Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Devotion
SERIES: Forbes Mates #1
AUTHOR: Grace R. Duncan
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 220 Pages
BLURB:
Finley Cooper is tired of waiting for his destined mate to be ready to claim him. In deference to human laws, he’s already agreed to wait until he’s eighteen. But now his birthday has come and gone—and his mate has a new set of excuses. Finley doesn’t understand it any more than his wolf does, and he’s beginning to wonder if fate made a mistake.
Tanner Pearce wants nothing more than to claim his mate, but he worries that Finley is too young. Tanner will never forget what happened when his best friend mated at Finley’s age, only to have that mate end up feeling trapped and breaking their bond. While rare, it can happen, and the fallout Tanner witnessed as his best friend tried to deal with the break has haunted him for years.
When Finley finally has enough, he threatens to find someone who will claim him if Tanner doesn’t, and Tanner realizes he needs to come to terms with his fears or risk losing his mate forever.
REVIEW:
I totally believe in insta-love, because that’s what happened to me when I saw this cover for the first time. I love that the colour of the wolves’ fur exactly mirrors the colour of the men’s hair in the picture of the two of them kissing. Then I read the blurb and fell a little more in love. I was so excited to get my hands on this book…but unfortunately, it didn’t take all that long before the shiny brightness began to wear off.
Finley was ready to be claimed by his mate from the moment they met, when he was only sixteen. But at Tanner’s request, and because of human laws, they decided to wait until he was a little older. But here poor Finley is, two months past his eighteenth birthday and Tanner is still refusing to claim him. Finley starts to worry that maybe Tanner doesn’t really want him as a mate, it’s not like he’s ever said that he loves Finley. After yet another rejection, Finley packs his bags and takes off across the country to stay with his grandparents, with a warning to Tanner that he might just find another wolf who will love him. And that’s exactly what he does.
Firstly, I should point out that despite my disappointment with this story, I totally acknowledge that this is a well-written book. There is absolutely no issue with the way this author writes a story, which makes it that much harder to figure out how to rate this. I agree with authors and reviewers who say that it isn’t fair to give a book a low rating because you think the characters should have acted differently, but…
My huge issue with this book was that the conflict, which drove the whole plot, was blown up to epic, somewhat unbelievable proportions considering Tanner could have fixed it all just by giving Finley an explanation. And sometimes in a book, I can understand that a character may be hesitant to discuss problems that are potentially upsetting or embarrassing, but that wasn’t the case here. I could not understand for the life of me why Tanner couldn’t talk to Finley about his reservations. It wasn’t even anything personal, it was something that happened to a friend.
So Tanner just annoyed the hell out of me. Maybe if I’d loved Finley then it wouldn’t have bothered me so much but Finley began to annoy me too. Which further annoyed me. See a common factor here? I swung from feeling sorry for one character to sorry for the other but actually liking the characters never really happened. By the time they finally got together I wasn’t all that excited about them anymore. Actually the character I liked best was Jamie, the other wolf that Finley starts seeing, and I was actually happy to see that his book will be released next.
Please don’t read this review as me saying this isn’t a good book, it just wasn’t the right book for me. There were definitely parts of it that I enjoyed. The knotting in the shower scene was hilarious and I loved the one flashback scene (just the one flashback, it’s ok people!) where we see Finley and Tanner meet for the first time.
I actually have high hopes that I’ll like the second book in this new series, the first chapter of which can be found at the end of this story.
RATING: 
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