A Reluctant Nest

by Letty Frame

Genres: Omegaverse, Why Choose

1046 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 30, 2026

About the author

Letty Frame is an English paranormal and omegaverse reverse harem romance author who writes the kind of fated-mates stories every broken soul deserves. With big feelings, fierce men, and heroines who rise from the ashes, #whychoose has become her guiding motto.
Navigating chronic illness and mental health, Letty’s life is chaotic but perfect—and that messy, beautiful honesty lies at the heart of her stories. She writes broken characters, fate-driven romances, and hard-won happily-ever-afters that no one resents them for… except, arguably, their author.
After all, what could a mentally ill romance author want more than a happy ever after?
A traumatised, emotionally devastating journey to earning it.

Reviews

[Cee · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @ 49%

All these men suck. Silas is a hypocrite. Harlen is literally the worst and actively talks horribly to her then wonders why she's afraid of him. Evander... is getting better but WOW he just never listened and I guess now he is??? or he just isn't getting page time. Isaac is... fine? but his moping has me currently annoyed at him.
Look, I'm never going to forgive Harlen and the fact that she sometimes shows she is attracted to him confuses me.

This really needs an editor. Not just because I'm 500 pages in and feel like we have barely gotten anywhere, but because there are mistakes -- a scene repeated practically word for word-- and pacing issues where I cannot tell how much time has passed as we are flung from scene to scene. Sometimes, I think even the author is confused!

I really wanted to like this and it is compelling. I want to keep reading, but I'm so so frustrated and I hate Harlen and in this moment how much of a hypocrite Silas is. You literally cannot be mad at someone because their lie of omission came out when you are keeping the same exact secret!!

Seriously, some rando from her past treats her better than these guys (minus Isaac who is just being an idiot rn).

[Abena · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down because of my frustration. First, I was INCREDIBLY excited to read this book. Its predecessor The Accidental Nest is in my top three omegaverse books ever. I appreciated that book’s depiction grappling with workplace tension, the struggle to maintain independence, growing to love a socially different partner, and the main character (Evangeline) growing in her relationship with her family. Second, this book, A Reluctant Nest, is 1051 pages. While I believe more space is needed to flesh out multiple characters in a poly romance, that is a lot.

With that in mind, this book follows the story of Cassie—a timid omega working doubly hard to prove herself as a stylist intern—and her pack of three alpha and one beta also affiliated with her firm. This is the firm where Evangeline in the previous book worked. So, there are some fun cameos from the previous book, but that context isn’t necessary.

Sadly, the main issue was the book being too long. That exacerbated some of my other concerns.
1) I LOVE a slow burn and even read “clean” romances, but waiting more than 450 pages for a kiss on the lips (or more) in an omegaverse novel is not great. Especially when omegas thrive on affection and Cassie struggling.
2) Cassie had very little character growth until the epilogue. The same insecurities she had at the beginning of the book were quite prominent at the end. She never even confronted her family or professional bullies.
3) I love “slice of life” moments where we glimpse characters together in mundane settings. Letty wrote those beautifully! But there are only so many times I can enjoy reading about characters typing on their laptops together or cuddle under blankets.
4) One of Cassie’s mates, Harlan, was pretty mean to her throughout the novel without much redemption on his end. And we don’t get a satisfying explanation for why he was so hesitant to get involved at first. Past insecurity? A bad breakup?
5) The central conflict/mystery could have been solved by Cassie’s pack quickly, but they seemed to not make an effort until it became a crisis. This would be uncharacteristic of mates deeply concerned about her wellbeing. That lapse was frustrating when I was ready for the book to wrap up.

All in all, the story was lovely. But since some parts of the novel were drawn out, my interest turned to annoyance and boredom about 700 pages in. Still, I liked the narrative enough that I will read the next installment in hopes it incorporates the strengths of the first one! (Interesting note! The book features one of the strangest character nicknames I’ve read: “luxury”)

[Ashlee Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 20%. I don't think the FMC could be any more pathetic.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @ 28%. I really wanted to like this after waiting for it to publish. But I just couldn’t get into it. Cass was too “soft” for me, letting everyone just walk all over her. I wanted to yell at her thru my kindle. All the males drove me insane. Harlan and Evander were honestly cringey to me. I wish I had liked it because I had been excited prior to its release, but I just couldn’t do it.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very long book with so many contradictions

I’ll start by saying I usually really enjoy Letty Frame’s work. I find it compelling for the most part, if not a little wordy.

The issue with this book, however, is that’s it’s not just a little wordy - it’s 1051 pages. I think this book would have been a lot better with only 2-300 pages of Cassidy being a doormat, instead of the pretty much 800. There was also a pretty jarring editing mistake where a scene happened twice dozens of pages apart which was extremely confusing.

*Spoilers after this*

Also, and this may be due to my own faulty understanding of the blurb, I expected her mates to not believe her when she was accused of being the leak. From what I understood, there was going to be this massive betrayal where she obviously wasn’t the cause of the leak, but her mates fully believed that she was. That didn’t happen - in fact, they were adamant throughout that she was categorically not the leak, even well before the big reveal in the last 150 ish pages. So I spent 900 pages being a little sick to my stomach that after things were finally falling into place and she was getting the love she deserved, the rug would be pulled out. Nope! Never happened. Sure, Harlan was truly awful to her for a good chunk of the book, but was also her biggest professional supporter when it came down to it. The other guys also never doubted her.

I’m also disappointed there was no resolution about her parent’s treatment of her throughout her life, particularly after the dinner where Silas and Harlan’s parents were also awful. I guess this is more realistic than anything, but I was expecting everything to be tied up neatly at the end and feel like progress had been made. Instead I think things just became easier because she moved out (which, again, I guess is realistic).

