REVIEW: ALPHA’S EMBRACE – WENDY RATHBONE

Alpha's Embrace Book Cover Alpha's Embrace
The Omega Misfits, Book 3
Wendy Rathbone
LGBT, Gay, Fantasy, Fiction
Eye Scry
April 12, 2020
205

I am Misha.

My name was given to me at birth by the doctor who delivered me. I have never known my parents. I live in a ten by ten space with one window, a sink and toilet, a bed and a locked door. Once a day I’m taken to an outdoor exercise area. I am allowed a limited access tablet and tutored online by computer programs. I have one friend I talk to through a tiny crack in the wall. His name is Cedric and he has trouble keeping himself quiet. When he isn’t talking to me about monsters and demons, he screams all the time.

Why is my life so isolated and depressing? Because I am a Sylph. Sylphs are the byproduct of illegal Omega to Omega matings. We are all beautiful, but 99.9% are born insane. The rarest of Sylphs, like me, show no outward signs of madness or brain damage, but we live in institutions because we cannot be trusted.

All of us Sylphs who have lived long enough to pass through puberty have hypersexual disorder which makes life even more difficult for us, let alone our keepers. It is like something Alphas call the Burn, a mating urge Alphas experience once every couple of months.

But we’re Sylphs, not Alphas, and this Burn thing? We experience it all the time. It’s a huge problem and why we are kept isolated. Most of us don’t survive through our teens because of it.

One day, a handsome Alpha comes to interview and study me. He calls himself the Chief of Staff but his real name is Geo. Like magic, I fall in love with him instantly. I do everything I can to seduce him. He will have none of it because touch between an Alpha and a Sylph is taboo. But I have plans. No matter what, I intend to bond him and make him mine. Forever.

A non-shifter Alpha/Omega-Sylph love story of forbidden love, rescue, and HEA. Standalone read. No Mpreg.

Available at Amazon.

Reviewed by Charlayne Elizabeth Denney

Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

Misha is a Sylph, the product of an illegal affair between two Omegas. He’s never known his parents, having lived since age 6 in an institution for the dangerous Sylphs, most of whom are insane by adulthood, if they survive at all.

But Misha is different. He’s intelligent, he can control his emotions, and can reason out how to handle problems. That’s much different than his friend Cedric in the next room and Tracy at the other side, both spend their days yelling and hitting the walls.

Misha dreams of his kingdom outside of his window, looking forward to the day when he can come out of the castle and walk free. But he understands it’s his fantasy and not the grim reality of living in the institution forever.

The workers in the Sylph facility must be mated to work there, it’s safer so that they aren’t tempted by the hyper-sexuality of the Sylphs. But when a new Alpha, Geo, comes into the facility and meets Misha, all of both men’s well maintained control is tested. Geo thinks he’s protected by an old bond to an Omega that was sent to live with a different Alpha, but he finds that bond is slipping.

And what do you do when your emotions and body want the forbidden?

This is the third in the Omega Misfits series by Wendy Rathbone. I had not read the first two, so I was coming into the series without the background of the other books. I expected that to be a factor in my enjoyment of the book but Ms Rathbone does a great job of telling the story that you can follow without the previous books. That was a good surprise.

This is a book that is set in what I think is a unique world, all the characters are male. There weren’t any female characters and no talk about females. The Omegas fulfill that role, including having the children. There is no m-preg in the book, just a short conversation about children. The Alphas are the “males” in the society and the Omegas fulfill the subordinate role.

I started to root for Misha from the first. I found his situation to be sad but he was so balanced and upbeat even with the surroundings. Geo coming was expected but there were some surprises as both struggled to follow the rules. There are some aspects of both men that were strange, but this is science fiction, so it fits.

I would like to see what happens after the end of the book. It’s more a “happily ever for now” rather than a definitive HEA. There must be more to the story and I hope Wendy Rathbone gives the readers more with Geo and Misha.

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