Review by Jodi: Running Wild by S.E. Jakes

Title: Running Wild: Havoc Book 1

Author: SE Jakes

Publisher: Riptide Publishing

Rating: 5/5 Smooches

Blurb:

Embrace the danger…

Sean Rush is an adrenaline junkie. That’s why he was in the Army, why he steals and races classic muscle cars . . . and why he can’t stay away from bad boy Ryker, a Havoc Motorcycle Club lieutenant. Fortunately, Ryker can’t seem to stay away from Sean—he’s spent the last eight months breaking into Sean’s apartment and stealing into his bed, leaving Sean physically satisfied but increasingly restless.

Sean has always avoided relationships. He likes to come and go without being controlled. And Ryker is possibly the most controlling man he’s ever known. Still, he finds that he wants more from Ryker than their silent nighttime encounters.

Then one of Sean’s thefts goes bad, and Ryker’s protective instincts kick into overdrive. He takes Sean to the Havoc compound, determined to keep him safe. But Sean’s past threatens the safety of Havoc—and everything Ryker holds dear. Worse, Ryker’s hiding secrets of his own. Soon it’s obvious that the adrenaline rush can’t keep them together anymore. But maybe love can.

Review:

“He pushed all my limits. Had from day one but this . . . this was new. Exciting. And scary as hell.

--Sean Rush

Caution: Reading this book may make readers fall in love with outlaw, badass bikers and adrenaline junkie car thieves. There are no two ways about it. This book is hot: steam coming from the pages hot. The characters are captivating, the plot is intense and the interactions between the characters are engaging and mind boggling. In other words, this is a typical SE Jakes book.

To make this book more intriguing, Running Wild is narrated by main character Sean Rush, so the reader is fixed to the facts from Sean’s point of view. This tactic gives the book an added dimension as Sean tries to come to grips to what is happening in his life as he tries to work through his thoughts, feelings and observations. In other words, reality is relative to what Sean perceives it to be.

It has been a long time since Sean Rush felt anything. The man is a bit of an enigma: Army veteran, tough guy, car thief, brawler, adrenaline junkie, loyal friend and, surprisingly, a romantic. Sean appears to be a crossroads. His recent release from the Army has him looking for his place in the world. He, along with his two best friends and fellow car thieves, Noah and Billy, joined the Army and wound up in Afghanistan to avoid going to jail. Only Noah and Sean make it out of the desert alive.

Sean likes to push boundaries, and he and Noah like to get into trouble. For Sean, stealing cars and drag racing fulfills an inherent need. It is all about the thrill. Both Sean and Noah suffer from PTSD, and Noah turns back to stealing cars, while Sean, without realizing it, gets what he needs from starting fights and from having hot, mind blowing, exhausting sex. That is until he starts stealing cars again.

Sean has fallen into a “relationship” with a member of the local motorcycle club, Havoc. Ryker is sexy, powerful and mysterious, and he has been breaking into Sean’s house on a regular basis for the last eight months.

Every single time he broke into my house, I had to convince myself it wasn’t a dream. I never knew when he’d show, couldn’t plan for the times he’d yank the sheet off me before the mattress shifted under his weight. His hands were big and rough on my bare back, and when he flipped me over and skimmed between my legs, that heated rough on my cock was heaven.

So was the big, hot body on mine.

I didn’t know if I should be stopping it. But why would I? Hot sex, no commitment. Hell, no talking. Most of the time just a soundtrack of classic rock, punctuated mostly by the Grateful Dead, which made the whole thing so goddamned hot. It was the perfect nonrelationship for a guy like me, since my lifestyle was completely nonconducive to relationships.

But this guy wasn’t just any guy. No one in my twenty-four years had ever had the balls to pull this kind of break-and-enter shit with me. I was impressed. Fascinated.

He was a shadow. I was used to moving through places unnoticed, but even though he had it down to an art form, he definitely wanted to be noticed when he came into my bed. And he was strong. Stronger than I was, which was no easy feat.

