by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jun 11, 2023 | Book Reviews
I am so glad I discovered Rejected Mate by Sam Crescent. I have read many rejection stories but this one stands out. It is not about a rejected she-wolf being stronger than she thought she was. It isn’t about a bully who rejects a she-wolf changing his mind and deciding to accept her again. It isn’t about finding a second-chance mate.
This story was so well-written that I was captivated from page 1! It takes popular tropes (shifter romance, rejection, and age gap) and puts a unique spin on them. I hesitate to even call this a bully romance as the bullying part is incidental to the story.
Constance is a late bloomer. Where everyone else she knows shifted at 18, she didn’t shift until she turned 21. Tanner is the Alpha’s son. He has been bullying Constance for many years, calling her fat, ugly, and disgusting. Constance and Tanner realized they were mates on the day of her shift. Oh, horror of horrors! Constance hates his guts!
At this point in other books it would go one of two ways … Tanner would realize how he has been stupid all these years and would do his damnedest to win her or outright reject her. In this book, he chose the latter … Tanner rejected Constance and he did it publicly. Since he is the Alpha’s son, the pack took his rejection as a sign that they should all reject her, so they did. Her parents threw her out, she lost her job, and the rest of the pack turned their backs on her.
Rejection is painful, as we know from shifter lore, but this is the first time that I know of where the effects of the rejection go beyond chest or belly pains or pains caused by infidelity. Instead, the rejection is described as feeling very cold from the inside. Being rejected by one’s mate is bad, but imagine being rejected by the entire pack.
The entire pack, except for one … Gage, the Alpha, and Tanner’s father. In an emergency pack meeting, he announces that according to scripture, when a wolf is rejected, a relative of the one who did the rejecting can step up and accept the rejected wolf in their place. And that is what Gage did.
What a twist! Is it just custom or does Gage really want her for himself as a mate? Will Tanner change his mind and decide to take her back? Will Constance fall in love with Gage and decide to take him as her mate?
If you’ve never read any of the books from Sam Crescent’s Alpha Shifter Collection, this is a good book to start with. It isn’t in Kindle Unlimited but it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. You can get Rejected Mate by Sam Crescent on Amazon for $3.99. All the books in the Alpha Shifter Collection are $3.99 a piece.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jun 3, 2023 | Book Reviews
Craving His Virgin Mate by Sam Crescent is the second book of the Poison Wolves MC series that revolves around Agatha, a human, and Bayon a member of the Poison Wolves MC. Even without reading the first book, I still got a sense of what happened there since the author made sure to reference back and make short explanations. Although it does not erase the fact that I wish I had read the first book first. Seems like a lot happened in that story!
In comparison, Craving His Virgin Mate by Sam Crescent appears tamer. (I cannot give you 100% assurance on that since I haven’t read the first book yet.) There is no big bad but there was still a mystery that needed to be solved.
Agatha is a solitary creature. Growing up she mostly kept to herself, did not make any friends, and spent most of her time with her adoptive parents or taking long walks in the forest. When her adoptive parents died she decided to uproot and travel with no particular direction or place in mind. She found herself in a town called Poison.
For whatever reason, the people of Poison seemed to hate her, they were not at all welcoming, not even a little bit! Despite that, something about Poison made her want to stay. Poison felt like home.
Poison is actually a pack of werewolves. Boyan is a member of the Poison Wolves MC that protects Poison. The Poison Wolves MC is made up of men who are all technically Alphas but decided to band together instead. Their club president is called Alpha. I don’t know if that is his club name or his designation as the leader. He seeks out Agatha to find out why she seems adamant about staying despite being mostly ignored or rudely spoken to by the pack members.
And then he discovers that she is his mate. This is problematic because of events that happened in Book 1 where they discover that humans cannot become werewolves so a mating between a werewolf and a human is likely not feasible. Despite this, Boyan could not help seek her out, in the guise of finding out more.
But there really is something mysterious about Agatha. Aside from her not wanting to leave, her scent also disappears into the pack! How is that even possible? Is she a regular human or was she one of those that was experimented on by Dr. Milton? Curiouser and curiouser!
