more animalistic nature more and more each day. Not to mention that there are humans who are in charge of being the middleman between shifters and humans who are acting rather shady. Stuff is going on in their area and the shifters don’t know what it is, but they know something isn’t right. There were so many pieces to this puzzle that I was rarely bored while reading this.

I really liked that while Eric is definitely an Alpha, his main focus is to help Iona. He knows how much danger she is in by being on her own during this time, he knows how much it would wreck her if the government found out she was half-shifter, and he does everything he can to help her would while helping to keep her shifter status a secret. He also allows her time to realize that he’s her mate. He doesn’t force it on her, but instead waits for her to realize it herself and accept what that means. Eric’s character was very strong and compassionate, and I really enjoyed that coming from an Alpha shifter.

While I enjoyed the main hitters in this novel, I found myself gravitating towards Graham, the Alpha shifter from the Shiftertown that gets lumped in with Eric’s Shiftertown. There was something about him, even when he was being a bit of a meathead, that made me take pause. As he hung around in the story more, you sort of saw different sides to him. In the end, you realize that he isn’t all that bad, and is actually a stand-up guy. I’m really looking forward to reading his story.

Mate Claimed has been the first book (if we are looking at it in chronological order) that I’ve actually enjoyed. I really like the newer installments in the series, but Mate Claimed is the first one I’ve liked so far from the first four books in the series. I’m interested to read the next book because we know next to nothing about the shifter in it (other than we meet him briefly in this novel) and you just know he has a story to tell. Plus, that poor dude deserves a happily ever after. If you like shifter romances and want to get a wide range of shifters, not just one breed, I would highly suggest looking into this series. There’s felines, canines, and bears of all varieties.

 

Favorite quote…

“it’s a shifter thing. We fight, we agree to hate each other, we move on. Everyone has a place, everyone knows what it is.”

 

 

 

 

6 Thoughts on “Review: Mate Claimed by Jennifer Ashley

  1. It’s good to hear you found an instalment in this series to really enjoy. I haven’t started it yet because there was always something to pull me away for a reason or another, but I kept the series on my list and I hope when I read it, I can find a nice connection. Fingers crossed for even greater instalments!

  2. I love this series to much. I’ve been reading it since the first book came out and have been loving it. So glad to hear you liked this one.

  3. I have a book in this series. I need to try it one day

  4. Very nice review. I like this series and feel it gets better the farther along you get. I do have my favorites in the series that I love to re-read. Graham McNeil is a favorite and he does get his own book in Wild Wolf. Glad to see you enjoying the Shifters Unbound series.

  5. This was the first of hers I ever read and loved it 🙂 Hope you enjoy the next.

  6. bookwormbrandee on 9 May, 2018 at 4:45 pm said:

    I’m happy this one was a winner for you. I’ve only read the first book in this series – or maybe the first two? It’s been so long I don’t even remember. But I’ve read so many good things about the later installments that I really wanna catch up. I look forward to seeing if you like Graham’s book. 😉

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