Reviewer: Rowena
Redemption Road by Katie Ashley
Series: Vicious Cycle #2
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: October 6th 2015
Format: eARC
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Series Rating:

The New York Times bestselling author of Vicious Cycle plunges readers into a world of danger and desire in her newest in the Vicious Cycle motorcycle club romance series.

Looking for a walk on the wild side, Annabel Percy, the daughter of a powerful politician, gives in to an attraction to a sexy biker she meets one night.

But she finds herself living a nightmare when she’s kidnapped and transported into a hell on earth she never could have imagined.
Born and bred into the Hells Raiders MC, Nathaniel “Reverend” Malloy lives and dies for his brothers. But when he becomes the unexpected savior of a rival club’s captive, Rev makes it his personal mission to nurse Annabel back to health—and to shelter her from the nightmares that torment her.

Once Annabel heals, she’s stunned to realize she is falling for the seductive man who saved her. Faced with their impossible attraction, can she accept the life he leads, or will Rev walk away from the only life he’s ever known for the woman he was never supposed to love?

From the Trade Paperback edition.

This is Book 2 in the Vicious Cycle series by Katie Ashley and it follows Deacon Malloy’s (hero from Book 1) brother Nathaniel “Rev” Malloy as he makes that trek toward true love. Rev’s story starts at the end of Vicious Cycle. At Deacon and Alex’s wedding, Rev gets a phone call from their brother Breakneck (what a name), the MC doctor who informs him that he needs help. Breakneck’s daughter is a freshman in college at Texas A&M, she’s been kidnapped and Breakneck needs Rev’s help in getting her back because the guys that took her? They’re bad news and in the sex trafficking business. A business his daughter might be sold into if he doesn’t get her back soon.

Rev leaves the reception with his younger brother Bishop and they set off to try and get Sarah back. With the help of the local chapter of the Hell Raiders MC, they storm the compound to save Sarah and end up saving another red-headed captive named Annabel Percy. Rev ends up nursing Annabel back to health and she ends up becoming a bigger part of his life than he anticipated.

With each passing day, Annabel gets better and healthier and she gets even closer to Rev. She can’t imagine her life without him and he’s starting to wonder if she’s falling in love with him or is suffering from some kind of hero worship because he saved her from being the sex slave.

The story itself had the potential to be really good but I don’t know, I just didn’t connect with anything or anyone.

Rev’s head was in the right place but holy cow did he get on my nerves. Same with Annabel. I don’t know what it is about the heroines in this series but I could not for the life of me connect with either of them. I thought Annabel would come out strong and in some ways she did but the jealousy, the attitudes toward MC life, the wanting to change their men and the MC rules to suit their lives didn’t really sit well with me.

I wish that wanting the MC to go straight was handled better. The way that it came about didn’t sit right with me. It was a stipulation of Alex’s to Deacon. If they were going to work as a couple, he had to make sure that the MC went straight. I get that she couldn’t accept the lifestyle that being associated with the MC would bring but why was she so important to the MC? Deacon wasn’t the President of the club. He wasn’t even the VP of the MC. And another thing, why was it so easy for them to go straight? Everything was handled so conveniently.

Even with all of that stuff bothering me, the book was slow. It was like chapter and chapter of Annabel living with Rev and that’s it…and then Rev calls her parents and she goes home, pissed off. And that’s it. I felt like I was waiting for something big to happen and it took too long for it to happen because when everything finally does go down, it felt like it was too late. I was already checking out of the story.

It was good to see Bishop, Willow and Mama Beth again. I was sad for Kim but it was good to see her too but I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t care for Deacon and Alex even in this book. OMG, they got on my nerves. Deacon is just a flat out dickhead and Alex, ehh she still annoyed me.

Willow was just as much as delight in this story as she was in Book 1. I really enjoyed seeing how resilient she’s been. You can see her coming into her own as part of the MC family and I really like seeing her happy. She’s come a long way from the girl hiding under her bed in Book 1. She’s stronger now and that’s a good thing. I love her relationship with Rev and Bishop. She’s just a cute little thing. Mama Beth was great too. I just love her to pieces. I think she’s a good Mom who is just accepting and loving and everything that a Mom should be. She supports her kids no matter what they do and when she finds out what happened to Rev all those years ago, my heart hurt for her. She’s not perfect but she’s damn near close.

I read the first chapter of Bishops book that was provided at the end of Redemption Road and I wasn’t a fan of what I read but then I went over to Goodreads and read the blurb and it doesn’t seem that bad but I’m still on the fence on whether to read it or not. I just don’t know.

In the end, I wanted to like these books but I just couldn’t. Ugh.

Grade: 1.5 out of 5

This book is available from NAL Trade. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.