Heart Mate

Katzman #4

by Stormy Glenn

[Siren Classic Erotic Alternative Futuristic Romance, M/M] Hassan Al'Abdalha has seen his brother, Bogden, find his mate, and now his Shaikh has decided that it's his turn. Hassan was married once before and he never wants to experience that again. It was a dismal experience that left him miserable by the time his wife passed away. So Hassan comes up with a plan. He asks his brother to find him a mate like his own, a bruter, with the intention of it being a contract in name only. But fate has a funny way of messing with people's lives. The bruter that he goes to the capitol to claim turns out to be Hassan's fated mate. Rayne is also a man on the run and he runs right into Hassan's arms. If they can keep from fighting their mating, they might actually find out that they want the same things out of life—each other. Unfortunately, there are those that don't want them to find happiness together, and being in pridehome in the middle of the desert surrounded by family and warriors won't stop them from getting what they want. ** A Siren Erotic Romance

Genres: M M Romance, Paranormal, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy, M M Paranormal, Futuristic

182 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 10, 2011

About the author

About Me
I believes the only thing sexier than a man in cowboy boots is two, or three men in cowboy boots. I also believes in love at first sight, soul mates, true love, and happy endings.

I live in the great Northwest region of the USA, with my gorgeous husband and soul mate, two boxer/collie puppies, one old biddy cats, and three fish. When I'm not being a mother to my six teenagers or cleaning up after my two 70 pound lap puppies, you can usually find me cuddled in bed with a book in my hand and a puppy in my lap. Or on my laptop, creating the next sexy man for one of my stories.

I welcomes comments from readers, so drop me a line. stormyglenn@hotmail.com

What do I do ?
I'm a writer of erotic, paranormal, werewolf, futuristic, contemporary, gay, and Ménage a Trois romances. I'm currently published with Siren Publishing, Torquere Press, and Noble Ellora's Cave.

Reviews

[Katrina Passick Lumsden · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not really sure Wtf happened here. Anyone who's seen my critiques of Glenn's other works knows that, while I abhor her writing, her imagination keeps me reading. Her stories are unique enough that I've been able to overlook plot holes, bad grammar, language ignorance, stereotyping, and even some cut and paste jobs in her sex scenes, but this? If this had been my introduction to Glenn's work, I never would have touched another of her stories. Because this is truly awful. The characters are completely useless, the story pointless. Hassan is bipolar or something. I don't even know, dude's a nut bag. And Rayne is just... A stereotypically "abused woman" with a penis.

Even Bogden's characterization... What the shit was that?

And the suspense is just... Why did she even bother trying to create suspense?

Maybe Stormy Glenn was recovering from surgery and on heavy painkillers when she wrote this. Whatever the case, just steer clear of this one unless you want to be utterly confused and/or pissed off. Especially if you enjoyed the other Katzman stories. This shouldn't have been allowed.

[Noughty · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written while reading. A little rambling :D

In short. Lots of boring sex scenes. Main complain is about characters (not only main characters). They act out of character, do 180 without any reason/ explanations. Don't bother creating a picture of a character since it will be ruined. Rayne is spineless, Hassan belongs in a mental institution.

I completely don't get Hassan. He seems like a complete jerk (as his all family especially Bogden) who acts nice only when he wants to get laid - which he wants often. He doesn't want to get married again, he finds out Rayne is his mate and is happy about it. When for some reason he wants to keep distance (?). When he goes around being all romantic, when being an ass (?). Like, could you make up your mind for once!

Rayne is completely spineless. Sure, treated like dirt by his mate and his family and he just rolls over and takes it. He even decides to be the best he can be to make it work. It's like a wife beaten by a husband goes around being the perfect wife since it has to be her fault she got beaten. It soooo ruined it for me. I hate characters without any backbone. How can he love Hassan is beyond me. I guess love is really blind. All they do/did together is have plenty of sex and all other time he is ignored or treated as a breeding machine. He's like some slave/ servant in their eyes.

Characters make 180 without any explanation. Again I have to stress that I don't get Hassan. He needs to have his head checked. Urik also does a 180. Complete ass apparently can act all cute and nice with no explanation.

Again Rayne is beyond spineless. What would Hassan need to do for Rayne to actually kick him out of the bed? Treated like a thing, completely ignored to the point of not giving food (how caring to let your mate starve), almost getting r*ped apparently means nothing. Sure Hassan is so "lovable"...

Bogden's 180 is explained. Apparently, it is normal to insult your brother's mate on first meeting (and continue it for days/weeks) just to see if he's a good mate. No idea, how it shows it.

