Claimed by the alpha playboy

Book: Claimed by the alpha playboy by Sabrina Crest

Reviewed by Your_bookish_fantasy

Rating: 1/5

𝓝𝓞 𝓢𝓟𝓞𝓘𝓛𝓔𝓡𝓢
⚜️𝔻𝕖𝕥𝕒𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕕 𝕣𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨 𝕠𝕗- Claimed by the alpha playboy

𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐑𝐂 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰, 𝐢𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐬 𝐢 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐦𝐲 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤.

⚜️ℝ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤-
(out of 5 stars, my rating scale is at the end)
📚 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 ⭐️ DNF - could have been 6⭐️

🌡️ 𝗦𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗲 MF 🌶🌶 / 5 -𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑦 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑠

⚜️𝕂𝕖𝕪 𝕀𝕟𝕗𝕠:
Genre- Paranormal Fantasy

📖 324 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀

DUAL 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 but bled into 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝗣𝗢𝗩

𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲- 17 September 2026

𝗣𝗹𝗼𝘁 or 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 driven? 𝒜 ℳ𝒾𝓍

𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗡𝗮𝗺𝗲 & 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗻𝗼- Standalone

𝗔𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 on 𝗞𝗨? ✅𝒴ℯ𝓈

𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗲- 𝓊𝓅 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒹ℴ𝓌𝓃

𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲? ❌𝒮𝒶𝒹𝓁𝓎, 𝓃ℴ,

𝐀𝐧𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? (Disability, plus size, mental health etc...)❌

𝒟𝒾𝒹 𝒾 ℯ𝓃𝒿ℴ𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈?✅

𝒲𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒾 𝓇ℯ𝒶𝒹 𝓉𝒽ℯ 𝓃ℯ𝓍𝓉 𝒷ℴℴ𝓀 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓈ℯ𝓇𝒾ℯ𝓈?❌

𝒲ℴ𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝒾 𝓇ℯ𝒶𝒹 𝒶𝓃𝓎𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 ℯ𝓁𝓈ℯ 𝒷𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒶𝓊𝓉𝒽ℴ𝓇?❌

⚜️𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝔽𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕤:
🍆NO ᏦᏁᎾᎿᎿᎨᏁᎶ
😍IᑎՏTᗩ ᒪOᐯᗴ ᒪᑌᔕT
🛏𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐝
🗡 𝙃𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨
👩‍❤️‍👨𝙵𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝙼𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜
💀𝔉𝔬𝔯𝔟𝔦𝔡𝔡𝔢𝔫 𝔯𝔬𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢

⚜️𝕋ℝ𝕆ℙ𝔼𝕊
😈𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕤 & 𝔹𝕖𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕪𝕒𝕝𝕤
🧩𝑭𝒐𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒙𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒚
💈 ᗷᗩᑎTᗴᖇ
☠️𝕋𝕠𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕟𝕕...
🏹𝐁𝐚𝐝 𝐀𝐬𝐬 𝐅𝐌𝐂
🧨𝕊𝕒𝕤𝕤𝕪 𝔽𝕄ℂ
🥊 Revenge

📝Cliff Notes Review-
This was genuinely shaping up to be a 6 ⭐ read, which makes what happened even more frustrating. I was hooked within five pages by the mystery, magic and characters, but repeated phrases, POV and tense errors, missing lore, unexplained characters/factions and increasingly confusing continuity slowly destroyed my immersion. By the final stretch, the curse had become an endless procession of “one more thing” to fix and, instead of resolving the story, new problems were still appearing, so for the first time ever I DNF’d a book at 94% . There is an incredible story buried in here, but it desperately needed a rigorous editing and beta-reading process.

😥 𝕎𝕙𝕪 𝕟𝕠 𝕗𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕤?
This is probably one of the saddest low ratings I’ve ever given because I didn’t dislike this story. I bloody loved the story it looked like I was going to get. Within five pages I was transfixed. That almost NEVER happens to me. The mystery grabbed me immediately, I wanted answers, the magical elements fascinated me and I was already mentally preparing myself for one of those glorious books where the outside world ceases to exist until I’ve finished.

At around 20%, I was enjoying it so much that instead of simply complaining about the things confusing me, I actually messaged the author because I wanted to help. That’s how invested I was. I wasn’t hunting for mistakes. I was thinking, This is SO good, please tell me I’m missing something because I want this to work.

Unfortunately, the further I got, the more obvious it became that the confusion wasn’t just me.

Characters and organisations kept appearing without enough foundation. Nadia. Brynn. The Circle. The Covenant. Eclipse. Private factions. Match records. A system that apparently removed a Mercer girl. Someone being “edited.” Leo carrying Dad from a vault. Wards activating with characters apparently knowing information I couldn’t remember them learning. A shard was introduced as though it mattered enormously, even apparently speaking in someone’s voice and triggering some kind of command, but then it seemed to virtually disappear from the story.

