Alpha Erased // by Aileen Erin

//published 2020//

Oh my, time is flying by!!  Yesterday was the release date for the latest addition to the Alpha Girl series and I totally forgot to post my review!!

While this series is somewhat outside my normal reading fare, I’ve really enjoyed the journey.  Erin writes likable characters and engaging scenarios, and I completely blew through this book as fast as I could.  I’m not sure how well this one would have read without the background of the rest of the series – there are a lot of characters to track and various types of creatures (like fey and werewolves and all that other great paranormal stuff) interact in specific ways in Erin’s world, so I do recommend starting at the beginning and going from there.  (You can read my reviews of the rest of the series here.)

In this story, Tessa is kidnapped, so we spend a lot of the story reading Dastien’s perspective.  I was super stoked to get inside his head for a little bit, because I’m pretty fond of Dastien.  I could have used a smidge less time of him flipping out about Tessa’s disappearance (he’s easily triggered, geez) as that got a bit repetitive, but overall this book just made me like Dastien more than ever.

This book’s strength is also its weakness in a way – it’s heavy on action.  That’s great for keeping the pages turning and keeping me wondering what was going on next, but now awesome for building relationships.  I get that Dastien and Tessa are forever bound to each other etc. but it would have been lovely to see a little more time of Dastien wooing Tessa back after she was kidnapped.

But if you enjoy paranormal adventures, I definitely recommend this series.  It’s great fun and I can’t wait to see which direction Erin heads next!

NB: I received this book as an ARC, which does not impact my review.

Off Balance // by Aileen Erin

//published 2020//

Off Balance is the sequel to Off Planet, which I read and reviewed last year, and if you really want to make sense of this review, you may want to read that one first.  This review will have some minor spoilers for  Off Planet.

I’m reverting to the old pros/cons list for the this review to help me sort out my thoughts, since there were a lot of things I really liked, and several things that annoyed me:

Cons:

• Amihanna is just so, so self-absorbed for most of this story.  It’s all about her and  her feelings and how everyone is going to respond to  her if she decides to marry Lorne.  She spends a lot of time avoiding doing anything remotely ruler-like, yet also complains that she isn’t treated with respect/like a ruler.  I guess part of this is that I’m not someone who tends to agonize over decisions, even big ones.  Assess your choices and their probable trajectories, make the best decision you can, then don’t look back.  Consequently, I don’t have a great deal of patience for someone who spends a LOT of time havering.
• Way too much time is spent in a gym/doing physical training of some kind.  We get it.  She’s incredibly physically fit.
• Explicit sex scene that I was not expecting since no such thing has appeared in any of Erin’s other books that I’ve read (including the entire Alpha Girl series).  Also a few scenes that were more graphically violent than really seemed necessary.  Like a lot more.
• Overall a bit of second-book syndrome.  A lot of this book is waiting for things to happen more than it is things actually happening.  It felt like we could have cut out some of the scenes of Amihanna doing the same thing over and over and OVER again in the first book, cut out some of the incessant training scenes in this book, and combined them into one book with more action.
• While I’m griping about Ami in this review, I do actually like her as a person. I just feel like she spends a lot of time talking like she’s super badass, but hiding from her actual responsibilities/decisions.

Pros:

• World-building is great.  There is a real sense of place and other-worldliness without being too crazy.  Loved the glimpses of the Aunare culture and would love to see more of it.
• NO LOVE TRIANGLE!  Can’t tell you how excited I was about this!  The end of Off Planet seemed to feel like it was setting up for one, but that’s completely avoided in this book, and I am definitely here for that, as I think having a love triangle is the dumbest trope of all time.
• Which ties into another pro – LORNE.  As a character, Lorne is definitely my favorite.  Why Amihanna would hesitate for even half a second is mind-boggling to me.  While not perfect, Lorne is incredibly patient, kind, thoughtful, and intelligent.  He is eager to help Ami learn more about the Aunare but never comes across as condescending.  I’m totally in love with this guy, and only wish we had gotten way more of his perspective, which was significantly more interesting than Ami’s whining about her (actually very comfortable) life.
• While I didn’t like having an explicit sex scene in the story, I did appreciate that it didn’t feel like something the characters just rushed into.  It felt like a thoughtful, serious decision, and I liked that aspect.
• The actual story is solid.  There are a lot of great characters, several directions the plot could reasonably take, and a lot of interesting things going on.

Conclusion:

3.5*, which is where I ended up with Off Planet, too.  A good sequel, a series I recommend if you like sci-fi on the lighter side of sci, and a series I definitely am interested to follow going forward.

NB: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.  Receiving this book didn’t impact my review at all.  Special thanks to the publisher!!

Lunar Court // by Aileen Erin

Last summer I read and weirdly enjoyed Aileen Erin’s Alpha Girl series, so when I had an opportunity to read the latest installment in that series as an ARC, I took it, despite the fact that I rarely read ARCs (way more pressure/commitment than I’m usually interested in).

