this one was waaaaaaay better. ( )

DNF’d this at Ch. 12 of 29 with 4 hrs and 13 min remaining.

A Taste for a Mate is book one in the Redwood Pack series by Carrie Ann Ryan.

The prologue is very violent and shocking. The way the wolves change a human is brutal. I don’t know why the fates would give them a human mate, if this is what they have to go through, and their is no guarantee they will survive. And, last their is an overwhelming amount of violence against women in this book, which then provides the men with a lot of anguish. I didn’t care for all the violence.

As for the romance. It never felt like any type of romance. This might be classified as an insta-love storyline, but I never felt any type of insta anything. I couldn’t believe that Willow falls in love with Jasper after speaking to him once. It takes humans longer to come around. Also I felt that Willow gave in too easily to everything she was learning and seeing. She accepts it all with out any backward glance. I just couldn’t believe this.

I disliked Willows thought process. It was over the top and annoying. At one point she thinks Jasper doesn’t want her. She got this idea in her head and instead of talking or asking him how or what he feels she keeps thinking this. Then we have them sleeping together; before they even go on one date. At this point Willow still has this weird idea in her head that he doesn’t want her, but the author has them sleeping together. This doesn’t work for me.

Everything in A Taste for a Mate felt rushed. Things just come at you left and right and their is no time to process. I would have liked things to be drawn out and developed more.

Audio: A Taste for a Mate is narrated by Gregory Salinas. This is my first experience with him as a narrator. I unfortunately didn’t care for his narration. The female characters all sounded a little breathy and this wasn’t when they where in the mood, it was all the time. It was exasperating. As for the male voices; Salinas nailed them and I liked the voices for each male introduced.

A Taste for a Mate was not the book for me. If the blurb intrigues you, I urge you to give it a shot. Just because it did not work for me does not mean it won’t for you.

No. The author can spell, at least (well, I didn't run across any errors in the first chapter and a bit), but she's a little weak on which words to use. I spent a great deal of mental effort trying to figure out what she was trying to say, in almost every sentence. The prologue has a strong focus on sex (not romance, sex) and cruelty/torture - I figured, these were the bad guys, when she got into the real story it would be better. In the first couple pages of the first chapter, there are extended double entendres and several single entendres...I just couldn't take it. Not going to bother to try to read it, or anything else by her (barring some spectacular reviews that specifically say she's got a better handle on the English language, and some notion of romance). ( )

The first book in the Redwood Pack series was short but pretty good still but oh my gosh was this book great! Much, much, much more about the pack and the werewolf hierarchy was explained this time. Jasper finds a potential mate in Willow whose bakery he visits everyday without really talking to her. When he finally decides to ask her out she gets kidnapped by a rival wolf pack (that is flat out evil). This is just the beginning for them! Yes plenty of hot sex scenes but also lots of action, some humor, and interesting werewolf information about the Redwood Pack. A really great read! ( )

Check out my review, an excerpt, and two teasers on my blog: http://frommetoyouvideophoto.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-tour-feasted-on-taste-for... ( )