Starting the Alpha and Omega Series
The Alpha and Omega series by Patricia Briggs started in 2009 and follows Hunter, a werewolf who becomes the alpha of an Alaska pack, alongside his mate Kate, a Native American psychic. The series runs parallel to Briggs' Mercy Thompson books but exists in a separate continuity with its own cast of characters. You can pick these up at most bookstores, through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local library. The series has nine main novels as of 2026. I prefer the physical editions because the ebooks sometimes have formatting glitches in the later books, especially around chapter breaks and the occasional map that get misaligned in certain e-reader software. If you are reading on a Kindle, make sure your software is updated to the latest version. Older firmware versions had that issue. The order matters more here than in some series because the timeline between books jumps around. Here is the chronological reading order:
Cold Bound (Book 1, 2009) Bound in Shadow (Book 2, 2010) Bound in Lies (Book 3, 2011)
Bound in Blood (Book 4, 2012) Bound in Terror (Book 5, 2013) Bound in Terror is the one where the pacing gets uneven, but it works if you push through it.
Get the Full Details
Shadow Bound (Book 6, 2016) Curse of a Dark Witch (2018, standalone-adjacent) Wolf Bound (Book 7, 2020)
Deadly Magic (2022) Wicked Promise (2024)
What Actually Happens in These Books
Hunter is a beta from Chicago who gets pulled north to become alpha of a struggling Alaskan pack. He has no real desire for leadership, which is the whole hook. Kate is a Lakota woman with psychic abilities who gets drawn into his world. Their relationship develops across the series, and the supernatural world-building expands from pack politics into broader conflicts involving fae, witches, and other shifters. The books are fundamentally romantic paranormal fiction with strong shifter lore. If you are coming from the Mercy Thompson books, the tone is similar but heavier on the romance subplot and lighter on the mechanic/auto shop angle that defined Mercy's stories. Briggs writes the supernatural elements as background infrastructure rather than the primary focus. The plot advances through relationship drama and pack survival scenarios.
A Practical Problem I Ran Into
When I was rereading the series for a third time, I hit a continuity issue between Book 4 and Book 6 that almost made me drop the whole thing. There is a gap where character ages and timelines do not line up cleanly. Kate's backstory events reference dates that conflict with events in Cold Bound. I spent about two hours cross-referencing publication dates with in-universe timeline notes before I accepted that Briggs simply moved the timeline forward slightly without updating earlier references. The workaround was just treating the timeline as approximate and focusing on character continuity instead of calendar precision. That resolved the entire problem for me. Most people start with the Mercy Thompson books first and then come to Alpha and Omega expecting the same narrative structure. That is a mistake. Hunter and Kate's story is more tightly focused on their partnership and the alphas' responsibilities. There is less ensemble cast rotation. The Mercy books have a wider magical ecosystem because Mercy interacts with multiple supernatural communities regularly. The Alpha and Omega books stay much closer to the Alaskan pack and the surrounding immediate supernatural politics. Going in expecting the Mercy Thompson tone will leave you thinking the world-building is thin. It is not. It is just narrower by design. Another common error is assuming all the books require prior knowledge. They do not. Each book is fairly self-contained. The main storyline carries forward, but the world-building explanations are woven in naturally. You do not need a glossary or a wiki open while reading. Briggs handles exposition efficiently enough that referencing external sources adds nothing except confusion from fan theories that contradict the actual text.
The One Area Where the Series Struggles
The later books lose some of the tight pacing from the early entries. Books 1 through 4 move quickly with clear conflict resolution by the end of each volume. Starting with Book 6, the stories stretch across more ground and some subplots resolve too slowly. This is not a dealbreaker. It is worth knowing if you are trying to decide whether to commit to the full series. The payoff in the final books is decent but not as sharp as the opening installments. If you want something similar but tighter, Briggs' Iron Druid Chronicles might be a better fit. Those books maintain consistent pacing throughout all nine entries. The Alpha and Omega series is worth reading, but manage your expectations on the middle section and know that the romance drive is the primary engine rather than mystery or investigative plotting.