He was tattooed. Always bore a couple of bite marks after we finished. I couldn’t help myself—I liked the idea of leaving my mark, but then, I was always hoarse the mornings after he visited, so I guess we were even.

He liked to study me in that brief space of time postsex before I crashed. I could see the appreciation in his dark eyes, and it made me squirm. He’d notice that I was somewhere between embarrassed and enjoyment, and he’d chuckle, low and husky, and that made my cock hard. Again.

I wanted to ask him why the hell he kept breaking in, but I didn’t. It was obvious to me—he wanted to fuck. And I was acquiescing when I normally wouldn’t have. I liked control, all types, all the time. But during these visits, it didn’t matter.

He made me dizzy. Pliant. Incoherent.

I could tell he liked me that way. Expected it.

Jakes is a master of grabbing the reader by the throat and not letting go, and she has done it again with Running Wild. This is the first book in a new series, and readers are left wanting more about these eclectic characters: Sean, Ryker, Casey, Jethro, Linc and Sweet. There is a thin line between good guys and bad guys in this book. Jakes likes to keep readers on the edge of their seats as she slowly reveals the facts and deepens the characters through expert development and plot manipulation.

At the beginning of the book, Noah is the only person who Sean truly trusts, but after helping Noah with a job and almost dying in the process, Sean realizes that Noah may not be trustworthy.

As the relationship between Sean and Ryker intensifies, the tension between Sean and Noah increases. Sean is not sure who to trust. Between Billy’s brother, Officer McKibbins, tightening the reigns and Sean learning the truth about what Havoc does, the plot thickens and the tension crescendos. McKibbins blames Sean for his brother’s life of crime and death. And, in true survivor guilt mode, Sean owns some of that guilt.

      Despite Sean’s actions and words, it seems clear that he wants the relationship he has with Ryker to be about more than sex. But, Sean doesn’t do relationships, and he believes the only reason Ryker keeps coming back is for the sex. Ryker always leaves after the sex, until, of course, he doesn’t. Sean isn’t even sure that it all isn’t a dream … accept for the roses.

And, like he knew, the delivery guy grinned when he said, “Flowers for Sean Rush,” because obviously he thought it was great that I’d gotten them. Again.

Noah grabbed the big box—bigger than normal—and pushed me out of the way to put it on the table. I tipped the delivery guy by lifting Noah’s wallet from his back pocket and taking a couple of bucks, then pointed him to the door. It was only fair since Noah was already opening the box, demanding, “Who the fuck’s sending you long-stemmed roses? The chick from last night?”

Thankfully, there was still no card. Hell, I still didn’t need one. Ryker was sending them. They came every morning after he made me come. Anyone might think he was courting me, but I knew better. The fucker had to be making fun of me. Didn’t stop me from letting him into my bed though. “Long story. And fine, Bertha’s tonight.”

“You’re just saying that to get rid of me.” Noah smirked as he turned one of the roses in his fingers—this time there were eight roses instead of the usual single one. He touched a thorn and hissed when it pricked him. “Someone’s into you.”

“Yeah, right,” I muttered, walked to the counter, and started cracking the eggs, badly, because I knew he’d intervene.

He did, putting the rose down in the box with the others. “What do you mean, ‘Yeah, right’? In the real world, red roses mean serious business.”

I wasn’t living in the real world. I was sucked into a dream world where a man too big to move as silently as he did broke into my house, and I did nothing to stop him. I was actively encouraging it with my silence.

Despite the fact that Sean seems enamored with Ryker, Noah doesn’t trust the man or Havoc. Noah seems to care about what happens to Sean, but there is an underlying uncertainty presented to the reader regarding Noah’s true motivations.

Noah’s tone softened. “Rush, come on. I just think you’re putting too much into this. He’s having fun. He liked the chase, but once he caught you . . .”

No more flowers.

Noah continued, “I think you’re confusing sex and love, Rush, and you’re the last person who should be. You’ve never trusted very easily, so why now, with him? I mean, look, you’re talking Havoc here. Even for you, that’s extreme.”

I stared at the open road and, for the first time, fully realized that maybe I couldn’t trust my best friend. I hated him for that, wanted to hate Ryker more for opening my eyes to it, but I couldn’t. He’d been trying to protect me.

