Rebel Love by Jodi Linton

She wants revenge...

The Dirty Sinners Motorcycle Club is Em Connors’s only family, but she’s ready to risk everything—both her club and her life—for vengeance. Ten months ago, she was brutally attacked and her lover gunned down by a rival gang member. Now, she’s using her position as the Dirty Sinners president to track down the truth and exact her revenge.

He’ll risk it all...

With his partner murdered by a local motorcycle gang, Houston police officer Cade Jackson jumps at the chance to go back undercover and bring down the woman the department calls the Motorcycle Princess. But the sexy-as-hell leader awakens a hunger in Cade. Dark desires run deep—and he intends on teaching Em exactly how dirty he can be. But when his cover is blown, Cade must choose to uphold the law or protect the woman he’s grown to love...by going rogue.

Series: Dirty Sinners MC #1 | Publisher: Entangled: Ignite| Release Date: January 4, 2016 | Genre: Contemporary Romance/mystery | Source: Publisher | Rating: 3 Cups

Challenges Read For: Pick Your Own Genre: Contemporary  

 

Rebel Love sounded amazing from the blurb.  An undercover cop infiltrating a motorcycle gang whose president is a female? Yes, please! This one truly had potential to be a 5-cup-I-can’t-put-this-down read. Sadly, it fell a bit short.

 

Here’s what’s going on. When Cade’s partner is murdered, his assignment is to infiltrate the Dirty Sinners MC and uncover his murderer. He never expected to lust after the MCs sexy female president. Em is out for revenge and she’s determined to make her lover’s killer pay for what he did but the hot new mechanic she’s just hired is complicating things. Although when Cade’s cover is blown, they both have some major decisions to make as the search for the killer continues.

 

So, I really wanted to like this one and it wasn’t exactly horrible, but it left me wanting so much more because it had amazing potential.

 

Cade was a very interesting alpha hero. He’s been working as an undercover biker for so long it feels as though he’s straddling the line between good guy and bad boy and I’m not really sure he knows which way he wants to go. He’s carrying guilt for not picking up when his partner called for backup, so he wants to try to get to the bottom of Wes’s murder yet what he feels for Em is starting to cloud his judgement.

 

I expected so much more from Em considering that she was a female MC president. I was looking for a tough cookie, someone who could make hard decisions, someone a bit grittier. She was a strong heroine just not the type of heroine I would be expecting to run an MC. Leather pants and black tank tops does not a biker chick make, I was hoping for a bit more of that biker chick attitude. Although that was probably because she never really wanted the job, all she wanted to do was to be an art student until her lover was murdered and she decided to get her revenge.

 

Cade and Ems relationship seemed a bit odd to me. While there was sexual tension, they just never seemed to connect to me—I think it had to do Em and the fact that she was constantly thinking about her murdered lover.

 

The plot was a little weird for me. Seeing as Cade was undercover investigating a murder, I was expecting to see more of a mystery/suspense aspect but the plot mainly felt like a lot of sex with a little mystery and MC stuff thrown in.

 

I was hoping that the mystery/suspense aspect would have been a bit prevalent and harder to figure out. I had the murderer pegged from the start, so the big reveal fell a bit flat for me.

 

When reading an MC book, I want that gritty MC lifestyle to shine through and while there was a bit of club business going on, it wasn’t what I was expecting.

 

Overall, this novel had potential but fell flat. Rather than allowing the mystery/suspense/MC or, really even the romance, to drive the plot it was fueled by sex and longing. So, if you want a hot and steamy read with little focus on the plot pick this one up.

What do you look for in a MC romance?