Becoming Alpha by Aileen ErinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
No worries about neglecting any supernatural creatures in this young adult paranormal romance series—BECOMING ALPHA takes on a little of everything as it revolves around a witch who becomes a werewolf and fights vampires.
Normal isn’t really in Tessa’s vocabulary. She’s been ridiculed for her differences and never been part of a group. She’s grown up with the ability to see people’s thoughts just by touching something they touched which makes it hard to fit in. As a result, she tends to keep to herself, with only her parents and brother as friends. Just before Tessa’s senior year, her father moves the family to Texas and takes a job working with a special school, St. Ailbe’s Academy. Tessa is warned not to converse with any of the St. Ailbe students, but doesn’t think that applies to the hot young teacher, Dastien, she’s met a few times since moving to town. Tessa isn’t especially surprised when she doesn’t fit in at her new school either, but she makes an effort and even attends a class party. When she runs into Dastien outside the party, they share a kiss that quickly turns painful when Dastien bites and scratches her.
One bite turns her entire world upside down. Ridden with pain and fever, her family calls the headmaster at St. Ailbe and quickly find out that the bite is making her transition into a werewolf. To protect herself and her family, Tessa has to become a student at St. Ailbe and is thrown into a world she didn’t know existed.
I vacillated between rating BECOMING ALPHA 3 or 4 stars throughout the story and finally decided to end in the middle at 3.5 stars. Tessa herself annoyed me. Though she didn’t know it, she had been destined to become leader of the witch coven until the werewolf bite changed everything. As a werewolf, she is instantly one of the strongest and shows a lot of alpha tendencies. She seems able to ignore most alpha commands and break alpha synchrony with little effort. All these things set her up to be a kickass heroine. But her inner dialogue was so whiney and wallowing in self-pity that I didn’t really believe she had it in her. When the werewolf pack has to fight vampires, Tessa takes a leadership role and it seemed to come out of nowhere. She hadn’t even read the werewolf manual to know what to do; she’d certainly never investigated her witch powers, so why did she suddenly know how to take control and lead? Maybe it was just innately in her as alpha and heir apparent of the witches, but I questioned it.
I also thought the action scenes with the vampires and the werewolves plotting against St. Ailbe could have been a little more complicated and fleshed out and a little less predictable but I still enjoyed it as part of Tessa’s journey.
The plus side was Dastien. He was alpha to the core. His growling, raging, and dominating attitude was everything I’d want in a werewolf mate and I was drooling at his every jealous action. His inner wolf was determined to claim Tessa as mate and until she accepted it, he was going to make sure no other werewolves at St. Ailbe’s came anywhere near his property. I also really liked Tessa’s new werewolf friends Meredith and Chris. They were fun and gave depth and dimension to Tessa’s journey at her new school.
BECOMING ALPHA is a fun, romantic, action-filled young adult paranormal novel and fit those criteria perfectly. BECOMING ALPHA is book 1 of a trilogy about Tessa’s journey and it promises to be an entertaining one with Dastien by her side.
**Complimentary copy provided by the author/publisher for an honest review.
**Reviewed by preppea on I ♥ Bookie Nookie Reviews.
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