Frustrating. That’s what this book was. Enormously frustrating. I liked most of the primary, secondary, and tertiary characters. But the storyline was irritating and disappointing.
Gunnar is the president of a new chapter of the Reckless Bastards MC (from Nevada, I believe). Peaches is his hate/love interest. Both of them act like adolescents who don’t know what to do with their emotions. The frustrating situation is that Peaches is in hiding, telling us how determined she is to leave, but she doesn’t leave. Thirty-three of the thirty-four chapters (plus an epilogue) are filled with this back-and-forth set of antics. Gunnar is hateful for thirty-two of the chapters; he is ugly, mean, unkind, callous, hurtful, and cruel. To whom, one might ask? To his love interest, Peaches.
Peaches keeps swearing she is going to leave. She announces her intentions yet something always holds her back, keeping her on the Hardtail Ranch, Gunnar’s home. She keeps telling us that she doesn’t want to bring trouble (and boy, is she in trouble!) to the good people at the Ranch. Yet she doesn’t leave. She iterates how she doesn’t want to bring harm to Gunnar’s 4-year old sister. Yet she doesn’t leave. She repeats that she doesn’t want her troubles to spill over into the lives at the Ranch. Yet she doesn’t leave. She blames herself and says she feels guilty for the trouble descending on the Ranch. Yet she doesn’t leave. At any point in time in this book she could have left. Of course the story would have gone off in an entirely different direction, but it would have been more honest. She does leave near the end of the book, but it’s anticlimactic and brings no resolution to her difficulties.
That is what makes up the storyline of the book. That’s it. Nothing else. There’s little action, lots of narration, plenty of talking…but it’s like standing in a quagmire, getting sucked down into the mud and mire.
While the characters are interesting enough, the relationship between Gunnar and Peaches feels forced and illusory at best. They have plenty of sex, but keep going on and on about how it’s just sex and they really ought not to be having this fabulous sex, that they hate and distrust each other, that they need to distance themselves from one another. And then they have more sex. This is a weird relationship. They don’t even like each other.
Also, there are too many “then a miracle occurs” moments. Peaches is a hacker genius but the writer is not. We are told that Peaches is being tracked, even by the Reckless Bastards MC members, but are never told how. We are told about the security arrangements made by Peaches for the MC’s adult nightclub, but its all very vague. When Peaches finally, finally leaves, she is tracked: how? She’s a genius with systems; she is a hacker. How was she found, then? She isn’t painted as a careless sort.
There are errors throughout the book. For instance:
“…the plate 0n the front….” That’s a zero (Ø) in front of the “n” in the word, “on.” It’s a typo, I think, that should be “…the plate on the front….”
“It required more than a just a dream.” Perhaps, “It required more than just a dream.”
“’You’re scared.’ It wasn’t a statement so I didn’t bother answering.” If it wasn’t a statement, then it may have been a question. Since we generally (as conversationalists) do not answer statements, I believe this should read, “It wasn’t a QUESTION so I didn’t bother answering.”
“Saints hand shook….” The narrator, Gunnar, is discussing a condition of Saint’s hand. This should read, “Saint’s hand shook….”
“You’ve had plenty of times to meet that deadline….” While it may be that there were ample opportunities (i.e., times) regarding the deadline, the expression seems off. The expression is generally expressed as, “…plenty of TIME to meet that deadline….”
There is a comma missing from this sentence: “I’ve been more than patient with you Griff.” It should be, “I’ve been more than patient with you, Griff.” The comma separates the statement from the name of the person being spoken to.
In this sentence, the comma is superfluous: “…I stopped for a few minutes when, my thoughts wandered to Peaches….” That should be, “…I stopped for a few minutes when my thoughts wandered to Peaches….” The comma causes the reader to pause without a reason.
More superfluous commas pause the reader: “We need to find, Bob, but that’s not all.” The commas imply that Bob is being spoken to, but within context, Bob is being spoken about. No commas are needed in the sentence; it should read, “We need to find Bob but that’s not all.” A comma could be placed after Bob, but it is not needed.
“Someone I wasn’t pulling my weight.” I do not know what the writer is trying to say. Maybe, “Somehow I wasn’t pulling my weight” or perhaps, “Someone felt I wasn’t pulling my weight.” I don’t know, but the sentence makes the reader pause to consider what is being said.
I rated this book 3 stars because most of the characters were presented well, but the storyline was one-dimensional and trite: a woman says she is going to go off somewhere, but doesn’t do so. Again and again and again. That’s it. I did not believe the relationship between Reaper and Peaches. They were distrustful of each other and appeared to dislike one another, although they felt the sex was pretty good. The conflict between the two felt forced, unreal, and…well…weird. I have read – and enjoyed other books by Ms. Winters and will probably read the next in this series. I liked the sneak peek offered at the end of the book.