BACKFIRE
Series: Vigilantes #2
Genre: Dark, Contemporary Romance
Author: Keri Lake
Release Date: June 9, 2016
This book is a standalone set in the same world as Ricochet.
No matter how unbreakable he may seem, every man has a weakness.
A year ago, my home became a bloodstained crime scene. That night marked the beginning of my hell—the same night I was tortured by my enemies and tossed into an underground prison to die.
They failed. I survived.
Now that I’m free, only one motive burns in my soul: revenge.
Lucky for me, they think Jase Hawkins is dead. Maybe I am. I’ve got nothing but a cold, merciless rage, and Black Betty, the sharp steel blade that never leaves my side.
Then she drifts into my life.
Lucia wants answers—so much so, she’s willing to fall into the darkness where my enemies lie in wait, to kill her for what she knows.
Or to take her for the depraved fantasies her body alone can rouse in a man’s mind.
Me? I want her for the fire in her touch that feeds my addiction, forces me to feel what has become numb, but my appetite for bloodshed runs deeper than flesh.
For my own sanity, I’ve vowed to stay away from her. Because she’s my only weakness, an obsession that leaves me craving more—one that could make even the most steadfast plan backfire.
This-book-chopped-me-up-and-had-me-for-dinner!!!
I feel like nothing I can say in this review will be enough. There is so much in this book that I am literally overwhelmed writing this review. The thought I keep coming back to is that it feels like a comic book, which sounds cliché, but this book is not cliché at all! It’s a book of evil, drugs, crime, danger. But it’s also a book of hope, light, love, sex. I felt like I was pulled into this world, and I just got lost. I LOVE getting lost in books.
Below the crime-lords, and all the shit people heard on TV, was a world that existed only in nightmares. A place where rules didn’t exist and the people who thrived there were faceless names who ruled themselves in anarchy. There, the most horrific crimes were bartered for and traded like a Sunday afternoon at Eastern Market.
Jase is on a war path of vengeance. After being tortured for a year, he is given a second chance, and his only assignment is to kill someone, the very person who killed the only people he loved. He is haunted by his past. Nightmares and flashbacks are his friend. But then he meets Lucy. Little does he know that this isn’t the first time they’ve met.
My Jase:
My Lucy:
Lucy loves to take pictures of abandoned buildings in Detroit. This is something that Jace and Lucy share throughout the book, a love of photography.
Some called it ‘ruin porn,’ and for me, the more damaged, the more drawn to a place I seemed to be.
While photographing an abandoned building, she sees something that she should not have seen, and especially should not have filmed on her camera. Evil men are after her, but she is determined to pursue truth and justice, putting her life at risk.
Jace and Lucy’s relationship is volatile, at first. Jace believes Lucy is part of the evil group he is pursuing. Lucy believes the same of him. They do not trust each other at all. I love this beginning of their relationship.
“You don’t let go of me, I’m either going to scream, or twist your balls so fucking hard that you scream.”
Feisty fucking thing. She had me so hard, I didn’t know whether to take her up on it, or knock her back and rip her panties off with my teeth.
Eventually, they learn that they are on the same side and begin working together. I love how their relationship progresses. Once they start working together, Jace becomes very protective of Lucy, but Lucy is a strong heroine (love that!) and she is determined to fight alongside Jace during this pursuit of evil.
I loved how this book is centered around photography. It was a brilliant avenue to paint this book.
Something clicked. Like watching her through the lens, the aperture flicked and the light hit her face differently. She glowed. So goddamn beautiful, it hurt to look at her. Like an eclipse, I knew the longer I stared, the more fucked I’d be. Even so, I cupped her face, the dark ink of my tattoos against peaches and cream skin. Dark and light. Night and day. The moon and the sun. Mia Luce.
That is all of the words that I can write about this book. Lol. Just read it.
If you enjoy dark romance, read this book. If you want to FEEL something, read this book.
More quotes below because I love the dialogue in this book! Jace is a dirty-talker, and Lucy is sassy!
“Not one for compliments, are you?”
“Was hot tits supposed to be a compliment?”
“What I wouldn’t give to nail you against this wall and smile when your morals come crumbling down.”
“I need you to know that I don’t hate you, Lucy, but I’m about to fuck you like I do. Ready for me?”
“I’ll have you know, I work hard for this ass, and I intend to keep working hard for it.”
“And I’ll keep working hard for a piece of it.”
DON’T MISS THE BOOK THAT STARTED IT ALL
RICOCHET (Vigilantes #1)
READ LANA’S 5 STAR REVIEW HERE
The only sure way to destroy a man is to take what he cannot live without.
Three years ago, I had everything.
A beautiful wife.
A son.
A reason for living.Until a ruthless task force, assembled under Mayor Michael Culling, with a brutal strategy to make the streets of Detroit ‘safe’, ripped away everything I loved in a deadly hunt called The Culling.
They tried to kill me, too. I wish they had. Now I’m cursed by the memories of that night, and the words I whispered to my dying wife.
A promise—to avenge the wrong and set it right.