The way Agatha and Boyan are with each other is hot, to say the least. From the title, you can tell that Agatha starts the book with her virginity intact so part of me was curious to see how the author would have them jump that little hurdle. In my personal opinion, it was perfect! I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Craving His Virgin Mate by Sam Crescent could be classified as quick and light reading. There is enough going on to keep me engaged and enough chapters to give me something to sink my teeth into. Since it was written so well, I couldn’t help but look for the first book, Hard For You, just so I can get the complete story firsthand.
I recommend this book, definitely! But better if you read the first book also. You can get a copy of Craving His Virgin Mate by Sam Crescent on Amazon. The Kindle version is $3.99.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Feb 8, 2023 | Book Reviews
I hesitated to read The Bogeyman’s Woman by Sam Crescent only because I don’t usually like mafia romances … mostly as it feels wrong to romanticize something bad but Ruin is mafia adjacent. I rationalize so that my mind will accept it. It helps that in the story we don’t really see too many instances of Ruin doing this job, although it does happen, and his targets are bad people so I see Ruin as an executioner simply meting out justice.
The story, though, is not about his job, not really. It is about how Ruin falls for his target, Callie, from the moment he sees her picture. This leads him to investigate why there is a hit on her while falling even more hopelessly in love.
Callie is a simple girl living a simple life. There is nothing about her that stands out unless you count her penchant for knitting. She has no social life and generally keeps to herself so how is it even possible that she caught the attention of a capo?
The Bogeyman’s Woman by Sam Crescent is a story of their courtship. Reading their courtship and romance develop was quite thrilling. This story is available on Amazon for 3.99 if you’d like to read it, too.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Oct 18, 2022 | Book Reviews
I started reading Alpha Bully by Sam Crescent because I was curious to see how Marshall, an Alpha wolf, who bullied Scarlett, a human, intended to win her over. After all, he bullied her terribly for the last 5 years.
Marshall was just one of many people who bullied Scarlett, mostly because of her body shape. She wore loose, baggy clothes, and no matter how much dieting she did, she just couldn’t seem to lose weight. “Chunky girl” and “Piggy” were just two of the horrible nicknames other students in her school called her.
Rather than fight, as usual, our bullying victim just suffered quietly and in tears. Pffft!
After Marshall discovers that Scarlett is his mate he suffers pangs of regret and worries that he won’t be able to win her over. After talking with his dad and his best friend Jack he decided to just do his best.
As the story progresses it is interesting to see how much effort he is really putting in to try to get Scarlett. What I didn’t quite comprehend was how quickly it seemed for her to start accepting him. She expressed her doubts internally, but she still let him get away with doing things like holding her hand and putting his arm around her shoulder … on day 2 of school!
In my culture that is moving too fast, but the setting is not here, so I can only assume that in the U.S. kids just move and accept that fast. Here, he would be lucky if she even made eye contact.
That aside, the story is actually enjoyable. So much so that I bought the next book when I discovered it was about his best friend Jack and his mate. Marshall’s being a werewolf is almost incidental for most of the story.
Alpha Bully by Sam Crescent is book 5 of the Alpha Shifter Collection. It is available on Amazon in Kindle format for $3.99.
In comparison, Craving His Virgin Mate by Sam Crescent appears tamer. (I cannot give you 100% assurance on that since I haven’t read the first book yet.) There is no big bad but there was still a mystery that needed to be solved.
I hesitated to read The Bogeyman’s Woman by Sam Crescent only because I don’t usually like mafia romances … mostly as it feels wrong to romanticize something bad but Ruin is mafia adjacent. I rationalize so that my mind will accept it. It helps that in the story we don’t really see too many instances of Ruin doing this job, although it does happen, and his targets are bad people so I see Ruin as an executioner simply meting out justice.
Marshall was just one of many people who bullied Scarlett, mostly because of her body shape. She wore loose, baggy clothes, and no matter how much dieting she did, she just couldn’t seem to lose weight. “Chunky girl” and “Piggy” were just two of the horrible nicknames other students in her school called her.
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