Temporary Mates Permanent Cravings review

First-impressions review: based on the free opening chapters (1–3) and the official synopsis. We will update the score once we have read further.

Temporary Mates Permanent Cravings opens with one of the bluntest first lines we have read on CrushRead, and then turns into something more thoughtful than that line suggests: a story about a daughter making a hard deal to protect her mother.

The lunch delivery

Lisa Hartwell brings her father the lasagna her mother spent three hours making and walks in on him with his secretary. On the drive home she finds his phone in her jacket pocket. It unlocks with her mother’s name, which hurts more than anything else. The messages show months of an affair, a divorce lawyer and a realtor. Her father, a pack Beta, is selling the house, and under pack law the male head of household owns it. Her nearly blind mother, a former nurse at the pack hospital, and her seventeen-year-old brother James will end up in the welfare blocks. “Maybe this will teach them some humility,” he writes.

The contract

That night, at a meeting all unmarked females must attend, Alpha Marcus and Luna Catherine announce an alliance with Alpha Cameron of Silver Creek. His mate cannot bear children, and he needs a volunteer to conceive and carry his heir under a one-year contract, then give up the child and go home, for five hundred thousand tokens. Her best friend Sasha calls it being a “paid incubator.” Then her mother’s voice note comes in, crying that she has thirty days to leave the house, and Lisa raises her hand.

Chapter two keeps her decision from feeling easy. Luna Catherine, who Lisa has worked for for three years, spells out the terms in front of everyone, including that conception will be “through natural means.” Brianna, Beta Castillian’s daughter, volunteers as if the job is already hers. At home, Lisa’s mother leans so close to the divorce papers that her nose almost touches them, and James slams his door. These small scenes do a lot of work.

Cameron’s side

Chapter three switches to Cameron, and it is the strongest of the three. His mate Evangeline is gravely ill, on machines, and her wolf is too weak for a pregnancy. Without an heir before the winter session, the Council can force a succession vote, and his rival Matthias is already campaigning. Cameron refuses, then agrees “only once”, and says a cold line that sets up the romance: “I’m not choosing a wife. I’m choosing a womb.” His memory that he and his sister Nadia were born from a similar arrangement adds a nice layer.

What could be better

The crude opening scene is out of step with the more careful chapters that follow and will put some readers off. A few details are muddled (it is not always clear whose pack the volunteers come from), and every chapter title on CrushRead starts with a stray “Bunched around” label. The story is ongoing at 450 chapters. We have also left the reader score off for now: there are only a handful of ratings on CrushRead so far, too few to mean much.

Who should read it

If you like contract-pregnancy werewolf romances with real family stakes, a heroine who chooses with her eyes open, and a hero with a sick mate and a throne to protect, this is one of the more grounded openings in the genre. Expect an emotionally tangled setup rather than a simple love story.