Alphas: Origins

Please note that I gave this book half a star. However, I gave it one star on Goodreads due to having to round up.

Book God #1:So we're in hiding now? Obsidian Blue has now threatened to find us and wipe us from the face of the Earth. I mean...I don't know what she wants us to do about it. It's not our fault that one of her favorite authors wrote about the hero running around claiming to own the heroine as well as having to read about him thinking about raping her every five seconds.

Book God #2: Stop talking so loudly! Seriously. I think I heard something.

Book God #1: And heck, I know she's mad that the world building was a joke and apparently saying things like alternate reality and aliens is kind of explaining things, but heck, look at show more the movie Prometheus, nothing made sense but people will still probably watch the sequel.

Book God #2 staring at Book God #1:Your logic in this situation is seriously awful.

Book God #1: Hey, apparently being threatened with rape can make a woman decide that she's in love with her captor. Or something. I don't know. And apparently talking about how the guy used to have sex with his former slave a few paces away from the heroine's daughter is a turn on? I don't know. Humans are odd.

Book God #2: Okay I'm out. I hear something. I think it's her.

Book God #1: Hey! come back!

I barely have the words right now to describe what this novella/book is. I have several authors on auto-buy status that I pre-order without a second thought. Ilona Andrews is/was one of those authors, but after reading her newest I went back and cancelled my orders on anything that is not the Kate Daniels series at this point. I don't even know how to explain this. This whole novella is just a set-up to a new series that I think the husband/wife team are planning on publishing in the near future I assume. I have no intention of reading one thing related to this world again.

The book starts off with Karina Trucker coming home from an outing with her daughter and other children. Karina is in a caravan of cars and pulls over after one of the little boys needs a bathroom right away. Stopping at a motel, she and the children feel like they stepped into a weird carnival. After being threatened by a man who appears to be turning into a monster, Karina does what she can to escape only to be offered a choice in the end. Let everyone including her daughter die, or agree to a deal where she becomes a slave that is fed upon by a Demon named Lucas. Karina and her daughter find themselves smack dab into a war that has been going on for thousands of years.



I was hoping, truly hoping that maybe Ilona Andrews would pull this one out at the end. Have Karina be a heroine standing tall on her own escaping from a life of being a slave with her daughter. This after she stabs the hero Lucas a thousand times in his neck would have been the best case scenario. If that had happened I would have given this book 5 stars. But no, instead, we get Karina, who up until almost the very end of the book is thinking of ways to escape with her and her daughter finding herself intrigued and seduced by Lucas who is a piece of crap.

Karina's backstory with her ex-husband and her former in-laws was a joke too. I hate it when authors do this thing when the widowed spouse is somehow a terrible human being so it makes it easier for the now live spouse to move on to another person. And since the person in question is Lucas, you know the person who has captured Karina and her daughter and who feeds on her one would think that her ex-husband has to still be better than him, but nope, you are wrong.

Lucas is disgusting. I am sorry, but there is no freaking justification for the way that this character is portrayed. And for the authors to make you feel sorry because he fell in love with a former slave that apparently turned the tables on Lucas because she was able to make herself feel stronger by being more aggressive in bed? I mean? Ugh.

Think about the power dynamics of this situation for a moment. Apparently Lucas is a breed of Demon that needs to feed on people considered donors. Though donors would imply that they actually donate themselves willingly. Nope, they have to to keep people that they feed upon as slaves because who wants to be slowly eaten to death?! No one. And yet I am supposed to look at Lucas with sad eyes and say yes, if only someone loved you sometime in your life you wouldn't be thinking about raping me every five seconds.

SHOVE IT LUCAS.

The other characters in this story are not given a lot to do in this story. They are either not really helpful (Henry) or threatening towards Karina if she doesn't do what they say (Daniel and Arthur). Oh and it was so much fun to have the character of Daniel around to also threaten Karina sexually.

The writing was not at all like Ilona Andrews. At least not a Ilona Andrews I have ever read. I have read every Kate Daniels book and the novellas related to that world. I checked twice the other day to make sure that this wasn't a self published book where someone had co-opted the name. This was graphic and clumsy and just off-putting. Sorry it doesn't make me "hot" to read about how Lucas thinks about raping Karina through the whole book. He stares at her half naked while she's unconscious and oh yeah we also get a scene where she is forced to be naked in front of him while she's bathing and she's scared he's going to rape her. I mean, come the hell on.

The amusement in Daniel's eyes crystalized into anger.
"If you want to intigriate yourself, there's a much easier way of doing it.
You can come over here right now and suck my cock.
That will put you into my good graces much faster than scrubbing the sink.

Karina glanced at Lucas. He cut a piece of steak, chewed with obvious pleasure, and threw her a look that said, Sit tight.

The flow of this about 135 pages (the rest was just excerpts from Kate Daniels and Of The Edge series) novella really didn't work for me. We have info dumps in between scenes of Karina trying to understand what is happening to her, begging to be allowed to see and than stay with her daughter, being fed upon by Lucas, and oh yeah having to be worried about being raped.

