Enjoyed this one! It's a sexy read, light on the world building so easy to get into the story. Jim has some challenges as the alpha male and coyote shifter pack leader, especially with his pack angry at his rejection of their latest mating requests, a necessary decision to build a strong pack. His own mating is complicated since he believes he's found his guy - a human waiter, Teddy, from his local diner. Since Teddy is afraid of dogs after being attacked as a child, it means Jim revealing his true nature could be...problematic. it's a bit of insta-lust for this couple with some sexy love scenes and some minor obstacles to overcome for their HEA.

Enjoyed this one! It's a sexy read, light on the world building so easy to get into the story. Jim has some challenges as the alpha male and coyote shifter pack leader, especially with his pack angry at his rejection of their latest mating requests, a necessary decision to build a strong pack. His own mating is complicated since he believes he's found his guy - a human waiter, Teddy, from his local diner. Since Teddy is afraid of dogs after being attacked as a child, it means Jim revealing his true nature could be...problematic. it's a bit of insta-lust for this couple with some sexy love scenes and some minor obstacles to overcome for their HEA.

Jim has depend his territory for over fifteen years, but when pancake server Teddy challenges more than just Jim patience, but this couldn't be the worse time for Jim to find his mate, especially since Teddy is a human, not a coyote like Jim.

I really enjoyed the book, while I can understand where everyone is coming from with it being the longest day, it really did seem to drag on, but the overall story was good for me. Jim and Teddy were both good characters.

Okay, so I try not to read reviews before I read a book - I've been burned by spoilers a few too many times so I consider avoidance the safest way to go. However, I do look at ratings. I don't always make decisions based on those ratings, but I kind of like to know what I'm in for. This book had a LOT of low ratings, but there were a couple from trusted readers that I know have the same taste in books as I do that rated it higher. Those couple of reviews/ratings are what made me decide to take a chance on Alpha's Claim and I'm really glad that I did.

I've never read any other book by Holley Trent, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Alpha's Claim wasn't perfect, but I really liked the story and I liked Trent's writing style. Teddy was a fun character. He had no idea how crazy it was to be talking back to an alpha. He was human and basically thought that Jim and his friends were jerks. The fact that he didn't back down and actually stood up to Jim was just one of the things that attracted him to Teddy.

I also liked the dynamic of Jim's pack. You'll have to read the book to understand what I'm talking about. I've read a lot of shifter books and series and the sense of family in Alpha's Claim was one of the strongest I've read in a while. Yet, just like in every family, there were a few members who weren't quite as loyal to the pack as the rest.

The only real complaint that I have about Alpha's Claim is that I wanted more. There were things that I wanted to know and spending more time getting to know Jim and Teddy wouldn't have been a bad thing. ;)

This isn't one of the recent best Carina MM releases. I struggled a little with the lack of depth to the characters and the storyline, and that the 'world' the author introduced wasn't authentic.

Jim was a coyote shifter and the alpha of his pack. Jim had defended his territory for fifteen years. Then he discovers Teddy is his mate. Teddy is a human waiter/actor. He is tired of being screwed over for tips. He works at I HOP. There is some tension in Jim’s pack. Also Jim knew Teddy was his mate and wasn’t too sure how his pack would handle this. Right know if Jim let it be known that Teddy is his mate he wasn’t so sure the pack wouldn’t go after Teddy. The pack keeps finding females for mates but Jim won’t approve them. Then Jim sends two of his lieutenants out to find mates but wasn’t sure they would come back. Jim is super rich but gives poor if any tips to Teddy to get him to say something. Finally Teddy follows Jim out to face him about the tips. Teddy doesn’t know about shifters or mates and what it means.He also doesn’t know he is Jim’s mate.
I didn’t particularly care for this story usually I love shifter stories. But i felt this story was very slow. Almost just a lot of fooling around and sex no real plot.It was a confusing read and I didn’t feel that Jim acted like any alpha I had ever read about and liked at least. I just didn’t enjoy this story but I am sure some one else will just not meant for me.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Kris – ☆☆☆☆
The blurb sounded interesting, so I took a shot on this short novella. It was a good read! I enjoyed the interaction between the main leads, Jim and Teddy. Jim is the alpha of a NY pack of coyotes. Teddy is the waiter at the small diner the pack frequents. Jim is a grade-A jerk and seems to want to annoy Teddy every chance he gets. After nearly stiffing on a tip for the entire table, Teddy confronts Jim in the parking lot. It's just the opening the alpha is looking for, he tells Teddy to come to his house and get his "tip." Intrigued by this annoying man, Teddy does just that, much to his own annoyance. Jim is all male and all alpha and also, he's a moon shifter. He's bossy and domineering and tends to back Teddy into a corner. Teddy is afraid of dogs, let alone something more and has no clue about coyotes or moon shifters. But also, he's wanting to lose himself in yet another bossy boyfriend!

