JUDGMENT ROAD (Torpedo Ink #1) by Christine Feehan-Dual Review and Giveaway

JUDGMENT ROAD
Torpedo Ink #1
by Christine Feehan
Release Date: January 23, 2018
Genre: adult, contemporary, erotic, paranormal, romance

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / Chapters Indigo /

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date January 23, 2018

An outlaw motorcycle club sets up shop next door to Sea Haven in the dangerously sexy new series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan.

As the enforcer of the Torpedo Ink motorcycle club, Reaper lives for riding and fighting. He’s a stone-cold killer who turns his wrath on those who deserve it. Feelings are a weakness he can’t afford–until a gorgeous bartender gets under his skin…

Near Sea Haven, the small town of Caspar has given Anya Rafferty a new lease on life. And she’s desperate to hold on to her job at the biker bar, even if the scariest member of the club seems to have it out for her. But Reaper’s imposing presence and smoldering looks just ratchet up the heat.

Anya’s touch is everything Reaper doesn’t want–and it brands him to the bone. But when her secrets catch up to her, Reaper will have to choose between Anya and his club–his heart and his soul.

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Sandy’s REVIEW

JUDGMENT ROAD is the first instalment in Christine Feehans’ contemporary, adult TORPEDO INK slightly paranormal, erotic, romance series focusing on the members of the MC Torpedo Ink. The Torpedo Ink series is a spin-off from the author’s Sisters of the Heart /  Sea Haven series but you do not have to have read the original series to understand or follow Torpedo Ink. This is Torpedo Ink enforcer and Sergeant at Arms Savva ‘Reaper’ Pajari, and bartender Anya Rafferty’s story line.

NOTE: Most of the characters including Torpedo Ink club president Victor ‘Czar’ Prakenski, and his wife Blythe Daniels were introduced in the final instalment of the author’s Sea Haven Series BOUND TOGETHER.

WARNING: JUDGMENT ROAD contains, and makes reference to graphic violence, rape, murder, torture and abuse against children and women, and therefore, may not be suitable for all readers.

SOME BACKGROUND: At the tender age of ten years old, Victor ‘Czar’ Prakenski set about to save and rescue over three hundred children from a Russian child sex-slave operation but in the end only eighteen survived. The Torpedo Ink series focuses on the survivors: their stories, their history, and their happily ever afters.

Told from several third person perspectives including Reaper and Anya JUDGMENT ROAD follows the acrimonious relationship between Torpedo Ink enforcer, assassin and Sergeant At Arms Savva ‘Reaper’ Pajari, and bartender Anya Rafferty. Anya Rafferty is a new hire at the biker bar run by the Torpedo Ink MC; a woman that quickly gets under Reaper’s skin but a woman whose past may be a threat to the security and safety of the Torpedo Ink MC. When a rival MC comes looking for help the Torpedo Ink gang set into motion a search and rescue mission that reveals a much darker and deeper threat than anyone had suspected, a threat that quite possibly leads back to Anya Rafferty. What ensues is the building and volatile relationship between Reaper and Anya; the search and take down of the threats against Torpedo Ink; and the potential fall-out when Reaper’s nightmares and heart breaking past refuse to let go.

Reaper is a stone-cold killer; a dark and tormented man whose own family-the Torpedo Ink MC- is troubled by his emotional instability and inability to let go. Trained as an assassin Reaper believes he is incapable of any relationship involving the woman with whom he will fall in love. With the arrival of Anya Rafferty, Reaper slowly begins to shed his dark and cold exterior. Anya Rafferty is on the run and finding a home with the Torpedo Ink MC places everyone in danger. Unaware of the history, and the savage beginnings of the man that she loves Anya finds herself at a crossroads, ready to run, on more than one occasion.

We are introduced to all eighteen members of Torpedo Ink- survivors of horrific abuse, torture and betrayal at the hands of the sick and depraved. A tight-knit group that calls itself family, the Torpedo Ink gang collectively share telepathic abilities, as well as a heart breaking and devastating history that only furthers their close relationship and over-protective nature as it pertains to one of their own.

