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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing love story! 5 Blue Ribbons from Romance Junkies!, January 18, 2009
New York Times best selling author Lora Leigh continues her Breeds' saga with the story of Del-Rey Delgado, the Alpha of the Coyote breeds and Anya Kobrin, the woman nature made his very own.
Called the Coyote Ghost, Del-Rey Delgado is Alpha to a pack of rescued Coyote breeds who call themselves Team Zero. Fighting in covert operations the world over, the Coyote Ghost and his band of liberated genetically altered breeds have made a name for themselves as one of the top rescue teams available. When Del-Rey gets word that someone from a lab in Russia wants to speak with him, he suspects a trap but allows himself to meet his contact. When Anya Kobrin levels her blue-eyed gaze on him and requests that he rescue five Coyote breed females from a Genetics Council lab, Del-Rey agrees, knowing without a doubt that he will end up betraying her. Throughout the next six years Del-Rey and his men, along with Anya, plot and plan the perilous rescue of the only known female coyotes. At the culmination of the rescue, what Del-Rey believed would happen comes to pass - with two minor twists. Not only did he deceive Anya, but he also kidnapped and kissed her, with disastrous results.
Anya will never trust Del-Rey again. While his name means, "of the King", he is anything but royal. Trusting him with the lives of her friends, Anya never once thought she would be taken against her will. Nor did she ever begin to imagine that a forceful kiss would cause such a disruption of her body as well as her heart. Wanting no part of mating heat or the mating, Anya fights Del-Ray's claim every step of the way. When Del-Rey leaves Anya to become an Enforcer, she finds out exactly how hard it is to run the Coyote base as Del-Rey's Coya. Months later, Del-Rey is back and ready to assume his status as Alpha of the Coyote base. Del-Rey knows Anya is his mate, but he refuses to go through with the formal ceremony claiming her as such. In his mind, he is keeping her safe -- in the minds of his men, she is no longer his mate and therefore no longer the Coya. They could not be more wrong.
Forgiveness and acceptance is the theme in this enigmatic and highly anticipated Breeds' installment. Readers first met Anya and Del-Rey very briefly in Lora Leigh's Ellora's Cave release, Aiden's Charity. At the time, Del-Rey was not sure what was wrong with Anya and readers didn't get to see what happened to her prior to their arrival in the caves that eventually become the Coyote base. COYOTE'S MATE gives the back story of Del-Rey and Anya which I found perfect. I needed to know that Anya and Del-Rey had not been strangers.
Speaking of Del-Rey - this was one stubborn coyote. Black eyes and blond hair. Strong build. Loyal. All of these traits describe Del-Rey. But, enamored and enthralled by his mate are also traits that we see of this Coyote Alpha. Unable to tolerate his Coya being in danger, Del-Rey does the only thing he can to keep her safe - he denies her place as his Coya. He never anticipates the repercussions of such a decision. Coming to his senses quickly, Del-Rey vows to never put her in danger again.
Breathing a happy and totally sappy sigh at the magical ending to COYOTE'S MATE, I didn't want the book to be over. Every time I read a Lora Leigh release I hate for the story to end. COYOTE'S MATE was no different. With passionate love scenes packing enough heat to keep me warm until summer, COYOTE'S MATE is compelling and addictive. I highly recommend this fantastic installment - the Queen of Breeds has done it again!
COYOTE'S MATE releases on February 3, 2009 from Berkley Sensation. Don't miss it!
Natalie S.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Kind of a let down, April 2, 2009
spoiler warning, maybe. I gave it a 3 instead of a 2 because I will (tentatively now) continue reading the series and because it takes guts to go out on a limb and completely break your formula. But if this was the only book in the series I'd read by her, it'd maybe get a 1.
The hottest scene in the book was unfortunately the one that you read at the end of Mercury's War. The rest were ok. That's about it.
There is very little Coyote POV and so DelRay is more frustrating than anything, in fact, he's more a person you want to punch so badly that if he was goodlooking in the book, I don't even remember it. It seemed very plot oriented this time but not much really happened that she couldn't have just written a page summary over in another book regarding. So overly wordy with not enough action. Plot wise or sex wise. Just wordy. VERY wordy. So this review is gonna be wordy too.
Anya's character started out strong and then just kinda seemed to pout the whole book and whine and be a little kid and at the end where she FINAlLY gets an apology, she was like "don't apologize, it's not your fault." Yes, it was. I had just spent over 200 pages reading about how much his fault it really was and then you won't even have enough respect for yourself to say "thank you for realizing that. Now we can move on with our lives and be happy" ?!?!?!? Let a man be a man! Let him apologize on his own and just accept it graciously! How is it that if he says he's right you don't argue with him and you agree with him even while whining in your head about it the whole time (I say whining because she does nothing to change the situation EVER aside from the first scene where she gets seperated) but if he apologizes for being a jerk you essentially tell him that being a jerk with you is ok? That he couldn't help it? Permission granted to keep doing it? Honestly... I'm going to move on. I could rant about that for a while.
I can suspend a lot of disbelief but that was too much. There was no love in the whole book. It was just misery, emotional abuse, and excuses with a couple of (not even good) sex scenes.
It brought to mind the movie "Pursuit of Happiness" where the ENTIRE movie is so horrific and miserable and then you get maybe 3 seconds of happiness at the end. I liked where she (the writer) started going, where love isn't part of the equation in the beginning and how would someone deal with it, but she lost control of her idea and it was horrible. It read like stockholm-syndrome love straight to the end, not like love or respect that any of the other books held.
Please don't say "but it's because the breed is Coyote!" It was just plain bad writing at some points. There was little character development and got far too angsty and miserable the entire book and then got far too happy and perfect in the last few pages. (In the middle/end of the book, it states that Jonas and Hope and all them are sad because they valued Delray and Anya deeply as friends. Funny, that's really the first interaction we've seen the whole book between them that wasn't completely business related! In fact, that's the first personal event seen between all of them!)
That said, it WAS good to see her try something different, experiment with completely different views/outlooks than before, to try a completely different type of character, to try to work on the plot for the main of the book. Unfortunately, the execution was a train wreck, ESPECIAlLY after Mercury's War, which was by far the best book in the berkely breed series. It was like she lost all of her great storytelling abilities and just got sucked to the dark and nasty side of male dominance. Which is fine. It's HER writing and not mine. But I have very low expectations for the next book after reading this, just as I HAD (unfortunately) high expections for this book after Mercury's War.
So yeah, read it if you must, the last chapter sets up the next book interestingly so I guess that might be worth it. If you read all the others, you're gonna read this one anyway. Just please, don't expect much. Just realize that even the fabulous Lora Leigh is not perfect and it was what could have been an awesome experiment gone horribly horribly wrong.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lora Leigh fans won't be disappointed, February 5, 2009
This story is a fantastic addition to a paranormal romance series which is quickly becoming my favorite. I quickly devoured this book in one day and can't wait for the next one.
Each of her books in this series not only highlights a new couple and their romance, but also gives the reader more information about the special abilities of each different kind of breed (i.e., feline, coyote, tiger, lion, etc.). As a reader, I was delighted by the genesis of the new coyote breed capabilities and by the newly, developing coyote breed community.
I eagerly anticipate future coyote breed stories.
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