Monday, April 14, 2014

Manic Monday Reviews - The Alpha's Concubine (Loved Slave to the Alpha #2) by Shannon West

The Alpha's Concubine (Love Slaves of the Alphas #2)
Rating: 5 stars 



Hey everyone, and welcome to Manic Mondays on my blog! Today I’m looking at book #2 in the Love Slaves of the Alphas series. I don’t know the author, but I really enjoyed her work. I’ve read all the books in this series and loved them. I’ll be talking about them over time on here. This is book #2.

This is going to be a day dedicated to authors. I may post book reviews on some Mondays, it might be author interviews on others. It could be new releases, or just my thoughts in general. I'm hoping it'll be lots of fun, whatever or whoever shows up for Monday lol.

Now, a quick note on the book reviews. If I post it on here, then just know I liked the book. I will not be posting a review that's not at least a 3 rating. I'm not going to bash what is basically others who are in my peer group. No nasty reviews happening here. :) And the reviews I'm posting are already on my GR shelf too.

So, let's get this Manic Monday started lol!



Bio:
Shannon West is a bestselling author of M/M romance. She currently lives in the South with her husband and large family. A lover of M/M romances, she began writing them with a male partner to add authenticity to the love scenes, but graduated to watching videos online and reading everything she could get her hands on. She loves men and everything about them, and believes that love is love, no matter the gender. A huge proponent of gay rights, she is a member of PFLAG and supports equal rights for everyone. Though there are never enough hours in the day, she tries to work every day, giving in to the demanding men in her head and writing their stories. She’s easy like that. She loves traveling, reading, watching scary movies and is totally hooked on that zombie show on TV.
Her website is www.shannonwestbooks.com



Blurb:
When Nikolai Balenescu and his brother stop by a small, out of the way planet called Jayron to deliver some goods, they have no idea what’s in store for them. Nikolai is immediately attacked by a fierce, gorgeous little prince named Jagger, who takes the Lycan shifter away in chains. Nikolai allows himself to be disarmed because he instantly recognizes the prince as his mate, and he’s willing to play along until he can figure out why his ship was attacked and how he’s now going to save his prince from his fearsome Lycan family who will be coming for him, intent on revenge. Meanwhile, Prince Jagger decides he’ll take the gorgeous Lycan as his love slave and puts him in chains. At first Nikolai is angry, but soon decides that being a love slave to his beautiful mate is an idea he’s only too happy to go along with.






The Manic Monday REVIEW:
As I’ve said before, this is a bigger Alpha male/smaller mate theme based on Lycans, werewolves that *aren’t* from Earth. Oh no, they are an alien race. When I say alpha, I mean big, bad ALPHA. The main characters are brothers from the Balanescu family, a very rich and very strong family that is cursed. Once they find a mate, the Balanescu males fall wildly, irrevocably in love with the person and are helpless against whomever Fate has chosen.

This book is about Nikolai. He, and another brother named Kyle, are Voyagers from the planet Lycanus 3. They delivered bauxite from the mines on their small home planet all over the galaxy. They also on occasion helped their cousin, Blayde, an independent bounty hunter.

The two brothers go to a planet called Jayron to drop off a shipment. Nikolai is uneasy about treading with Jayronians because they allow space pirates access to their planet. As it turns out, Nikolai has reason to worry, but it’s not the pirates that attack, it’s the Jayronians. And wouldn’t you know it? The leader of the Jayronians, Prince Jagger, is Nikolai’s mate.

And things go south fast lol.

Nikolai is taken prisoner, and treated like a… well, prisoner, but all the time he’s wondering what possessed the Jayronians to try to steal the shipment bauxite. Everyone knows how deadly the Lycans are, particularly the Balanescu family.

So what the hell?

Well, there is a reason, of course. And of course, who is prisoner and who is master changes. Turnabout is fair play is the old saying that comes to mind.  Not going to say how that comes about or why. I will say Jagger’s mom, Queen Niada, totally rocks, lol.

I rated the book 5 stars back on September 13, 2013 on GR. There were some niggles, but I rated the book for how it was written, not how I wanted it to be written, based on what I read. (You’re going to see that in every review I do.) So… I wanted it to be longer. I’m probably going to be saying that a lot lol. There were times I wanted to slap Jagger lol. Then slap Nikolai. I do wish we could have seen how Jagger adapted to his new world. This was a pretty big deal in the first book but not so much here.
~Michelle