RATING: 5 napkins
**Contains explicit sexual situations, violence, disturbingly sensitive and taboo subjects, offensive language, and very mature topics.
Recommended for age 18 years and up
I am quite pleased I was able to participate in this. I've read the first book in this series, It Ain't Me, Babe, and I was really looking forward to reading the rest in the series.
Title: Heart Recaptured
Series: Hades Hangmen #2
Age group: Mature new adult
Genre: MC dark contemporary romance
BLURB
Even salvation can be delivered through the love of the damned…
Beauty can be a curse.
Faith can be a cage.
Only love can set you free.
A few long weeks after being reluctantly ripped from the comforting embrace of her sacred prophet’s religious commune—the only life she has ever known—a terrified Delilah is thrust into a world enveloped by evil and swimming in sin.
Steadfastly devout in her faith, and retaining the deep belief that her soul is innately tarnished as a branded ‘Cursed woman of Eve,’ Delilah is determined to find her way home to her people in The Order and away from the corrupt and damned outlaw motorcycle club—The Hades Hangmen—who hold her at their secluded compound for her protection—a 'protection' she strongly resents.
Delilah yearns to return home, convinced that only amongst her own people, and under the holy guidance of the Lord’s revealed prophet, can her Satan-spawned soul be truly saved. Conditioned her entire life to believe she is a witch... a life-long temptress… the devil’s whore... Delilah increasingly resents her beautiful face, her shapely body and her sensuous effect on men. But when a man of the motorcycle club—a deeply sinful yet stunningly beautiful man—is charged with her care, Delilah begins to see that this dangerous and moral-less sinner from the 'outside' may offer her something she did not know could truly exist: unconditional love.
Kyler ‘Ky’ Willis loves his life: a daily abundance of brotherhood, liquor, the freedom of the open-road and—best of all—his pick of hot women. Raised a biker brat and now VP of the most notorious MC in the States, Ky has no shortage of club sluts warming his bed; a situation he takes full advantage of… until a certain blonde enters his life… a gorgeous pilgrim-blonde he can’t get out of his head… a pilgrim-blonde he and his club recently-rescued from some backward religious cult… and a pilgrim-blonde he’s been ordered to keep the hell away from and his whorish hands off.
When yet another in a lengthy line of drunken blunders forces Ky to reluctantly take charge of the pilgrim-blonde’s care, he realizes that there could be more to this woman than just supermodel looks and a stacked set of tits. He begins to see that she could be the woman who could do the impossible—tame his wild ways and capture his reluctant heart.
But the unyielding bonds of Lilah’s past are strong, her ‘people’ determined and, with a new Prophet in charge and hell bent on revenge, they are mightily reluctant to let her go...
REVIEW
Oh boy, when I say I had all kinds of feels for this one, I meant all kinds of feels!
I definitely liked this more than the first book, It Ain't Me, Babe. It’s
definitely darker than the first. You’ve been warned. I swear, I think I even hurled a bit in my
mouth during some of the scenes. To say that I cringed at times is an
understatement. I’ve read others that are just as dark or even darker but the
issues touched on this story will break your heart and not easy to swallow.
Ky and Lilah, barring looks aside, cannot have been any more
an unlikely pairing, coming from one extreme end to another in the lifestyle
spectrum, so to speak. Yes, they’re just like Styx
and Mae, in a way in the first book, but with one huge difference, ie, Mae’s
attitude about the whole cult thing. Because Lilah cannot be any more
indoctrinated than she already was and Ky cannot be any more unapologetic about
his biker ways, Ky and Lilah’s journey are full of strife right from the
beginning. On the one hand, you have someone afraid of her own shadow and on
the other hand, you have someone who’s not afraid of anything. I was worried
how Tillie will handle the progression but I thought she made it work. Yes, a
bit OTT in some parts but it didn’t feel contrived at all.
