Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Kieran
SERIES: The Atherton Pack #4
AUTHOR: Toni Griffin
PUBLISHER: Mischief Corner Books
LENGTH: 258 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 19th, 2016
BLURB:
“You need to go to Atherton,” they said. Easy for them. The higher-ups at headquarters don’t have their whole world on the line. When Detective Damon Kelly’s bosses send him across the state on a “simple” cyber fraud case, he never thinks he’d meet his mate, then risk losing Kieran by doing his job. No matter what other possible angles Damon works, his partner Grant Davis is sure Kieran’s best friend Corey’s their guy, and Grant is bent on bringing him in.
After the birth of their Alpha’s son, the Atherton Pack needs another beta. Kieran Baxter couldn’t be happier to accept. What Kieran doesn’t expect is for all hell to break loose his first week on the job. Clashing with his mate at every turn, and fighting a human cop who wants to arrest Corey for hacking a government database, wasn’t part of the plan either.
As more evidence piles up, a bigger, scarier picture comes into focus that could threaten not only the Atherton Pack, but everything the world knows.
REVIEW:
If you are not familiar with this series, it follows a pack of wolf shifters, each book featuring a couple as they find their fated mate. The pack in this series is the Atherton pack, which is the pack headed by the Pennaeth Alpha, the lead Alpha of all of the Australian shifter packs. This series also involves characters from Toni Griffin’s other shifter series following the Holland family.
The main story line of this book is continued from the last book…. Ben, the Pennaeth Alpha and his mate Tommy, have had a baby. But since the baby is born to two men, here is no record of the birth. Corey, one of the other shifters, hacks in to government computer systems to add the children born to mated men so they can become legal citizens. Unfortunately Corey gets sloppy and someone figures out something fishy is going on. Damon is one of the detectives sent to investigate the situation. Damon is a shifter, and knows what is happening, and is trying to stop his partner Grant, from focusing on Corey. Eventually we find out there is more too it, and a big government conspiracy starts, and I’ll stop here and not give more away!
The romance part of the story is Damon and Kieran. Damon is surprised to find his mate is one of the Alpha’s betas. The two meet in a restaurant while everyone is out eating, go to the bathroom for a quick fuck, and bond. Then they get so caught up in the drama happening, that they spend very little time together. Kieran is pissed off at Damon for most of the story, and at one point punches him. It’s a rough story for the two men, but there is a good ending.
So I liked this story for the bigger story line. I loved seeing the characters from the previous books in this series, and we see a couple of the Holland men as well. However, I didn’t love the romance part of it. There just wasn’t much there. Kieran and Damon spend too much time apart other than fucking. There is no relationship built between them. Finally, at the end of the story they get a chance to get to know one another, but then the book ended. I was disappointed in how little time the two spend together… but I did like the bigger picture part of it. A big thing happens with all of the shifters involved, and I am curious to see how that plays out in later stories, assuming we get more anyway! I really liked seeing Tommy and Joseph the baby, and I was quite nervous for them at one point!
This is a good book, and a good addition to this series and the overall world of shifters that Toni has created. I don’t feel like this one had much romance in it, but it did have some hot sex scenes, and some good action around the big story line. It is not a stand alone book, you do need to know what is going on in this world. I like Toni’s writing style, and I love that she includes Australian phrases and details in her books. I’ve listened the the audio version of the previous books in this series and they are very well done. If you like shifters and m-preg, both this series and the Holland Brothers books are well worth reading.
RATING: 
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