Rating: 4 stars
Buy Links:  Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel

After his losing his entire family in a car accident, Liam Haley ended up in a halfway house for unmated omegas. There he was mated against his will, and, after becoming pregnant, Liam was taken away and has been kept in a small room ever since with no idea where he is or why he is there.

Constable Isa Higgs lost his mate two years ago and has become somewhat estranged from his sons. When the police raid the omega kidnapping and fighting ring, Isa meets Liam, who is now six months pregnant. Isa knows he feels strongly for Liam, and when the rescued omegas need places to live, Isa offers to be Liam’s guardian and bring him home with him.

Liam feels a pull toward Isa as well and the men realize that they are bondmates. But even though the men feel strongly for one another, they face a lot of complications. First off, Isa needs to repair his relationship with his kids, and he is not sure mating a man who is younger than two of his sons will help the estrangement. Liam is also still suffering emotionally from the abuse and though he trusts Isa, he also is hesitant about taking things too fast between them. But even as the men work through those issues, someone from Liam’s past appears and threatens everything the men are building. Now Liam and Isa must hope that the bond they have created is strong enough to see them through the crisis and that they can truly have the family they hope to build together.

Found is the fourth book in A.M. Arthur’s Breaking Free series. Although it features a new couple in Liam and Isa, the overarching events and characters in the series connect from book to book, so this is best read in order.

This story does a nice job wrapping up many of the storylines that have been in play over the series, particularly the omega fighting ring that we learned about in Heard. We see the resolution of that case, as well as wrapping up a few other loose ends. The story also reunites us with all the main characters we have been following throughout the series, as well as revisiting some side characters we have met (though sadly no Dex and Serge here). So I think this story does a nice job of rounding out the series and bringing us some closure on a number of fronts.

I enjoyed Isa and Liam together and particularly liked the family dynamics in play here. Things come together perhaps a little too smoothly with Isa reconnecting with his kids, as well as them adapting so easily to a new, very young mate, along with a new child in their lives. But I liked that Isa’s existing kids don’t get left behind in the shuffle and the story focuses on the larger family, as well as with Isa and Liam’s particular relationship. Arthur does a nice job setting up the bond with the men, so when trouble comes, I could believe in their connection to get through it.

I will admit that as the fourth story in the series, I did start to feel like things got a little repetitive here. The books all feature omegas in danger, frequently also with sexual abuse or assault, who are then saved by an alpha mate. They all feel a mating bond, but are slow to fully trust their new mates, particularly getting sexual involved and officially mating. And they all face some sort of peril at the book’s climax. So I think that pattern maybe has gotten a little repetitious for me, particularly the omega in peril and needing saving theme. Arthur does make each of these men strong in their own way and able to fight for themselves, but there is still a definite need of rescuing at play in all these books.

This series sets up kind of a class system where the alphas have almost absolute authority over the omegas, who have basically no rights of their own. We have seen that in play for all the books, but in this story in particular the idea of omegas needing to be taken care of kind of comes to the forefront. Liam and the other rescued omegas aren’t allowed to live alone so they need guardians, which is why Isa takes Liam in. So at the same time he is Liam’s mate, legally he is his guardian, which is a dynamic that made me uncomfortable at times because people sometimes treat Liam almost childlike. And while all of these alphas in the series seem to respect their mates and have a more egalitarian relationship than seems to be the norm, they still do at times have a very paternalistic attitude toward their mates. For example, when someone has bad news for one of the omegas, they don’t tell him directly, but instead go to the alpha and tell him the news to relay instead. I think the focus on the guardianship situation in this story just made those details a little more noticeable here and it bugged me a little as I was reading.

I know these dynamics are part of the world Arthur has created here, and for the most part, it worked for me. There were just times when things didn’t quite sit as well. That said, I did enjoy this story and feel like it is a nice way to wrap up the series. Liam and Isa make a sweet couple and I liked them together. And the series threads come together well here. I also really liked reconnecting with the various characters we have met along the way and seeing how their lives have all intertwined so nicely. So I enjoyed this book and the series and think they are a nice choice for omegaverse fans.