So yes, these are werewolf books.  I don’t do a lot of paranormal reading because most of it tends to be too angsty/sexy/plain creepy, but sometimes you find a series that works, and I feel that way about Alpha Girl.  I really like the characters and the world-building.  I reread the series to work my way back into Lunar Court, and found myself liking Tessa and her friends all over again.  The first five books are basically all one big story – while they do a good job of having each book wrap up some small lines, the overarching plot continues throughout and is done really well.  From there, while the books are still closely connected, each one reads more individually.

In Lunar Court the story focuses on Chris and Cosette.  Chris is a werewolf, and has been one of my favorite characters throughout the entire series.  Cosette is fey, an area of world-building that Erin has been slowly developing throughout the last few books, especially in Shattered Pack, where we learned a lot more about how their culture works.  There are a lot of obstacles between Chris and Cosette becoming a couple, and overall this book was a lot more romance-focused than the earlier books.  As such, there wasn’t quite as much action.

My favorite part about this book was the dual POV.  The rest of the books in the series have had a single POV, which worked for what was happening in them, but being able to know what was happening with both Chris and Cosette, since they spend a lot of the book apart, really worked here.  I’m on Erin’s mailing list, and she’s mentioned that she enjoyed the dual POV so much that she’s thinking of using it for her next book in the series as well, so hopefully she sticks with it.

Overall, this was a 3.5* read for me, which is slightly below the 4* average I would give the series as a whole.  The pacing felt slower in this story – it didn’t quite drag, but some things definitely felt repetitive.  It also had a darker tone than earlier books, with themes of long-term physical and emotional abuse and manipulation.  There are still way more f-bombs in these books than I find necessary – one of my biggest complaints about this series as a whole.  Finally, while overall this series has done pretty well skirting around the religious aspect of paranormal, the involvement of archons in this story (who aren’t angels except they kind of basically are angels??) meant that this story was edging over the line of theological complications that made me more uncomfortable than the earlier books’ theme of “don’t mess with demons.”

Still, the story itself is well done.  I really like Chris and Cosette and totally ship them. I enjoyed watching them overcome the obstacles so that they could be together.  Hopefully Erin continues this series, as there are still a lot of characters to explore.  If you’re looking for some slightly-angsty paranormal, I totally recommend this series, especially since a bunch of the Kindle books are currently on sale in celebration of Lunar Court’s release.

Off Planet // by Aileen Erin

NB: I received this book via NetGalley, which doesn’t impact my review.

//published 2019//

Every once in a while I find a paranormal series that I actually really like.  It’s rare, and it’s kind of a weird thing because it doesn’t seem like a genre I should enjoy at all, but here we are.  Last summer I thoroughly enjoyed Aileen Erin’s Alpha Girl series and signed up for her newsletter, which is what led me to the ARC of her newest book, Off Planet, the first in a new series, due to be published later this month.

Overall, I enjoyed this read and definitely am looking forward to the next in the series.  It’s an interesting concept, decent world building, and a mostly likable main character.  I liked that friendships were an important part of this story, and there was enough sass between the characters to keep me reading.

The pacing was good for the most part, but did somewhat drag in the middle where it felt like the torturing of Maite went on and on and on and ON.  Consequently, the ending seemed more rushed to me as Erin wrapped up some loose ends, leaving a complete story that still has plenty of lead-ins for the sequel.  I felt like more story could have taken place after Maite escaped, rather than literal chapters of her struggling to survive in a never-ending sequence of performing the same task repeatedly.

Throughout the majority of the book I admired Maite for her strength, stubbornness, loyalty, and determination to do the right thing.  That’s why her sudden character change at the end of the book felt out of place.  Trying to avoid spoilers here, but it’s not exactly a surprise to find out that Maite has A Destiny, and the way she wigs out about it honestly aggravated me.  Like, you’ve spent the whole book being willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people you love, but suddenly your life is all about you and what you want and how hard your life is why does everyone always want you to do stuff blah blah blah.  It really felt like the Maite at the end of the book was completely different from the Maite I’d read about for previous 90% of the story, and that frustrated me.  I think the book may have flowed more smoothly if Maite had been less perfect throughout the beginning of the book – then her flipping out over her Destiny wouldn’t have felt as jarring.

A personal drawback to this story was the frequent swearing.  I find swearing, especially f-ing things, to be 100% unnecessary, and it’s something that really brings down a book’s overall enjoyment for me.  Erin’s characters had some of their own slang/swearing, and I would much preferred that to be developed and used as a way to express outrage and frustration, rather than just falling back on boring f*s.  Obviously swearing doesn’t bother lots of people (maybe even most people), so that’s a personal thing.  Otherwise, the book was pretty clean – no explicit sex scenes or anything like that.

