RELEASE DAY REVIEW: Reaper's Fire (Reaper's MC #6)

Reaper's Fire (Reaper's MC #6), by Joanna Wylde
Publish Date: August 9, 2016
Publisher: Berkley Romance
Format: ARC, provided by the publisher
Genre: adult contemporary romance
To Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Rating: 4 STARS

(Synopsis) The club comes first. 

I’ve lived by those words my whole life—assumed I’d die by them, too, and I never had a problem with that. My Reaper brothers took my back and I took theirs and it was enough. Then I met her. Tinker Garrett. She’s beautiful, she’s loyal, and she works so damned hard it scares me sometimes . . . She deserves a good man—one better than me. I can’t take her yet because the club still needs me. There’s another woman, another job, another fight just ahead.

Now she’ll learn I’ve been lying to her all along. None of it’s real. Not my name, not my job, not even the clothes I wear. She thinks I’m nice. She pretends we’re just friends, that I’ve still got a soul . . . Mine’s been dead for years. Now I’m on fire for this woman, and a man can only burn for so long before he destroys everything around him.

I’m coming for you, Tinker.

Soon.

Reaper's Fire opens on an incredibly intense and emotionally-charged event in Tinker Garrett's life, and it never lets up from there. For sure, Tinker and Gage's relationship doesn't start in any way that remotely resembles "normal," but then, how many of these Reaper's MC men's relationships do? 

If you've been reading the Reaper's MC series in order, you'll realize early on that the events taking place in Reaper's Fire overlap with the events that took place in the beginning of the previous book in the series, Reaper's Fall. Gage is Tinker's small town in order to scope out a rogue club that is being run by a truly horrible man. The best way for him to do that is to get inside, and to do that, he has to hook up with the man's equally horrible sister. 

I've been in Tinker's place before - having to watch the man she wants be with someone else - and it sucks so much. To make matters even worse for her, she's still dealing with the emotional aftermath of the events in the beginning of the book, and to top it all off, her dad's health is declining. This woman is crazy strong, and I loved her so much. I wanted Gage to be so much better for her, and he did too. 

But, Gage is bound by his duty to his club. On one hand, I admire his dedication and loyalty. On the other, I wanted him to say screw it - Tinker and my potential future with her is more important than anything else in my life. It's a hard balance, and you can tell he's feeling it through most of the book. 

Like the other books in the Reaper's MC series, Reaper's Fire isn't a touchy-feely romance book. Gage doesn't have pretty words or a white picket fence for Tinker. But, once he's free of his obligations, he does have a sexy, dirty mouth and the support of an entire club to offer her, and after everything Tinker went through, that's just fine with her. And with me too. Although I do love my grand gestures and declarations of love and devotion, sometimes it's nice to break those books up with one that's gritty and dirty and imperfectly perfect. And Reaper's Fire definitely fits the bill.