She was just a kid when she found me lying injured beside the road and saved my life. I promised her I’d return if she ever needed me. Twelve years later, I answer the phone and hear her voice: a biker gang’s about to sell her to the highest bidder. Like hell they are! I tear the place apart and we roar off on my Harley…but the kid I remember has grown up into a woman I can’t resist, with long … with long red hair and curves that don’t quit. And now she thinks I’m a goddamn hero.
Every time we ride and her body presses against mine, I just want to rip her dress right off. Neither of us can resist…but for her sake, I can’t let her get close. She claims there’s still good in me but she doesn’t know how much blood I’ve got on my hands. Now the gang who took her want her back and they’re willing to destroy my whole MC to get her. But it’s too late. I’ve fallen for this woman. And I’m never letting her go.
Standalone bad boy romantic suspense with HEA, no cheating.
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The best motorcycle romance I’ve ever read and I’ve read a fair few! It’s a full length novel, with a lot of plot while not losing sight of the central love story. Our heroine bumps into the hero aged 8 and saves him from danger. Fast forward to adulthood and it’s his turn to save her when her father sells her to an evil MC. Cue lots of fights, smooches, rescues, bike rides, and character development.
The heroine is into machines which is a nice feminist touch, the hero considers himself too damaged to deserve love due to the bad things he’s done in the past. The way they heal each other is realistic and not rushed at all. The sex is steamy without being seedy and the HEA is well deserved. The secondary characters are well fleshed out and the twist involving the villain isn’t too shocking but is very well written.
A couple of sex scenes, one at 50% and one toward the back end of the book, just the right amount for me! I also liked the set up to other books involving the same family. A wonderful read, good enough to make me join the author’s mailing list.
Gritty, Suspenseful, Passionate, with a Sexy, Growly, Irishman to Make Your Day… I had never read an MC novel before this one, and in all honesty I approached it with a fair amount of skepticism. However, after a sincere recommendation by a client who embraces my penchant for brooding Irishmen, I set about reading Outlaw’s Promise and was happy to realize my skepticism was misplaced. I was even more surprised by the razor sharp prose of author Helena Newbury.
Again, if I’m being honest, I didn’t expect much out of this book and figured it would be a good, less intense, distraction from my normal reading. Yet I found myself a bit entranced by Carrick’s world, as well as, his fierce and loyal (once he allowed himself to be) devotion to Annabelle. Newbury quickly plunges you into a world filled with angst, grit, rage, and suspense. She keeps you riveted with page after page of trauma driven dialog that leaves you whimpering for the lost childhoods of both lead characters, while simultaneously internally screaming at them to get past said childhoods and embrace what they have now. You root for Carrick and Annabelle even if you don’t always like them. Even at points in the story when you want to roll your eyes at the absurdity of their actions you still feel a need for them to figure it out and claim each other as their own.
Additionally, this book does something more than give you an interesting love story. It also makes you think. The swirling dangers of international sex trafficking, law enforcement involvement, blackmail, and the horrors of evil people being in high powered, well connected positions is far from fantasy. Outlaw’s Promise made me think of guys like Carrick I grew up around in the midwest, guys who were (and still are) considered nobodies by the prescripted, proper social “Jone’s” of the day. It made me shudder at the thought of how many Annabelle’s in the real world end up bought and sold, betrayed by family members, friends, or even lovers. It also made me wonder how many Gus’ of the world end up incarcerated because of the evil intentions of a high powered “respected” member of society and planted evidence.
This book made me think a lot about our current states of affairs in America where the rich and well connected can seemingly use the rest of us without fail for their own nefarious means. A pretty heady landscape for a romance novel. But then again, this is more than a simple romance novel with stereotyped, cliche characters. It’s gritty and complex, passionate but sweet, fierce and angry, and oh so full of my new favorite broody, sexy irishman with a growly brogue I can still hear in my head.
After getting to know Carrick, I look forward to reading about the other O’Harra brothers. Because once you meet Carrick you can’t NOT want to meet his brothers too 😉