A review by nikkieliz13
Alpha Maddox: A Single Dad Wolf-Shifter Romance by Emilia Rose

1.75

Rating: 1.75 Stars 

“For some fucked up reason, I wanted the man who tortured me every day since I was eleven years old, the immature alpha who couldn’t deal with his mate cheating on him so he took it out on me.”

This was a clusterf*ck of epic proportions. 

Alpha Maddox (30) finds his mate Clea in bed with Martin, one of his strongest warriors. In the aftermath, Maddox tortures Martin, until he learns that Martin’s mate Hannah killed herself, causing him to release Martin so that Martin and Hannah’s daughter Jade (11) will have at least one parent. Except Martin leaves the pack and Jade behind. Shortly after Clea rejects Maddox and leaves, claiming that Maddox is to blame for her best friend killing herself (said best friend being Hannah, the mate of the man she was sleeping with), and for Martin leaving. He begs her not to leave him and their one-year-old daughter Kylie, who was recently diagnosed with autism, and she straight up tells him, “She will be nothing but a pain to raise.” Maddox decides that eleven-year-old Jade should pay for her father’s sins—that’s right, a thirty-year-old man decided to torture an eleven-year-old girl whose father abandoned her, and whose mother just killed herself. 

He spends the next nine years torturing Jade. Clea started a rumor before she left the pack that Martin forced himself on her, because she didn’t want her reputation ruined by the truth of her adultery. Maddox doesn’t do anything to correct this rumor, because it causes the pack to ostracize Jade, and her isolation feeds into his twisted sense of possession over Jade.

“She was mine to torture, mine to hate, mine to have.”

 
Nine years pass, and Maddox finally gets a chance at a second chance mate during Chaos (week long mating fever), only to find out Jade is his mate. Cue an abundance of hate-sex and cringey “dirty talk”.

The entire time this f*cked-up courtship is occurring, rogues and another pack are invading the pack lands to, “kidnap our children and rape our women.” It’s completely pandemonium during the week long Chaos—but despite the fact that people are being raped, attacked, and killed, the local bakery/ice-cream shop is still opening and thriving—that’s right! don’t mind the nearly decapitated corpse in the middle of the street, and come buy a pastry!

“But even though I hated her, she was mine. I was a selfish son-of-a-bitch. I wanted to be the only one who looked at her. I wanted to be the only one to touch her. I wanted to be the only one to torment her. I wanted to both love her and make her pay for her father’s mistakes.”

 
TL;DR: FMC ends up with a man nineteen-years her senior who’s spent the last decade torturing her for something that wasn’t her fault. The author clearly has misconceptions of what constitutes an “alpha male lead”, only managing to romanticize abuse with her controlling, possessive, and domineering MMC.

“Everything about her repulsed me, especially how confident she acted. She was nothing more than a mere pup with the unruly strength of a luna, who obviously wanted to be punished. She knew that no good omega talked back to their alpha.”

 
Title:[b: Alpha Maddox (Wolves of Chaos Valley)]
POV(s): Dual—First Person
Interconnected Series: Yes
Standalone: Yes
Cliffhanger: No
HEA: SpoilerYes
Relationship: M/F
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance
Triggers: SpoilerAbuse
Tags/Tropes: 
❖ Age-Gap (19 years)
❖ Alpha-Male-Hero
❖ Angst
❖ Enemies-to-Lovers
❖ Fast-Burn
❖ Fated-Mates
❖ Hero-Abuses-Position-of-Power
❖ Hero-Cruel-to-Heroine
❖ Hero-Ex-Drama
❖ Heroine-Pack-Outcast
❖ Second-Chance-Mate
❖ Single-Father-Hero