Title: Broken Pieces
Author: Ruby MacIntyre
Publisher: Loose Id
Length: 219 Pages
Category: Paranormal, Fantasy, Shifters
At a Glance: A strong beginning that lost some of its flare as the story progressed. Even so, it was still a pretty solid story within the ABO universe which I would recommend to lovers of the shifter trope.
Reviewed By: Lindsey
Blurb: Clint is a young but respected alpha of the Tillamook Pack, and he’s content with the life he’s built for himself after his tragic past. But after his son tells him of an omega being chased into their territory, Clint jumps into action, unaware of how his life is about to change.
Julian finally escaped from his abusive alpha, but the betas are hot on his tail. He has little hope of escaping, until a huge, black alpha wolf charges to his rescue. But there’s one problem–Julian doesn’t trust any alpha, no matter how kind or different Clint seems.
Julian hates alphas after what was done to him. Clint knows and understands Julian’s feelings, so why can’t he seem to stay away from the fiery omega? Julian doesn’t get why his wolf wants to submit to Clint, or why he’s so angry when Clint seeks affection elsewhere. Surely he doesn’t want the alpha’s attention…right?
Review: Shifter stories are pretty much the genre I go to, to really escape, especially when its alpha/beta/omega (ABO) oriented. Does Broken Pieces offer anything brand new and totally unheard of it this trope? Not particularly. I’m not knocking it, because ABO are some of my favorite stories when I just wanna enjoy and let go, and as long as the characters are distinct and the dialogue and secondary characters offer enough, I am all in. Which this one mostly did, so I found it a pretty enjoyable read overall.
I don’t know why but I tend to let go of some of my more stringent pet peeves when reading ABO, and give a little leeway. I have no clue to the reasoning for this, but it just is. Even so, I still noticed, as the story progressed, more and more grammatical errors and little plot holes. I won’t say it took away all my enjoyment, but gah! missing parenthesis and misspellings started popping up more and more, so some of my original pleasure flagged a little. The plot issues were subtler and probably wouldn’t have been too much of an issue for most readers I know; they just popped out to me periodically.
The characters were interesting enough to keep the story flowing and fleshed out. I especially like Clint’s son, Jacob. Even at twelve, he is pretty much the most mature and logical one in the entire story, if you ask me. Told from dual POVs, it was nice getting into both Julian and Clint’s heads. Even if sometimes—okay more than sometimes, more like the first half of the book—all Clint’s head did was pretty much confirm what an idiot about relationships he is, and his choices are very self-driven. Seriously, I wanted to bang my head against the wall at his choices and his reasons for those decisions. Those of you who have issues with fidelity… this one straddles the line a wee bit; though technically anything done is before they are bonded, the feelings are already present. See, Clint is a bit of a player and uses sex a lot. Ridiculous amounts with multiple partners, and he uses it as an outlet of sorts, for all the wrong reasons. Intimacy is a foreign concept to him, and he makes some seriously boneheaded decisions. Needless to say, this particular character trait creates a fair amount of angst because Julian already has had uber-bad experiences with Alphas, and trusts pretty much no one, but especially an Alpha.
In true ABO fashion, there is an insta element of lust between the two, and though the book isn’t filled with a ton of sex scenes, their physical relationship doesn’t take long to start, and fans of the genre will get their knotting. The scenes are pretty hot and heavy, with each taking up quite a bit of page time, so although few, there’s still plenty to keep lovers of the sexy scenes happy. And though male omegas can conceive and birth children, mpreg isn’t present in this particular story. That is not to say that in future books in the series it isn’t an option, it just doesn’t happen here.
The story started out solid, but between the grammatical errors and little plot holes, it devolved a bit towards the end, and then drops off at a cliffhanger. Yup, a cliffhanger. Which I sooooo did not see coming. I had no idea this was the beginning of a series, as there was no indication in the description or title that I could see. I generally don’t read reviews before I jump into a book I’m reviewing, only the blurb, so I wasn’t aware of this fact, and it caught me off guard. Though I had a little feeling it was looking like a series since, rather than answering questions of Julian’s past, they remained unresolved as more piled up. Blake (Clint’s friend and second) also has something going on with him that the author is clearly building up to, and then an additional plot point was added towards the end (which ultimately leads to the cliffhanger) where the pieces started fitting together that this was just the beginning. A foundation book, if you will. I will admit the cliffhanger did its job and definitely caught my attention, making me wonder what the heck was going on, but people who are not fans of an abrupt stop mid-story maybe should wait until the next one is released. Though I checked, and I don’t see a next one anywhere at this time, so I have no idea when that may be.
Broken Pieces had a strong beginning, which lost some of its flare for me as the story progressed. Even so, it was still a pretty solid story within the ABO universe which I would recommend to lovers of the shifter trope.
You can buy Broken Pieces here:
[zilla_button url=”http://bit.ly/2hlC78R” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Loose Id [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”http://authl.it/B0747RJ3NY?d” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”http://bit.ly/2hlHBRd” style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Barnes & Noble [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/broken-pieces/id1263518134?mt=11″ style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] iBooks [/zilla_button][zilla_button url=”http://bit.ly/2hlVHC4″ style=”blue” size=”medium” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Kobo [/zilla_button]
The Novel Approach Reviews 
Leave a Reply