An Arobi pack needs a queen. It is instinctual, something that they yearn for until they finally find a female to complete their family. Exeri’s pack is no different, despite the fact that they’ve chosen to live far away from the rest of their kind. Although their post on Antari Minor is one filled with dangerous predators and unlawfulness that could only be found on a planet at the edge of … federation space, they will use any means at their disposal to get their queen—even if that means making a bargain with a lone Edoka to use his accounts to order a bride from the Mate Index. When she arrives, Hayley is everything that they could ask for in a mate, but there is one little problem…their mate is plotting something. She will find that an Arobi pack is up to any challenge she presents them.
Hayley Benito was put in jail unjustly, but the Mate Index is the only way out of serving five to ten years for aggravated assault. She will marry an alien and fulfill the terms of her agreement, but there is nothing saying she had to stick with him. With a plan to give her “mate” the slip as soon as possible, she is surprised to find that one mate is actually four fiercely possessive males who are determined to keep her. Stuck on a planet full of wild beauty and many dangers, it is stupid to get attached and change her plans. Or is this everything she’s ever looked for?
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Choosing to trust again is hard when those closest to you have betrayed you. Hayley isn’t quite ready to lose her freedom, not when someone might take it away again.
THE BLURB
Hayley Benito lost her freedom when she was sent to prison for aggravated assault. She didn’t expect to be offered a free out of jail card, but she wasn’t about to turn it down. The one stipulation? She had to mate with an alien. Easy. Pretend to marry the guy, then she could make a run for it and start her life anew somewhere.
The Arobi pack have had a hard life. Held as slaves for many years, then they fought with the Intergalactic Alliance to earn their freedom. All they want to do now is to find a mate for them to love, and hopefully love them in return. But it’s going to cost them. They aren’t a member of the Intergalactic community, so they have to buy their mate from someone who is. And then they’ll have to convince her that they are worthy of love.
TONE OF THE BOOK
Arobi’s Queen is a neutral toned novel. There isn’t enough drama to push it into a darker tone, however there isn’t a huge amount of comedy either. The focus is more on character building and adventure.
SENSITIVE TOPICS
This novel is aimed at mature readers. There are erotica scenes.
It features some action scenes especially towards the end of the novel. There is also a brief description of character’s backgrounds, such as mentions of slavery.
SERIES SYNOPSIS
Arobi’s Queen is the 7th book in The Mate Index series, excluding a few short novellas.
The novel is 232 pages long, making it slightly shorter than a standard romance novel length (of 300 pages average). Each novel in the series follows a different group of characters, so far in the series all between human women and alien men. You can read more about the series on the The Mate Index Series Review page.
REVIEW
Since the major drama was settled in the last novelHeart of The Agraak, Arobi’s Queen (and apparently future novels) is shifting towards more of a “mail order bride” type scenarios. Arobi’s Queen definitely lost some of that over-arching tension that’s been previously hanging over the books in the series, though in this case it was a good thing. This novel brings back a bit more of the light-hearted fun that previous novels had started to lose. This novel instead focused more heavily on adventure and character development.
The world building itself was good, and on par with some of the previous novels. Samantha has a skill at writing what feels like well-developed worlds, each facing their own unique problems. Who can say no to potential corrupt governments, back-alley dealings, giant monsters and greedy corporations? Arobi’s Queen has them all.
FINAL WORD
Arobi’s Queen was a delightful read. It lacked the high tension of the previous novel in the series, but made up for it with abundant adventure.
This could even be another book in which the female has to be the mate of several men at the same time, but the difference here is that the author does not focus on the sexy part of the situation, but on coexistence, her gaining confidence with the pack and the sad stories of each one.
Exeri was the leader of the pack, a position he knew he would have occupied since his birth.
Bilax was the one concerned with feeding the pack. That’s because before, he had starved and was thrown into an arena to fight someone much bigger than him. When he had food, he ate too much (for fear of scarcity)
Tanji was the impulsive. He was spoiled when was a pup, but he was sold when his owner died.
