Hunting Ground (The Alpha And Omega book 2) by Patricia Briggs (book review).
This is book 2 in ‘The Alpha And Omega Series’ by Patricia Briggs.
Anna and Charles have been sent to Seattle to take part in a conference around Bran’s plan to bring the werewolves out into the open. Bran is fed up of people finding out about them and using this to blackmail or have power over them. Bran is hoping that the various packs from around the world that attend this conference will behave well and go along with his plan. He needs them to behave well to show the world the werewolves are not all vicious killers. Unfortunately, there are always some bad apples and these happen to rise to the surface at the conference. Lots of the usual posturing from the Alphas goes on, plus lots of interest in Anna as a new Omega and Charles as the terrifying enforcer. Everything goes well until Anna and some other delegates are attacked by a team of vampires using pack magic to hide themselves. Who gave the vampires this magic? Why did they attack Anna? These questions are the main focus of the rest of the book.
I’m really enjoying seeing Anna come into her powers and learn that she is not the submissive wolf she thought of herself. She is even able to help another Omega with learning about what they really are within the larger pack. I also loved how detailed Briggs is with the hierarchy within the pack. We learn more about dominant wolves, submissive wolves and also omega wolves in this book. It’s actually really interesting to see how the world looks through the eyes of the wolves in terms of pack structure and how they each react to each other on first meetings.
The relationship between Anna and Charles is something beautiful to watch as it becomes more and more stable. They have only really been together a short while at this point and Charles is still learning how to be in a relationship and he’s actually doing a great job. Given that Anna had such a traumatic time as a wolf in her first pack, Charles is really learning to listen to her and react in ways to help her become comfortable as a wolf and his mate. I love that Patricia Briggs didn’t go down the usual route of will they won’t they get together. She just allowed them to become mates and now we get to watch that grow and evolve.
I have to say that Briggs books are some of my favourite in urban fantasy and also in books in general. She writes such interesting plots with such a lot of world-building detail that you really feel you’re there. Plus her characters are all individual, even those who are side characters, get their own back stories. There is no point where you wonder who some is or what’s going on as it’s all so well written. I highly recommend this series and wish I’d started reading it at the same time as the other werewolf series, ‘The Mercy Thompson Series’. These books can be read as two separate series but they also have some degree of crossover of characters so can be read all together as well. ‘The Alpha And Omega’ series runs slightly before the ‘Mercy Thompson’ series.
Sarah Bruch
August 2022
Hunting Ground (The Alpha And Omega book 2) by Patricia Briggs
(pub: Orbit, 2009. 286 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84149-795-2)
check out website: www.orbitbooks.net and www.patriciabriggs.net