In thinking about Lilah’s character, I had to constantly
remind myself of her past to make me not lose sight of her perspective. She
made me wanna bang my my e-reader on my head a few times but I can’t help but
feel bad for her at the same time. She was a doormat but she questions
everything. She frustrated me but she also broke my heart… sigh…
Ky is a complete man-whore whose ego rivals the size of a
stadium when it comes to his looks, skills and “skills”. He grabs life by its
horn. He was a pig but he made me laugh. He was an a$$ but he made me care…
sigh…
The story is gritty, sometimes bordering on stereotype if
you think of all the films you’ve ever seen on bikers and cults but I was
hooked and it made me feel all kinds of stuff. I can’t quite my fingers yet on
what it is about Tillie’s writing that feels different in my head. Regardless,
I know I’ll keep reading.
Coming down the line is Rider’s story who I personally
thought turn into this weasel of a man in this book who was like a lost
confused teen in a man’s clothes, or tunic I guess, in his case. I’m curious to
see how Tillie will redeem him.
Oh but coming right next is Flame and Maddie’s story.
Flame!!! He’s so OTT, he’s creepy and he
scares me but he intrigues me and I see so much potential. I wanna read his
story, for sure!
Ky stalked toward me, his white shirt tight over his taut torso, his blue denim pants loose on his legs. As he approached, he ran his hand through his messy long hair, chewing slowly on a small, thin wooden stick gripped between his teeth.
I could not speak, could not think, could not breathe. My free hand reached behind me, resting on a shelf to keep me upright. The smoky smell of Ky washed over me. My heart was frantic and my blood rushed through my veins.
Ky’s nostrils flared as he approached, his blue gaze drinking in the sight of my modestly covered frame. He did not stop three steps in front of me as the brothers were required to do in the commune. He did not keep an appropriate distance, as a man should with a woman in public. Oh no, instead, he closed in until his impressive height towered over my head, his chest pressing flush against my breasts.
I could feel his intense gaze. I squeezed my eyes shut, too afraid to face this devilish man. I lost all composure when he was near. He was crude, grossly promiscuous, and although my mind warned me of his evil and seductive nature, my heart betrayed my virtue and strived to have him close. His beautiful face and body tempted me to take him into my body. He was my very own forbidden fruit, one of which I had to keep far far away.
Being a scary blend of Scottish and English, Tillie embraces both cultures; her English heritage through her love of HP sauce and freshly made Yorkshire Puddings, and her Scottish which is mostly demonstrated by her frighteningly foul-mouthed episodes of pure rage and her much loved dirty jokes.
Having been born and raised as a Teesside Smoggie, Tillie, at age nineteen, moved forty miles north to the 'Toon', Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where she attended Newcastle University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in Religious Studies. She returned two years later to complete a Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching High School Social Studies. Tillie, regards Newcastle to be a home from home and enjoyed the Newcastle Geordie way of life for seven 'proper mint' and 'lush' years.
One summers day, after finishing reading her thousandth book on her much loved and treasured Kindle, Tillie turned to her husband and declared, "D'you know, I have a great idea for a story. I could write a book." Several months later, after repeating the same tired line at the close of another completed story, she was scolded by her husband to shut up talking about writing a novel and "just bloody do it!" For the first time in eleven years, Tillie actually took his advice (he is still trying to get over the shock) and immediately set off on a crazy journey, delving deep into her fertile imagination.
Tillie, ever since, has written from the heart. She combines her passion for anything camp and glittery with her love of humour and dark brooding men (most often muscled and tattooed – they’re her weakness!). She also has a serious side (believe it or not!) and loves to immerse herself in the complex study of World Religions, History and Cultural Studies and creates fantasy stories that enable her to thread serious issues and topics into her writing -- yep, there's more to this girl than profanity and sparkles!
After six years of teaching high school Social Studies and following her Professional Rugby Player husband around Europe, they have finally given up their nomadic way of life and settled in Calgary, Alberta where Tillie spends most of her days (and many a late night) lost in a writing euphoria or pursuing a dazzling career as a barrel-racing, tasselled-chap wearing, Stetson-sporting cowgirl... Ye-haw!
