Breaking Barriers

This is the first in the Hart Medical Center series. I went into this expecting one thing because of the blurb. It started off like that promise was going to be upheld. I was genuinely drawn in for a while until the accident finally happened. I was even able to look past a good bit of editing errors. But after that the book kind of sunk.

Firstly the editing, which I usually try to ignore, was too numerous in its problems. Missing words, wrong words, repeated phrases. Things like the author reworded a sentence and forgot to delete the part that wasn't needed anymore. If you're the type of person that cares about these things this book isn't for you. I've written reviews on books with editing issues and not even mentioned it but even for me, this was way, way too much.

That and the whole relationship dynamic didn't live up to its expectations. It was like one day the main character was dying, next he's living with his mate and then dating, pregnant, having a child, and set up for book two. It didn't dig deep enough for me to get involved. I was expecting with all of the classism towards Omegas to have this gritty hardcore Omega trying to make it in an Alpha world and it quickly fell into the usual Omega-Alpha roles that even the main character said the was trying to avoid.

The stalker angle, which got dropped while months passed during the pregnancy because, you know, stalkers stop stalking so wolves can have babies, was underdeveloped. I was ready to see where this was going then conception, a few months pass, more pass, baby comes out and, stalker returns. I'm a fan of M/M werewolf fiction and this one had all the workings of the grit and depth needed to jump out of the cliche's of the even more specific Mpreg genre and promised it would, but at the end the Alphas won out. The only saving grace was the over the top patient coordinator who managed to bring in some extremely competent Omega surgeons. But even still there was a one-liner about the Alpha male of the book saying they still needed to learn a thing or two that he, of course, was teaching them.

My take away was the relationship didn't live up to the challenge of an Omega being more than just this thing belonging to an Alpha because that's exactly what happened. He lost his job due to petty Alpha antics, got pregnant after the second or third sexual encounter. It could've been the first. Don't know. And thus ended up moving in and becoming exactly what he set out not to be. Mpreg is such an interesting genre but I thought at least this time it would be more about the class dynamics, the stalker angle, and how seeing the Omega as an equal would indeed challenge stereotypes and break barriers. Instead, it was more of the same and both the stalker plotline and the relationship plotline did not get the depth they deserved. It was disappointing all around for a book that had the potential to actually do what the title said.

I actually wrote this entire review without a character name because the Omega Cop didn't police and as you have read above, the entire stalker angle which would require policing was dropped for how he felt about the Alpha. And the Alpha was your typical Alpha but set up like he wasn't. Just took what he wanted from the Omega who, when being stalked, ran from the safety of someone else's home to his own house. Like you have a stalker after you, and you're a police officer and you don't call anyone to say you're heading out. Not even your partner. None of the plotlines were handled well in this story nor did the characters step out into new ground. It was just all over the place from the moment, here comes a name, Jamal woke up. A slow decline into forgetting the book was about a cop trying to break down barriers and more about an Omega getting pregnant and falling into the arms of an Alpha.

If typos don't bug you and there is a good bit here, and if Mpreg were-stories are your thing complete with the typical relationship roles they provide, chances are this book will more than deliver for you. But based on the blurb that is exactly what I was not expecting from this read so if you're on that same page this won't be for you.