And again, Rayne is the perfect mate and Hassan is a complete ass. How can it be that Rayne is incapable of getting mad for more than 5 seconds? His emotions are only on one spectrum - all nice, lovable, sweet to rot your teeth. Evolution should kill him. I actually hate Rayne more than Hassan. That tells a lot since I can't repeat enough times how I don't get Hassan. He loves/hates/doesn't care about Rayne? Make up your mind, please. 79% of the book and he still is the most bipolar character I have seen. And I read a book with a character who actually was bipolar - he made more sense!

[pbj · Rating 2 out of 5]

As Bubbles..Dane would say - What an Assface.

Stormy Glenn is normally a good go to fluffernutter kind of an author for me - sweet and silly, with an artificial aftertaste, but generally unobjectionable. This book just makes absolutely no sense.

Is Hassan bi-polar? Does he have an evil twin? I have no idea of what happened in this book other than all of the 'good guys' being total Assfaces.

I would have given it one star, but I save those for 'so angry I threw it across the room' books. This was just utter tripe.

[Maya · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 Stars

I have enjoyed this series very much, until now. I read the other reviews and thought to myself "It can't possibly be THAT bad." Well, I was wrong. Major hot and cold within the same chapter, sometimes within the same paragraph. Bipolar is the best description of Hassan's behavior and by the end of the book I couldn't stand any of them and was glad it was over.

[Gaa-chan · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 star I may have to create a new GR shelf... 'mentally/emotionally unstable protags'...

[Serena Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this fourth volume of the series deepened my understanding of the Katzman society, I must admit that I missed the emotional intensity between the main characters and the sheer 'otherworldliness' of the first three books. A few of the earlier characters were mentioned again, but they were not really involved in the story.

Rayne is a physically abused and emotionally starving man, who has suffered his stepmother's and her new partner's son's taunting for years. As a brüter, he knows that he has to accept someone's contract if he wants to get out (a horrible situation to start with); and the man in whose hands he places his life isn't much better than his previous abusers. I admired how Rayne kept trying, but wouldn't wish his fate on my worst enemy. His motivation is clearly survival, his fondest hope is to be loved by his mate.

Hassan is an idiot, to put it mildly. I have no idea what he was thinking, despite the fact that we get to see large parts of the story through his eyes. Very hot and cold, he battles the demons from his past, but that does not excuse how he treats Rayne. He somewhat redeems himself by the end, but, even though all ends well, I didn't find it very satisfying. I just didn't understand what was going on with this man.

If you like the rest of the series, be ready for a somewhat different story. If you are looking for mystery and adventure, you will find that here, and if you like being left a little bit in the dark about one of the characters' emotions, you may enjoy reading this story.

[Ter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked this series, And was really looking forward to this one...
But this one has to be my least fav. one.
Hassan was an ass thru out the whole thing.
Hassan was just too back and forth/split personality for me. Poor Rayne never knew what Hassan was going to show up, that spells U-L-C-E-R....
I fell bad for Rayne he went from physical abuse (at home) to mental abuse (in new home) with his mate and his family.
And I would have thought that he and Anjali (from bk 3) would have had scenes together and become friends, since they are both from the same planet. But we didn't see them talk at all, in fact when Rayne met Hassen's family he didn't even meet him. And Bogden was an ass then and later, but his explanation later didn't make sense and was really weak.
Also if Rayne's duties as mate of "captain of the guard" was to take care of the whole damn house/castle -everything and help town people out.. What the hell does Anjali do as his duties since his mate is the leader??

Unfortunately for me this one was not as good as the others in the series. :(

[Karel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should be the textbook for Bipolar studies in any self-respecting institute that teaches psychology.

Seriously.

Characters that make a return from the previous books get a complete makeover and act like total assholes. Then they give flimsy excuses for their asshole behaviour such as 'I did it for the lulz' and 'sry'.

Then there's Hassan, who takes the Asshole Award of the year. One minute he treats Rayne like shit and then the next minute he's all seductive and O baby about things.

Wait, that's not bipolar is it?

No, he's just straight out using Rayne like idk, a dildo or something.

Books with jerk characters usually start redeeming themselves halfway across the book. This one? Never. He's an asshole all the way through the book except for the last 1% right before they said AND THEY LIVED HEA.

I would start it on Rayne too, but I didn't think an invertebrate is worth my time.

[Kinny · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the first three books! This one was just terrible. Hassan and his brothers (yes Bogden especially) were abusive asshats! They knew Rayne was abused he told Hassan. Why then did they treat him like a servant and verbally abuse him for the sake of a 'test' ? What creeps to starve Rayne and expect him to serve them. Geez! Did Stormy hire a ghost writer for this? Or was her computer hacked and story sabotaged!? Because it sure looks as if someone wants Stormy to tank big time. I can't believe I wasted 7 dollars in this drivel...

[Honey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to wonder what Stormy Glenn was trying to accomplish with this book. It was terrible. The way Hassan treated Rayne was absolutely atrocious. She did something similar in Pretty Baby. She turned previous characters, namely Bogden, into someone who was cruel and hurtful with very weak reasons. Though I read this book well over a year ago I still can't wrap my mind around it.