Teddy tries to hold back from falling too fast, but the pull of this man is too much. Not to mention, Jim needs to come clean about what he is! Teddy both loves the dominant side of Jim and hates it. I liked the chemistry the boys had with each other. I also found some of the pack politics being against Jim having a male mate interesting. I hoping to read more about these two!


Sarah – ☆☆
This feels like a paint by numbers shifter story. There isn’t really any unique world building. Instead, the author strings together a series of tired shifter tropes and just expects readers to understand. I only understood because so many of the ideas in this book appear to have been appropriated from other shifter stories. I know that paranormal romance tends to borrow and recycle ideas, but usually authors at least attempt to personalise the genre tropes.

So – a handsome, muscle bound coyote alpha meets a struggling human waiter. He needs his mate, claims his mate, and defends his pack from usurpers. It’s rags to riches for Teddy and a playmate/personal assistant for Jim. If this were written about a m/f pairing, my inner feminist would be totally annoyed by the reductionist gender roles. As it is written about a m/m pairing, I’m still not comfortable with the fairly emasculating role for Teddy.

As the sex isn’t hot enough or explicit enough for this to be considered erotica, this story desperately needs a central conflict, well developed characters, and some careful world building.

These are the hardest reviews to write. The reviews when you really didn’t like a book. In this case, I hated it. I could not get into the story. Was there a story? Not really. I couldn’t get into the characters. Who were these people, really? I have no idea because I never really learned much about them other than their physical attributes and what they did for a living. Honestly, these guys know little about each other so when they get together and obviously fall fast, they still don’t know anything of substance. It happens so fast that there is no time for any real story or character development.

I’ve been slowly trying new authors, particularly where shifter stories are concerned. I have found I like shifters. In this case, I was excited for not only a new to me author, but Jim is the Alpha for a pack of Coyote. I’ve never read Coyote shifters so I thought, yay!

Um… no.

The writing is not clean, the story is lacking any emotion and real plot, and I was bored to tears. It was everything in me to finish the book. I ALWAYS FINISH THE BOOK. It might take me a while, but if I’m going to review something, I like to know that I really read it all and gave it my best shot. Sadly, this time around, I was more than disappointed.

1.5 stars

I would say there's a longer review coming, but I think I got all the major points out.
Maybe something else will pop up, but for now, off the top of my head:
* Writing was good, but plot was nonexistent. Was hinted at, but nothing really came of it.
* Book reads along the lines of an outline and if there was details/conflict/reasoning/anything added and fleshed out, this would make a pretty decent novel.
* The entire actual, cared-about interaction between MC's was a total of maybe 36 hours. I've seen insta-love that takes longer than that.
* Literally nothing happened! There was debate from Teddy on whether this insta-love should move forward or not, but since that was a good 70% of the book, it got old real quick.
* Jim has trust issues, but we never know why and he contradicts himself on who he trusts and even then it's not a big deal.
* Seriously. Nothing. Happened!

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Look, this wasn’t baaaaad, but it just wasn’t very good either. The writing was ok and I liked the characters (even if the alpha was decidedly not alpha-like), but the story, the plotting, and conflict (lack there of) were a problem. Plus, I found what I consider a fairly large hole in the plot. I’ll address it first.

The basic idea is that Teddy is Jim’s mate. Jim recognizes him, immediately wants to make house with him and that’s that. It appears to be a fated mates kind of deal. But one of the few conflicts in the book is that there is a lack of females near the pack and the pack members keep finding mates that Jim won’t approve to join the pack. But if the world is set up to have fated mates, how can that be? It’s not like finding a new girlfriend, they’re MATES. I spent the whole book being like, what?

