Guest Review: Ride Free by Debra Kayn

The Chromes & Wheel Gang, the biker “family” featured in the novels in this series, is an unusual group of people who are committed to life on the road, but in every sense of the word, they are family.  The leaders of the group, Knuckles and Sunflower Butter, are surrogate parents to Reefer, a man whose mother mysteriously left him with his father and whose dad, one of the biker family, died when he was 16 years old.  With abandonment issues, Reefer has made a promise to himself that he will never allow any female who is not a life-long biker, to become his permanent mate.  Yet when he spies Sarah Lightfeather, a visiting nurse, peeking at him and his group as they rode past the home  of one of his patients.  Little does he know that her dream has always been to ride free from her life even though she loves her patients and loves what she does.  What she doesn’t love is the fact that she will always carry the scars of having been raised by two alcoholics–a mother who has died of liver disease, and a dad who is even now drinking himself to death.  

This is a novel about two people who are kind and caring, genuine in all the right ways, but who are carefully guarding that part of themselves where the old wounds reside.  Yet Reefer cannot get Sarah’s sweet and beautiful face and smile out of his memories, and as he slowly gets to know her, realizes that she is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.  As far as Sarah is concerned, Reefer is everything she has ever dreamed of in a man.  So it appears it is a coupling made in heaven.  Right?  Wrong!!  Sure, they manage to “get it on” and spend weeks together, each falling more and more in love with the other.  But when two people have not resolved their trust and abandonment issues, it doesn’t take much to upend the relationship.  That’s exactly how it played out between these two.

Ms Kayn has given us two novels that speak plainly about the issues that are probably uppermost in the experience of a large percentage of the human family, and the issues of trust and abandonment by the people who should love us the best are probably closest to our hearts and can hurt us deeply.  The saving grace about both these individuals is their willingness to admit their wrongs, to own up to making serious mistakes.  But one wonders if it is possible to move on when the person to whom we give our whole heart suddenly appears to be throwing that love and the loved one away like trash.  I have pondered that a lot since finishing this book, and I still wonder how someone gets past that.  A person may say “I forgive” but I wonder how much residual worry is left below the surface that can crop up at a later time and erode the good in the relationship.  I think this book deals with some of that.  The book is so well written, the characters are drawn with a sure hand, and the plot and story line clear and move forward.  I especially like the fact that there are no long, drawn out sections of internal monologue or that inner debate that some authors seem intent on putting in their stories.  (Yawn)  It is a good balance between dialogue and those quiet narrative portions of the novel.  I also found that the background characters were a hoot with names like Crank, Knuckles, Margarine, etc.

This author has a fine portfolio of published work and this is a good example of a novel written by someone who knows how to put a good novel together.  And for readers who like bikers and that sense of the open road, you will enjoy this story.  The first novel is equally entertaining and I am glad to have encountered this series, even though it was sort of an accident.

I give it a rating of 4 out of 5

The series:

You can read  more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

This book is available from Breathless Press You can buy it here or here in e-format.