After the end of All Chained Up, I knew the wait for Hell Breaks Loose would be... well... hell. But, it's finally here, and trust me. You don't want to pass this one up. Read on for my review and don't forget to enter the giveaway for a finished copy of Hell Breaks Loose (US Only)!
Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2), by Sophie Jordan
Publish Date: July 26, 2016
Publisher: Avon Books
Format: e-ARC, provided by the author
Genre: adult suspense romance
To Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Rating: 4.5 STARS
(Synopsis) Hell hath no hunger like a man let out of a cage . . .
Shy and awkward, First Daughter Grace Reeves has always done what she’s told. Tired of taking orders, she escapes her security detail for a rare moment of peace. Except her worst nightmare comes to life when a ruthless gang of criminals abducts her. Her only choice is to place her trust in Reid Allister, an escaped convict whose piercing gaze awakens something deep inside her. Reid is nothing like her other captors.
He’s tougher, smarter…and one blistering look from him makes her hotter than any man ever has.
Reid spent years plotting escape and revenge . . .years without a woman in his bed. For this hardened felon, Grace Reeves isn’t just out of his league—she’s from another planet, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting her. Escaping Devil’s Rock was tough, but resisting this woman could be the end of him. For a man with nothing to lose, protecting her . . . claiming her as his own, becomes more necessary than his next breath.
I wasn't sure how I would feel about a book in which a hero is an escaped convict who was originally put in jail for murder. How can you love a character like that? He would have to be, like, the SUPER anti-hero. You would think that after All Chained Up I would trust that Sophie Jordan wouldn't steer me wrong. Because by the end of Hell Breaks Loose - heck, by the 25% mark - I was totally in love with Reid Allister.
Reid is being driven by reasons I can totally understand. And, Reid's expectations are not unrealistic. He's not gunning for Mexico or Canada. He knows that he won't go undetected forever, and he's okay with that as long as he checks the boxes on his to-do list first.
I got a vague impression from All Chained Up that Reid was inherently a good guy - that he had a code that he lives by. And, I was right. So, when he meets up with his former crew of guys and discovers that they've kidnapped the president's daughter, his protective instincts are kicked into high gear, and that code starts to drive his actions.
I would've been disappointed in Sophie Jordan if she would've had Reid and Grace fall into bed together right off the bat. If you think about it from Grace's perspective she doesn't know Reid from any of the other meth-heads that took her. Not to mention, he's bigger and scarier looking than the rest of them. She might be able to appreciate his good looks from a purely female perspective, but this man stands between her and her freedom, so sleeping with him is not on her agenda. And thank goodness for that, because if it had been, my opinion of the book would've dropped. It's just not realistic for any girl to do that, no matter how hot her captor is.
So, no. Grace and Reid have a rough go of it for a long while. Besides the situation in which they presently find themselves, they're also struggling with other things - Grace's feelings of neglect and inadequacy and Reid's bleak outlook on the rest of his life, not to mention the fact that his plans have gone sideways in a huge way. It doesn't have the best foundation on which to start any type of relationship. Or, perhaps it's actually a way for two people to get closer faster than under normal situations.
Hell Breaks Loose is a fast-paced, exciting story about coming to terms with mistakes you've made and being okay with the person you've become on the other side. It's about the length that people will go to for those that they care about. And that everyone can be redeemed.
A brief stint in law school taught her that case law was not nearly as interesting as literature - teaching English seemed the natural recourse. After several years teaching high school students to love Antigone, Sophie resigned with the birth of her first child and decided it was time to pursue the long-held dream of writing.
In less than three years, her first book, Once Upon A Wedding Night, a 2006 Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Nominee for Best First Historical, hit book shelves. Her second novel, Too Wicked To Tame, released in March 2007 with a bang, landing on the USA Today Bestseller's List.
Learn more about Sophie --> Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
The Devils Rock series sounds great ♡ I would love to read these books. Thank you
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