This reader found "Alpha Packed" by Darla Dunt simply an "okay" read; the tale seemed full of cliche traits in the characters as well as many of the incidents faced by protagonist Darlene, boyfriend and wolf-shifter, Idris, and many of the secondary characters. Much of the tale was told, versus shown, and Dunt moved from Darlene to Idris for point of view - often with no transition, break or explanation that readers sre now in someone else's head. It could be a tad confusing at times. Darlene is physically described as a big girl and spent most of the tale whining and moaning about her size, which this reader found highly annoying. Readers are never really given descriptions of the characters traits or personalities; this keeps the characters at one and two dimensional level, so harder to feel empathy for or with them. The story had an extremely slow build up, mainly concerning why Darlene prefers to be by herself and her lack of self-confidence due to her larger size... c'mon now, many bigger gals are supremely confident in their worth, sexiness, attractiveness, etc. Darlene's moaning and groaning was grating on this reader's nerves, as was Idris' self-loathing for being a wolf-shifter; this reader never had any empathy for the characters and only finished the book because she truly hates to leave a book unfinished. Even one she dislikes. As to the characters, most held hate throughout the entire story, either in the form of self-loathing or hatred of non-magical beings. While there was a happily-ever-after ending, of sorts, the tale did end on a cliffhanger with links to the next book - novella, actually - in the series. However, this reader never garnered enough interest or empathy in Dunt's world and characters to consider reading - let alone purchasing - the next few books. There was also a few spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, although not enough to toss a reader jarringly from the world. Nevertheless, this reader was less than pleased with the tale as well as Dunt's style, so will not recommend or revisit this world. ** Review originally posted to Amazon reviews on July 3, 2017 and Goodreads on the same date. **
