Road Rage (Outlaw Series Book 4) by Katrina Kantas – Review by Alexandria Richard

Road Rage by Karina Kantas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was hard for me to rate, so my review will reflect that. I am a fan of dark romance and other dark readings, so that is also reflected here.

3.75 rounded up.

The good:
I did enjoyed the overall story of this book, and reading about Gem’s evolution into Rage (the Motorcycle Club) and the glimpses of her backstory and how she came to be when she met Shep. Gem does get her HEA with her man, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her building that relationship and allowing it to thrive. I also really enjoyed the street racing aspect and the adrenaline that came from reading those scenes.

The so-so:
I feel like some of the flashbacks would have in fact been better placed sooner in the books, especially some of Gem’s flashbacks to her time with the Hawks. (That transition in the book seemed to be thrust on us out of nowhere.) I felt like there wasn’t enough time to recover from her trauma in the flashbacks to then jumping into the contemporary trauma she was experiencing. Normally when I read a dark series I like to read about characters who, despite their trauma, are strong and willing to fight back, and while Gem does, it’s done in a way that leaves me left wanting. I found the romance aspect of this book lacking as well as there was almost no actual sex scenes that occurred, were just told there was sex between the characters, or that it was good or the best sex of Gem’s life, and then the only real description of a sex scene is traumatic for the character.

Disclaimer: I have not read the other books in the series, and by this book I don’t think I will. This book is not the first I’ve read by this author, so when I saw it and the synopsis I was excited; however it fell flat for me. This book was originally published in 2013, making it 9 years old at the time of this review, and the author’s writing has come a long way since. I just couldn’t get behind the writing here. It’s definitely a case of telling, not showing. I also felt that it wasn’t the smoothest in its transitions from one situation to the next.

Cw: drug use, violence against women, domestic violence, detailed description of fist fighting, sexual and nonsexual assault, active rape, motor cycle club culture.

View all my reviews