The world building was a mess the entire way through this book. We have Karina get slammed into a whole new world that I swear that they authors made up at the drop of a hat. This read like really bad fan fiction to me. I have no other words to describe it. And the info dumps via character is still one of my least favorite things ever in a book. You either set the world up properly or you don't. Having someone try to tell the hero and heroine everything in five minutes between running around from scene to scene irks the crap out of me. Trying to keep the characters straight and their particular species just made me roll my eyes. I needed a flow chart. Since I have no intention of reading anything else set in this world I stopped caring and just got to the end.

The ending just killed me. It made no freaking sense and on top of everything else we have super duper powers being instilled and I think at this point I just blacked out from rage. Oh and I guess Karina and Lucas are going to be a happy family or something. I don't know. The rage made me forget. show less

Weird, interesting, drawing me into that world (if I can figure out which of Ilona's series it is). Karina's a lot tougher than she thinks, or than they think - which is good, she'll need it. Lucas...is a little too perfect - not in looks, but as a romance hero. Utterly tough, vicious, dangerous - and really just wanting to be loved, to belong somewhere or to someone. Still, interesting, and I'd like to see more of him. Emily's doing pretty well for a six-year-old, though it's a good thing Henry can put her to sleep or wipe her memories at crucial moments. And the climax is excellent - outcasts for the win! Possibly the best infodump story I've ever read - it comes out in simplified dribs and drabs, for a very good in-story reason. And show more yes, I definitely want to read the series that this introduces.
Reread, 9 years later - I had completely forgotten this, to the point that I thought I was reading it for the first time (and then thought the ebook I read was an expansion of the short piece included in Angels of Darkness. Nope, exactly the same thing). I believe there is an Alphas series, but I haven't read any of them (at least, as far as I remember!). Still interested, though obviously not all that strongly. show less

I’ve never given such a low rating to an Ilona Andrews book. I love them and will happily devour anything they write, but I guess they can’t all be home runs.
I think this is the only time I’ve felt lukewarm about Ilona Andrews characters, and I thought the gross start to Karina and Lucas’s relationship was too much to overcome. Little Emily and the bear-dog were cute, though.

This was an interesting novella by the Andrews and one of the few books/novellas by them that I haven’t read. I ended up really enjoying this but felt like it was way too short and abrupt. This story takes place in a new world (not one of their existing ones). It was very engaging and entertaining but would have made an even better full length book.

This book has a very urban fantasy feel to it but also has a lot of science fiction elements. Initially it seems like it’s going to be one of those urban fantasy books with monster hunters...then things get weird when Karina wakes up in a splinter realm of Earth.

There is a ton of interesting world building and I desperately wanted to spend more time in this world. The whole civil war show more between different species was utterly fascinating and I was disappointed it wasn’t longer.

The characters were just as fascinating with their crazy powers and needs. Karina is in an interesting situation; she was kidnapped but only because if Lucas didn’t kidnap her she was going to die. So it’s kind of this strangely noble kidnapping rescue of sorts. Both Karina and Lucas are interesting characters with a lot of depth. They have excellent chemistry together and act like mature and responsible adults despite their bizarre situation.

Many of the side characters are awesome as well. I could see this being a great series where each book focuses on a different one of the subspecies characters that live with Lucas. Or we could get more of Karina and Lucas...I would love that too.

I was impressed by how much world-building and story occurs in this relatively short novella. However, things end very abruptly and I was dying to learn more.

Overall this was a very engaging read that was a blend of urban fantasy and science fiction. There is some awesome world-building here, a complex story, and absolutely amazing characters. I really enjoyed the story. I was disappointed at how abruptly it ended and really thought this would have made a better full length novel. Hopefully we see future books set in this world. show less

I am a huge fan of Ilona Andrews, but holy wow, not this book.

I get that there is a certain amount of titillation in the dominance play in some of their other books, but this just takes it waaaaay too far. Blargh slavery, blargh rapey, blargh, blargh, blargh. Lots of people being horrible to each other with kind of a lame back story, and a completely unbelievable love story. It's nice that they moved past this and have moved into newer and better realms.

Ordinarily love this writer, but not their best. Characters not clearly delineated, motivations murky. For example, exactly how is this group protecting humanity? And where did the other group come from? And how is this an Alpha book? Even the powers, once determined, seem arbitrary. Plenty of violence around, but -- unlike her other books -- the world itself doesn't seem like it could function, even if that method is undescribed background. For example, if confined to just a few buildings on a fragment detached from the "real" universe, where are the high quality foods coming from? Usually those questions are buried in the wonder of the plot and characters. Here, not. I look forward to their next book.

Meh

I usually love everything these two write but there were a lot of problems with this one. First, this “love story” didn’t do it for me. The poor woman was kidnapped and held prisoner by a shapeshifting monster who had to drink her blood. When he’d bite her it was extremely painful and then he tried to keep her from her child. I just can’t buy accept the fact that she’d ever have anything but ill feelings towards him. Second, the world this takes place in required too much explanation and it didn’t really make sense to me. I just didn’t like this story. It felt like it was written very quickly and was not well thought out.