Secondarily annoying is the fact that I really don’t understand the whole “he’s an asshole to me constantly, so I lust after him” thing. I have never met a man or woman who purposefully treated me like crap, let alone came into my section of a restaurant, ran me ragged and then stiffed me on a tip (every week for months) and found them appealing, let alone sexy. So, chapter one I was already side-eyeing this story. And that is also a perfect example of how juvenile alpha-Jim is. He picks on the man he likes to get his attention.

The only relationship conflict seemed to hinge on Teddy being generically treated poorly in the past and therefore being wary of jumping into another relationship, which he does anyway. So what’s the point in giving him a weakly described tragic past? And if you’re going to do that, maybe be a little more descriptive and imaginative.

Then there is Jim. I liked Jim. He’s puppy dog cute, but puppy dog cute is not an alpha. He never once did anything alpha-like. His pack is walking all over him. In fact, he seemed to want to find his mate in order to have someone to stand up for him and make the decisions. Speaking of, what he really wanted was a wife. Sure the book called it a keeper or a minder, but he wanted someone to clean and organize his house, fire his staff, keep him in line and sleep with him. He wanted a wife. And that wouldn’t be a problem, except why write a male/male romance and then uncomfortably force one of them into such a cliched, gendered role?

All in all, I basically thought this a weak offering. It could have been bulked up, better thought out and plotted and been something special. Trent’s actual writing skills seem fine and the characters are cute, but the book needs to be more and better.

I struggled with this and find it difficult to review. It didn't follow an expected structure, so I was thrown the whole time.

I wanted more clarification. More emotion, more connections.

Copy provided by publisher via Netgalley, and read with thanks.

The Alpha's Claim
Holley Trent
3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a cute shifter romance book. I enjoyed reading this one. I haven't been reading much paranormal books lately. So it was a nice change.

Jim West, the New York Coyote pack alpha, has successfully defended his territory from external threats for almost fifteen years. Pack politics may be a pain in his ass, but his command has never been doubted, his authority never questioned.

Until Teddy, an argumentative pancake-house server, challenges more than his patience.

The lithe, pretty human calls to Jim's baser instincts. He knows instantly Teddy is his mate—but the timing couldn't be worse. Tension within his pack is growing, and adding a human mate to the mix could spark an uprising, with Teddy as the target.

Teddy's smart mouth may heat Jim's blood, but with a full moon only days away, getting Teddy to let down his guard and accept him—the man and the beast—is his main priority. There's no fighting the pull of a mate, but learning his lover is a literal predator might make Teddy run right into the danger Jim's desperate to control.



Thanks NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Review goes live: 25 MAY

This was an interesting story for me... I liked it, but I also didn't like it.

The storyline was one that pulled me in originally, but as I got further into the book, I didn't have that "pull" to keep me super wanting to know what was going to happen next.

I really liked Teddy's character though. I liked how he was willing to put the breaks on things and figure it out without getting too drawn in to Jim's desires.

Jim was a typical shifter alpha, and while I do normally like the paranormal alpha male thing - but at the same time with Jim it just got to be too much.

Overall - I would say that if there is a second book in the series, I would read it. But this isn't in one of my top reads.

Teddy, a server in a pancake house, is upset with Jim and his friends because of their crappy tipping. They day they leave him only 73 cents, after tying up his table for over 2 hours, is the last straw; he runs out of the restaurant to confront them. Jim is the Alpha of his coyote pack and they don't know that he is bi-sexual. Teddy is attracted to Jim but he doesn't know what he is and Jim isn't sure how to tell him. There's another problem – Teddy is terrified of dogs. This story had a lot of good points and made me laugh and cry a bit – always a sign that I'm enjoying a story.

The first half of this story consisted of the introduction and detailed descriptions about the two main characters Teddy (human) and Jim (coyote shifter) having sex.

"He didn’t really know anything about the man whose pants he was wearing, except that he had a huge bank account balance, a huge house, a huge cock and a huge ego.”

Unfortunately neither did we. And I love shifter stories of all kinds but this story didn't hit the mark for me.