Beyond that, Cassie was just such a doormat that it made me a little sick. I wanted good things for her, but she was also just so easily led by the nose by everyone. I don’t mind a naive and a little pathetic FMC, but she has to have significant character development beginning sooner than 85% of the way through the book. She wasn’t unintelligent, so why did she turn such a blind eye to blatant mistreatment all the time?

Finally, wtf was the whole key storyline? It was said on numerous occasions that Cassidy locked her office door with her keys. She even once went back to her office and re-locked it. But the big reveal includes her not having access to any keys? Yeesh. And Opus has such a stellar security department, but not one camera in the general vicinity of her office to show Gemma going inside???

TLDR; Not the worst omegaverse I’ve read, but boy howdy could it be better.

[BAG of Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

After losing her father as a child, omega Cassidy grew up believing love had to be earned through usefulness and perfect behavior. Even though her family loves her, she hears concern as criticism and assumes every mistake is proof she's not good enough.

When Cassidy begins a trainee position at Opus Media, she convinces herself she's only there because her cousin, Sterling from Book 1, is part owner. A report that she's being overworked sends her to HR, but instead of realizing someone is trying to help, she assumes she's in trouble. When she's assigned to be the personal intern of CEO Harlan, she mistakes the opportunity for a performance improvement plan.

What Cassidy doesn't know is that Harlan immediately recognizes her as his scent-matched mate. Haunted by a traumatic past with a former mate, Hannah, he keeps the bond a secret. (He wears scent blockers so she doesn't know about the scent match.) As chance encounters reveal additional mates Evander, Isaac, and Silas, fear keeps everyone from telling Cassidy the truth. Only Evander reveals their scent match, and Cassidy rejects him.

Meanwhile, Cassidy's desperate need to prove herself makes her an easy target. She allows a manipulative coworker to dump projects on her and works herself to exhaustion. While Harlan pushes her away to protect them both, and Evander's attempts to care for her only drive her further off, Isaac is the first to recognize Cassidy's problems.

Silas calls a meeting of all the scent matches to figure out what they're going to do about it. They aren't already a pack, can they get their act together and form a pack? If Evander won't accept Cassidy, Silas is unwilling to accept her either, they're sort of a package deal. Does that leave just Evander and Isaac? What will they do about her disease to please?

[Letitia Hadix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth the wait!

I was totally hooked the first 400 pages! I could not put the book down. I've never gone through what Cassie has, but it was weirdly relatable and I was very invested. Not quite sure what happened after that point but I wasn't as immersed. Still enjoyable and I love how the pack came together.

I didn't like how the family issues were resolved. After the dinner, Cassie's family just kinda drops off the face of the earth and isn't really mentioned again, but in the beginning there was a ton of emphasis on her family, events and all around presence. The only other issue that bothered me was the repetition. There are several pages where there is the same concept but slightly adjusted to make it seem like a different scene when it isn't. Not sure if editing missed that and it was a either or....all around still worth the wait and I was very excited on how different the 2 books are.

[Liz Harlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t read if you are not prepared for a glacially slow burn

Overall the book is well written but the pace of the story itself is very slow. Not just the developing relationships, but the plot action. I’ve given it only 3 stars due to that and major inconsistencies that affect the plot development. For example, the ending of the conflict depends on Cassie (the heroine) not having been able to lock her office door. Unfortunately there are many referrals to her leaving her office and locking said door earlier in the story. Additionally, the tension revolves around corporate espionage and no one takes it seriously until the last 25% of the pages! No one has any decent communication skills and they just wander around deciding to not do anything productive to improve the relationships until much too late in the story. Hope this helps.

[Kimberley Spinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so excited for this book and I am kind of disappointed. There were weird time consistency issues and it looks like there may have been an error in where a chapter ended up because then we get part of that storyline word for word later in the book as well... Also at least one of these mates is a d*ck and it's hard to reconcile him as being her mate, but also she never stands up for herself at all... Like it's terrible that there is so little growth from her.

Also it feels like there are a lot of loose ends with the storylines, because what do you mean she never actually says anything to her family when they are the ones who set her on this path of self-destruction?!

I wanted to love this book but sadly it feel a bit flat for me.

[Lisa Maddison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a big book.

This book was over 1000 pages, it was well written with a lot of details, but I think it could have told the same story with less pages. It was about an omega finding her pack in her place of work while also battling severe anxiety and prejudice as an omega. It was well written with a storyline that was captivating, interesting characters that you cared about and representation of mental illness. It was a bit of a slow burn, no spice until after 600 pages. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and got my happily ever after.

[Pamela Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really Good Book

Well written, great storyline, U can relate to all the characters. Would have liked a confrontation with Freddie and legal action against the wood be Omega thief. Would have liked to see the pack with a baby too. Some descriptions of EVERYTHING were a little long, but I just skipped over them. Will read this author again!

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book

I really did enjoy this book but was disappointed with Isaac's role in Cassidy's heat, I get where the author tried to soothe it over but if he can't knot her what's his purpose. Im also curious of Silas and Harlan age. But still a great read. Looking forward to the next book of this series

[Sissy Beer · Rating 3 out of 5]

rounded up

I loved the first book but this one was kind of a chore. It dragged on for quite awhile without any real movement of the plot lines. The characters are great, though the drag diminished the growth of the fmc a bit.

[Grace Lieuallen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

39% and nothing is happening.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved!

This book, as someone with anxiety her entire life, this book put into words what it sometimes seems impossible for others to understand. I LOVED it