Running with the Alpha's Son

The Alpha's Son, Book 3

De: Penny Jessup

Narrado por: Michael Mola

The long-awaited third instalment in Penny Jessup’s best-selling The Alpha’s Son series.

Max and Jasper are finally together!

After months of agony and an eventful New Year’s Eve party, the path between souls has been lit, and the new couple are excited to date.

But being the mate of the alpha’s son comes with unexpected strings.

Not only must Max take on official duties as a member of the alpha’s family, but some pack members aren’t happy about the newly public relationship. And with Jasper away at college and traveling to different packs as a representative for his father, it’s hard to find the time to bond.

When summer arrives, Jasper invites Max to run away with him to his family’s house in the Californian desert, away from the pack and prying eyes.

But what starts as a vacation turns into something far less tranquil when their sanctuary is invaded by unfriendly interlopers.

When running away means running into trouble, can Max and Jasper still find the time and space to connect?

©2025 Tiiny Ghost Press (P)2025 Tiny Ghost Press

The best yet!

Absolutely astounding from start to end. My favorite in the series yet. But I’m about five seconds from pitching a hissy fit over the end. I need the next book STAT!!! How could you do us like that? My heart can’t take it.

Book 3 was so good!!

This book series has me in a chokehold honestly and boy did that cliffhanger get me. I can not wait for book 4 cause I need to find out what happens next!!!!

Cliffhanger

I’m ready to hear the 4th book 😬😬😬 we are going to need accountability, and retribution!

Too good!

I love seeing the character development and the relationship progression. I would love to see Penny create a post, apocalyptic gay series similar to Erik Brown’s “All that’s left in the world”. In the meantime, I plan to cry in a corner while we wait for part 4 after that cliffhanger.

Why!!!!!!

I need book 4, you can’t do this to us.
There so many question that need to answered. Please!!!!!!🙏🏻

What-What-What!

This is how you end the book Penny Jessup!? 1000 curses to you and your keyboard.

The blood wolf!!

Good listen. Adding more words to get the minimum amount of words needed to post this.

The writing matures with the central character. A+

(There are a few very vague spoilers ahead, though nothing major or explicitly described) First, in The Alpha’s Son, the main character, Max, was a rather self-absorbed 16-year who I liked, but felt was a bit too inclined to whine, and a bit too disinclined, or maybe incapable, of seeing himself as anything other than the center of the universe, at least as far as his expectations of others. Of course, the story gave him good reasons to complain as his soul mate, Jasper, couldn’t seem to make up his mind about being with Max. That novel ended with Jasper refusing to pursue their relationship. Then, in Chasing the Alpha’s Son, Max is still whining a lot, but eventually, Jasper finally comes around, only for the author, Penny Jessup, to give Max something more substantive to complain about - and very fortunately, to mature from. The boy who seemed like a modern Cinderella, coming from an ordinary childhood but set to marry a Prince, is elevated to stand as a kind of equal to his lofty partner. Now, in Running with the Alpha’s Son, with the Elite Pack’s fortunes in doubt, Max is called on to grow up even faster. And while Jessup made us wait years for this, it was worth it. We watch as Max and Jasper try to take some control of their life together, and cross some milestones of partnership, but then find themselves once again pulled into challenge and danger by threads woven through the Pack’s history, and over which they have no control. And this time, the cliffhanger has far greater personal stakes.

Jessup has improved on her weaknesses as a writer. For instance, her action scenes are more confident, less weighed down with details best left to reader imagination. Jessup’s Max seems more contemporary than in the first two books, and her generally excellent supporting characters seem even more real and less predictable. Max, though, still a self-absorbed teenager, is finally starting to understand that his rather self-righteous opinions deserve a bit more internal exploration, though he’s still a long way from understanding the wisdom of humility or the moral imperative of reticence.

There are a few issues I do still have with the series. Among the most pressing is the, at this point, bizarre absence of any form of commentary of the unique nature of Max and Jasper’s relationship. Max makes it very clear in the first novel that, despite homosexuality being common among his human classmates, gay werewolves “aren’t a thing.” Yet for all the personal and political turmoil the quasi-mystical bond between he and Jasper engenders, no one, not even Jasper’s father, the incredibly wealthy and powerful - and very intimidating - Elite Pack Alpha, Jericho, has a single word to spare on it. This is apparently the first time in the thousands of years of Elite Pack - or even werewolf - history that two male werewolves have ever been mates. But Jessup never addresses it. It’s not that everyone approves, far from it. But it’s class status and inter-pack rivalries that drive the opposition to Max becoming mate to the Elite Pack’s prince, not homophobia. There’s a subtle undercurrent of it and its frequent companion, heterosexism, throughout the series. But one would think that the very first homosexual werewolves ever known would warrant a hell of a lot more homophobia and discussion of it.

Even more basic than that, Jessup is - frustratingly - yet to give us answers to questions everyone in the novel must already take for granted. Specifically, what is the nature of the mate bond? The first book suggests it’s an overwhelmingly powerful connection between two werewolves that is far more certain and controlling than anything a human being has ever experienced. Yet even the characters seem unclear, from one chapter to the next, how determinative that bond really is. If the bond is mystical, and therefore more-or-less unquestionable, why would the opposition to Max and Jasper exist at all? Why would bonded mates ever try to deny the bond? How is it that the wolves themselves have a ritual that can break the bond by biting the neck of a different wolf? And is that just a political dissolution, or do the “moon gods” - who presumably have something (?) to do with the mate bond - validate the outcome of that action, and somehow “rematch” the bitten to the biter? Also, at one point, Jasper says he knew, at some level, that Max was his mate from the moment they collided outside a New York subway station. Does that mean the bond is determined at birth? At puberty? On the last full moon before the mating run? And why, finally on this question, if Max and Jasper are, as Max says, the first gay werewolves, are there so many other young (and closeted) LBGTQ wolves? It almost seems as though whatever mystical forces determine such things have decided to foist this update to werewolf demographics on werewolves all at once. In Chasing, for example, we learn of a second mated gay couple who are about the same age, but who were forced to choose between being rematched or being exiled. One stayed, and one decided to leave. It’s a heartbreaking story, but it emphasizes the lack of clarity regarding both werewolf homosexuality and the mate bond.

