OUTLAW’S PROMISE

 

By Helena Newbury

 

Rating:  5 out of 5 stars

 

Blurb

 

She was just a kid when she found me lying injured beside the road and saved my life. I promised her I’d return if she ever needed me. Twelve years later, I answer the phone and hear her voice: a biker gang’s about to sell her to the highest bidder. Like hell they are! I tear the place apart and we roar off on my Harley…but the kid I remember has grown up into a woman I can’t resist, with long red hair and curves that don’t quit. And now she thinks I’m a goddamn hero.

Every time we ride and her body presses against mine, I just want to rip her dress right off. Neither of us can resist…but for her sake, I can’t let her get close. She claims there’s still good in me but she doesn’t know how much blood I’ve got on my hands. Now the gang who took her want her back and they’re willing to destroy my whole MC to get her. But it’s too late. I’ve fallen for this woman. And I’m never letting her go.

 

 

Review

 

Contrary to the smooth-flowing and well developed characters, storylines, and overall writing that author Helena Newbury delivers in this gritty love story, my review will appear piecemeal and disjointed. It is not a reflection on either the author or the story, because it was an exceptionally good read. There are just a lot of aspects that I want to be sure to point out.

 

First and foremost, the writing and character development were extremely well done, and it is the first few chapters in particular that sealed this book as great for me – the backstory was so vividly developed, so engrossing and captivating that it hooked me with no warning.  After absorbing – truly sensing – how young Annabelle bravely risked her life by saving the handsome biker with an accent, how could you not become enamored by the underlying promise of Carrick’s and Annabelle’s eventual love story?

 

Carrick, better known as Irish, the enforcer for his MC, was bigger than life when he arrived to fulfill the promise he made to Annabelle on that night so long ago.  The characterizations were brilliant across the board and from start to finish; the scenes were richly crafted and unlike so many scenes commonly played out in many MC-based books. The action scenes were thoroughly wrung out and attention-grabbing.

 

The slow burn and tantalizingly addictive sizzle up to their first sex scene was intense. Admittedly, I thought that first sex scene itself was a tad anticlimactic and somewhat rushed based on what I was expecting. All good, but for some reason I was expecting more – but more of what, I don’t know.

 

Kudos for playing out Annabelle’s abilities as a mechanic – it was woven in masterfully to the opening scene when she saved Carrick’s life and captured brilliantly in the lead-up to Ox’s potentially fatal ride, not to mention how she applied her skills to save Ox’s mother. Rarely do I notice such seamless integration of these types of elements plotted throughout a story without seeming contrived, but Newbury accomplished it in Outlaw’s Promise.

 

This MC romance delivered more meat to its story and sidebar stories than many do. There were quite a few characters, too, to keep track of, but the author made it easy to keep everyone – and everything – straight and easy to follow.  Though I suspected who the real bad guy was early on, I admit I questioned it a few times, only to be nailed between the eyes without warning.

 

Outlaw’s Promise will keep you engaged, entertained, and engrossed, right up until the very end.

 

This voluntary review was posted on Amazon and Goodreads on March 15, 2020.