I kept asking who, what, when, where, WHY?

There is a huge difference between deliberately withholding information to create a mystery and simply not giving the reader enough information to understand the scene they’re currently reading. Mystery makes me formulate theories. Missing context makes me wonder whether I’ve accidentally skipped a chapter. Far too often, I was doing the latter.

That’s also why this didn’t work for me as a standalone. I genuinely checked whether I’d somehow started with book two . It reads as though there is an entire layer of history, relationships, magical politics and worldbuilding that the characters already understand and I’m expected to know too. If this information exists elsewhere, it shouldn’t be required to understand a standalone. If it doesn’t exist elsewhere, it needed to be in this book.

Then we have the editing.

Repeated phrases became noticeable enough that I started annotating them, particularly variations of “his/her voice cracked on the last word.” There were POV slips, tense problems, continuity issues and general errors. One mistake won’t bother me. Neither will the occasional typo. I’m reading a story, not sitting there with a red pen waiting to pounce. But once mistakes become frequent enough that I start noticing the construction of the book instead of experiencing the story, my immersion is gone.

And THAT is what makes me angry on the author’s behalf too. This plot deserved better support.

Then came the curse.

My God, THE CURSE. 😂

Eventually it stopped feeling like an escalating magical problem and started feeling like a child negotiating bedtime.

Okay, I’ve broken the curse.

But wait! There’s one more thing!

Fine. I’ve fixed that.

Actually, there’s another thing.

DONE.

Well technically…

GO. TO. BED. 😂

Escalating complications can be brilliant when each revelation fundamentally changes our understanding of the problem. Here, it increasingly felt as though the finish line was simply being dragged backwards every time the characters approached it.

At first I actually appreciated that the ending wasn’t being rushed into a neat little bow. I thought, YES, she’s giving the consequences room to breathe.

Then I realised…

We aren’t wrapping things up.

We’re still introducing questions. New problems. New complications. More setup.

At 94% .

That’s when I did something I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever done before.

I DNF’d it. At ninety-four bloody percent.

If you’ve managed to keep me for 94% of a book and I still choose not to read the final 6%, something has gone spectacularly wrong.

🌍 𝕎𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕕 𝕓𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕨𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕡𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕘:
Ironically, the worldbuilding is simultaneously what hooked me and what ultimately frustrated me most. There are clearly fascinating ideas underneath this story: magic disappearing for years, wards, archives, curses, magical factions, erasure, magical records, mysterious family histories, systems of control, a shard, hidden identities and organisations apparently deciding who gets to exist. THAT is my kind of rabbit hole. Give me conspiracies, secrets, magical politics and ancient history and I’ll happily crawl inside with snacks.

But interesting concepts aren’t the same as developed worldbuilding. If you tell me magic disappeared/wasn’t used for years, I immediately want to understand what that meant. Why? When? What caused it? If you introduce the Circle, Covenant and Eclipse in relatively quick succession, I need enough distinction to understand whether these are organisations, factions, magical events, enemies, allies or three different flavours of headache.

Even character relationships weren’t always properly anchored. I shouldn’t repeatedly have to stop mid-scene to ask “Who is this person to them again?”

The frustrating part is that I could see the skeleton of something genuinely excellent. This wasn’t a boring world desperately needing ideas. It had too many potentially brilliant ideas without enough connective tissue.

The pacing suffered for the same reason. The opening absolutely flew because mystery after mystery pulled me forward. Eventually, though, questions accumulated faster than answers. By the ending, instead of converging towards a satisfying resolution, the plot seemed to expand sideways again.

That’s why the final stretch felt so much longer than it actually was. I wasn’t anticipating the payoff anymore. I was wondering whether we’d ever stop adding things requiring one.

🧝‍♂️ ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤:
I wanted considerably more grounding here too. There were characters I was interested in, but sometimes I didn’t understand enough of their history or relationships to interpret their behaviour properly. That turns potentially intriguing secrecy into confusion because I don’t know whether something is a deliberate mystery, information I’m supposed to remember, or information the book simply hasn’t given me.

One early example was the heroine’s anger over the tabloids stories of the playboy. I couldn’t understand why she behaved as though he personally needed forgiveness for photographs and stories published about his life. Without additional emotional context, it made her appear petty rather than wounded, and I suspected that wasn’t what the author intended.

That’s really representative of my wider problem. Motivation needs context. Give me the history and I’ll happily understand irrational behaviour because people ARE irrational. But I need to know what emotional wound they’re reacting from.

🏷️ And can we talk about that title?
Claimed by the Alpha Playboy sold me a completely different flavour of story.