I thought the characters were great, Teddy works in a diner but has hopes for broadway. Jim is a coyote shifter and the alpha of his pack. The two men know each other because Jim often eats in the diner and tips very poorly. Teddy dislikes the leather jacket wearing low tipper and eventually confronts Jim, not knowing that Jim has been low tipping as a way of getting Teddy to notice him.

The two men hook up and the first half of the story is Jim trying to convince Teddy to give him a chance and explore their relationship, and the two of them having sex. All of this is against the background of tense relationships within the pack.

I think book just isn't well structured. The first half of the book could have been a lot shorter and the second half much longer. The second half was where the story became interesting.

This was a review book and it is always disappointing to request a book for review only to find it just isn't what you hoped it would be.

Copy provided by Carina Press via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Good setting and story line. I was just hoping that James would get his act together a little earlier than he did. Still a good book.

Teddy works as a waiter, and one day confronts the leader of a large group of people who regularly come in and tip horribly. That interaction changes his life in more ways than he ever expects. I liked Teddy. He's had a habit of picking the wrong men to date, and is trying to stay away from bad boys.

Jim is that leader; he also happens to be a coyote shifter. Jim was a little confusing for an alpha, it's clear that he is trying to not scare Teddy away, but his interactions with his fellow coyote shifters weren't always as clear as one would expect.

The story really deals mostly with Jim trying to
keep Teddy and convincing him to date and stay with him. I enjoyed it, but found myself wanting more details about the shifters and their world. Several threads were introduced about problems within this pack, but most were not fleshed out or solved. I hope that some of these things will be addressed in another story set in this world.

*I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book*

While I enjoyed this story, I did feel like it was lacking some substance. There just wasn't much to it. But that being said, it was a fun, interesting read. I really Jim and Teddy a lot. They were really sweet and open with each other which was really refreshing to see since it seems to be the norm in the recent M/M books I've read to have adult men act like children and create unnecessary angst and conflict. This author got it right but making sure that the MC's acted their ages and communicated. The "secret" Jim had to keep for reasons not withstanding. :)
All in all, this was a good read. It was quick, sexy, and well written. I recommend it to everyone.

I do love me some shifter action! I was excited to see a new shifter book by a new-to-me-author. Especially since it was coyotes and that means a little somethin’ different, right?

Well…. Hmmm. If you read the blurb you can tell that the basic premise is Jim “thinks” Teddy is his Mate, but his pack isn’t stable and that could be a problem.

What it doesn’t say is that there is a vague “mate pull” but it’s nothing like what you’ve seen in other books. It also doesn’t tell you that until the 80% point we don’t even begin to CONSIDER how to tell Teddy – the human! – about being a shifter – and that the push/pull between them seems to drag on and on and on and on.

If this were a short story – heavily edited- it might work. As it stands it felt far too long without nearly enough conflict or “problems” to resolve and the problems that are mentioned are either still present or somehow disappear without much fanfare.

I didn’t particularly like either MC nor did I feel an attraction to them. I was even disappointed by the mating itself.



In any case, I was kinda confused, a little bored and not very connected to this story. I won’t say I’d never read anything by this author again, but I’d need to wait for reviews I think, first.

2.25 (rounded to 2.5) of 5 stars

The Alpha's Claim by Holley Trent is a very short read that I really liked. I really would love to see this one a series. I would love to know more about pack structure, and other members as well.
In this book we meet Jim and his mate Teddy.
Jim is the Alpha to the New York Coyote Pack. He is trying really hard to get the attention of his over work and under paid mate. I will say he does pick the most annoying way possible to get his mate's attention. Sitting in his booth area with all of the pack members, and not tipping him properly. Yeah doesn't inspire his mate to like him much. Nope he is being a pain in the tuckus but he knows it. He likes to see how far he can push before his mate says enough and calls him on it.
Teddy has had more than enough of Jim and his stingy tipping. He just wants to make enough to get by but with the tips Jim and his crew leave that is not happening. So he confronts Jim about it. I loved how brave Teddy is. Jim is much larger and scarier than he is, but he is willing to go toe to toe with him over what he perceives to be the right thing to do.
While their courtship is unusual to say the least they are really good together. They have a balance that they both need. Now will Teddy accept that Jim is a coyote shifter is the biggest question of all.
For a fast paced paranormal read that has a very happy ending I highly recommend this one.


Five Shooting Stars