Unclaimed. Sara Humphreys.

 

Unclaimed. Sara Humphreys.
Arc provided via Netgalley.

Fantasy – shape-shifters and romance – two of my big tick boxes 🙂
This is much like conventional shape shifters in the whole Mate idea, where there’s one predestined mate for everyone. The shape shifters though have a number of differences to what we often see, some can teleport, create things from imagination, speak mind to mind, have healing abilities etc. Some of these we’ve seen in other novels and some are now to the shifters. There’s also fighting factions – purists, who want to get rid of the half breeds, and humans who want to kill all the shifters. Trouble is with past treachery no-one is quite sure who is who – and to be honest at times I had the same problem…..
Given that Tatiana was so anti all things Amoveo she seemed to succumb very quickly – and Dominic, one minute wants his Mate, then as she’s against it so is he, then he shifts back to wanting it – all very confusing along with who was behind the horse sickness and the past problems they ad which still seemed to be active in some ways. It was at this point I did what I should have done before requesting and looked to see if this was part of a series – and it is, book five or so, and I realised if I’d read previous novels I’d have had a far better understanding of the world and the characters in it. My bad! Still, I managed to work out with some back and forth how everyone fitted in and had no clue about how it was all going to pan out. I do like a book that keeps me guessing and Unclaimed certainly did that. Some scorching sex scenes too – and I warmed to Tatiana eventually, she was a good person and I’d just found her absolute abhorrence of all things Amoveo hard to take given that her sister had found her mate and was very happy. I understood her background influence but she’s an adult now and surely the people who made her sister so happy deserved a bit of re thinking?
Some great characters once I understood more about them and their world, – loved the way they had a place to discuss things away from anyone snooping – very mysterious and provided a good answer to the question of how others with same abilities would be able to overhear them. That part was really magical and appealed to me. The fight scenes were pretty realistic, the sex scenes hot…but the overall plot – even though I didn’t guess who was involved – was a bit thin to me. There was lots of talk, some quick action and then it seemed all over.
From the reviews its clearly a series with a strong fan base, and I do love these sort of novels when they run to a series but for me its just a bit too simplistic, I need a bit more depth and darkness. Priced at £3.70 for 320 pages its a step up in price from previous novels – maybe its longer? I’ll check….nope, they’re all similar length. Maybe its a reflection on the series popularity – I’ve noticed this happen with other series, that they get more expensive as they gain readers 😦
Stars: four