So, my fave Omegaverse author dared one of my fave SFR authors to write an Omegaverse story. So, Sara took the dare and wrote Frenzy. And oh my, did she step up to the challenge. While Sara does tend to write darkish, she generally isn’t as dark as Addison, which is good, because who wants every single one of their favorite authors to write exactly like the others? I like the personal style of each and every author I read. And I really love the spin Sara puts on the Overse.
The nice thing with an alternate universe like the Omegaverse is that it isn’t real. There isn’t any specific set of rules, outside of the basics. That means that you can pretty much set up your world the way that you want it and for it to run the way that you want. I mean, sure you can do that with a lot of genres, but there are certain rules that we expect to happen in those genres, and when those things don’t happen, people get a little salty. Since the Overse is still newish, especially in more mainstream lit, there aren’t as many rules, so Sara’s books are going to be different to Addison’s books, which are going to be different to Lillian Sable’s, so forth and so on. Does that make sense? I know it did in my head, but I’m just getting over the norovirus, so my head may be all kinds of weird right now. Anyway, on to the book.
This is a post-apocalyptic and, as far as I can tell, pretty dystopian world. The dome that half of our main characters live in acknowledges the A/B/O dynamic, but they do everything they can to make sure that they aren’t ruled by it. That includes pumping suppressants into the air. The suppressants keep the hormones, pheromones, and instincts under control. In fact, it’s so under control, they don’t even really have sex anymore. It’s all clinical and medical reproduction, and not a whole lot of physicality. However, there are some people who are immune to the suppressants, and really, they are about 24 hours away from metabolizing the suppressants and all of a sudden feeling their dynamic kick in. Raven is a brilliant scientist, and she has a plan and has been spending years doing research on a better suppressant, but the one big ingredient she needs is extinct in the city. So she needs to go out into the wilds, where people’s dynamics aren’t suppressed, they are all natural and all that. Oh, the horrors. But she’s ready and has taken precautions. Except, no one ever expects the Spanish Inquistion, which in this case is a huge fiery-eyed monster and a band of raiders who killed everyone but Raven and her best friend and partner, Alix, who snatches her away and carries her off to safety.
Now, you can probably guess that Raven is an Omega and Alix is an Alpha, because it’s hard to have an Overse story without them. But, there are some pieces missing, since this is an RH story, you kinda have to have the H part, and the only person who can help out Raven when she goes into estrous right now is Alix, and unless he’s triplets that I missed, there’s a little bit of something missing.
Enter two of the wild men, Ivan and Wolfe, who smell Raven’s estrous, and decide that they will come and play.
To me, the real meat of the story here isn’t what happens with the plot, which I’m not going to run down, because it is a good story with a great plot that I enjoyed, but instead, the melding of wild and tame and how that worked. On one hand, you have Raven and Alix who have never come to grips with their biology, never had an estrous or a rut, until they are forced to have one, and it is, quite literally, a life-changing event. They don’t even have a cultural idea as to how to deal with this, because their culture suppresses all those natural urges. So, they are handling all this stuff with no practical knowledge. Then, you have Wolfe and Ivan, who have never lived in the dome and who have never had any kind of suppression, and who know who and what they are and how to control it. The thing is, when they all got together, it could’ve been really ugly, but they all figured out how to work in a way that worked for them. I love the thought that Sara puts into making that work.
Unlike a lot of the other MF Omegaverse that I’ve read, this isn’t noncon. I would put this at light dubcon, I think. I mean, yeah, Alix and Raven are put into a situation when this could happen, but they are also able to talk about what is going to happen before it does. So, dubcon-ish.
I can’t wait to see where Sara is going to go with her world. It’s going to focus on a new character, I know, but outside that, I have no idea.
The albatrosses! OMG, so freaking awesome! I thought that was just so neat!
OK, that’s all I have to say about this one. Go check it out and happy reading!
In Between the Pages 