The female of the group, their new Queen, was taken from Earth and handed over to them in a clandestine manner, because the Arobi aren’t a registered species with the Intergalactic Union. They are a protected species.
Hayley was arrested for shooting the abusive stepfather, who beat her mother. But when the police were called, the mother defended her husband, making Hayley the only prisoner. In prison, Mr. Wallace, who represented Mate Index – the government’s agreement on Earth to “sell” women willing to marry aliens at a high price – offers her that option. In order not to spend 10 years in jail, she accepts, and the payment would go to her grandmother, the only person who believed her story.
From her departure to this new world, they would have to know and adapt, if they wanted the mating to work.
A little strange, but cool.
4 stars
This series is only getting better and better…
I’m so glad the day I ran across Ms. Sanders’ first book of this series — The VaDorok — where I first discovered her mate index universe. And to think this is Book Eleven! Wow! And it’s great to finally get the low-down on Exeri and his pack as they hunt down yet another human female — this time their personal mate which they call “queen”. Damn! Wish I was a queen for an Arobi pack! Even though technically this would be called a reversed harem genre, it doesn’t feel like one. After all, instead of trying to cram at least three males into one rocky relationship, this type of pack is actually a biological imperative as it takes an alpha Arobi to successfully implant the queen while the rest of the pack (the betas but no less ferocious than the alpha!) to prepare and maintain the pregnancy. Pretty cool physiology! It’s not often I see serious research into alternative sexual evolution. (But if you look at our own world, you will find a ton of strange sex going on!)
Unlike another reviewer, I didn’t see the angst to be distracting. I don’t particularly care much for angst because I find most writers use it as a stalling device when you have nothing else interesting to write about but you need to add filler to justify the passage of time. I did find angst being used for character development and world-building. Nothing wasted or deferred. Sure, if you’re looking for extreme erotica as in other books in this series, this tome might not be as steamy (only one sex scene period), but I did not find that disturbing. Please. If I wanted to read just sex, I have plenty of other books to turn to. I found nothing wanting with what I read as sex really wasn’t to be the sole focus of this story.
The sole focus was on relationship and intimacy, and there were plenty of scenes developing and maintaining intimacy than other books in this series. That’s why I really liked it. As hard as it is to be able to adequately focus on five (count ’em five) individuals in one story line, it’s even harder to write intimate scenes involving all of these characters, usually not always all of them in the same scene. I give Ms. Sanders a ton of credit for doing a great job as she did.
And as for the bug hunt? Yeah, it might be a tad formulaic, but how else does a bug hunt end? For any book with an HEA, we would hope the big bad bug would be, at least, chased away if not just squashed. Again, these bug hunts are hideous to write. (Movies are definitely easier as long as you have the budget for something realistic.) But the heavy mystery is solved (like where do these bugs come from and why), and life on a frontier planet is back to as normal as you’re going to get.
All the pack members and Haley are very believable and sympathetic characters, and I wish I could have a chance to meet them all! Amazing how all of the previous stories seem to weave back and forth, bringing back previously met friends and acquaintances, including Frankie and her beau, the Teril brothers, and Rodriguez with someone new and more permanent on his arm. (Hope we get a chance to see how that relationship came about!)
So at the end, I was left with a very warm a fuzzy feeling, perhaps to dream of future story lines that are what fantasies are made of. So if you have read the previous eleven volumes without purchasing them, BUY THEM! You got this far, and I know I’ll be rereading this book a few more times in the following twelve months, especially with this pandemic around. They’ll all be worth it! I can’t wait for Volume Twelve!
Well-written, action filled romance!
There’s a certain amount of chicanery going on here, as opportunists set high prices for rare commodities, and take no responsibility for ongoing problems. I admired the Arobi males in a previous book and am thrilled that we are getting their story.
I love the unique personalities of the 4 packmates. Four individuals, each with an appealing draw – such an exciting prospect for their Queen!