Why I read it:  I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

What it’s about: (from Goodreads)  As Reapers Motorcycle Club president, Reese “Picnic” Hayes has given his entire life to the club. After losing his wife, he knew he’d never love another woman. And with two daughters to raise and a club to manage, that was just fine with him. These days, Reese keeps his relationships free and easy—he definitely doesn’t want to waste his time on a glorified cleaning lady like London Armstrong.

Too bad he’s completely obsessed with her.

Besides running her own business, London’s got her junkie cousin’s daughter to look after—a more reckless than average eighteen-year-old. Sure she’s attracted to the Reapers’ president, but she’s not stupid. Reese Hayes is a criminal and a thug. But when her young cousin gets caught up with a ruthless drug cartel, Reese might be the only man who can help her. Now London has to make the hardest decision of her life—how far will she go to save her family?

Trigger warnings:  I have hidden them because some are spoilerish. 

What worked for me (and what didn’t):  Reese “Picnic” Hayes has been a fascinating character right from the beginning.  As President of the local chapter of the Reapers MC he doesn’t turn a hair at violent and illegal behaviour.  He’s also a loving dad and, up until the death of his wife, Heather, from breast cancer, a devoted husband.  After Heather’s death, Reese became a total manwhore. He’d screw any willing woman, didn’t want a relationship – actively discouraged any such thinking and was convinced that there would never be another “old lady” for him.

Em is now settled happily with Hunter and Kit has also flown the coop and Picnic’s need for intimate connection is catching up with him.  At the end of Devil’s Game, Pic had set his gaze on the new cleaning contractor for the Reaper’s Pawn Shop – London Armstrong.  But, because a good cleaner is hard to find and a willing woman is not, he has kept his hands to himself.

Reaper’s Stand picks up about six months after the end of Devil’s Game.  Things are about to come to a head with the drug cartel from Mexico and there is a big meeting with the Reapers, Devil’s Jacks and Silver Bastards, who are planning on joining forces to protect their territory from the incursion of the Cartel. The story begins with a prologue.  London is in Reese’s house, cooking him dinner and about to shoot him. Chapter one takes up the story from eighteen days earlier – so it’s a pretty fast romance and there is a pressing curiosity as to what events lead London to plan to murder Reese (I did think it was a bit of a stretch that he was referred to at one point in the story as “an innocent man”. Reese is in no way innocent).  Obviously, she doesn’t actually kill him – it’s a romance and there’s a HEA.  But the other thing the story has to do is pull off not only forgiveness from Reese for London’s actions, but also forgiveness from the rest of the Reapers.  It does – although I have to say that London’s convenient good fortune comes at a high cost.

Reese is pretty unashamed about his manwhore status.  He knows he’s a “dick and an asshole” and he doesn’t make apology for it.  So it’s kind of funny to see his plans thwarted with London early on in the piece.

This was officially the most fucked-up dinner date I’d ever had in my life. London—

Everyone calls me Loni, Reese, but I hate it. I like how you use my real name . . . Can I touch your stomach?

—was drunk off her ass, and I had a very bad feeling that if I fucked her things wouldn’t end well. Not normally a factor for me, really. I liked it when things didn’t work out with women. Generally that was the goal.

The relationship between Reese and London progresses very quickly (but I liked how things ended, with London insisting on some more ‘courtship time’) so I bought into their HEA.  I liked that Heather was neither demonised or sainted and that London felt comfortable enough in her skin to not even consider she was competing with Heather. It just never came up. And in the context of the story and these characters, I believed it.  Reese takes a long time to say out loud that he wants more with London than just a casual thing, more-than-a-hook-up-but-not-a-forever-relationship but his actions give him away from quite early on.

I enjoyed how London called Reese on his bullshit and I liked the banter and humour between them.

“It’s a guy thing,” he told me. “We like taking care of our women. You don’t let me help you, the other boys’ll make fun of me and then I’ll have to cry. Are you trying to make me cry, London?” He blinked at me like an innocent puppy, and I couldn’t help it. I started laughing, and we both knew he’d won.

What else? There is a lot of violence in the story.  Most of the violence is by “bad guys” (Reapers) to “worse guys” (Cartel members for example) so there was a kind of rough justice to it and it felt more like a war than cold-blooded murder for the most part – something that troubled me in Devil’s Game.

There is some troubling violence in this book however.  When London’s plan to kill Reese doesn’t come off, there is violence by Reese to her.  It is mostly in the form of some rough handling but there is threat with a knife and some borderline non-consensual sex.  The story is told from London’s point of view so the reader knows that she welcomes the sex and does actively consent.  But it is still somewhat troubling because I had the strong sense that Reese wouldn’t have cared if she had not consented.    This will be too much for some readers.  I was not super comfortable with it myself but I think it is just another example of this series taking things right to the edge – and sometimes over it.  Reese is not an easy man. He is a man of violence and these scenes demonstrate that very strongly. I don’t think a reader could misunderstand his character.  He’s not a cuddly teddy bear.

That said, London did try to kill him and he had cause to be angry with her and feel betrayed. I was confident, by the end of the book, that those extreme circumstances would never arise again and he would not repeat that behaviour to London but if I had not been I could not have accepted the HEA.

Hunter won more points with me in Reaper’s Stand because he continued to put Em first (where he should) and I think he and Reese have progressed in their relationship to the point where Reese doesn’t actively want to kill him anymore.  So yay.  Painter’s character gets more exposition and new characters, Jessica, Melanie and Puck are introduced.

There is a bonus teaser short at the end which takes place some nine years after the events of Reaper’s Stand.  It’s a vignette and the author warns that the teaser regarding Jessica at the end will not be addressed or resolved in the next book. I appreciated the warning and also a brief glimpse into the future for some of the other characters.  I’m kind of hoping for a book about Bolt and Maggs but I also like that sense of knowing that the world is wider than the books themselves.

I enjoyed Reaper’s Stand.  I felt it had a similar style to the first book – starting off with violence, backtracking to explain how things got to that point and then moving on to clear the way for a HEA.  The violence of the world is right at the edge of my personal comfort level.  It’s not a series for everyone. But I view it as a kind of urban fantasy and through that prism I can deal.

Grade: B/B+

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