Breaking Barriers (Hart Medical Center Book 1)

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 for the sake of the story, and there’s a fair bit up until this point. But after that, the book derailed so far off course it was hard to ignore much of anything.

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 maybe reworded a sentence and forgot to delete the part that wasn’t needed anymore, incomplete sentences, and other such things. 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 then the author sets 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 story but it quickly fell into the usual Omega-Alpha roles that even the main character said he was trying to avoid. The Omega cop trying to break through into an Alpha dominated world plot was completely dropped and his sole purpose was to fall into the very role he was trying to escape from, be liberated from. And the Alpha not being like all Alphas was equally as far away from change.

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 happened and nothing. A few months pass, more pass, baby comes out and, the stalker finally returns. Did he go on vacation? Did he get arrested? Hell did he just give up? Where was he for an entire term of pregnancy?

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 in 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. Because even when the Omega’s were actually shining we still can’t just let them be great *cue eye-roll*.

My takeaway was the relationship didn’t live up to the challenge of an Omega being more than just this thing belonging to an Alpha, his property 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. Alpha saves omega, omega gets insta-pregnant and becomes a stay at home dependent on his Alpha. 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 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 job partner. The amount of sense this doesn’t make is mind-boggling. 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 after the accident. 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 a big strong 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 and expecting something more and new, this won’t be for you.