Rowena’s review of The Reckless Bride (The Black Cobra Quartet, Book 4) by Stephanie Laurens.
Hero: Rafe Carstairs
Heroine: Loretta Michelmarsh
He races to complete their mission against escalating odds–his task made more perilous when he loses his heart.
She’s determined to defy convention and live a solitary life–until she tastes the reckless pleasure found only in his arms.
Drawn together by fate, united by fiery passion, they pursue their shared destiny…one they’ll live to see only if they unmask the Black Cobra.
This is where the road ends for the four brave soldiers that risked their lives to bring the Black Cobra to justice and to avenge their friend. Man, I can’t believe the end is already here and when I jumped into this book, I was so jazzed to finally be reading Rafe’s story. I’ve been so ready for Rafe’s story since Del’s story. Right from the very beginning, I knew that Rafe was going to be my favorite hero of the bunch and while I loved him through out the series, I felt a bit let down by his story.
In this story, we finally get to see what the heck Rafe has been up to since he departed India all those stories ago. In the last three books, we could only speculate on his whereabouts and I just knew that he was out there battling the bad guys right along with Del, Gareth and Logan…but of the four of them, Rafe’s journey was so much tamer in comparison. He was the most reckless of the four soldiers and his story was mostly made up of him hooking up with Esme and Loretta and then fighting his growing feelings for Loretta.
While that’s all good and dandy, the emotional drama between Rafe and Loretta drove me bat shit crazy throughout most of the book. I spent equal time being annoyed with both Rafe and Loretta. I mean, Loretta knows about the seriousness of his mission. How important this mission is to Rafe because duh, he lost a friend to the bastard that is the Black Cobra and yet she keeps right on distracting him from his mission but on the other hand, there’s Rafe. While Loretta is throwing herself at him at every opportunity, Rafe is rebuffing her, telling her no more than one. How many times do you need to get rejected before your pride gets the best of you and you let him come to you? I mean seriously.
There was a lot of the going back and forth between the two of these guys and it got tiring for me. Among the back and forth, there’s all of the words that Stephanie Laurens just loves to have us read through and by the time Rafe and Loretta are in England and everything is coming together for the capture of the Black Cobra, I was kind of ready for the book to end. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did but that just wasn’t the case.
Rafe was a good, solid hero but the hype I gave him in my head throughout the series was too much for him to live up to. While I didn’t hate the book, I wasn’t over the moon about it either. The book was slow to pick up and then it dragged some in the middle and by the time I got to the end, I was glad. Not finishing the book was out of the question because I needed to know for my sanity how the whole thing came to an end and when we find out what we find out about the Black Cobra, I rolled my eyes.
There were things about this book that I liked. I adored Esme. I thought she was such a great old lady and every time she was on the pages, I smiled because she’s the bomb. I loved the way that her part of the storyline ended too. When Rafe and Gabriel are handling Esme’s light weight, I cheered because she had such great guys on her side. I think for me, Esme’s devil may care attitude won me over and I was glad that things ended the way that they did for her.
It wasn’t the ending that I was looking for with this series but I’m glad that I finished it because now I know. I’d recommend this book only because if you’ve read the other books in this series, it shows how the entire series comes to an end.
Grade: 3 out of 5
This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
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