A solid 4.5 stars for a kinder, gentler biker romance with a religious fanatic, psycho twist.
Yes, I do love to read harder, grittier books, especially when there is a biker involved but sometimes it is a welcome respite to indulge in a sweeter love story but still containing a hard edge. I had just recenty read a biker book dealing with a polygamist cult (It Ain't Me Babe) and while this at first seemed to be very similar and reminiscent of that book, Promise Me was much less vile and the club involved was a smaller more laid back group of bikers who ran a bar and just lived more or less like normal citizens. The main similarity being that one of the abused young women forced to marry a cult leader manages to escape the clutches of the evil man and is rescued by a biker and taken into their protective custody. In this book Promise is barely alive after a severe rape and beating by her husband and runs into Grayson, a biker in a fast food restaurant. Luck would have it that her cousin Rachel is involved with his club, so of course he takes her away on the back of his bike. Gray is a good man (even though he claims not to be) and pretty soon it is obvious to everyone around them that they are meant to be together.
Promise begins a new life in freedom, but living in fear that her husband and the crazy cult she escaped, will come looking for her...not to mention the fact that she left her little sister behind and she is also at risk for forced marriage and abuse. As bad as this book sounds, the treatment of woman is not as bad as what I have read in many other MC books. Apart from the rape and beatings Promise endures at the hands of her husband, there is not any of that in the biker group. This book portrays life and love in a smaller club with not that much description of club whores and criminal activity, but more family type stories and monogamous relationships. I really enjoyed this enough to buy the next book which is Maddox's story (one of the gruffer members of the group).
A cool addition...most books have a music playlist at the end of the book...this one has dessert recipes that were made by the women during the course of the story...and they look good enough I might make them =)
**** 4.5 **** "promise to love you forever" stars