Category Archives: Kristen Ashley

Raid
Series: Unfinished Heroes #3
Author: Kristen Ashley

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Hanna Boudreaux has lived in the small town of Willow, Colorado all her life. The great-granddaughter of the town matriarch, she’s sweet, cute and quiet.

Too quiet.

Hanna has a moment of epiphany when she realizes her crush for forever, Raiden Ulysses Miller, is not ever going to be hers. She sees her life as narrow and decides to do something about it.

Raiden Miller is the town of Willow’s local hero. An ex-marine with the medal to prove his hero status, he comes home, shrouded in mystery. It takes a while but, eventually, Hanna catches his eye.

But after all these years of Raid and Hanna living in the same town, the question is, why? Is Raid interested in Hanna because she’s sweet and cute? Or does Raid have something else going on?

Raid is the third book in the Unfinished Heroes series by author Kristen Ashley.  The two main characters in this book are Hanna Boudreaux and Raiden Miller.

This first book in this series titled Knight was a disappointment to me.
The second book in this series titled Creed was better, but it wasn’t perfect.
After waiting not-so-patiently for the third book titled Raid, I was hoping it would climb to the peak and be the one in that saved the day. Unfortunately, this book was not as great as I was hoping.

First things first though.  Let’s talk about the characters and the chemistry.  Raid, in my opinion, was my least favorite of all the Unfinished Heroes.  Knight was creepy because of his “Daddy” slang and Creed was just okay but sexy.  Raid was a jerk and hovered on that line of asshole and alpha man.  There were times where he could be swoon worthy and sexy, but then he would step over that line into jerks-are-us territory.  Seriously, if he had called me a name and treated me the way he treated Hanna, there would have to be serious groveling including jewelry, begging on knees and a florist shop in my living room.  This particular scene was one of the main reasons I didn’t like him.  Yes he us dealing with PTSD, but that is no excuse.  I was willing to overlook the “dream” incidents, but that bordered on verbal abuse to me.  When Hanna brings it up with her best friend, she basically tells Hanna that this is alpha-man material. Not in my book.

Moving on.  I am also disappointed in the lack of action and suspense with this installment.  There is a scene near the end where it just starts to get good.  The bad guys seem like they are going to come out of the woodwork, but when it finishes we don’t even get to see Raid really do the action part of it. I wanted to see some serious bad guy beating and see Raid get into the bad-ass role he was suppose to have. I felt cheated when this doesn’t go down.

I will also mention that this book was shorter than the other books.  With Kristen Ashley you expect some long books with stuff that could be cut out.  Well, it seems she did that and cut out major parts of the story though.  I wanted more. I couldn’t believe it when my Kindle told me that the book was complete.

While others have raved about this story and have even liked it above the others, I have to say that it wasn’t one of my favorites by this author.  I will continue to read the series for the simple fact that Kristen Ashley is like crack for book addicts, but I won’t be getting my hopes up as high as I did this time.

Creed
Series: Unfinished Heroes #2
Author: Kristen Ashley

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Way too young, eleven year old Tucker Creed and his six year old neighbor, Sylvie Bissenette, find they have something awful in common. Creed then decides he’s going to do everything in his limited power to shield his Sylvie from her ordeal. So he does and Creed and Sylvie form a bond that grows and blossoms with their ages.

They plot to leave their lives behind, the town they live in that will hold them down and the histories they share that, unless they break free, will bury them. Sylvie goes to their special place, Creed never shows and she doesn’t see him again until it’s too late.

With Creed gone, Sylvie is forced to endure a nightmare and do the unspeakable to end it. To deal, she develops a hard shell with sharp edges that very few can break through. So when Creed again finds his Sylvie, he discovers the girl he loved is locked away and he has to find his way back into her heart without getting shredded in the process.

Creed is the second book in the Unfinished Heroes series by author Kristen Ashley.