[Sair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would have been an easy going 3 stars if I didn't feel that the personalities of the two main characters weren't so fluctuating. They were supposed to be uncertain about how to behave and interact, but they came across as a bit weak. There were a lot of good features to the story, the world was well drawn and the premise was consistent with the charm of the series.
I was a wee bit disappointed.

[Sucajo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed all the other books in this series but I felt like this one was giving me whiplash. Hassan's behaviour was incredibly erratic and largely unexplained. Rayne really started to annoy me as one minute he would be completely devastated by something that Hassan had said or done and then the next minute he was quite happily having sex with him. Rayne never seemed to stand up for himself or complain about the way Hassan acted towards him. The whole book was really unsatisfying for me.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hassan is basically a psycho. His mood swings and personality changes are marginally qualified for being one. When he is happy, he's the most sweet guy for Ryane, but a moment later, for some reason, turns into an abusive(emotionally and a bit physically) spouse. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out the MCs..

[Zoé · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to agree with the other reviews for this book, it was all over the place.

[Kendra Patterson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible story and terrible execution of said story.

[Phaney]

This was really quite awful.

More retcon on how things work. It is extremely confusing when names are re-used (such as Trajan’s last name for this round’s villain – particularly when Saris uses said name). I mean, why?
In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s vital to read this as an entirely unconnected, fresh story. Forget everything. The inconsistencies in regards to earlier volumes and to the established history are staggering, confusing and mind-blowing.

But keeping an open mind may not be enough.
I really don’t get Hassan. He is a jerk and a complete head case. This is a lot worse than in book three (although of the same ilk). The way he speaks to Rayne and treats him is entirely disconnected from the way he thinks of him. (And not in a clever, justified, character-driven way.) There certainly is no affection or even respect lost. “I think you’ll do.” Seriously?

Rayne, on the other hand, is a confused, naive woman down to his toes.

The sex reads like pure hetero sex – of a particular old-fashioned kind where only the man is active and truly involved and the woman remains nothing but a vessel for his, er, passion.

Okay, really. All right. This was not written by the author of book one and two. There’s no way. It’s the author’s evil twin striking again, isn’t it? Must be.
We get idiot characters, bumbling about amidst doubtful and lifeless storytelling. The prose is wildly purple – and awful at that. Nothing makes any sense.
The most I can say is that I get this insistent vibe of the worst type of category romances from way back. Which ironically works with the (now) ongoing sheikh theme. Jeez.

Side characters? Interaction? Grounding? Forget it. When they finally do appear, previous characters are assassinated (not literally) in the worst way to provide Rayne’s Cinderella plot. Jesus. I hate this book.

And I want to slap the hell out of Hassan. Gah. Is there anyone in existence who finds a guy like him attractive? Anyone at all?

It’s like someone wanted to write a very specific kind of trashy category romance from the nineties or slightly later and just crammed the elements into this series with no regard for anything at all. On top of that the result even fails at that goal.

This is page 81 of 140. I give up.
I tend to give up on a book maybe twice in three years. Maybe two or three in a thousand. And I am sad because this is a series and there’s one more book. Just… Dammit, there is no joy for me in this book, nothing whatsoever that appeals to me even remotely.
G’bye.

[Mirella · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been one of the best of the series. Seriously, I feel so sad that it wasn't.

It started great, filled with angst and dreams of a better future. The first meeting was adorable, and everything was going great, until they started their trip back to Hassam's home.

Hassam seemed to be a nice guy, sexy and with a sense of humor, but then during the trip back, it started to seem as if Hassam was bipolar or something. At one moment everything was roses, then, five seconds later, out of nowhere, he would be moody or even angry for NO REASON! What continued to happend almost until the end.

There was also moments when we would be sarcastic with Rayne, cruel even, again for no reason. That really irritated me. It made me so angry and frustrated, because this could have been a awesome story, but it never fulfilled its promise.

Another thing, that I guess I have to mention, was the huge amount of sex in this story. In the other three of this series, there wasn't this much sex, and I was finding great that there wasn't. But in this one? We had sex, sex, sex, and sex again ON TOP OF A CAMEL! Ok, nothing against sex scenes of top of camels or anything, but this particular scene, started out of nowhere, like many other later on in the story.

