Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Darin
SERIES: Whitedell Pride #18
AUTHOR: Catherine Lievens
PUBLISHER: Extasy Books
LENGTH: 126 Pages
RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
BLURB:
Darin hasn’t actively been looking for his mate, even though he wants nothing more than to meet him. He’s lonely and he works too much, so he’s been hoping for a miracle—for his mate to walk into his bakery. It hasn’t worked yet, but then a man walks into the mansion’s kitchen and declares he’s Darin’s mate, and Darin gets the miracle he’s been waiting for.
Ira has known Darin was his mate for a few months, but he’s been burned by people who should’ve loved him before, so he took his time before deciding to talk to him. Now that he knows Darin won’t hurt him, he takes advantage of a trip to Whitedell to finally properly meet his mate.
Darin and Ira don’t wait to mate, even though they know their families might not be happy about it. But what their families think isn’t their only problem, and when the hunters attack again, Ira will need to fight for his mate and his friends.
REVIEW:
This was another cute addition to the Whitedell Pride series.
Ira is a rather untrusting snake shifter who has been keeping an eye on Darin for the last few months, ever since discovering that the man is his mate. He’s bided his time, trying to decide if he can trust Darin, finding any excuse to visit the Whitedell Pride mansion, and he’s finally ready to make his move.
Darin is more than ready to meet his mate, but the trouble is he just doesn’t have the time to go out looking. Between working in his bakery and spending more time practicing his cupcake recipes, he’s kind of hoping that his mate is the one to do the finding. Which he does.
What I particularly loved about this story was the lack of back and forth between the two man characters. They’re both shifters, so they know how this mate business works. Before they even bother spending time to get to know each other they’re both ready and raring to mate. They know that they have the rest of their lives to learn about the other, so why muck about?
Of course there had to be some sort of conflict in the story, and while we still have the ongoing drama of the hunters, much of the conflict here came from Ira and Darin’s families. Ira’s family are elitist snakes that believe in purity of the species and Darin’s family are prey animals who are terrified of being around predators. They’re fairly certain that Ira is going to end up eating their son.
Ira’s skill at half shifting was pretty cool, and I hope we see more of that in coming stories. I was so glad that he had the opportunity to get fangy with the bad guys.
I was definitely hoping though, that this would be the book where Bradley was caught as the Pride’s traitor. I figured if anyone would suspect him then it would be the always suspicious Ira.
But, more important than any other aspect of this story – yes, more important than the romance or the time spent with the pride – was the ridiculously delicious sounding cupcakes that Darin created. I now have a craving that will not be ignored. This week I need to find some similar recipes and create some of his cakes. (Well, ok. I might be planning to do that but I’ll probably just swing past a bakery and save myself any baking tantrums.)
The next book in the series is Adan, one character that I’m sure many Whitedell fans have been hanging out for. And once again, don’t attempt to read this series out of order.
RATING: 
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