Riding Steele: Crossroads And Aftershocks

Being kidnapped by bikers is a harrowing experience, but for some reason, Laurie doesn’t feel as terrified as she should.  The leader’s steely eyes soften when he looks at her, and the others in his gang clearly know she’s hands off.  But does that include Steele's hands?  Her brain resists him, but her body insists she wants those big hands all over her.

Steele doesn’t know how he wound up in this mess–with a kidnapped woman on his hands and the police hot on their trail.  Now he and Laurie are in hiding at an isolated cabin, and Steele has to figure out how to extricate himself...and steer clear of his accidental captive whose tight, slinky clubbing attire is making him think all kinds of dangerous thoughts…

In Crossroads Rip and the boys are taking Laurie to a police station in the middle of nowhere so that she can turn over the necklace to an officer that Killer trusts to act as a go between. Once this is done, Donovan has agreed to drop all the theft charge. What we didn’t know at the end of Wanted was that Steele had given the necklace to Shock to hold for safekeeping, so they were able to leave immediately despite Steele’s angry departure.

This particular episode in the serial was a tad too predictable for me. Despite suspecting that it may be a set-up, Rip leaves the others at a diner out of sight of the police station so as not to make the cops nervous. Upon their arrival at the station, Rip parks behind the station and sends Laurie in unaccompanied while he stays positioned where he can’t see a thing. And you’ll never guess what happens next!?! Yep, that was sarcasm. But despite the predictability of Laurie’s abduction and subsequent rescue, there was nothing predictable about Laurie’s actual confinement once she was delivered to Donovan. As for the cliffhanger at the end of Crossroads, NEVER saw it coming. It wasn’t at the bottom of the list of possibilities because it wasn’t even a thought in my mind. I am so relieved that I have the final episode in the serial, Aftershock, all queued up and ready to go.

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Being kidnapped by bikers is a harrowing experience, but for some reason, Laurie doesn’t feel as terrified as she should.  The leader’s steely eyes soften when he looks at her, and the others in his gang clearly know she’s hands off.  But does that include Steele's hands?  Her brain resists him, but her body insists she wants those big hands all over her.

Steele doesn’t know how he wound up in this mess–with a kidnapped woman on his hands and the police hot on their trail.  Now he and Laurie are in hiding at an isolated cabin, and Steele has to figure out how to extricate himself...and steer clear of his accidental captive whose tight, slinky clubbing attire is making him think all kinds of dangerous thoughts…

At the end of Crossroads we learned that Laurie was wanted for questioning in regards to Donovan’s murder. WHAT!?!?!?! Needless to say, Aftershock starts off with everyone on edge because Donovan was alive and breathing when they left him in the cage after rescuing Laurie. Making matters worse is that Donovan’s abuse is causing her to have nightmares and flinch away from Steele. Will Donovan continue to impact Laurie’s life from beyond the grave? Can she and Steele make it work? These are just a few of the questions that are answered in the final episode of the Riding Steele serial novel.

The biggest thing to know about Riding Steele is that it is more of an erotic romance than an MC romance. Because the focus is more on the relationship between Laurie and Steele and less on the action, adventure and suspense that the MC books I usually read are, the circumstances surrounding Donovan’s murder are resolved rather quickly and felt quite anti-climactic to me. However, this does allow for a bit more angst to play out between Steele and Laurie as they try to decide how to proceed afterwards. Because of everything Donovan did to her, Steele is concerned that his need to dominate are going to hurt Laurie inadvertently. He’d rather walk away from her than hurt her and he sets out to do just that. This forces Laurie to make some tough decisions about what she really wants out of life and exactly how far she’s willing to go for love. The chemistry between them is still strong and it’s up to Laurie to prove to Steele that she really is ready to ride.

While I enjoyed some parts of this serial more than others, overall Riding Steele was a great read and I could easily see myself reading it again. Aftershock may only get a 4-star rating, but the entire Riding Steele serial is a 5-star read for me. Well done Ms. Carew.

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