Saturday, February 6, 2021

Still Standing (Wild West MC #1) by Kristen Ashley ~ Review

Source: Purchased

Still Standing (Wild West MC #1) by Kristen Ashley


When Clara Delany walks into the Aces High Motorcycle Club’s hangout, she’s hit rock bottom. She’s hiding her car from the repo man, she has less than two dollars in her bank account and the only employment she can get is delivering messages for a criminal.

All because of a man. Therefore, she’s sworn off them.

And then she meets West “Buck” Hardy, president of the Aces High MC.

Buck also meets her, and the minute he does, he makes it clear (to everyone but Clara) that they’re starting something. Since Clara doesn’t get that message, she decides to leave Buck and sort out her life in order to come back to him clean.

She’s not gone but hours before life hits Clara with another blow. Which means Buck and his boys have to ride in and save the day. After that, Buck makes no bones about where they stand.

But does he?

Welcome to the first novel in the Wild West MC series which will tell the stories of the brothers of the Aces High MC, the Resurrection MC, and the Chaos MC…and the women who love them.




Even though Kristen Ashley is one of my favorite authors, I'm a little behind on her recent releases. The last one I read was Dream Maker and while I enjoyed it, it didn't quiiiite hit the spot the way I wanted a KA book to do, so I've been shy of her releases since then (which includes the ebook releases of her fantasy series that originally released through audible). But something about Still Standing made me want to give it a shot, and now I'm glad I did because it was pretty darn good.

Still Standing was rather reminiscent of earlier KA books--it especially reminded me of Motorcycle Man in particular--which I loved. I was also glad that we got a whole new cast of characters. This was a book that was NEW but had enough KA stamps on it that it was just what I wanted it to be, and man it hit the spot.

I was a fan of these characters we're introduced to. The main characters, of course, Clara and Buck. Clara's sweet and kind and very much a KA heroine who's somewhat clueless but still sassy, though not over-the-top stubborn either. Buck is the leader of an MC, so he's rough around the edges a lot of the time--but also caring and sweet and it was easy to love him. 

I feel like we only got a taste of the rest of the characters, but I'm looking forward to seeing them again in future books. The rest of the MC, that got along so well with Clara, and Buck's kids, and Tia, and even Detective Rayne Scott. There's so much room for more, new stories.

While I mostly loved this book, there was one big snag in reading that brought it down from being a perfect 5-star for me. I'm not going to say EXACTLY what it was, due to not wanting to spoil, but I'll just say that there was a big misunderstanding carried through most of the book that I haaaated. Luckily it was only a misunderstanding, so I can look back on the whole story fondly now, but it really brought down the first reading experience to have that hanging over everything the whole time.

Overall, Still Standing was a solid addition to Kristen Ashley's extensive catalogue. I enjoyed the characters, and loved the romance. Buck's a great hero (oh, the sweet things he did for Clara!), and Clara's a strong heroine (the way she got on with the kids!). If you're unsure about giving this one a try, I definitely say take the plunge. It'll be worth it.


4 stars - Glad I gave this one a shot!

2 comments:

  1. It's been awhile since I've read a book from this author. I hope her writing has improved since then. Maybe it's time I check in. :)

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