So I guess my major problem with Heart Mate was Hassam, who ended up becoming a bipolar sex maniac kind of guy to me :/

[Manee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the storyline and the slightly originality of the storyline, as well as the very creative ideas about planets and such. I find it a problem at Hassen seems like a desert tribe/middle Eastern culture based character (him and his people) and yet most of the things I imagine of him is very English. The character description was vague and it wasn't up into more than half way through the book that I actually got the more accurate visualization that Rayne had long hair. The sex smut was lacking, but the romance sure was not. In some ways I think this combo works pretty well (personally). The writing could be polished a little more so it doesn't feel like I'm reading high school Creative Writing work, but that's just me and I hope no one considers that too harsh a review on my end.
I think my greatest problem was that the character personality and traits was very bland. Rayne could easily be switched from a "he" to a "she" and no one would know the difference. The mentioning that he might just be a little less manly or more female like would have helped. In the end I had to read through this wondering when I see the slightly more male (or testosterone-induced) acts from Rayne.

[Violeta]

I didnt much liked this book. And it might be just me, but I think it would make a better sense if an author is publishing a serie continously...without big breacks in between, or so many other books. It might help on them not loosing touch with the characters or with the story, the feeling of the place. I know I very much liked Bogden in the previous book, and now i came to hate him and I cant say that I like any of the other characters in this book...there are to many holes in the story. And the testament story was just too much. Rayne ran with different papers from the family home, one of them the testament...he still didnt found out he was the big winner, or that his mate could take care of his financial situation? what about what he heard behind the doors, before he ran? And i still dont know if he got the money...I stress on it because Hassan insisted soooooo many times on how poor he is...they could have used whatever Rayne inherited...

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now, I like this series, I really do. But I had some big problems with this book, mainly in the way Rayne is treated. His mate treats him like crap and he just forgives him right then and there. If I were Rayne I would have left his butt and he would have to do some major begging for forgiveness. Instead, Rayne's mate acts like a jerk for a majority of the book and never really begs for forgiveness which he needs to. I love the other books in this series, but this one left a bad taste in my mouth. Rayne does so much for his mate and gets treated like crap in return. Not okay, definitely not okay. I think Ms. Glenn could have done a much better job on this one.

[Maxnavarro · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not finished, imagine how bad this is. I rate with 1 star because there are no negatives stars, otherwise...

Really sorry I did not check your reviews first, my friends: I agree with everything, it is a sort of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers but version psico.

What a waste of paper and time. This author lost me for life, and the publisher is now in my "suspicious" list.

How can you write or publish something so psicothic, incoherent, terrible and absurd following an otherwise not so bad series?

Until I receive official confirmation she/they were abducted by aliens while writing this, I will avoid both like the pest.

[adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

typical stormy glenn romance. nothing fantastic, nothing so bad it can't be finished. what is typical stormy glenn? imagine a shorter harlequin romance but with no t&a (see, i was going to write no surprise pregnancies, but... yeah.).

laziness dictates i will use this as my template for all books by the following authors unless a book is remarkably good/bad :
stormy glenn
lynn hagen
scarlet hyacinth
joyee flynn
carol lynne
gabrielle evans

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was highly disappointing. I don't even understand how this is related to the rest in the series. I thought it was their honor to cherish their mates, not verbally abuse them. What happened to Hassan's brother that he would say a brüter was nothing but a brood mare? Hello? Isn't he mated to one? It's like the writer forgot every character she created. Bizarre as Hell to read. She may have just killed the series for me.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars ~ I honestly don’t think I’ve ever given a Stormy Glenn book this low of a rating, and had I read this book back when I read the first three in the series I’m sure my rating would be higher. Unfortunately, I just can’t. The level of misogyny represented by Hassan and sheer assholeness is out of this world and I was terribly disappointed.

I may never reread those first 3 books since my opinion now might just be gravely different from what it was originally.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts were really cute and enjoyable but I was confused ALOT one min things were fine the next they were mad about something. Also at the end when his step family turned up - how did they get there? Where did they get sent? Was so weird and this was the most dissatisfying of an otherwise amazingly fun series.

[Sandra Ramirez · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can honestly say I very much disliked this book. Hassan was an a-hole 90% of the time. I loved Rayne and he deserved better than being stuck with Hassan. I am disappointment with this book, I looked forward after a finished reading Pride Mate, but I just had to make myself finish the darn book. Don't even get me started with the price of it, that makes me even more mad.

[Nikko · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good story but not as gd as the rest.. I don't like the way Hassan treated his mate.. Really don't like it and it wasn't until Rayne wanted to give birth then he expressed the three words.. Very insensitive but its ok but dun tink I will re read it like the rest of the books..

[Raquel · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 stars

Ok... I've liked this series so far, but this one... what about Hassan? Has he bipolar disorder or what? At times he's like "come on, let's have hot monkey sex" and then giving Rayne the super cold shoulder... I'm still stunned, honestly.

[Kallunnah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible beyond belief. Really. I wanted to give it more chances but the ridiculousness of and the needless cruelty in terms of storyline was just too much. I really hope this was some kind of a baaad day when SG wrote it and a mishap when the publisher approved it.

[Lynx · Rating 3 out of 5]

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