Book Review: The Mating, The Keeping, The Finding by Nicky Charles

I really love to read -- so for me one of the best things about the Nook is the ability to download free books! You can find some on the B&N website as well as other sites such as SmashWords. My genre of choice is mystery novels; and when I find an author I like, I tend to buy (or sometimes borrow) as many books as I can find by that author. What I've found with e-books, however, is that if I want to take advantage of the books being offered free, I need to expand out to other genres. So it was with some trepidation that I decided to try the werewolf series (The Mating, The Keeping and the The Finding) by Nicky Charles. These books are available for free both at SmashWords and (for the time being at least) at Barnes&Noble. I would definitely recommend them!

Unlike some free e-books, these are full-sized novels - the page count on The Mating is 251, The Keeping is 347 and The Finding is a whopping 1120! While the later books can be read and understood independent of the earlier ones, I read them in order and would recommend that. They can probably loosely be described as love stories in that each book focuses on a couple and how that couple meets and eventually gets together - although at over a thousand pages, the third book has quite a few sub-plots interwoven. The whole series hangs together really well in that minor characters in an earlier book become the main characters of a later book. Conversely, we also get glimpses of how the relationships from the earlier books are evolving as these characters become minor characters in the later books.

Without delving into the actual story lines, I would just like to say that in general I found the books to be very well-written, easy to follow and generally a fast and enjoyable read! Perhaps they are a little predictable in that they follow the basic boy meets girl, boy and girl overcome obstacle(s), boy and girl get together in the end. But with all the stress, turmoil and problems of real-life, a book with a feel-good story and happy ending is often just what I want!

My bottom line is give these books a try. Even if you are not into the whole werewolf fantasy thing, you might find that you really enjoy this series!