Carole Monday: Mate

Author: Ali Hazelwood
Narrator: Ellie Gossage & Teddy Hamilton

Title: Mate

Series: Bride #2

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Fantasy
Format: Audiobook

Published: October 7, 2025
Where I Got It: Library


Summary: 

Serena Paris is orphaned, pack-less, and one of a kind. Coming forward as the first Human-Were hybrid was supposed to heal a centuries-long rift between species. Instead, it made her a target, prey for the ruthless political machinations between Weres, Vampyres, and Humans. With her enemies closing in on her, she has only one option left if he'll have her.

As Alpha of the Northwest pack, Koen Alexander commands obedience. His authority is so absolute, only a fool would threaten his mate. It doesn't matter if Serena doesn't reciprocate his feelings, nothing will stop him from keeping her safe.

But power-hungry Vampyres and Weres are not the only threats chasing Serena. Sooner or later, her past is bound to catch up with her and Koen might be the only thing standing between her and total annihilation…

Review:

Been meaning to read book 2 for a while now. I enjoyed book 1 so much. But you know how it goes...things get...well...forgotten and put on the back burner. 

Okaaaayyyyy. Here we pick up around-ish where we left off, but now we are following Serena. She is a half-human, half-were. She didn't know it until now. She is the first of her kind, and people either see her as a threat or a way for relations to heal between the species. She wants to be left alone in her cabin, but with her enemies closing in around her...Koen brings her to his pack. 

Awwww I adore Serena sooooo much. I feel so bad for her. She has not had a good time of it in her life, but she is so kind and loving. 

OooooOooo Koen is a rough one, but he will worm his way into your heart, especially after....a certain scene LOL. 

This world is sooo fun. I want to learn more, but it sounds like we are only getting these two books....not even a spin-off! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT!? AUTHOR NOOOOO! I want more. There are some friends I want to see find love. Find happiness. GAH. 

I loved watching the progression of this love story. It is a super, duper slow burn because Koen can't and won't allow her to get close. Rules are rules, baby. No further explanation/spoilers coming from these lips...aka fingers....

The narration was fine. I wasn't crazy about the formatting. It is all in Serena's POVs, but we get like a sentence or two of Koen's POV at the beginning of each chapter. And the male voice reads all the male dialogue. Mmm. Not crazy about it for sure. MORE KOEN PLEASEEEE.

But yes, I enjoyed this, and I want more of this world and these groups of people. I feel like there are sooooooo many stories that could be told. Sadly, there isn't a Book 3 anytime soon or at all. Maybe the author will hear my prayers. 

4 stars from me. It would be 5, but the narration format didn't sit well with me. I read a physical book for book 1, so I have zero idea what they did with that. 

Reading Challenges

- Audiobook #46

- Library Love #27

Visa citerad text

The Killing Time by Elly Griffiths

Series: Ali Dawson (#2)

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Published: February 12, 2026 by Waterstones UK 

Mystery/Crime/From library

No more time travel. Her coworker is stuck in the 1850s. Life goes on.

Ali gets a new cold case and that takes her into contact with a medium. Who says strange things. There is also the fact that she has proof that she will travel back in time again. And then her cat goes missing! Ok, this sounds weird when I write it, but dang I would do anything for my cat too.

Ali is mean to have an affair in the past so will that happen now? Wink wink? Will she ever find her cat? And can the medium really see ghosts as he knows things?

I enjoyed it and I like Ali, she is 40+. Been married 3 times and takes no shit.

Ali Dawson is a police detective who leads a unit that investigates cases so cold her team must travel to the distant past to solve them. But Ali and the team haven't been allowed to time-travel ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London, never to be seen again.

To distract herself from meaningless tasks, Ali decides to look into a present-day case - a series of apparent suicides, all young men who fell to their death from high places. She believes the deaths are linked to a psychic medium called Barry Power, who convinced the boys they could fly. Ali goes to one of Power's shows where he claims to be in contact with Jones.

When Ali notices that evening that her cat, Terry, has gone missing, she decides to go back in time just long enough to prevent Terry from escaping through his open cat flap. A dangerous plan which backfires, and she finds herself once more in Victorian London, where she meets Jones, as well as Power, and the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton with whom Ali has unfinished business from her previous visit to the past . . .

A New Start at the Happily Ever After Bookshop by Emma Bennet

Series: Book 1, Castle Cove

Release date: 08-27-26

Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher: Audible Studios

Narrated by: Clare Corbett

Romance

I was looking at audible freebies and found this one. It was cute and fun and the bookshop drew me in.

Carrie is a single mum and then her aunt asks her to look after her bookshop by the seaside for a month. First she is all no, but then she realises, that she and her kid needs this.

Cute bookshop! A happy kid. A resident bookshop cat. And most of all, a handsome neighbor called Micheal.

Nice narration and a cute book. I enjoyed it

Single mum Carrie Worsley doesn’t need another disappointment — she needs a fresh start. So when she’s offered the chance to run her great-aunt’s romance bookshop in the Cornish seaside town of Castle Cove, she packs up her six-year-old daughter and takes the leap.

Secret beaches. Golden sunsets. And The Happily Ever After Bookshop — a pastel-pink sanctuary filled with stories of second chances. But it’s only temporary.

Until she meets Michael — the quiet, brooding, local bookbinder with kind eyes and an adorably chaotic dog!

Michael isn’t looking for forever. Carrie doesn’t believe in it anymore. But stolen glances turn into slow-burn tension. Friendly coffees become lingering touches. And suddenly the chemistry isn’t just fictional — it’s undeniable.

Between sea-salted evenings, cinnamon-scented mornings, and long afternoons lost among the shelves, Carrie begins to wonder . . .

What if this time, the love story is hers?

Snake-Eater by T.Kingfisher

Narrated by: Elena Rey

Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins

Release date: 12-01-25

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Paranormal

I did not know what to expect from this one, and this was not it. Ha, it was fun.

Selena is running from a relationship. She has anxiety issues, and he is holding her down. So she runs to an aunt in the desert. An aunt who is dead and now she has her house. But there are gods and spirits in the desert. And her aunt seems to have hooked up with one.

To help her she has her dog Copper, her neighbor Grandma, oh she was a hoot. And slowly gaining friendships she did not think she was capable of. Which is what you get from years of trauma by her mother and boyfriend.

There are scary roadrunners and a god called Snake-Eater. Selena is in for more than she bargained for.

I liked it. It took me somewhere I did not know I was going. The narration was great too. A good experience

With only a few dollars to her name and her beloved dog Copper by her side, Selena flees her past in the city to claim her late aunt’s house in the desert town of Quartz Creek. The scorpions and spiders are better than what she left behind.

Because in Quartz Creek, there’s a strange beauty to everything, from the landscape to new friends, and more blue sky than Selena’s ever seen. But something lurks beneath the surface. Like the desert gods and spirits lingering outside Selena’s house at night, keeping watch. Mostly benevolent, says her neighbor Grandma Billy. That doesn’t ease the prickly sense that one of them watches too closely and wants something from Selena she can’t begin to imagine. And when Selena’s search for answers leads her to journal entries that her aunt left behind, she discovers a sinister truth about her new It’s the haunting grounds of an ancient god known simply as “Snake-Eater,” who her late aunt made a promise to that remains unfulfilled.

Snake-Eater has taken a liking to Selena, an obsession of sorts that turns sinister. And now that Selena is the new owner of his home, he’s hell-bent on collecting everything he’s owed.