I feel like I always spend more time on the negatives than the positives when I’m reviewing the book.  Despite my griping, I really did thoroughly enjoy this story.  I loved the creative setting, and I’m rarely against the trope of Evil Corporations Stealing Your Soul! – and it’s done well here.  The alien aspect really fit well into the overall sci-fi vibe, and I personally love sci-fi that doesn’t spend too much time explaining the specifics of the sci bits haha  Except for the slightly-repetitive middle (which, I’ll admit, does serve the purpose of showing Maite’s strength of character), the pacing was good, and it was definitely a book I wanted to come back to when I wasn’t reading it.  While I’m little scared of the developing love triangle (please, let’s just NOT develop the love triangle, seriously), I’m overall super intrigued to read the next installment.  The bummer about reviewing ARCs is you have to wait such a long time for sequels…

All in all, Off Planet was an easy 3.5* teetering towards a full 4*, and if you like your sci-fi on the lite side, this may be the read for you.

PS Have to say that this cover is SO much better than the original cover that I see floating around.

The Alpha Girl series // by Aileen Erin

• Becoming Alpha (2013)
• Avoiding Alpha 2014)
• Alpha Divided (2014)
• Bruja (2015)
• Alpha Unleashed (2015)
• Shattered Pack (2017)
• Being Alpha (2018)

Ever since I accidentally read Shiver and its sequels (by Maggie Stiefvater), I’ve been on the lookout for some more decent paranormal stories.  Most of them are weird excuses for erotica (honestly weird), so those are out.  I’m always coming across them for free or cheap as Kindle deals, but usually the synopsis doesn’t really sound that great, or the synopsis lies to me, which is obviously within the first few pages.

All that to say, I didn’t really have a lot of high expectations for Becoming Alpha.  I like to have a fluff book to read a chapter or two of before bedtime, and thought that I would give this one a try – I’ve been attempting to sift through the gajillion Kindle books I have and actually get rid of the ones that I’m really never going to read.  I soon realized that just reading a chapter or two every evening wasn’t going to be enough – I was completely drawn into the story, characters, and world building.

Tessa is not your average teenager.  Her entire life, she’s been having visions that she can’t control, visions that are sparked when she touches something, or someone, and gets a “read” from the emotions left behind.  At the beginning of the story, her family is moving from California to Texas, where Tessa’s mother still has some family.  They are hoping for a new start and also hoping that Tessa’s mother’s family may be able to help Tessa learn to have more control over her visions.

But things only get more crazy when they arrive in Texas.  Tessa’s dad’s boss seems very strange, and the whole neighborhood feels off.  Tessa tries to fit in at her new school, but things go badly awry at a party one night, and Tessa’s whole life gets turned upside down.

After Tessa gets turned into a werewolf, the series builds from there.  Tessa narrates most of the books, but a couple of them are told by/focus on other characters, which was also a lot of fun.  I really can’t explain why I so thoroughly enjoyed these, but I did.  Most of them were 4* reads for me, and they overall managed to keep the YA angst level reasonable.  (Except Alpha Divided, if I’m being honest.)

Although they aren’t as big of players in the later books, one of the reasons I initially got hooked on this series was because of Tessa’s parents.  It was SO FANTASTIC to see kind, loving, supportive parents who also love each other.  Tessa has a great relationship with her brother as well, and I loved that!  It was also really nice to read a series where there wasn’t any extra-marital sex.  Despite the fact that Tessa and Dastian are “true mates” (and there are other pairs in other books), they don’t just jump in the sack.  There were a lot of layers going on that went way beyond mere physical attraction, and I really liked that.  Even after they are married, all sex takes places 100% off-screen so THANK YOU.

There was definitely more swearing than I like to read, and I felt like there was more as the series went on as well.  I could definitely have done with about 99% fewer F-bombs.  They just feel basically unnecessary to me.

As the books progress, the werewolves get involved with a local witch coven.  I wasn’t honestly that comfortable with the witch/religion combination that Erin was using, but as the story developed I was more willing to work with it.  It’s definitely a New Age feel with lots of good vs. bad vibes/energy that aren’t exactly Scriptural, but in some ways the dangers of tampering with powers you don’t understand (i.e. calling on demons) is emphasized.  I guess I didn’t really feel like these books were actually encouraging witchcraft in real life, any more than it was encouraging people to be werewolves.  Instead, it just felt like this whole story was taking place in a different world, and while I wasn’t thrilled with the way religion was involved, I didn’t really find it offensive.

These weren’t perfect stories.  Sometimes the action was too slow or felt choppy, and I definitely could have used way less swearing.  But overall they were good fun with likable characters and an engaging plot that carries through the whole series, even while each books tells its own story.

If you’re like me and you enjoy some YA now and then, and also don’t mind a good dose of paranormal, these are definitely fun reads.  I’m already excited about the next book.