Delighted Reader

Her Perfect Mate by Paige Tyler 
Series: X-Ops, book #1 
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Shifters 
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 
Published on May 6, 2014 
Pages: 352 
Format: eARC 
Amazon | B&N | Goodreads
Rating:  

Her Perfect Mate by Paige Tyler is a new series about X-Ops heros and heroines with a twist on paranormal shifters. Twist you ask? Well, usually a shifter (an asset) is paired with a human. The human is mostly in charge of protecting the shifter, but do help out on missions and must work as a team. The shifter is all about the mission. While the two should be comfortable with each other, they are expected not to involve themselves in romancing each other.

When Special Forces Captain Landon Donovan is pulled at the peak of a mission, he can’t be anything but a little upset. To be sent home to report to a unit he has never heard of seems like a demotion or reprimand at best. To work for the Department of Covert Affairs isn’t his dream job. So when he see’s his new partner but can’t really beat her at fighting, he becomes a little intrigued. How could this feminine little thing take him on and be an agent?

Feline shifter Ivy Halliwell doesn’t want a new partner. Her first partner felt like they should have sex and almost rapes her. Her second partner doesn’t respect her or any shifter and gets himself killed. Not feeling any love from that corner, she doesn’t want to waste her time on a partner’s IQ is lower than his body size. When Landon tries to beat her in a wrestling match, she easily anticipates his every move.

From the beginning Landon takes on Ivy’s shifting abilities like it is nothing new. Not that he didn’t have questions, it just settled easily with him and he didn’t blow it out of proportion. He played slight tricks or adorable flirting with her like bringing her a ball of yarn at one meeting. It all just came way to easy to him. Not that I wanted him to be an ass about it, but when the world has no knowledge of the paranormal, you think they would question it more. Landon though does recognize that her abilities improve the teams ability to their job, which is where I think he centered his reaction to the news.

During training, you see their chemistry develop and grow. When a jealous shifter takes on Landon, he doesn’t back down, nor does he give quarter. We meet several other operatives in the DCA that allow us to see future stories in this believable world.

With a possible dirty higher up, an outside forces threatening the DCA, the action is fast and furious. Landon’s special forces team get involved and the secret is out between them on what Ivy can do. All of them find themselves slightly in lust with Ivy. But better allies cannot be found.

There were two things that kind of bugged me about the plot though. One, Ivy has feline abilities, but doesn’t totally shift into anything. She can get her claws out, use her night vision, hear better, but she never fully shifts into anything. This stumped me for most of the book as I kept expecting her to shift. The second thing that bugged me is Ivy seemed to mess up a lot and go with her instinct or gut which really wasn’t so good. She ended up in a few messes that Landon had to save her from. I was hoping for more of a strong heroine who knew when to stand down or do the right thing.

This story suffered a little from the first book syndrome of introducing a new world and have to tell us everything so we can move on in the series. It wasn’t totally bad, but I suspect each book after this one will get better. I ended up adoring Landon and Ivy and can’t wait to meet more characters in this new world the author as created.