Reviewer: Tracy
Vicious Cycle by Katie Ashley
Series: Vicious Cylce #1
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: June 2nd 2015
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Deacon Malloy’s life is dedicated to the Hells Raiders motorcycle club. Tough, hard, and fast with his fists, he serves the group as sergeant at arms. But his devil-may-care approach to life is thrown for a loop when the five-year-old daughter he never knew existed lands on the club steps.

Alexandra Evans is devoted to all her students—but there’s always been something about Willow Malloy that tugs at her heart. There’s an aura of sadness about her, a girl in need of all the love Alexandra can give. When Willow stops coming to school, Alexandra’s search leads to a clubhouse full of bikers…and a father hell-bent on keeping his daughter always within sight.

The moment Deacon sees Alexandra, he has to have her in his bed—and he’s never met a woman yet who couldn’t be persuaded. No matter how attracted she is to Deacon, Alexandra refuses to be just another conquest. But it’s Deacon himself who could be seduced—into a brighter future for himself, his daughter, and the woman he’s falling for against all odds.

Tracy’s review of Vicious Cycle by Katie Ashley

Deacon is the Sergeant at Arms of the Hell’s Raiders MC. He loves what he does and isn’t looking for anything with a woman to soften him up. Of course life has a way of crashing in on you when you least expect it and that’s what happened to Deacon. His 5 year old daughter, Willow, the one he never even knew existed, showed up at the clubhouse when her mother was killed. Deacon’s mother helps out with her care as Deacon doesn’t know what to do with her. When her kindergarten teacher, Alex, shows up concerned that Willow hasn’t been at school for more than three days Deacon thinks she’s someone else and practically molests her.

It turns out that Deacon is concerned for Willow as there have been threats against her – a rival club trying to get to Deacon – and he plans on keeping the child home until the threat is removed. Alex and Deacon work out their differences and Alex agrees to home school Willow until the threat is gone.

As Alex and Deacon spend more time together they seem to be more attracted to each other but the people who are trying to get to Deacon won’t stop at Willow – they go after Alex as well. Once Alex has been hurt Deacon realizes that he cares more for her than he thought but their different lives might be the thing that ends up keeping them apart.

This is my first Katie Ashley book and it was a good read. I had some issues with Deacon and the end of the story as well as a few others but in general it was a decent book.

Alex was a strong character but overall pretty lackluster. I’m not sure how the author wanted us to see this heroine but I’m pretty sure I didn’t grasped her entirely. She was a kindergarten teacher and someone who I would never in a million years see with a biker, especially after knowing some of the things he’d done. He wasn’t a kind and loving person and I guess I didn’t see what she saw in him.

Deacon could be a good guy but for the most part – and for most of the book – he wasn’t. He didn’t know what to do with Willow, which was understandable, but I thought by the end of the book we would have seen some growth in that department and we didn’t. Deacon building a dance studio in the basement for her, in my eyes, was all about Alex and watching her dance and making her feel comfortable – not Willow. I guess I thought if the author was going to bring the child into the picture that we should have seen some more tolerance and love on Deacon’s part and that just never happened.

The secondary characters were mostly Deacon’s family, his mother, Mama Beth, and his brothers, Bishop and Rev who I actually liked quite a bit. Bishop was portrayed as a ladies man/manwhore but he seemed like a good guy and not quite so rough and gritty as Deacon. Rev. was just a big teddy bear and I’m looking forward to reading about him.

IMHO Ashley really went for the more authentic, rough, violent aspect of the biker world which didn’t me quite speak to me like other biker novels have done in the past. While I didn’t love this book I’ll be reading the next in the series to see how that one pans out.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5

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