Book 25, 2018

[chez_jae]

Alpha Instinct by Katie Reus

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



On Wednesday evening, I finished reading Alpha Instinct by Katie Reus. It's the first book in the "Moon Shifter" series.

When someone poisons the Cordona pack, killing all of the males and the pregnant females, Ana Cordona must step up and take control of her now all-female pack. She knows that the pack will need an Alpha male to come in and assume leadership, but Ana never expected her first love, Connor Armstrong, to return and offer to take over the pack as long as Ana agrees to mate with him. For his part, Connor didn't want to leave Ana all those years ago, but her father threatened to disown her if she mated with him. Not wanting to put her in a position of having to choose him or her family, Connor left without a word. Now that he's back, he'll do whatever it takes to win her over.

It won't be easy. Not only must the pack protect itself against the mysterious person or persons who already poisoned half of their members, but there is a rival pack on the land adjacent. Their cruel Alpha, Sean Taggert, has his sights set on Ana and her land. In addition, someone has been targeting local humans who are known to associate with the wolves. With so much on the line, Ana and Connor must put aside their past hurts and learn to work together, or the pack will not survive.

The story was interesting, although not wholly entertaining. It was darker than most of the urban fantasies I read now, with no humor to lighten things up. In addition, the author used far too many points of view. For the most part, the narrative was in either Ana or Connor's pov, but some of it was written from the pov of Connor's brother Liam, Taggert, the killer, and one of the Anti-Paranormal League members. It got to be too much. Aside from that, the fact that there were essentially three factions that had it in for the Cordona pack (Taggert's pack, the killer, and the APL) was a bit too much. I think the author would have done better to focus on one threat at a time, and save the others for future books in the series.

Now we get to the rest of what stuck in my craw:

♦ After the pack's well was poisoned, no one thought to employ electronic surveillance? This oversight allowed the killer to slip past the patrolling guards and poison the pack's new water supply.
♦ Ana and Connor acted like a pair of teens with overactive hormones, yet she is 70 years old and he's 110 (werewolves age very slowly). Apparently, they mature even more slowly.
♦ There was no mention of children, except for the pair that were tagging along with Connor's pack. I would surmise, based on the fact that pregnant women were affected by the poison, that there must have been older children in the pack, yet nothing was said about any.
♦ Each time Ana and Connor argued, he made his point by physically intimidating her (i.e. backing her against a counter and "caging" her with his arms). Just no.
♦ Author's use of the word "vagina". I mean, it's fine, but when you're blithely referring to the man's cock, I don't think you need to use the clinical term for the woman's lady parts. "Pussy" or "cunt". Say it with me, Ms Reus.
♦ Lastly, towards the end, Taggert kidnapped one of the cubs to use as a bargaining chip to get Ana to deed a tract of the Cordona land to him. As someone who has worked for a title company, my Logic!Brain screamed in agony. For one thing, does Ana own the land in her own name? If title is held by her and her sisters, they would ALL need to sign the Deed. And two, no matter who is signing the Deed to convey title, the signature(s) must be notarized! Did Taggart just happen to have a Notary on hand? I would have loved to see the look on his face when he pranced into the courthouse with the Deed to be recorded, only to have it get rejected. Hah! Also, was the parcel of property in question already its own tract, with a separate tax code? If not, it would need to be surveyed, and a new legal drawn up. Good grief, Taggart, do your homework! Same goes for the author.

Favorite line: "Do you think we could order dinner before delving into the secret shifter handshake?"
Okay, I guess that was mildly funny.

To sum it up, the story was interesting, characterizations were good (including the "bad" guys), and there was plenty of action, although it was to the point of overload. Hmm...I'd like to give it a 3 /12. However, I am invested enough that I would like to read more, so I'll go with a score of 4 stars:

****