Bea Reviews Her Rogue Alpha by Paige Tyler

Series: X-Ops #5
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: September 6th 2016
Challenges: NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge
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Blurb from goodreads:

HE'LL DO ANYTHING FOR HER

Former Special Forces Lieutenant Jayson Harmon can't believe that his war scars don't matter to beautiful feline shifter Layla Halliwell. Why would she saddle herself with a broken man?

But Layla knows that Jayson is a hero to the core, and that only she can heal his wounded soul. So when Jayson is deployed on another deadly mission, no way is Layla staying behind...

My Thoughts:

I read this while I was coughing up a lung or six (yay, asthma! :P ) and it was just right - not so deep that I had trouble focusing (hey, you try focusing when you're low on oxygen!) but complex and interesting enough to hold my interest. And while the action was plentiful, it wasn't overly detailed, and it was the characters that really kept my interest. I wanted the various missions to succeed but more, I wanted the people to succeed and I wanted to know more about them. Being me, I didn't read any of the preceding books in this series; oh no, I jumped in with this one, book five. Now there were a few moments of confusion but for the most part, it worked just fine as a stand-alone. Having read the book, I now want to go round up the preceding books and catch up, and get to know everyone better. We met characters who clearly appeared in earlier books and/or had their starring moment already and I want to know their stories.

While this did work as a stand-alone, if you want the whole romance from beginning to end, you need to read earlier books. Which ones, I don't know, but Jayson and Layla are smack dab in the middle of a relationship when this book starts. In fact, the relationship is in trouble. Due to injuries he sustained on a military mission, Jayson's been sidelined and he's having a hard time adjusting. He feels inadequate in general and particularly unworthy of Layla. Neither one has yet said "I love you" to the other one nor have they had sex yet, despite being involved for about a year. I know, I just about fell over! No sex? That just doesn't happen in many romances and certainly not PNR ones! I liked it though, it was a refreshing change. Of course, this book is their HEA so it does happen and it was both sweet and hot and "are you effin crazy? You're in the middle of a war zone and oh yeah, anyone, like enemy soldiers, could walk in on you!" :D I did think that the resolution to their problems was a little too easy but I liked that Jayson wasn't a complete idiot, that he could admit what he'd done wrong and apologize for it.

Despite not being a complete idiot, Jayson was sometimes impulsive. He really didn't think before jumping at the chance to be a guinea pig for an experimental serum that had a high risk of killing him. 'I'm doing this for Layla because I love her so much! Even though it's almost guaranteed to kill me and all my friends say I shouldn't trust the guy offering it to me." Ooooookay, that makes perfect sense Jayson. Uh huh. Maybe you should retire; clearly, logical thinking is not your strong suit. To be fair, he was in a lot of pain and the serum promised not only to heal him but to give him extra powers. Assuming, you know, that it didn't kill him. Does it work? Uh, maybe? Certain events interfere with the serum's full potential and we're left with questions which presumably will be addressed in later books.

There are a couple of other story lines going on, not all of them directly connected to the main one of Jayson and Layla. That usually irritates me but I was so engrossed in that one seemingly irrelevant story line that it didn't bother me. It helped that it clearly sets up future plots while seemingly tying into current ones. And there was a character who I feel sure we'll see again. I sure hope so as I really liked her.

"Her Rogue Alpha" was a busy story, with lots going on. There are intrigues and conspiracies everywhere you turn, love and romance for several couples as well as familial love, betrayal, action, current events, shifters and science fiction, all stirred together into a story that kept me swiping the screen on my Kindle. I was occasionally confused, which was probably a blend of not having read previous books and my illness, but never so confused that I was lost. I liked her world and want to know more about the shifters and hybrids. I enjoyed the story and the people; I cared about them and want to spend more time with them. I'll definitely be checking my library for more in this series.

Want to know more? Read an excerpt? Check out this post and enter to win a complete set of this series.