Review: Ugh, what was that?
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 03 26, 2014
Having read the previous books in the Last Riders series and been intrigued by the characters, I wanted to read this book to finally learn about Lily's painful past and how she and Shade FINALLY manage to get close and fall in love, etc. What a mistake. The writing in this book is unbelievably dull, superficial, even immature. The story goes NOWHERE for most 80% of the book. Every other scene the sexually liberated members of this "bike club" are at a church service (yep, you heard me) and then to the diner across the street for lunch. Over and over again. Or they're packing boxes fulfilling orders at their factory. I kept reading, hoping and thinking things/the plot would surely move along, move forward. They did not. Only at the very end did a ton of information come up explaining things.Lily indeed suffers from a major trauma in her past. They way it is revealed is lame, lacking any punch. Throughout the story she comes off as childlike and childish. Like Knox before him, Shade buys all new bedroom furniture and stays celibate-- for months--until he gets his girl between the sheets. If you believe that of such an oversexed male belonging to such a sexual playground type of club, I've got a bridge to sell you.The author has a strange combination of raunch and moral good girl stuff going on especially in this book and it does not work right. Maybe she can't make up her mind. Her constant use of the "c" word is telling. (Oh! Nasty!) It could've all been interesting, but she is unable to take it there in a whole, dramatic way.When Shade and Lily actually get married, (wait, they fell in love??) you think, oh yay, emotional payoff, we get to enjoy these two in a moment of happiness, but no. Ms. Begley deals with it in such a cutoff, short, sketchy way it was unbelievable. I had to backtrack to make sure I had read it right.There was not much Friday night party action or initiation as in the other books, which had always kept the tension high in these stories. Here Shade is a BDSM dom, by the way. Silly. He actually whips her and she likes it from the get go. For a girl who's got so many intense, serious psychological trauma issues and is hyper childlike/virginal in her outlook and response to the loose living around her, this was ridiculous and just plain wrong. But I guess we had to get the "erotic" factor in there somehow. Let's not even begin to deal with how they should have taken her to a therapist immediately! No, better for Master Shade to punish her, right, Sir? Then he keeps ignoring her use of their safe word. Whatever.In my opinion, not worth the $4.99. Sorry.