But I couldn’t discount what Noah was saying either. “Ryker knows things about me.”

      Ryker holds a prominent position in Havoc, and although the other gang members do not seem to have a problem with Ryker being gay, they are not all thrilled with his relationship with Sean. Sean has a bit of a reputation in the community, and the bikers know all about his stealing cars. Jakes does a fabulous job with her descriptions of Ryker and by using the showing not telling method to unravel his feelings for Sean.

The way he looked at me made the world still. All the noise, the bullshit, stopped cold. He was all I wanted to focus on. Everything else fell away until it was just the beating of my goddamned heart, and he’d snuck in there when I wasn’t looking. When I was being too dense to notice, and he’d known it the entire time. Known and waited, semipatiently, until I’d discovered it.

His hand traveled along my side, the way it always did, slid under my arm, then settled, palm open, fingers splayed over my left side, fitting against the slope of my ribcage. He studied his hand and my skin intently, and now I realized he’d been doing that since our second night together.

His hand seemed to fit there, perfectly. I didn’t question why he did it. It was one of those things where, if I mentioned it, he might stop doing it.

Once his hand settled into its spot, my eyelids got heavy. His arm slung over me. An anchor. I slept, even though I didn’t want to.

When I woke, he was gone.

Jakes likes to blur the lines between good and bad in her books, and she expertly does this in Running Wild. The characters and plot are captivating. Since this is the first book in a series, the HEA is understated.  Jakes uses a grittiness in this book that lends to the realism and intensifies the relationship between these characters and the rawness of the plot. Jakes’ characters are multi-dimensional, strong, vulnerable, and very skillfully flawed. As in her other books, the genuiness of the characters is revealed through subtle character actions and dialogue, which makes this book a great read.

Thank you SE Jakes and Riptide Publishing for providing a review copy of this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

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Review by Jodi: Daylight Again by S.E. Jakes

Title: Daylight Again (Hell or High Water: Book 3)

Author: S.E. Jakes

Publisher: click to purchase from publisher

Rating: 5/5 Smooches 

Blurb:

This title is part of the Extreme Escapes, Ltd. universe.

Hell or High Water, #3

Prophet Drews is a man on the edge, and he’s pulling Tom Boudreaux, his partner on the job and in real life, right over with him. When his old CO calls in a favor, Prophet asks Tom to join the off-the-grid rescue. But the mission raises all of Prophet’s old ghosts: CIA assassins, the terrorist Sadiq, and most importantly, John — traitor, former teammate, and Prophet’s first love.

To help bury those ghosts for good, Prophet and Tom gather the members of Prophet’s former SEAL team . . . and a spook named Cillian who’s been tailing Prophet for years. In the process, Prophet is forced to face his team’s shifting loyalties, ghosts who refuse to stay dead, and scariest of all, his own limitations.

With everyone’s lives in danger, Prophet and Tom must unravel a tangled knot of secrets, including their own. Prophet must decide how much to reveal to Tom, while Tom must decide how far he’s willing to go to help Prophet lay his ghosts to rest.

Review:

Prophet Drews has intense nightmares, multiple times a night. He is tense, high strung and an emotional wreck, not to mention the PTSD. The friction between Prophet, his lover Tom Boudreaux, his teammates, especially Mal, and CIA spook Cillian is building. As always, the Seal team is ready to roll with its own unique brand of justice, mayhem and revenge.

        With this third book in the Hell or High Water series, SE Jakes has again proven she is a master at plot manipulation, dialogue, action and tension. The James Thurber quote at the beginning of the book is very appropriate: “There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.” In this case the light that is cast on the characters is a bit of both.

In Daylight Again, readers learn more of the truths behind the lies and obfuscations in the first two books. These veracities reveal the characters’ motivations. Although Tom has been connected with Prophet’s Seal team, he now has a clearer picture of what the team members had been doing over the years, and now he is fully invested in both the mission and in Prophet.

