Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre:  Gay Romance/MM

Tags: Omegaverse, Alpha & Omega Pairing, Kink

Length: 350 Pages

Reviewer: Kazza

Purchase At: author’s page

Blurb: 

It’s a good thing I’ve sworn off men, because Old Me would have taken one look at my new boss, and spontaneous heat would have been a real threat.

He’s an alpha and an English nobleman. A mannered man who employed me to restore the library at Beaumont Craven House. He’s impossibly attractive and also straight up impossible. He’s hard to draw out, quiet and broody. His behavior often as confusing as it is mysterious.

Unfortunately for me he has a sweet side I find impossible to resist.

It isn’t long before the Lord’s sad backstory has me going well above and beyond the requirements of my job description.

It’s fine though. It’s a casual arrangement, and I can keep things casual. I definitely can.

It’s just that my body – and heart – don’t seem to agree.

Born Wild is a contemporary MM omegaverse featuring a positively intoxicating alpha, an omega who might have let books like Wuthering Heights and The Secret Garden go to his head, and a swoony love story that will leave you convinced that sometimes fate decides who we love.

Review: 

We move like water over river rocks. A slow dance to music only we can hear.

The second book in the Wild Hearts series is the same but also different to book #1, Gone Wild. Sure, it’s an omegaverse novel with an alpha and an omega, but this addition has some brooding gothic vibes going on. It’s set in Yorkshire, England. Somewhere Jensen has taken a job as a… well, I loathe to say librarian because he doesn’t do anything I would consider to be in that field. Maybe more of a curator? Antiquarian? I’m not sure. Anyhow, he’s gone to work for an alpha lord who owns the sprawling Beaumont Craven House. He needs to get away after his ex boyfriend and best friend, Lucien, mated his alpha brother, Branson, book #1, Gone Wild. They are sickeningly in love. Which Jensen gets rather bitchy about. I mean, Lucien never stops being his bestie because it’s who Jensen contacts about the goings on with the weird Lord of the Manor. Still, Jensen is petty and bitchy at times and I laughed about that. I can see why he and Jensen are Bad Bitches besties. 

Jensen pretty swiftly jumps to not liking Lord Augustus, or as he refers to him the Honorable Lord Assholeship or Lord Snotty-pants, because he feels the alpha doesn’t like him. All with virtually no discussion. It chews Jensen up because, just like Lucien, he’s a rambler and a prattler and he loves some gossip – he has to get that off the housekeeper, Mrs Thompson. He also moved to England because of his Bronte/Austen attachment. He’s conflated Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with any and all Jane Austen novels. He’s a walking romance trope dreamer. He has this idea of what it’s going to be like in England. That the lord will be gentlemanly and romantic and when Lord Alfred Augustus the Third doesn’t speak at their daily breakfasts, Jensen takes it to heart. And it’s not only the quiet, it’s that the alpha doesn’t have a scent. How is that possible? It’s how you know who your mate is. Then there’s the matter of bedraggled omegas turning up at all hours of the night to the Manor where Alfred has to speak to them and send them away. What’s that all about?

 Surely, lords know how to keep their dicks in their pants? Surely, they have to take at least one module called something like How to Handle Your Knob Like a Gentleman at finishing school.

Born Wild is mostly told from Jensen’s POV, just like Gone Wild was told mostly from Lucien’s, with a few chapters from the alpha’s perspective in both books. We learn that Jensen has a weakness for feeling some fear. It gives him a thrill.

I don’t usually tell people this about me because it’s mortifying as hell, but when I was made, something went a little awry with my wiring. For no discernible reason, wires got crossed, and fear feels like excitement to me.

Jensen also likes to go for a walk in the morning to soak in the atmosphere especially once he’s spied Lord Augustus very much in sync with his horse, Gregor, and the voice he uses to talk to Gregor, it alphas all the longing smouldering out of Jensen. The jodhpurs look damn fine on the lord of the manor as well. He’s the hottest man Jensen has ever laid eyes on. Big. Broad. Handsome. With a voice that could command Jensen into anything, could give him that spark he needs. If only they actually talked.   

It takes a little while but once the alpha and the omega are kind of on the same page, they’re good together. However, they have to overcome the infliction that dogs Lord Augustus. The Casanova Gene. Alfred doses himself with suppressants, usually the realm of omegas, so he doesn’t confuse omegas and create havoc – like the late night callers who are already compelled to make their way to Beaumont Craven House. It confuses omegas and causes chaos until the Casanova Alpha mates his true omega. Just as well Jensen shows up. Reign manages to project pathos about Alfred, or as Jensen likes to call him, Alpha. He tries his best to be a good but the little mouse of an omega intrigues him. He’s so tempted to be a true alpha again for him. A good one. They also share a love of books. To that end, Jensen pulls out a quote from The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the most beautiful quotes in any piece of literature of any time. It makes sense given who wrote it and whose library the book sits in.

One sentence only. A line with a thin pencil marking underneath it. My heart squeezes so hard that the air is forced from my lungs as I read it. It’s one of my favorite lines of any book ever. “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”

Jensen likes to go out and be talked about whereas the Lord has become reclusive because of how the suppressants affect him. Jensen gets to go to a masked ball, something he’s always dreamed of, and he is the talk of the event and he was living for it. Then there’s the history about the nesting room and the jewellery, what it meant for Alfred’s family. All sweet touches. I actually liked their nicknames for one another – Little Mouse and Alpha. It isn’t overused and it works. Jensen likes being pursued and to subjugate himself sexually. Lord Augustus likes to dominate even before the curse – so to speak – is gone.

This is a good addition to this series. The humour was on point. There seemed to be less sex in this book than in Gone Wild which was fine but my favourite book remains book #1. I have such a soft spot for Lucien and Branson. I’ve added kink as a tag because of Jensen’s desire for the thrill and fear he likes attached to sex. The author mentions at the end that they may write a MMM as the next book. I truly hope that happens. The characters seem to be available for that so fingers crossed. I’m enjoying the hell out of this series and I’ve also discovered that Reign is an author that I’ll be reading more of. They’ve brought me over to the omegaverse side. 4 Stars!