4 stars
Burning Ember is another book that I have had sat on my kindle for what feels like an absolute age!
I love a gritty MC read but I find them to be very similar plot wise if you overindulge in them, so I only dip my toes in every so often these days.
I really enjoyed this one, though. It kept me invested right up until the end. It’s not without its flaws mind you and I don’t think that it will be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found it to be a good solid read overall. 3.5 stars felt a little mean, but 4 stars may be a little generous.
Ember, or “Doll”, or even “Pumpkin”, (yeah, she has a lot of names) is on the run from her violent ex. She’s desperate and is willing to do pretty much anything to survive. Circumstances have her arriving at Harbingers of Chaos’s club house where she meets Maverick.
Mav is also in bad place; he’s been badly hurt by his ex, and Ember looks just like the woman who burned him. Because of this, Mav hates Ember immediately. He's also deeply attracted to her. The continual references to his ex really bugged me at the start, but I guess it was important to the story and she does eventually get buried (metaphorically speaking, only) towards the middle of the book.
The book is a full length novel and incorporates good secondary characters. There weren’t too many club members and old ladies that it became confusing - something I find happens a lot with this genre – but just enough to deliver a packed plot line and remain easy to follow.
Whilst I personally really enjoyed this one, I also know that a lot of readers won’t like Maverick.
So here’s your warning: there is a scene where he physically hurts Ember while he’s intoxicated, and there are many scenes at the start of the book where Mav is with other women, and sometimes this is in front of Em. But this is an MC, not a church; drugs and violence are part of this genre and I believe this story to be authentic to bikers and their lifestyle.
I did get a bit annoyed towards the end with the author’s - and not just this author actually, this seems to be common across the board – insistence on making Ember out to be the “perfect woman”. She could cook well and cleaned everything and loved children, oh so much. Yawn!
While I did love Ember, and I actually really did, I hate this “perfect woman” stereotype that authors use to make the heroine seem more worthy somehow than the other women. It’s 2019, honestly the heroine doesn’t always need to be a maternal virgin to be worthy of a man’s love. We want imperfect, real characters, please!
A few ends were left open too, the spying for the corrupt cop didn’t materialise, there was a mole supposedly but this was left unanswered and Sunny’s departure was slightly odd. Probably left open for a series. I would have liked an epilogue, but again maybe this is left open for the next book...
If you stick with it, then I think that you will fall in love with Mav, like I did; once he was with Ember, he was 100% committed to her. Their story is passionate and genuine.
But if you don’t like other women, ex girlfriends and cannot forgive characters for their fuck ups – this is probably not one for you!