Stevie‘s review of Born Wild (Black Knights Inc., Book 5) by Julie Ann Walker
Contemporary Romantic Suspense published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 05 Nov 13
Finally: a book in a continuing series that I can read without prior knowledge and without running up against characters from every single previous book clamouring for a piece of my attention. And that’s in spite of the fact that the main couple in this one have appeared in at least one previous book in the series. Not only that, but this appears to be a series chockfull of alphas who don’t actually take themselves too seriously – and neither does the series: I can’t stand the trend in books, if not in TV series, for covert extra-governmental organisations to act as if the world of popular culture hasn’t been wittering on about the potential existence of such activities for, oh, about a century at least.
We first meet Evie Edens in this book at the very moment she realises that someone has tampered with the brakes on her Vespa (and face it, a heroine riding a Vespa means I’m won over already). Forced to ditch in the lake rather than risk running into anyone in busy traffic, Evie consoles herself that this time the police department will have to believe that someone is out to get her, even though they didn’t take her seriously over the mugging at gun point or the burning down of her apartment. But they don’t believe her, and fortunately she knows just who to call – or rather drop in on – having witnessed the dudes in action the previous summer.
The Black Knights are a bunch of covert ops guys (and gals) from a bunch of backgrounds who masquerade as motorbike mechanics and customisation experts. They’re kind of like a US Torchwood but without the aliens and actually competent at what they do. Also, one of their number was involved with Evie twelve years earlier, but they broke up due to a series of misunderstandings and she married someone else. ‘Wild’ Bill, the ex in question, is the group’s explosives expert, and never really got over Evie dumping him while he was off being trained in bomb defusing and other special ops stuff. But Evie’s in danger, and the members of the group who aren’t off saving lives elsewhere (conveniently keeping the number of extraneous characters from other books to a manageable level) convince him that they need to help her.
Of the four main suspects, I had my suspicions about one of them all along and was eventually proved right, making myself feel rather smug. I also like that while Evie is a bit of a spoiled rich girl, she is trying to break away from her overly controlling father and does seem capable of saving herself most of the time. I also adore the pair who look set to feature in the next book, as well as one character who really ought to get his own book sooner rather than later.
This is definitely a series I want to read more of, even if a few asides in the narrative threw me slightly as I tried to figure out whether we were being treated to authorial voice intruding into third person limited or whether these were just slightly clunky internal comments from the point-of-view characters.
Grade: B
Summary:
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Julie Ann Walker dives back into action with the red-hot romantic suspense Black Knights Inc. series! They claim they’re bad-boy bikers who own custom motorcycle shop, but these special-ops guys—a mix of Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Marines, FBI and more—handle the jobs too tough for the government to tackle.
TICK…TICK…
“Wild” Bill Reichert knows a thing or two about explosives. The ex-Navy SEAL can practically rig a bomb blindfolded. But there’s no way to diffuse the inevitable fireworks the day Eve Edens walks back into his life, asking for help…
BOOM!
Eve doesn’t know what to do when the Chicago police won’t believe someone is out to hurt her. The only place to turn is Black Knights Inc-after all, no one is better at protection than the covert special-ops team. Yet there’s also no one better at getting her all turned on than Billy Reichert. She has a feeling this is one blast from the past that could backfire big time…
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