“And yes, Prophet was still an asshole. It was almost comforting. Almost. … Dealing with Prophet wasn’t entirely unlike dealing with a live grenade or a Claymore mine. You had to know when to ease off the pressure and when to stay firmly planted and unmoving so you didn’t die in the explosion. Then again, Tom supposed that Prophet would say that dealing with Tom wasn’t all that different.”

John Morse and the terrorist Sadiq are still in the wind, and Prophet is strung tighter than a brand new tennis racket. The purpose of this review is not to give away any of the secrets or reveal any of the intimacies that are woven throughout this book. Suffice it to say that there are some amazing reveals in this book and the conflicts and action will keep readers on the edge of their seats from the first chapter of the book. Jakes is a master at foreshadowing and irony, which is even more apparent in this book.

The relationship and interactions of Prophet and Tom are even more intense and passionate in this third book. Whether they are fighting, having sex or ignoring each other, the tension seems to sizzle from the pages.

“He was about to leave Prophet alone so his own anger of being the last to know—true or not—wouldn’t take over. It wasn’t the time for that now. But he was hit with that goddamned voodoo feeling, the same one he’d gotten when he’d told Prophet to have his eyes checked. And Prophet was watching him, like he fucking knew. And Tom truly understood, for maybe the first time, how much it sucked to have Prophet know him so damned well. Love and hate, like Prophet said.”

It is important to read this series of books in order to really appreciate the characters, their camaraderie and their motivations. In this series, Jakes has created a series of multi-dimensional characters that sometimes let their emotions dictate their actions, even though they are professional killers. Tom is still the odd man out but he intends to prove himself to these men even if it kills him in the process.

“So Tom relaxed, as much as he could, given all the circumstances, and watched the group dynamics, pictured these men in happier days—on the battlefield, in the mess hall, on leave. They were simply easy with one another and these weren't easy men. There was King, with his ever-present dark skullcap and blue-green eyes that almost looked see-through, along with his promised shadow, Ren, a stocky blond with piercing green eyes and a palpable energy buzzing around him. Tom got the feeling that if Ren really wanted to, he could lead all the people out of this club and off a cliff, and they would gladly go, drinking, laughing, dancing the entire time. As evidenced by the fact that Ren himself was happily on a table, drinking. Dancing. Laughing.

The men talked in the kind of shorthand born from knowing one another for years. Tom knew there was a plan forming, and he grasped bits of it, but the edges were still fuzzy for him. He knew Prophet would explain it later, but he wanted to get this. Needed to understand so he could help. He gained the most points with Mal—or maybe lost them—when he spotted Cillian before Mal did. He mouthed the spook’s name, and Mal straightened, glared—but whether it was aimed at Tom or Cillian, he couldn’t tell. With two signs at the men that Tom didn’t really get, Mal was gone. When Tom looked up, so was Cillian.”

In Daylight Comes Again, there is some closure to events that took place in Catch a Ghost and Long Time Gone, but this book does not bring an end to the major conflicts and turmoil. Tom and Prophet are magnificent characters and the plot, as it is in the previous books, is action-packed. The further development of the characters of Mal and Cillian in this book bring extra heat and, of course, anxiety. But the unease between Cillian and Mal is nothing compared to the tension between Cillian and Tom and Prophet, especially when Prophet realizes secrets are being kept from him.

These men are far from perfect, and that is what makes the characters so appealing. Their tragic flaws are palpable, and Jakes does a great job showing both the strength and vulnerability of her men. Not only was the exposition action-packed, but the dialogue was as well. There is a lot of dialogue in this book, which makes this a brisk read. These men worm their way into the reader’s brain and stay there lurking in the background long after the last page of the book.

The world that Jakes has created is violent and teeming with pressure and sexuality. Jakes is a masterful storyteller and a wonderful writer. Her style is realistic and gritty, and she has the ability to grab a reader around the throat and force him or her to hang on for the ride. In the Hell or High Water series, Jakes has created a brutal world, which, surprisingly, contains aggression and compassion. The love and loyalty the men share for each other is unparalleled.

 *Reviewer Note: Thank you to SE Jakes for providing advanced review copy of this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

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