With that title, I’m expecting the alpha playboy aspect to be materially important. I’m expecting his reputation to create conflict. I’m expecting jealousy, women from his past, confrontation, possessiveness, social consequences, maybe some delicious “you were photographed with WHO?” chaos.
Instead, the billionaire element barely mattered and the playboy element mattered only slightly. You could swap his career, reduce his bank balance considerably and retain most of the central magical plot.

Meanwhile, the thing that actually made this book distinctive was the mystery, curses, missing magic, hidden histories and magical conspiracy . That’s the book I was addicted to.
The title makes a fascinating magical mystery sound much more generic than it actually is, while simultaneously promising romance tropes that aren’t particularly important. It doesn’t merely undersell the book. For me, it mis-sold what its greatest strength actually was.

⏳ 𝕎𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕚 𝕣𝕖-𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕠𝕣 𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕕?
Sadly, no to both , and that’s painful because at the beginning I’d have predicted the complete opposite.

🪧𝔽𝕚𝕟𝕒𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤:
This may genuinely be more frustrating than simply reading a bad book because I saw the six-star version hiding inside it.

Within five pages I was hooked. At 20%, despite already having a page full of questions, I cared enough to contact the author because I was enjoying the book so much that I wanted to understand it properly. I saw mystery, magic, conspiracies and characters with histories I desperately wanted to uncover.

Then little cracks became bigger ones. Repeated phrases. Tense errors. POV problems. Missing context. Unexplained factions. Relationships I couldn’t place. Magical objects introduced with apparent importance and then forgotten. Questions multiplying faster than answers.

Eventually even the curse became exhausting because every solution revealed just one more thing that apparently needed fixing. By the final stretch, I wasn’t enjoying a complex mystery anymore. I felt like the book was refusing to end.

And at 94% I finally let it win. DNF.

I cannot remember another time I’ve been that close to finishing a book and simply thought, No. I’m done.
That’s why I’m not angry because this was terrible.

I’m angry because it could have been brilliant.

The imagination was there. The mystery was there. The opening was absolutely there. The raw plot had me completely transfixed. What it desperately needed was an editing and beta team willing to interrogate every missing connection, every continuity issue, every unexplained piece of lore and every scene that assumed knowledge the reader hadn’t been given.

Because somewhere underneath all of those problems was a book I genuinely thought might become one of my favourites.
And watching that potential slowly disappear was far more disappointing than if I’d simply hated it from page one.

𝐹𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠;

𝕋𝕚𝕜𝕋𝕠𝕜
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IᑎՏTᗩ
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*

𝕄𝕪 ℝ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕊𝕪𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕞𝕤:
⭐️ DNF

⭐️⭐️
I managed to finish it but it was rubbish. I won't keep a physical copy and won't recommend it, but it's a shame as the plot could have made a good book in another author's hands

⭐️⭐️.5
It was OK. I wish I didn't start this one as it didn't do it for me as I struggled to read it. It had an interesting premise that fell flat but I had to see what happened in the end.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
I don't regret reading it, and I will read the next one, but this one did have a few flaws. [These could be repetitive writing, gaps or plot holes, better character growth or world building, areas needing more detail]
Generally, the book lacked depth and became confusing. The plot resonated with me even though it annoyed me on the whole.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I'm glad I read it. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to the right people, but I wanted more! Sadly, it's easily forgettable with a few issues I just couldn't overlook/get past.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Good book! I loved it, but... I needed more! I really did enjoy it, but it had a few parts that needed more detail or added history/background or lore. But that's because the story or characters were memorable, and the plot was strong with brilliant twists. I would re-read if I needed to catch up for the next book and would recommend.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Great book! I truly wish the story had been thought about more, or the author had been given more time as this book is so close to brilliance! I will likely read again and will definitely be recommending it to all!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
WOW! Absolutely amazing book! Well written with great characters and a plot so memorable that it will stay with me. I will definitely read this again, I will be recommending it and sharing it with the whole world! Also- I NEED A PHYSICAL COPY!

🔥⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🔥
This is my God level tier. The book must be perfectly memorable. Even after reading 50+ more books, I will remember character names and emotions along with the plot. If there is a special edition, then I need to own it! If there is a conversation on books- I'm talking about this!

SPICE SCALE:
🌶️– segsual language and a little on-page action / fade to black

🌶️🌶️– a lot of segsual language and some on-page open door action, may be occurring a couple of times

🌶️🌶️🌶️– a lot of explicit action and dirty talk, occurring frequently with 2/3 lurvers

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ – super graphic and explicit, occurring 4 or more times, can be more grey and taboo themed.

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ – Kinks and Fet!shism, explicit and super graphic. It is likely to be tushy play, toys, playrooms, and more dark / taboo fantasies and realities.

Read full review on ARC Library