Review: Pretty good start to the series :D
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 1, 2014
3.5-4 starsThis was a pretty good story. I liked Raine and though she was a very cool female lead. Diego, well he came through in the end but he did disappoint me a bit along the way. This is the first book I've read by this author and based on this I'm planning to try more of her work in the future. I will warn you that the editing of the book is pretty bad...there are many mis-spelled words, sudden changed in PoV that were hard to follow, mess up punctuation and stuff like that. I was able to read the story without much of a problem but if your one of the people that can't stand bad editing then you might not want to try this.Raine is a good woman who hasn't had a good life. He mother died at an early age, leaving Raine and her sister, Clair with a father that was dunk most of the time and didn't take care of them. Raine had to step up and make sure they got fed, got to school on time, that the bills got paid. Raine put herself through nursing school because she thought it was a job that there's always a demand for but as she's finishing up her classes, she wonders if she really wants to be a nurse as being surrounded but sickness all the time is rather depressing. Raine has bad luck with men and tends to pick losers so she's been trying to stay away from the type of men she usually gets involved with.Diego is a decent guy. He's a biker and hasn't had an easy life. He experienced a loss early in life and because of that has never been interested in finding a permanent woman and start a family. He has a club whore he sleeps with when he's in town but he's made it clear to her that she's not his woman and that he doesn't want one. His wants end up changing drastically when he lays his eyes on Raine.When the story begins, Raine has just gotten to her sister's apartment to celebrate Raine finishing her nursing classes. When she arrives, Raine finds 3 bikers holding Claire and her boyfriend Jamie at gun point. Jamie owes them money and if they don't get it they're threatening to kill both Claire and Jamie. Raine is relieved when she discovers that she has enough money (just barely) to cover the cost but unhappy that it means she has to try to get it from her the house of her Ex (who beat and raped her) because when she ran from him she hadn't been able to pull it out of where she hid it. She makes arrangements to get the money to the bikers and it doesn't go smoothly but she gets it and then meets up with Diego a couple days later. Due to some complications, Diego forgets to tell Raine that they got the money that was owed from Jamie and he doesn't need to take the money from her. When he leaves and later she finds the money still there, Raine thinks the worse and fears that they want blood instead of money. When she was growing up, Prosper (the founder of the Hell's saints MC) was her father's best friend and so Prosper is like a father to her and Claire. He gave her an address of a place to go if things got bad and she needed help. Even though she hasn't seen him for years, when Raine thinks she's in danger she goes to Prosper for help. The last thing she wanted to see when she got to the MC was Diego bearing down on her but once she's able to talk things out with Prosper, she finds out that she wasn't in danger and Prosper convinces her to stick around for a while and visit.Diego wanted Raine from the first time he saw her and had a hard time leaving her the day before. He'd been trying to get her out of his mind when she showed up and as soon as he saw her again, Diego decided that she was his and started claiming ownership to the other guys in the club. Raine is attracted to Diego but tries to stay away from him at first because of an issue with the club whore that Diego had been screwing around with. That situation gets taken care of but there's still a lot of crap that Diego and Raine have to go through until they get to a good place. Along the way there's plenty to deal with outside of their relationship as Raine finds a new job (not as a nurse) and settles in to her new life. Claire had been in rehab but gets out and joins Raine in her new life. There's some difficulties with Raine's Ex that's bad but also brings another woman in to their lives that becomes like a sister to them, Glory. I really liked all 3 of the women and liked their camaraderie. As time progresses, Raine and Diego are doing good. They are lovers but have also become friends and Raine is very happy with how life has worked out. Unfortunately, a surprise comes up that Raine is happy about but Diego freaks about. We find out later why he freaks and he has some reasoning behind his freakout but in the mean time he goes way overboard in expressing his displeasure to Raine and when he tells her it's over Raine gets pissed at his actions and agrees (although her heart is breaking inside). The next part brought the story down a bit for me because Diego took way too long (like 5-6 months) to get the balls to get Raine back. For a big, bad biker dude I kind of felt he was being a wimp, especially since he realized his mistake within 48 hours of the blow up and still took all that time to man up. Regardless of the time it took, Diego does come to his senses and eventually steps up to be the man Raine deserves. There's some danger and drama before everything is good as an old enemy comes back unexpectedly. Claire and Raine are in a dangerous situation and they kicked butt and showed what girl power could do (really liked that part). After the drama and stress are over, Raine and Diego settle in for their HEA.This was an enjoyable story. I liked the characters, especially the women characters. Raine, Claire and (to a lesser extent) Glory had a great connection and chemistry that made me really like them. It looks like there's setups for future relationship for both Claire and Glory and I'll definitely be revisiting this series to see them get their HEAs. I'd recommend this book. Thumbs up. :D