Alpha of Mortal Flesh: Darkmourn Universe, Book 3

Wow...I have been truly enjoying the Darkmourn Universe books. Both of the first two were amazing, but this one took that extra step for me.Talk about all the emotions (not Rhory's). I swear this book made me feel happy, sad, absolutely disgusted, absolutely livid, etc. That is the mark of a great book in my opinion. Ben did an amazing job writing characters that were so incredibly likeable and unlikable. Rhory is a great example of a character that is extremely likeable, he has real substance, his mind is the one we spend the most time in and you can tell his strength of character from the years of trauma he has been forced to endure. His husband Eamon is so incredibly the opposite. I truly HATE this man with a burning passion. I won't say too much more than that as I don't want to ruin the story. Calix is our big bad wolf and big and bad he is 😏 I really enjoyed him but think some of his choices were absolutely terrible.The story itself was intriguing. There are many moving parts happening at the same time and it is fun to place them in the timeline/world that Ben has created. The cameo of Jak and Marious was a fun little Easter egg as well. I am defined looking forward to reading more in this amazing world.

Thank you Ben Alderson for providing me with an E-Arc of Alpha of Mortal Flesh.This book is the third companion novel in the Darkmourn series, taking place roughly a 100 years after the events of King of Immortal Tithe. It’s a red riding hood retelling in a dark twist, graphically dealing with topics of physical and mental abuse while learning what true love is actually like.The story follows Rhory Coleman, a young witch who gets dragged into something more than he ever bargained for, a battle of revenge between his husband and the tantalizing Calix. But when everything starts to unravel around him Rhory has to ask himself, who can he trust?I got stuck in this story, I could hardly stop reading simply because of everything that was happening. Because this isn’t just a romance, this is also a type of mystery novel. It’s hard to explain it without giving anything away, but I will say, the plot in this book was amazing. Probably the best I've read from Alderson so far (and I’ve read most of his books). However I didn’t care as much about the romance in this book as I have before reading books by him. I found Calix to be kind of boring. He was like the “I’ll protect you with my life” hunky kind of man type, which I’m not a fan of. But then again I’m not a fan of the huge dom/sub kind of dynamic. Maybe it’s just the lesbian in me. So for fun I made a list of the Darkmourn books and who had the better romance and plot, enjoy or whatever.Romance_________Lord of Eternal Night (Jak and Marius)King of Immortal Tithe (Arlo and Faenir)Alpha of Mortal Flesh (Rhory and Calix)Plot_____Alpha of Mortal FleshLord of Eternal NightKing of Immortal TitheThis series is by far my favorite of Alderson’s books and I actually really hope that he will decide to write another book in this universe. There’s just something about making queer retellings that I love.Even though these books can be read as standalones, they are all connected even though they take place 100 years after the other and that’s one of my favorite things about this. We get to see characters from the previous books appear in this one and it gives you this feeling of clarity knowing something that the main character doesn’t know.There were an insane amount of plot twists in this book and I regret to say I guessed all of them. Not in a bad way though, it’s simply because my way of thinking is way too similar to Alderson’s. He puts his characters through absolute hell and all I have to say is: same. And to quote Kaz Brekker and Jesper Fahey. “That’s evil. How’d you know that?” “That’s what I would do.”Now who was my favorite character, you might ask. Well I will report that it is the most obvious answer. It was Millicent, the moody ass vampire. Like hello? Yes, I will eat that up. However I did really like Silas, he’s like this Regulus Black type, and unlike with Millicent, it is not the lesbian in me speaking this time, it’s the psychopath.And now for the segment everyone has been waiting for or whatever. The smut. There was definitely a drastic change when Alderson started writing adult instead of YA and by that I mean the smut, if you didn’t catch that. And I’m not complaining, it’s good, but oh my god do not use the word seed. I swear I fell off my bed. Also there was a line where one of the characters said “I would like to play a game” in the middle of a scene and my stupid ass brain altered it into the phrase “I wanna play a game.” and after that I couldn’t keep a straight face because I just kept thinking of Billy the puppet in the corner being like 👁👄👁. Oh yeah and did I mention they had sex on his grandmother's bed. HIS GRANDMOTHER'S BED!Anyway I hope you enjoyed this very chaotic review of Alpha of Mortal Flesh. It gets a 4 stars from me, simply because I didn’t vibe with Calix 🕺

This story is so amazing. Having overcome domestic abuse myself this hit home in so many ways. I absolutely loved the story and can't wait for more

So I got this one after getting the first one with the vampire, the vampire one was interesting so I thought this one would be as well. BOY WAS I MISTAKEN, not only was this annoying with the repeated situations of terribly made decisions, it was also boring. How does a book with magic, witches, vampires, and werewolves end up being boring??? This story focuses on Rhory, a living punching bag, and his myriad of terrible choices. He has magical powers, he’s a “witch” and the most boring witch I’ve ever heard of. His power is basically useless and he can NEVER use it when he needs to or should, and it only works with his hands touching someone, not skin-contact, no no, it must be through his hands.The entire story Rhory is being abused and hurt, and his keeping his abusive husband a secret from everyone. Why? Who knows, he’s weak. This theme repeats in just about every chapter, and of course no one becomes wise to his lies to cover how he’s getting hurt so often. Bruises, broken fingers, split lips and such. In one chapter he was slapped so many times and bite into his cheeks and lips, I’m surprised Rhory had and lips or cheek left.The transitions from characters past lives was messy and confusing, I wasn’t sure who’s parents were attacked and killed by vampires the majority of the book. It seems like EVERYONE suffered some vampire related drama, yet no one else seemed to mind really. I don’t blame Eamon for his desire to kill all the vampires, it makes logical sense since apparently all the vampires do is attack people. Now him beating and abusing Rhory every time he’s around seems pretty pointless and forced. Really trying to sell the whole “poor main character” theme.Another annoying part is how all the characters kept acting like Rhory was strong, and making great decisions. When he wasn’t and his choices and decisions either made things worse or didn’t change anything at all. But all the characters were so supportive of him, as he flails about and ends up captured again and again and again “he’s so strong!’ Rhory seemed to have no impact on anything in the story, EVERYONE else solved the problems his terrible choices made, while Rhory is locked in a room again, tied up, abused, locked in a room again. Yet he was written with so much “conviction” to solve this whole mess, just end up being in the way and completely useless, AGAIN. Honestly you could just remove him from half the situations he’s been in and it would resolve the same way, he had hardly little impact on anything.All in all I would’ve rated this book lower, but it did have werewolves, and Calix had enough personality to make up for the utter lack of purpose Rhory had

It didn't come damaged and it sounds like it's gonna be a great book haven't read yet

Debo admitir que es un libro más flojo que los dos anteriores, pero aún así me gustó como todos se conectan, espero leer el último y ver como culmina la historia, personajes que no decepcionan y una historia muy buena.

Such an intriguing story! Finding out even more about the Darkmourn universe was amazing and the characters & plot of this story was awesome IMO. Loved this continuation to this series. It's a great addition and I can't wait for the next book!

eu pensei aue seria mais uma história atoa, mas a narrativa me espancou com plot-twsts e drama (claro, com cenas calientesss).Simplesmente me deixou sem palavras e auerendo mais de tudo :0

Never thought I would like a romance novel.I was so wrong, just couldn't put this book down once I started it.Steamy story with alot of action thrown in. Characters roles are enjoyable to read and follow each character. A nice twist on little red riding hood.

A great book, I do love all Darkmourn books but this was the best of them all. Can't wait to read more of Ben Alderson's books.