200 Pages | Loveswept | Contemporary | Deacons of Bourbon Street #4 | 1/5/16
The last show I really binged (like 3-4 episodes a day) was the first few seasons of Sons of Anarchy and all I could think while watching was; hmmm… this needs more romance.
Contemporary romance seems to be getting grittier and grittier theses days and motorcycle club romance fits in perfectly with its dominant, alpha, violent men. Yates is a relatively young author who often talks about feminism online,so I was curious to see her take on some of the inherit misogyny in biker culture and…. she actually just kind of embraces it.
I just realized this is the last book in the series (with each book being by a different author) and I get the feeling there is some established “mythology” to the motorcycle club but I was able to keep up.
After the Deacons of Bourbon Street MC is temporarily disbanded Micah “Prince” Carpenter runs to San Diego and goes legitimate. He becomes real estate mogul (as you do) but after decade of being legit Micah is pulled back in to the MC for one last job.
The Deacons discover the patriarch of the Delacroix family, one of the wealthiest families in New Orleans, has left his mansion to the MC and Micah is assigned to babysit the house while they figure out why. The only thing Micah doesn’t count on is Sarah Delacroix, the Delacroix granddaughter who fully intends to use the mansion for her Christmas party.
I liked this book and it did give me some of the Sons of Anarchy feels but with a softer touch. I don’t usually love the alpha male with beta female but Yates made it work. Micah is super alpha without being an alphahole and Sarah is the young sheltered virgin but I never wanted her to DIAF. I think what made these tropes work for me is how Yates also subverts the tropes. Sarah is a virgin, but she’s not dumb and Micah is alpha, but he never forces Sarah into anything.
Although I will say, I’m not exactly sure I like how books like these still get HEAs. I know a lot of romance readers despised the nontraditional HEA of a certain biker romance and while I haven’t read it…I get why an author would write a nontraditional HEA. Motorcycle clubs are misogynistic, and breeding grounds for toxic masculinity. The women inside the club–no matter how strong or snarky– are still property and it kind of bothers me that they get HEAs
Big Spoilers
At the end of this book we find out that Micah accidentally killed Sarah’s father while doing work for the MC. Then a few pages later we’re at the super sweet epilogue and it left me kind of cold. I kind of wish Micah had gone to jail or something for manslaughter and then the epilogue is him getting out.
I probably won’t read the other books in this series since I accidentally read the last one, but I see Megan Crane has a spinoff series for the Deacon’s rival gang, The Devil’s Keepers, that I may keep my eyes out for.
UPDATE: Lol, never mind, I just bought two more books in this series !
SIDENOTE
I really hate this cover. It makes the book look more erotic than it actually is.
