The Blurb:
Millie Cross knows what it’s like to burn for someone. She was young and wild and he was fierce and even wilder-a Chaos biker who made her heart pound. They fell in love at first sight and life was good, until she learned she couldn’t be the woman he needed and made it so he had no choice but to walk away. Twenty years later, Millie’s chance run-in with her old flame sparks a desire she just can’t ignore. And this time, she won’t let him ride off . . .
Bad boy Logan “High” Judd has seen his share of troubles with the law. Yet it was a beautiful woman who broke him. After ending a loveless marriage, High is shocked when his true love walks back into his life. Millie is still gorgeous, but she’s just a ghost of her former self. High’s intrigued at the change, but her betrayal cut him deep-and he doesn’t want to get burned again. As High sinks into meting out vengeance for Millie’s betrayal, he’ll break all over again when he realizes just how Millie walked through fire for her man . . .
The Stats:
Publisher:
Genre:
Length:
POV:
Type:
Forever
Contemporary
615 e-book pages
Mix of 1st & 3rd person
Series (book 4 of the Chaos series)
Edition I read:
Kindle Edition
The Review:
I haven’t made it a a secret that I’m a bit of a lunatic fan-girl for everything Kristen Ashley writes. I’m a Rock Chick. I’m sort of a biker chick. I have a weakness for unfinished and damaged heroes. I also have a little bit of a weakness for strong alphas who show their softer underbelly for the right person.
KA’s books are…like coming home. Visiting with old friends. Making new friends. Having wild lampooning adventures. They’re familiar, comfortable, and they’re fun.
Such the fan that I am, it’s not really in me to offer an unbiased review of anything this author writes. I can’t do it, so I won’t even try. Instead…I’ll just gush a bit and share some random thoughts.
Her stories cut me to the bone with the feels and make me laugh uproariously with the antics. Her heroines are often extraordinarily relatable to me as a woman and part of the sisterhood. The heroes are hot, gruff, sexy, intuitive and I want every one of them. Every. One.
I loved that High and Millie were in their forties since that’s where I am. I love that KA doesn’t hesitate to bring us older characters who have a relatively strong grip on who they are with life experience under their belts. I love that every couple she brings us learns, to the point of absolute certainty, that what they find in each other is extraordinary. And that extraordinary is made up of all kinds of ordinary that is around all of us in relatable ways—such as a special moment taking place in a grocery store aisle or parking lot.
The MC, High, was someone I did not like in earlier books of the series. At all. He seemed to be on the fringes of the Chaos brotherhood and didn’t seem like he was all in with Tack’s vision of where the club needed to be. He seemed like a big ugly asshole, to be honest. But, I knew down to my bones that KA would make him lovable, and that once we got in his head and met his girl we’d need him to have an HEA. For me, this was pulled off beautifully.
The Big Conflict of Millie and High’s split twenty years prior was…kinda predictable. I called it early. It’s not a trope that I’m crazy about and I think it’s kind of overdone. HOWEVER. I liked the way it was handled. I liked how High got it. I liked how High could put himself in Millie’s shoes and know he would have done the same thing. And I liked that the twenty-year gap wasn’t beaten like a dead horse. I also liked that there wasn’t some magical “cure” due to the magnificence of his manhood. I mean it WAS magnificent…but thankfully didn’t hold magical cure-all powers, ya know?
I’m not sure I could totally buy in to Millie’s life being so overwhelmingly stagnant for twenty years—only because of all of the amazing people in her life who stood by her during that time. My life is kind of stagnant right now in a lot of ways (by choice)—and has been for three years—and I have awesome people in my life. So…I can sort of relate. I think it’s the thought of twenty years that scares me. And I do have a distant cousin whose heart was broken days before her wedding when she was 22…she’s never dated since, not once. She’s in her late 60s. I can’t say Millie’s situation is implausible. It freaking damn well is. Plausible…also pretty heartbreaking.
The kids in the book…KA writes awesome kids. And I say this as a person who is not overly fond of kids up close and personal. I liked that they were difficult and a challenge, showed that parenting is HARD, and that kids are not droll little minions to fill plot gaps. The kids KA includes are just as much an integral part of the story as everything else and they’re entertaining as hell.
I love, love, love, love that KA highlights such normal every day life…from decisions about knocking down an old garage, the hassle of making homemade spring rolls, or eating a lukewarm burrito. Are they important in the grand scheme of things? Individually not really. But the little things we see or carry with us from those everyday moments all add up to what becomes an unshakable foundation, especially for KA’s her characters. It’s not always in the Grand Gesture.
I love visiting with characters from other books and other series. Shirleen? I miss that woman like CRAZY and never picked up on High and Shirleen having a special bond. Awesome! Even the mention of Vance had me…well, use your imagination. I might be seeing a re-read of the RC series in my near future.
I could go on for dayyyyz itemizing all the love and feels for KA books. But, I’ll spare you and close with this. My reading habits and tastes have evolved quite a bit in the last several years—so much so that I rarely seek out what most might call “mainstream contemporary romance.” Except…Kristen Ashley will, from what I can foresee, always be one of my absolute favorite auto-buy authors. Guilty pleasure, perhaps? Nope…no guilt here. Can’t seem to find it.
This review also posted on GoodReads.