And another Alpha Mate Book

If you love books where the girl falls for alpha, then this is the book for you. Blood & Magic Series (Books 1-3) by Danielle Annett held a lot of promise to be original and not become the typical strong girl winds up being the Alpha's mate. In fact, I was hoping it would continue because I loved the chemistry between James and Aria (James was not the Alpha, but a Hunter an equally dominant position in the Pack. Points for the book). However, after the first book, it went downhill pretty fast, and I was starting to get tired of Aria's sh*t pretty quickly.
Don't get me wrong the first book was terrific although I wound up hating who Aria wound up with because his character came on a little too loud and I know he is supposed to be an Alpha who has never been challenged in 9 years, I wanted him dead the moment I met him. The chemistry between them felt false especially at the end of the first book where he is thinking about how his beast acts when Aria is around. That is when the "oh no, it's going to be one of those books" kicked in and here I was hoping I had finally picked a book where a strong female ends up with someone who is not the Alpha *ahem* like with James *cough, cough*.
To make it even more fun, I don't think the author remembered what she wrote in the first book, and you want to know how I know? In the first book, the Compound -the home of the shifters- is ten stories from the roof to the ground and Declan the Alpha has snowy white hair. However, in book two, the Compound is eight stories high, and Declan has blond eyebrows all of a sudden. Oh, and he looked like he was in his fifties and should be in his fifties in the first book, but the other two books Declan looks like he's in his thirties. There might be other more discrepancies that can be passed off as magical, but I gave up caring about the book at around that time.
What made me quit the book was the magical two words in chapter 65: "Alpha's mate". Eff you. I mean, why? Does it somehow validate females as being strong if they are with the alphas or something? Why must females always be with the alphas or the betas? Does it demean them in some way if they do not become the mate of someone influential in the pack?
It got old pretty quickly especially when Aria is all "oh, I must resist my attraction" to almost every guy she met. When she is with Declan, it felt forced because she is all I must not let him know I am attracted to him. I must show him how strong and tough I am. When she is with Inarus it was an instant attraction until lo and behold, he turns out to be working for the "enemy," and that makes him the enemy. So, you always know when Inarus is showing up because she is always chucking her daggers at him while being all I cannot let him know I still find him attractive because he betrayed me. As for the chemistry with James, well, it is all but forgotten.
So, can I please kill Declan and Inarus? Those two annoyed the hell out of me. Heck, the only reason I read as far as I did was that I really liked James and Aria together because their relationship felt natural and not forced like all the other relationships except for when she was with Mike or Marion.
2.5 out of 5 stars

Darkly Disappointing

Pale Wolves by Thomas Hulse sounded so intriguing and dark. The cover was spectacular, and it had armies of the dead that grew claws and fangs. I so wanted to read this, but the publishers approving my request on NetGalley not even five minutes after I requested it should have been my first clue of disappointment.
Don't ask me what the opening sentence was because even though I just read it three hours ago, I could not tell you. There were so many fragmented sentences and no varieties to the sentence structure. I wanted to give up on this book after the first page but decided to give it a chance. Maybe there will be more showing and less telling later on, but no. The on;y reason I DNFed this at 14% instead of 1% was that my Kindle refused to let me read any other book.
If the author had just varied the sentences and showed me more of what the characters were doing maybe I could have loved the story. However, I could not connect to any of the characters, and suddenly two of the main characters are having sex with each other, and he is married to a pregnant wife that is when I was like "yeah no."

1 star.