5 Smooches
Synopsis
The thing about hitting rock bottom…
Ridley doesn’t think he has anything left to lose, not after the life he’s lived. Then he meets her, Freya Capone, the nurse who saves his life when the last thing he wants is to be saved.
One look at her, and he’s transfixed.
He doesn’t know what drives him to run by her house that night. Intuition. Sixth sense. Whatever it is, his gut screams at him to go, so he goes.
And thank God he does.
There isn’t any farther you can fall…
Freya hits bottom after her brother’s death. Her rock. Her best friend. Her everything. Gone.
She always knew it was a possibility that he might get hurt while on shift, but she never entertains the thought of him dying. Not until it’s too late.
She literally has nothing else to lose. Until she meets him. Ridley Walker. A biker with The Uncertain Saints MC and a local sheriff’s deputy.
The man responsible for taking away her best friend.
But at least you have a solid foundation to build upon…
The last thing Freya wants is to fall in love with the man responsible for her brother’s death. She doesn’t want to care that he is nearly killed. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.
But she can’t stay away.
And neither can he.
Review
This is the fifth book in Lani Lynn Vale’s Uncertain Saints MC series. This series has been edgy and exciting, and Vale has given her readers something different and unexpected with each book. She’s tackled some difficult subjects and issues in the plots of these books, which has been a bit of a departure from her earlier works. For me, seeing an author stretch her wings and grow is exciting, and I think Lani has done a fantastic job with this series. I’ve come to love all of these somewhat broken, rough-around-their-edges bikers. They all may be a bit darker than Vale’s usual heroes, and they definitely skirt the line between right and wrong. But at their cores, these men are all still good guys and that’s what I expect from a Lani Lynn Vale hero.
From the beginning of the series, though, one of the characters who has intrigued me the most was Ridley. I’ve been looking forward to getting his story for a while. Ridley and Freya were two wounded and lonely souls, both of them so deeply immersed in their own grief. Ridley was consumed by guilt where his deceased wife was concerned, making it impossible for him to move on. Until he met Freya. His draw to her was so strong and powerful. Freya felt that pull to him, too, but she also had a lot to reconcile where it came to a relationship with Ridley. The load each of them was carrying became a little lighter, a bit easier to bear when the other was there sharing it. Would they both be able to set aside the guilt, the questions, their grief and grasp onto this chance for happiness and love?
This story was a pretty emotional one, but even still, Vale managed to weave her wonderfully unique sense of humor into this story. A bit heart-breaking at times yet still hopeful, this was a great story about moving forward after loss. Lani did a great job pulling emotion from her readers with this one. Sexy, funny, hopeful and emotional, Lani Lynn Vale’s Dirty Mother gets 5 smooches from me!
~ Danielle Palumbo
