Rating: 2.25 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Archer Wallace made a terrible mistake in college and, while he’s built an impressive life for himself, he’s put safeguards in place to make sure he can never hurt an innocent omega again. And then Archer finds himself irresistibly drawn to an omega in heat. He manages to resist the urge to act upon his baser instincts and even protects the young omega from a violent challenger, but he can’t help feeling ashamed of what might happen. That feeling only worsens when the omega ends up being hired as an intern at Archer’s company.
Jeremiah Phoenix interviews at Wallace and Sheppard because of their reputation in the industry as honest and omega friendly. He never expects to see the intense Alpha from that night in the alley, but his attraction to Archer can’t be denied. Jeremiah knows Archer is a good man, one that would never intentionally harm him. But before they can explore the bond between them, Archer and Jeremiah will have to endure a tragedy and a dangerous threat that could destroy everything they have.
When I grabbed Capital Assets for review, I thought I was getting a book set in the omegaverse that focused on the power balance between omegas and alphas, the nature of consent, and the disparity in the business world. And Capital Assets was all of those things … for a handful of chapters. Then all that went out the window and instead Capital Assets became something trite and utterly empty.
When the book starts, we see Archer come very close to sexually assaulting Jeremiah. Now the author goes to great length to make sure that we, as readers, know that Jeremiah wanted it, but the entire scene has a real squick factor that I never felt comfortable with. I gave the book a chance to right itself and for a time it had the hallmarks of a workplace romance with a smattering of very light commentary on equality and power dynamics. But then Capital Assets begins to fall for every tired trope under the sun, from near instantaneous mating, to an evil father figure. In a word, the book became exhausting. What might have been a sweet romance gives way to boring sex scenes, far too much giggling and screaming, and overwrought drama that feels utterly vapid.
Aside from the plot, which never evolves into anything original, the book’s antagonist is a real problem. He’s mentioned early on, but doesn’t show up in the flesh until three-fourths of the way through Capital Assets. He’s bizarre and utterly ridiculous. He does terrible things that should have made a powerful impression. Instead, he reads as such an overblown caricature, it’s impossible to take him seriously. Even soap operas manage to have better villains than this one.
Capital Assets never managed to evolve from a cartoonish romance that played on excessive dramatics and ultimately falls prey to an antagonist that is laughably bad. There are definitely triggers here for sexual assault and power abuse. There are some light BDSM themes as well, but nothing so significant that I would categorize it as actually BDSM. Ardent fans of the omegaverse might enjoy this one, but it definitely didn’t work for me.
