Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


When Tor Savan’s team is stranded by dangerous weather at a Titan base, it should be an inconvenience, not a medical emergency. But when their delay of a few hours stretches into days, a crisis emerges. Lieutenant Azure Lynwood is an omega and his suppressants have run out. Now biology will have its way regardless of Azure’s thoughts on the matter. The fact that Tor is an Alpha only makes the situation worse.

Azure has been raised to believe that all alphas are brutes who rape and torture omegas during a heat. But Tor promises to show him a better way and, thanks to hormones, Azure really has no choice but to place his trust in someone he has been conditioned to fear. While a storm rages outside, Tor and Azure must brave a whole new world together and hope they both survive the experience.

So I snagged Hurricane as a part of our Judge a Book By Its Cover Week for Reading Challenge Month. The space themes intrigued me, but there’s also a loneliness and isolation to the cover that caught my attention right from the start. Hurricane is the first in a trilogy set in the Omegaverse. So there are alphas and omegas and all the dominance kink you could want. There is an added layer of psychology here though. Omegas like Azure have been conditioned to fear and even hate alphas and there are horror stories of alphas raping and hurting omegas during heats. And given that omegas have only recently gained equal rights, the idea of being a slave to one’s biology is abhorrent to most omegas. But alphas haven’t exactly got it easy. Aside from a stigma that purports they are all monsters and abusers, alphas have essentially been forced into celibacy. Omegas hate them, betas can’t handle them, and basically no one else wants them. This was a slightly different spin on the alpha/omega trope and it showed that both groups were often hampered due to circumstances of biology.

The story is a bit wonky and it seems stretched given the confines of the book. Large chunks focus on Tor and Azure as you’d expect, but the rest of the story reads as somewhat chaotic, especially during the last portion of the book. The author seems to be setting things up for the next book in the series, but the transition from Tor and Azure’s isolation to a military crisis is abrupt and jagged. There are lots of little details that help establish the world building, but it does lack a measure of scaffolding. It’s almost as if the book is hyper-focused on Tor and Azure, but the background gets lost as a result. This may improve as the series continues though, so it wouldn’t be enough to stop me reading the next book.

Hurricane offers up a few new aspects to Omegaverse trope and the main characters are fairly relatable. The story struggles somewhat and overall Hurricane doesn’t feel as complete as it should. That said, it was still interesting enough to keep me engaged and seeking the next in the series.

This review is part of our Reading Challenge Month for Judge a Book By Its Cover Week! Leave a relevant comment below and you will be entered to win one of two sets of 3 audiobooks (or ebooks if preferred) from Riptide Publishing! Commenters will also be entered to win one of our three amazing Grand Prize book bundles. You can get more information on our Challenge Month here (including all the contest rules) and more details on Judge a Book By Its Cover Week here