Another question - small, but bordering, however, on outright inconsistency, is Jasper’s vegetarianism. Though we’ve known this about Jasper since early in the first novel, there are at least two occasions in Running where Jasper appears to be eating meat, the tribute to his mother apparently forgotten. It’s an odd thing that an editor probably should have caught.

I’d like to here swing back to one of the most delightful yet bizarre choices Jessup made, and this is about Jasper’s father Jericho. Again, Max tells us there have never been gay werewolves, but nobody seems to care about that in the novel (unless the expressed forms of disapproval, class and strategic vulnerabilities, are supposed to be a proxy for homophobia, or part of a subtextual exploration, though why Jessup would choose either is unclear to put it mildly). Despite this, Jericho doesn’t chastise Jasper for his mate, or, apparently, try to engineer a female mating for him. To the contrary, and to everyone’s (including the reader’s) surprise, Jericho is wonderfully welcoming of Max, and supportive of their courtship. Please don’t get me wrong - I LOVED this about Jericho. It was a joyful twist I still fully endorse.

It’s just that it’s SO disconnected from everything else we know about Jericho, his position, what he wants for and expects of his son, and from all the world building Jessup has already accomplished, that it’s more than unexpected. It’s downright inexplicable. Again, I fully support this, and it does serve to make Jericho, even more interesting. As well, he seems very alone, beset, and painfully constrained. After his wife, Jasper’s mother, tragically died, we’re told of how he withdrew emotionally from his children, and began to emphasize the development and discipline of Jasper in his dauphin-like role. That makes perfect sense, and Jessup does a great job conveying the complex consequences grief can have on families. But then, where, oh where, does this enlightened benevolence come from? I sincerely hope Jessup takes the time to flush out Jericho. He’s potentially an incredibly rich character, and his relationship with Max and, to a slightly lesser extent, Jasper (and Jasper’s full-of-potential little sister) seem like a great opportunity for the next book.

A few words here about the presence of so many great secondary characters in these novels. If Jessup excels at anything (as she certainly does), it’s creating compelling supporting characters. I really enjoyed so many of the other wolves introduced in these novels. There are too many to go into here, but suffice to say, Jessup gives us so many intriguing secondary characters that they significantly buoy the whole series. Some of them could, I feel, easily carry their own novels. Great stuff.

Almost done, and now I want to talk about Max himself. There is, it seems to me, an 800 lb. gorilla in the room with Max that Jessup never really acknowledges or, at least, barely mentions. Now, normally I’d be fine with that. We all know, or should know, the problems with telling us instead of showing us. But this is so central to why things happen the way they do that it really needs to be addressed. So here goes. Max is hot. Like, supermodel attractive. He’s beautiful…or whatever term you might want to use. Why do I conclude this? Because so many people in the books offer the same deference to him as people in the real world, sometimes knowingly but mostly unconsciously, give to beautiful people. There really can’t be any other explanation for why so many wolves give him so much attention, so much leeway, so many otherwise inexplicable compliments. It’s not his personality…no, it’s certainly not that. He has a long way to go before he’ll be reliably pleasant company…and that, btw, only strengthens the conclusion, since beautiful people very often take a lot longer to develop any compassion for others…if they ever do.

Now you might deny this, or say it’s not noteworthy. But it’s actually important for two reasons. First, Jessup spends three novels trying to convince us that Max is entirely unaware of this, which is understandable, since she’d want lots of people to feel they can identify with Max. But it’s also rather misleading, which leads me to the second reason. These are YA novels; they have a certain responsibility to teach young people about the world, and one very unfortunate but inescapable truth is that beautiful people are granted far more deference and opportunity than everyone else. This doesn’t have to be presented as a horrible thing or an unyielding obstacle. In fact, Jessup could turn it around by making it a barrier to the compassion Max needs to learn, particularly given his unusual (and, increasingly, very potent) abilities. Max might come to address this explicitly (though, of course, the fact that his mate is at least equally stunning might be a sour to this sweet potential) and that would be a VERY unusual and refreshing thing explore, something I’ve never seen done - from this perspective - in all of fiction. But Jessup needs to address this explicitly…it’s long overdue.

Lastly, and for the sake of a losing battle for brevity, I’m not going to mince words here, Max’s encounters with other beautiful horny men beg the question, is Jessup, out of deference to the YA label, or from ignorance or selective awareness of gay cultural norms, going to leave unexplored the relational possibilities the novels keep throwing in our faces? Sex is not just for procreation, obviously, and those endless bouts of jealousy and interpersonal clashes Jasper has with other hot guys he and Max encounter have a ready solution, sitting there, at hand, ready to go. Yeah, it might be a bit early in their relationship, but come on. They need allies. They need to build bridges to other werewolf packs. They need to calm disunity and build loyalty. And a powerful tool for an unconventional but very robust path to all these goals is right there, waiting. Just like me, for book number four.

Really great books; please keep them coming.

The work of genius

I love the books and this one especially it showed that you can get what you want but it not be everything you imagine nothing is prefect.

Running with the Alpha's Son

Just an oversll great story that builds on the two previous books. We finally get to see the two main characters grow together. Getting a glimpse of their true personalities and how they can work together to create a welcoming environment for all pack communities. Please let there be a book 4.