Walk the Edge by Katie McGarry
Series: Thunder Road #2
Also in this series: Nowhere but Here
Publisher: Harlequin
Publication Date: April 1st 2016
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 304
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Series Rating:
One moment of recklessness will change their worlds
Smart. Responsible. That's seventeen-year-old Breanna's role in her large family, and heaven forbid she put a toe out of line. Until one night of shockingly un-Breanna-like behavior puts her into a vicious cyberbully's line of fire—and brings fellow senior Thomas "Razor" Turner into her life.
Razor lives for the Reign of Terror motorcycle club, and good girls like Breanna just don't belong. But when he learns she's being blackmailed over a compromising picture of the two of them—a picture that turns one unexpected and beautiful moment into ugliness—he knows it's time to step outside the rules.
And so they make a pact: he'll help her track down her blackmailer, and in return she'll help him seek answers to the mystery that's haunted him—one that not even his club brothers have been willing to discuss. But the more time they spend together, the more their feelings grow. And suddenly they're both walking the edge of discovering who they really are, what they want, and where they're going from here.
Walk the Edge is the second book in McGarry’s Thunder Road series, a series that follows the children of MC brothers. This book follows Thomas “Razor” Turner, the newly patched in brother to the Reign of Terror MC.
Razor hasn’t been the same since his mother died a few years ago. The whole thing seemed off to him and he hasn’t been able to move on from it. When a detective starts sniffing around, planting theories in his head about his Mom’s death and with those theories come a whole lot of doubts that surround the MC. His issues throughout the entire book center on him learning to open himself up to trust those around him that love him. It’s not an easy road, especially when those people that are supposed to love you making it so hard to trust them.
Breanna is #5 of 9 children. She’s stuck in the middle and doesn’t fit in with her older siblings and is too old for her younger siblings. Her parents rely on Breanna to pretty much raise her younger siblings and her older siblings are a bunch of assholes that are too busy to help her. Breanna takes the cake when it comes to being smart. Her brain works in a very special way and it has made her the laughingstock at school. The whispers, the laughing and everything gets pretty bad at school that she has spent a number of years hiding how smart she really is so that she could fit in.
Being laughed at and made to feel like a freak show at school is bad enough but a kid should not have to live with it at home. When Breanna comes across Thomas Turner, known around town as Razor from the Reign of Terror Motorcycle Club, she isn’t expecting the relationship that blossomed between them. Razor wasn’t prepared it either.
Their lives are night and day. His is filled with motorcycles, parties and girls but her life is nothing like that. Her life is filled with kids and obligations and responsibilities that shouldn’t be hers but are anyway. They shouldn’t have been right for each other but they were and I really enjoyed the romance between them. McGarry really shines at writing the complicated romances that will gut you with feelings.
Two completely imperfect characters, young characters at that really get put through the wringer in this book and it was a hell of a ride. The book itself was compelling as I couldn’t put it down but I was frustrated as shit throughout a huge chunk of this book.
There’s a lot tackled in this book and I enjoyed it but more than once I wanted to punch someone’s lights out and it was a different person every time. The MC and their idiotic ways of “protecting” their own. Breanna’s never around parents and her older siblings (Clara especially). The whole blackmailing thing. Everything comes together in a complicated way to end the book but when I closed the book, I was still frustrated with Breanna’s family. I was still frustrated with the whole Kyle thing but the one thing that I absolutely loved was the love between Razor and Breanna. It was the one thing that completely worked for me.
Razor really came into his own in this story and I liked seeing him come to terms with his mother’s death. My heart hurt for him. I wanted to hug him close and never let him go.
Breanna’s story is one that I connected with. It’s something that I understood being one of 9 children myself. Getting lost in a crowd of kids, fighting for attention and more often than not, losing. Where her siblings kept her at arms lengths, my siblings supported me and each other through everything. Dance recitals, soccer games? All of my siblings were there to support me while my parents were busy with work but Breanna didn’t have it like that so my heart hurt for her as well.
I was really glad that Razor and Breanna had each other. I loved seeing them fall for each other because they were there for each other when nobody else was and we all need someone in our corner so I was glad that these two had each other. They were great characters on their own but they were better together and I dug their romance.
It’s saying a lot about McGarry’s writing style that I can still be completely obsessed with this series even after being frustrated with this book. Its saying a lot that I cannot wait for the next book to come out and I hate the heroine right now. I wanted to karate chop her in both this book and Nowhere but Here but damn if I’m not excited to tackle her and Chevy’s book. So while this book wasn’t without its frustrating bits, I still liked it enough to want to continue the series.
3 out of 5