Title: Ride Steady
Series: Chaos bk 3
Author: Kristen Ashley
Genre: Contemporary
The ride of her life . . .
Once upon a time, Carissa Teodoro believed in happy endings. Money, marriage, motherhood: everything came easy—until she woke up to the ugly truth about her Prince Charming. Now a struggling, single mom and stranded by a flat tire, Carissa’s pondering her mistakes when a vaguely familiar knight rides to her rescue on a ton of horsepower.
Climb on and hold tight . . .
In high school, Carson Steele was a bad boy loner who put Carissa on a pedestal where she stayed far beyond his reach. Today, he’s the hard-bodied biker known only as Joker, and from the way Carissa’s acting, it’s clear she’s falling fast. While catching her is irresistible, knowing what to do with her is a different story. A good girl like Carissa is the least likely fit with the Chaos Motorcycle Club. Too bad holding back is so damned hard. Now, as Joker’s secrets are revealed and an outside threat endangers the club, Joker must decide whether to ride steady with Carissa—or ride away forever.
Thoughts: While I don’t like all of Ashley’s series this is one that I do enjoy.
I’m a sucker for second chance romances, especially the ones where the hero and heroine knew each other in high school but don’t run in the same circles and years later connect and fall in love. Sometimes the author gets it right and sometimes the author gets it wrong. So I was super glad when Ashley got it right with these two.
Both of them have had life kick them in their weak spots and left them with lots of scar tissue. So letting someone, even the one person they have always secretly wanted to be their one, in takes a lot of work. Work both of them are very leery putting in.
While Carissa is leery of letting Joker into her world, she has zero chance of stopping the women of Chaos into it. This allows her to see into the MC world that Joker is a part of, and discover that he is worth the risk of cutting into the painful scar tissue on her emotions.
Joker has his own issues to work through as well…ones that the men of Chaos help him with. This allows him to make changes, changes everyone in his life has been waiting for him to make.
This really is a story of discovering just how strong you are, not just by yourself but with someone who will always have your back. It’s something that both of them struggle with, at different times in the story, but ultimately realize.
There is also the secondary plot line that is carried through this series regarding a drug dealer who wants Chaos territory. This happen, alliances are made and I have a feeling that something big will be happening if not in the next book then in the next couple of books.
Each of the story/character lines in Ride Steady help to make this one of the better books in this series. I read it in one sitting (I haven’t been able to do that for a few of Ashley’s books) and wanted to read it again it was that good. Considering this was the 3rd book and I as a series reader have always felt the 3rd book in a series is either the make it or break it book, this one is definitely in the make it column for me.
Grade B+