The world building reveals the tragic history of abuse, torture, rape and ‘education’ of a group of children who discovered that the world and people have a sick and twisted version of right and wrong. In past reviews I have remarked on the author’s increasing violent story lines and abuse against women and children but in the case of the Torpedo Ink series, the violence is part of their history and lives-ingrained and imbedded –into their very existence. The story line heroes are not the perpetrators of the violence and abuse against the women they love but are the saviors and salvation of those who suffered years before.

JUDGMENT ROAD and the Torpedo Ink are the stories of the broken; the damaged; betrayal and revenge. The premise is dark, startling and edgy; the characters are colorful, charismatic and protective; the romance is dramatic, controversial and healing. Christine Feehan enters the world of the MC with the first fiery instalment in the Torpedo Ink series.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy

 

Barb’s Review:

Judgment Road by Christine Feehan is the 1^st book in her new Torpedo Ink series, which is a spin off from her Sisters of the Heart/Sea Haven series. When the last book in the Sisters of the Heart series left off, our heroes, (Viktor/Czar) and his wife, Blythe and all the members of Torpedo Ink Club were together as a team,  and will continue to be major or supporting characters in this new series.   Czar is the President of Torpedo Ink, and the man who is the glue that keeps them (his 17 members of Torpedo Ink) together as a team.  All of them suffered horrible abuse in their childhood, making them all lethal assassins; living still in the darkness of the past.  In Bound Together, Blythe was the lone light that they all grabbed hold of, and being Czar’s wife, she is always protected by them.

In Judgment Road, Reaper is our damaged hero; Torpedo Ink’s enforcer, and the man who is always first to protect Czar.  Reaper is feared by the enemy, but loved by his brothers and sisters of Torpedo Ink; but mentally he also lives in a cold and dark inner world. 

Anya, our heroine, is one of the new bartenders in the club, and she is very beautiful.  Reaper starts feeling things he has never felt, and this brings his shield up; which makes him try to fire Anya.  She cannot understand why he is mean to her, as she has done nothing wrong; she is a loner, who also does her job well.  When Czar refuses to fire her, Reaper will have to fight off his attraction to Anya.  When he follows her after work, he sees she lives in her car; and forces her to come back to the compound.  In a short time, Reaper and Anya will act on their lustful feelings for each other, though he was very macho and demanding. Reaper begins to realize that he needs Anya (his only light to his soul), but he has a long way to learn how to treat her, something she tries to work with him on.  Their chemistry was off the wall sizzling. 

When a rival gang, comes to check out Torpedo Ink, Czar and the team notice that they keep watching Anya, and soon they fear she might be a spy.  They will all take her to the back and question her, using mental force to find out the truth.  But Anya is not a spy, she is running for her life, as she accidently discovered something about the rival gang, and ran for her life, when her friend was murdered.  Now after she recovers from the damaging force, she wants to leave Reaper, since he did not trust and protect her.  She loves him, but she needs to know she has to be his first priority.  Reaper, Czar and the entire team try to apologize for their mistake. Can Reaper win Anya back, and be able to protect her first?

What follows is an exciting adventure with Czar, Reaper and the team trying to help another rival club fight off the bad guys, who were kidnapping club leaders wives.   I loved so many of the Torpedo Ink members, and loved how the two girls ( Lana and Alena) were just as lethal as the guys, especially using their looks to trick the bad guys.  They were all so good together.  You have to sympathize, and Feehan gives us flashes to the past, and shows us how much they suffered; especially Reaper.   It is these dark memories, that will hurt his relationship with Anya, who loves him; but Reaper fears he will hurt her when in the midst of his bad dreams.  Very emotional.

As usual for Feehan, the story does have a lot of sex scenes, and though they were very steamy and great together, there were times early on when Reaper was too rough and always demanding control.  I also thought the mental torture scene was something that was easily brushed off, which was surprising. 

Judgment Road is a very dark story and romance, especially when we learned the things they had to endure in Russia; abuse, rape, torture, and murder.  But they are survivors, and slowly we will get to meet the other members of the team, as they find their way out of the darkness to the light of love. Despite the dark violent story, Judgment Road was a great read, exciting, sexy, and  a fabulous group of secondary characters.  

 

 

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