Title: Crash & Carnage
Author: Emma Slate
Publisher/Year:  Tabula Rosa Publishing 9/5/21
Length:  328 Pages
Series: Blue Angels Motorcycle Club #2

OVerview

Adderly “Boxer” Ford is nothing like the men of my past.

He’s an outlaw.

A criminal.

My opposite in every way.

I save lives.

He takes them.

I’m makeup and mink.

He’s leather and ink.

I’m a fan of monogamy.

I’m not sure Boxer knows the definition of the word.

It’s a bad idea to get mixed up with him and his motorcycle club.

But when his lips meet mine, and his fingers plow through my hair, my desire for an orderly, safe life goes out the window.

In his bed, I discover passion.

With his club, I find a family.

In his arms, I am safe.

I don’t belong in Boxer’s world.

But when you fall for a Blue Angel, you get a lot more than you bargain for.

My Thoughts

I loved the first book in this series where we got to know about Mia and Colt – their story was hot and intense and the club was just the same. Now we get to have the same with Boxer and Linden and there’s no want to chaos here!

We start the book with Linden who’s a surgeon in Dallas. What we learn is that she’s got a bit of a complex past, she’s moved away from the east coast to get away from a man who just wasn’t right from her and a family that she didn’t fit into. She’s thriving in her new life in Dallas, and of course all that takes a new turn when a man walks into her ER with an appendix that’s about to burst.

Enter Boxer – a sexy Blue Angel, and a man that leaves all the women in the hospital without words. Linden treats him and gets to know him a bit, his quirks, a bit of his addiction past and learns that there’s more under the surface with him. While Boxer flirts with all the nurses, he’s got a special spot in his heart for Linden and it’s a delight to watch this situation unfold.

What we remember from the last book about the Blue Angels, they have an interesting love/hate relationship with Waco and other MCs or Cartels. There’s a code that they live buy – women and children are off limits, but we’ve see that combust in the past and that’s what we find happening here as well. There’s a cartel who’s trafficking both and that leads to a more complex story.

There are a few themes in this books that we get to enjoy as the Blue Angels try to deal with that other mess. There’s family. What we learned in the first book is that this is a VERY tight knit family – they will protect you and do anything to keep you happy and safe. Linden reveals that her family life is quite the opposite and she’s not really a believer of the happy family notion. Her mother has this hate relationship with her because she’s chosen to be s surgeon (like her father who left them) instead of living up to the societal expectations of their world. Linden also shares that her father who had an entire different family that was secret has been calling her a lot lately, yet we don’t know why. Personally, i’m actually interested in the purpose of the calls but it’s a matter of time for us to find out what that’s about. (if we do at all).

The Old Ladies, all the women tied to the club take Linden in with open arms and the men, the bikers, they are very appreciative and protective of Linden because not only did she save Boxer’s life, but she also brought him back as a man with a new perspective on life. He’s no longer the play boy that he was and he understands a bit more about his own mortality. They owe it all the Linden and that means that she’s welcomed into the fold quickly.

Things seem to be going well in general. Work is work for Linden, she loves it even though her boss is a prick, she’s got a new relationship and family that seems to be doing things for her that she’s missed out on her entire life. We watch her open up to Boxer after a few instances of ‘walls up’ that share more about what happened to her in the past to shape her, and we learn of her connection to Quinn/Sasha from one of the other series that we’ve enjoyed by Emma Slate.

All that comes crumbling down though when Linden is kidnapped as revenge against what the Blue Angels have been doing to the Cartels money flow and she’s tortured and left so damaged physically and mentally that she’ll never be able to go back to her old life. She holds Boxer accountable for things and really wants nothing to do with him. It transforms her outlook on life and watching that evolve is again another highlight of this story.

There’s a mixture of happy and sad in the ending of this second installment of the story. We see some aspects of the story come to a close with a resolution that we were hopeful for, but at the same time we know that a full happy ending especially with a biker club is not possible, and that’s what we have. There’s death, there’s destruction, there are families and hearts broken and there are things that have been linked and seen that can never be unlinked and unseen. So the biggest question is what impact will that have on everyone in the future and how will that play out in the next book that we’ve seen teased at the epilogue of this one. So, on that note, I guess I have to be patient AND find something else to read. Enjoy!