Reviewed by Marieke
TITLE: The Vampire King’s Mate
SERIES: The Melrose Coven #1
AUTHOR: Toby Aden
PUBLISHER: Siren-Bookstrand, Inc.
LENGTH: 115 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 3rd, 2016
BLURB:
In the midst of a war between vampires and werewolves that’s been waged for centuries, King Kevyan Melrose lands an unexpected mate. Dorian Keller, an outrageous, openly gay man, finds himself in a world where fiction is fact. Having the most gorgeous man he’s ever met tell him they are mated throws him for a loop, but hearing the man claim to be a vampire and learning that that he himself is a werewolf blows his mind and sends him running for the hills. But with the evidence put right in front of him, he is left with no choice but to adjust his thinking… especially since turning furry has become his new norm.
REVIEW:
King Kevyan is trying to stop the war between vampires and werewolves. His councilmembers aren’t particularly willing though, so Kevyan has to walk the fine line between convincing them and forcing them. Just when he’s in a meeting about this, his security comes running in announcing they found an unconscious werewolf on their territory.
They bring the wolf in the house and have a doctor examine him, and it turns out he’s poisoned after being tortured. Somehow Kevyan has the strangest desire to want the wolf to get better. Then the wolf wakes up and calls Kevyan ‘Mate’. The doctor thinks that if he truly is Kevyan’s mate, claiming him might cure him.
The direct coven members are absolutely delighted with Dorian being Kevyan’s mate. Dorian possesses some kind of charm that makes almost everyone like him, which comes in handy as a King’s consort.
Dorian fits in well and when he goes out with Cristiana (Kevyan’s sister) and some others he finds an orphan and discovers how they treat the children in the orphanage. He also finds out he has some powers he hadn’t had before his mating, and they come in quite handy in the peace talks. His werewolf family isn’t ready to give him up yet, and this could ruin everything.
My mother always told me; ‘If you can’t say anything nice, then you better not say anything at all.” Seeing as I have to review this book, I’ll have to be as positive as I can…
The story idea is okay, Dorian’s character is even kind of nice. But that’s where it ends. The whole book is interlaced with repeated word use, the sentences read as if someone has a lot of things they want to say and want to get it all out as fast and complete as possible, which makes it boring and hard to get into. The editing is horrible, which surprised me because Siren is not a small publisher. With self-pub I’m kinda forgiving, but now not so much.
The story itself wasn’t really doing it for me. It was like the author took every vampire and werewolf story ever written and mashed them together, changing the names and picked a few characteristics he liked best. It makes for a chaotic and unrealistic read. Of course it’s paranormal so it’s always unrealistic but I mean it in a different way this time. The characters feel unrealistic and the situation gets resolved in weird ways that just feel wrong.
But what bothered me the most, is all the head hopping. Oh my god, it goes on and on and on. Not just per chapter or per paragraph, no it’s so completely random. How did the editors not change that? I wanted to give this book a one heart but to be fair, it wasn’t entirely bad. There was like a tiny portion that made me think we were getting on the right track….but then it all crashed and burned again. Too bad, because I love both vampire and werewolf stories.
RATING: 
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