Okay, Alpha Unhinged.
That title isn't flirting with the truth. It has grabbed the truth by the ankles, shaken it violently and yelled YES, THIS ONE IS COMPLETELY COOKED.
We have officially reached the angry Dixon.
The grumpy Dixon.
The Dixon everyone apparently looks at and thinks, maybe don't poke that one with a stick.
So obviously I was interested immediately.
Because this bloke isn't walking around with a little bit of pent-up frustration. Nope. He's got a furious Kodiak bear rattling around inside him, no mate, a temper held together with what I'm assuming is one piece of emotional duct tape, and the general demeanour of a man whose neighbour has been using his bin for six months and TODAY IS THE DAY HE SNAPS.
Honestly, even my book gremlin approached cautiously.
She still approached.
She's an idiot.
But cautiously.
And then his mate finally appears at basically the WORST POSSIBLE TIME because trouble from the Dixons' past is also turning up.
Of course it bloody is.
Fate could have sent her on a quiet Tuesday.
Nope.
Fate apparently woke up and chose MAXIMUM DRAMA.
Here's your mate.
Here's your violent past.
Here's your furious Kodiak.
Good luck, sweetheart.
And OH BOY does he go from angry to FERAL PROTECTIVE LUNATIC with impressive efficiency.
Mate.
You were already hanging onto reasonable behaviour by your fingernails.
Now we've added a mate?
That's it.
We're done.
Everybody get indoors.
The Kodiak is driving.
I swear this entire family treats finding a mate like someone has pressed an emergency button in their brains. Every other thought gets evacuated from the building and there's just one bloke left at the control panel hammering PROTECT HER PROTECT HER PROTECT HER until something starts smoking.
But this one had a darker, more frantic edge that worked for me. He's already the volatile brother, so watching all that ferocity suddenly have somewhere very specific to point itself gave the story a different kind of energy.
And apparently my book gremlin has issues because she was DELIGHTED.
Not interested in calm men.
Not interested in well-adjusted behaviour.
Give her an angry Kodiak shifter one inconvenience away from flipping an imaginary table and suddenly she's perched on my shoulder whispering, this one. I like this one.
We need to have words about her standards.
Mind you, I've read four Dixon brothers now, so I have absolutely no moral high ground here.
My one complaint?
EIGHTY PAGES.
Olivia.
Babe.
You gave me the hot-headed brother.
You gave me a furious Kodiak.
You dragged their dangerous past back into the picture.
You dropped his mate directly into the middle of it.
And then you gave me EIGHTY BLOODY PAGES?
I hadn't even finished putting on my imaginary protective helmet.
This one needed more room. More tension. More of that barely-contained bear. More time with the relationship. More time for the crap from their past to properly hit the fan.
Just MORE.
Because if you're going to call a book Alpha Unhinged, I want the hinges found three suburbs away and the door lodged in someone's hedge.
Still, I had a bloody good time.
Four stars for the angriest Dixon brother finally finding his mate at the exact moment life decides to kick him directly in the shins.
He was already fierce.
Already grumpy.
Already carrying one furious Kodiak around inside him.
Then fate handed him a mate and enemies at the same time.
Honestly?
That wasn't romance. That was someone pulling the pin on a bear-shaped grenade and running.