I’m no longer Nick Ryder. I’m a masked vigilante. Faceless. Loveless. Fearless. A man with nothing left to lose—one who’s seen the dark and violent truth behind the city’s flawless veneer.
Michael Culling doesn’t know who I am. Or what I want. All he knows is that I’ve kidnapped his beautiful wife.
An eye for an eye—isn’t that how the saying goes? And Aubree Culling is the perfect pawn to destroy him.
If she doesn’t destroy me first.
Read Lana’s 5 Star review of Backfire HERE
Your mission, should you choose to accept it- and you will, Livvie- is to stay this week with me, ” he murmured, his voice a weapon of thong-melting destruction. “We’re gonna fuck every last brain cell out of each other.
Kate Meader is a magician. A wonderfully, addicting smut producing magician. Every book she writes, I end up loving. It’s like the woman custom writes her books just for me. (Shh! Don’t rain on my parade with reality. I like to pretend she does)
Flynn and Olivia have both been through a lot in their past: rough childhoods, failed relationships. But the story didn’t focus on the past. It was just enough to develop their characters, but the story still stayed in the present for the most part. And the present is steamy! This is my favorite type of writing, when an author can develop the characters through dialogue and behavior rather than having to jump back to the past. NO DRAMA/ANGST is the best!!!
This was my first Kate Meader book, and I will be reading all of her books FOREVER!
Oh my god.
Psych!!! I’m just bluffin with my muffin. You’ll get no spoilers outta me, so don’t even try.[/su_spoiler]
If any of you know Lana, you know that she LURVES Nalini Singh. She has been recommending this series forever, so I decided to give it a go.…..and I loved it!
My Sascha:
Sascha is the star of this book, and she blew me away! She is a Psy, a group of people who do not feel emotion, but she is constantly battling the emotions inside of her. She believes that she is flawed, and if the Psy Council finds out about this flaw, they will kill her. This battle that she fights is so strong and I felt for her. Sascha is cold on the outside. She has to be. But she is always battling with her emotions.
Singh writes half of this book from inside Sascha’s mind, but not just her thoughts, her actual mind, and I have never read anything like it. It’s hard to explain, so you’re just going to have to read it. It is brilliant and fascinating.
I am always looking for something UNIQUE, and this book is definitely unique. It is so much more than “paranormal romance.”
God. GOD. This book. This heartbreaking, incredibly written, gut wrenching book. If it had any more of my favorite elements in it, I’d feel like it was custom written for me. I don’t remember the last time I read a book that gripped me the way this one did. To the point that I felt it on a visceral level. To the point that now days later after finishing it, I still can’t stop thinking about it. This was easily one of my top favorite reads this year. I picked it up and read it straight through because I couldn’t bear to put it down for even a second. I was an ugly crying, sniveling, raging mess the entire time and loved every painful second of it.
If 
Nicole Jacquelyn has a true gift with words because her characters are so incredibly compelling, you don’t just read about them, you experience them. There is not an ounce of telling in this book. Everything is shown, including the character descriptions. Yeah. I was blown away to say the least.
You may be asking yourself if it’s possible to write a book with a dead spouse and not make the heroine feel like a consolation prize prize. And to you I say, abso-freaking-lutely.
Everything about this story is brilliant; from the feelings it will wrench from your very soul to the emotional mess it will leave you at the end of it. Shane and Kate’s story is not an easy one. It’s filled with pain and heart break but it’s also beautiful in its own right. You don’t read the characters’ journey, you experience it. Everything from the fundamental changes in their relationship to their feelings and everything in between.
If you’re questioning picking this up, don’t! If you’re a fellow angst-whore like me, if there’s one book I can recommend you read, it’s this one! Grab some tissues and some alcohol and prepare to read the whole night through because I guarantee this book will own every piece of you by the time you’re finished.
It’s official; I have PTKD (Post Traumatic Keri Disorder). The woman has ruined me. This book? I hope you all have your big girl panties on, because a walk through the meadows with unicorns it. Is. Not.
Jase has spent the last year of his life in hell. Now he’s free and the only thing burning inside him is revenge. It’s what he eats, breathes, and lives. The chain of events that began on that one bloody night a year ago that cost him him his family all lead back to one man; Tesarik. Only problem is? He’s so powerful he’s practically untouchable. So when the mystery man standing before him promises him the vengeance he seeks for the price of a favor, he knows that he may fight it but he’ll agree. The favor will take him deep into the bowels of the worst sort of human depravity. Into a something only known as The Seventh Circle; a group of men that get off on pain and death.
What begins is a story filled with heart-stopping moments, eroticism in a way only Keri Lake can write, and enough grit and darkness to leave you crying for your mama.
If you’ve read any book by this author, then you already know she’s not afraid to go to the very pits of darkness. She’ll take the readers deep into the bowels of the worst of humanity. Her writing is raw, gritty, and absolutely unapologetic.
How is it possible that this series just gets better and better? Because with each new book, I just fall more and more in love with these characters. But no characters touched me as much as Nolan and Beth. This couple was first introduced in 
