Trusted Bond (book) by Mary Calmes

Trusted Bond is m/m paranormal romance, the second book in Calmes' Change of Heart series. It's published by Dreamspinner Press.

This review contains spoilers.

Synopsis:

Jin is worried that Logan only loves him because of his reah pheromones and the mate bond they share. Logan is upset that Jin still doesn't trust him and is more inclined to turn to Crane (Jin's best friend) rather than him when he's in trouble. Things come to a head when Jin is almost raped by a werepanther from another tribe, and Jin tries to hide what happened to keep Logan from killing the werepanther on his behalf.

While Jin and Logan are still working through their relationship issues, circumstances result in Jin being kidnapped and transported to Sobek, the secret werepanther capital. As he desperately tries to get back to his mate, his powers increase and go out of control.

Review:

After I finished this book, I spent some time trying to list what I liked about it. The best I could come up with was that it was a relatively quick read and  that Jin and Crane were nice together and would probably make a good couple if Crane weren't heterosexual (not that that's stopped Calmes from pairing up characters before). Unfortunately, the book's actual couple was Jin and Logan.

I liked the first book in this series, Change of Heart. It had lots of problems and wasn't really very good, but it was fun, and I enjoyed it enough to reread it. I wasn't expecting more than that from Trusted Bond and was actually looking forward to a few hours of guilty pleasure fun, but I didn't even get that much. Trusted Bond had all of Change of Heart's issues and then some.

Change of Heart (book) by Mary Calmes

This is actually considerably cheaper to get as an e-book, but I've got the paperback version.

Although the cover makes it clear that this is m/m romance (the butt-grabbing of Shirtless Guy couldn't make it more obvious), it doesn't tell you much else. For those who'd like to know, this is a paranormal romance in a contemporary setting. The main characters are werepanthers.

Synopsis:

Jin Rayne, a werepanther, hasn't had a proper home since his tribe kicked him out for being both gay and a reah (very rare, the lifemate of a semel/tribe leader - Jin is the only male reah known to exist). Jin's best friend, Crane, chose to leave the tribe with him, so now the two of them travel from one place to the next. Although Crane would like to settle down and become part of a new tribe, Jin is afraid to, afraid that he'll possibly end up mated to a semel who won't want to have anything to do with a male mate.

Once the semels in the area find out there's an unmated reah in their midst, every single one of them wants to meet him face-to-face, to see if he's their mate. In spite of himself, Jin finds himself drawn to one particular semel, Logan. Even if Logan accepts him as his mate, however, will his tribe be able to accept a reah who can't possibly give their semel children?

Commentary:

Change of Heart is best for readers who enjoy or at least can tolerate Gay For You, paranormal romance that features the soulmate trope, and m/m romance that seems meant for those who'd just like to read about two hot guys who have the hots for each other (meaning, I'm guessing that those looking for realism would probably be disappointed).

This book was the very first m/m romance novel I ever read (unless you count Mercedes Lackey's The Last Herald Mage books – I don't, because, while they have strong romantic elements, I consider them to be more in the fantasy genre). I picked it precisely because I do like paranormal romance that features the soulmate trope. Whenever people start complaining about the soulmate trope on my favorite romance blogs, I can't resist jumping in to defend it, even though I sometimes start to feel like I'm the only one who still likes it.

Getting back on track: I have now read this book two or three times. Trying to say how I feel about it overall is...tough. On the one hand, I consider this book to be really flawed in a lot of ways. On the other hand, Calmes hit on enough of my favorite romance tropes that I was willing to put up with the flaws.