Friday, August 17, 2012

In Rides Trouble by Julie Ann Walker


Rebel with a Cause

Becky "Rebel" Reichert never actually goes looking for trouble. It just has a tendency to find her. Like the day Frank Knight showed up at her door, wanting to use her motorcycle shop as a cover for his elite special ops team. But Becky prides herself on being able to hang with the big boys-she can weld, drive, and shoot just as well as any of them.

Man with a Mission

Munitions, missiles, and mayhem are Frank's way of life. The last thing the ex-SEAL wants is for one brash blonde to come within fifty feet of anything that goes boom. Yet it's just his rotten luck when she ends up in a hostage situation at sea. Come hell or high water, he will get her back-whether she says she needs him or not.

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In Rides Trouble is the second book in Julie Ann Walker’s Black Knights, Inc. series and another fun, sexy read. This story picks up right where the first ended, continuing the emotional standoff between Frank “Boss” Knight and Rebecca “Rebel” Reichart.

Frank is a man tormented by memories of a less than ideal childhood, raised – sort of – by a less than ideal man in a less than ideal environment. Afraid of being the apple that doesn’t fall far from the tree of infidelity, Frank avoids relationships that don’t meet his exacting standards, which means when it comes to Becky Reichart, he runs, doesn’t walk, the other way. In his mind, he’s doing the right thing by keeping her at arm’s length, but like it or not, he’s drawn to her like he’s never been drawn to a woman before and doesn’t know what to do about it. Adding to the madness defining his attraction to Becky is that she’s also nagging to be a member of his elite team of covert operatives which is something that, as far as he’s concerned, will never happen.

Becky is enjoying some time away from ‘the shop.’ Okay, truth be told, she’s not really ‘enjoying’ herself at all. In actuality she’s just off licking her wounds, wounds caused by her annoying, fantasy fueling business partner, Frank “Boss” Knight. It drives Becky crazy that he can’t seem to accept that she’s is a grown-up woman, capable of making grown-up woman decisions, and taking care of her grown-up woman self. Pushed too hard and too far, Becky decides some time away from the hot, sexy thorn in her side is exactly what she needs, until she finds herself the hostage of Somali pirates, and starts wishing she’d never left the safely of her Chicago motorcycle shop.

There are many things that made this an entertaining story! Revisiting some of the players from the first book and having a closer look at the way the team operates is just a couple of them. Finally getting to the meat of Frank’s issues and watching he and Becky work through them is another. Though, honestly, there were times I wanted to scream at Frank to just get over it and move on because their relationship development had started to drag, which made other parts of the story feel sluggish as well. And while this is one of those times when the “deep, dark secret” wasn’t really that deep and dark, all in all, In Rides Trouble is an enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to more in the series!

4 of 5 stars

My thanks to netgalley.com and Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.     

2 comments:

  1. I haven't started on this series yet, but I've seen it on the Sourcebooks website and looks really good. I like an enjoyable, fun romance read!

    Also, if that's what trouble looks like, it can ride into my life any time~! :)

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