This book was by far much better than Knight.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the first book in this series titled Knight, but since Kristen Ashley is an addiction that you can’t quit, I had to read it anyway.  The writing in this one was so much better and I didn’t have to reread what was being said over and over again. In Knight it seemed like he had a language all of his own, but with Creed it was sexy and dare I say, normal. Not only that, but the word ‘Daddy’ didn’t come out of Creed’s mouth once so that was a major plus in this story.

Creed was sexy and bad ass.  I loved his character and whenever we were treated with a chapter from his POV, I wanted to read it several times just to imagine his sexy voice in my head.  Creed is not only the title of this book, but he is also the star who stole the show.  I couldn’t get enough of him.

Sylvie wasn’t really a character I enjoyed.  Don’t get me wrong — I love kick ass heroine’s.  It just seemed like the author tried to hard to make the reader believe she was kick ass, but I just wasn’t feeling it for some reason.

Yes, the same holds true with Creed as it does with every Kristen Ashley book.  There are run on sentences, editing flaws and over the top characters, but this is the authors signature in my opinion.  It makes it apart of the whole reason her books are so addictive. While this series still isn’t one of my favorites,  I can tell the author has grown in her story telling and character development. I can’t wait to dive into the third book that recently released featuring a character named Raid.  My family will miss me while I read it for hours, but I will continue to get my fix of Kristen Ashley.

The Gamble
Series: Colorado Mountain #1
Author: Kristen Ashley

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Nina Sheridan’s on a timeout adventure in the Colorado Mountains. She needs distance from her clueless fiancé, distance to decide whether she wants to spend the rest of her life with a man who doesn’t care enough to learn how she takes her coffee.

Arriving in a blinding snowstorm at the A-Frame she rented, she comes face to face with the most amazing man she’s ever seen. Minutes later, when he kicks her out of his house, she goes head to head with him.

Beyond angry because she’s flown half a world away to start her timeout adventure, not to mention her sinuses hurt, she heads back down the mountain and ends up in a ditch. Unable to extricate herself, she gives up, hopes for rescue and falls asleep in the backseat.

The next morning she wakes up in the amazing man’s bed and she’s sick as a dog.

Holden Maxwell spends days nursing her back to health and then he spends the next two weeks trying to convince her to take her Colorado adventure further, in other words, make it permanent and take a gamble on him.

Nina has a tough time fighting her attraction to Max, especially when it seems all Max’s friends, her mother and stepdad and the whole town want them together and both she and Max get embroiled in the murder of Max’s ex-friend and the town of Gnaw Bone’s most detested resident – a man everyone has motive to kill, especially Max.

The Gamble is the first book in the Colorado Mountain series by Kristen Ashley.

First of all, if you have never read anything by author Kristen Ashley, you won’t understand the addiction of her books.  For those of you who have, I am sure you know what I mean when I say that her books are like crack for book addicts.  Sometimes you are rolling your eyes and shaking your head at the story, but you just can’t put the book down.  The Gamble was an addictive indulgence that helped ease my Kristen Ashley addiction.

Max is not a happy camper when he realizes that Nina is suppose to be renting his cabin for a few weeks.  When he is out of town for months on a construction job, he usually rents his cabin out for extra income.  When Nina refuses Max’s offer of a refund and a gruff apology, she is mad and according to Max — cute.  What follows is both of them sharing his cabin, many disagreements, sexy times that were hot, a murder in town, a fast relationship, mystery, and tons of characters. (Wow look at the length of that sentence! I must have KA fever!)

As you can see by the above sentence, Kristen Ashley books always have certain characteristics that set them apart from other books.  With run-on sentences, weird dialect (usually with the male characters), repeated ‘Yeah’s’ on almost every page, and hot male leads with the female leads giving as good as they get, you can’t help but keep reading and needing to know what is going to happen. I think my only real complaint is the length of the book.  I think it could have been cut in half — with the murderer revealed sooner — and it still would have been just as great.

The Gamble was a great way to get my fix for her writing and I can’t wait to continue in the Colorado Mountain series!