Title: Broken Chains MC Series
Author: E.M. Lindsey
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: Each of the books in the series play out the romantic theme that these men didn’t find perfect people, but they did find the person who was perfect for each of them. This might be one of the sweetest (for lack of a better word) MC series I’ve ever read.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurbs: Tidal Wave: Two men, two different worlds, one destiny.
Gunner has spent half his life running from his past, and the other half trying to protect himself from ever being vulnerable again. He’s escaped his old club and worked hard to earn the VP patch on his cut after joining the Broken Chains. But his entire life is turned upside down when Gunner’s past comes back to haunt him, and the club’s Deaf delivery guy ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
When his president asks him to protect the injured man, Gunner wants to say no. After all, he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off Logan since the day they met, and Gunner can’t afford that kind of distraction. But ignoring him is damn near impossible when every time he looks at Logan, he starts to feel something. And Gunner doesn’t think he has the power to resist him for much longer.
There will be no promise of a future though, if the Broken Chains can’t protect Logan from the mess he’s in, but even if they succeed, Gunner isn’t sure there’s a place for Logan in his world.
Backfire: The last thing Smokey should let himself want is this man, but he can’t seem to stay away…
Every time Smokey stares at the President patch on his cut, he feels like an imposter. After all, that was not the life he was supposed to lead. In his former club, he did what they asked, when they asked, and that was enough for him. But thirty years later and the fate of the Broken Chains resting on his shoulders, all eyes were on him.
Smokey had enough to deal with after the VP of Satan’s Souls got carted off to prison on his watch, but now there’s a dead man in an alley with a cut bearing the name of The Cobras. And Smokey knows they’re not prepared to handle the consequences if the Cobras’ President thinks they’re responsible.
However, the dead man isn’t the worst part: The only witness is a civilian.
Eliah Burns was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it seems like fate really has it in for Smokey, because Eliah is also the one man he’s been avoiding. Eliah has been in Smokey’s periphery for years, his little brother’s favorite professor—and he’s also the one-night stand Smokey hasn’t been able to forget.
Now Eliah’s in Smokey’s home, hiding from the men who want him dead, and Smokey’s trying to keep his heart from tripping and falling for a man he shouldn’t want while learning who is trying to set his club up to start a full on war.
Broken Wings: The one thing Kicks doesn’t need in his life is to fall in love…
The night Kicks woke in the hospital with fresh scars and a missing eye was the night he promised he would never, ever let himself be vulnerable again. And as the Road Captain of the Broken Chains MC, he managed to keep that vow for five long years. But the universe has different plans for the biker when his President sends him on a mission to escort the rabbi, Jude Burns, who is now under the protection of their club. Kicks doesn’t want a babysitting job, but he’s not sure what to think when he’s faced with a mouthy, stubborn man who seems far more sinner than saint.
Kicks has never in his life felt more tempted to break his promises, because with this man, his vulnerability feels like power.
Jude Burns’ world is turned upside down when his brother gets involved with a motorcycle club, and by proxy, he finds himself in danger of being killed. And after being shot at on the road, and just barely escaping a fiery death, Jude isn’t sure where he belongs. He’d spent his entire adult life dedicated to his service as a rabbi, after all, even when the temptation of life outside called to him louder than ever.
And Jude knows the decision would be easy if it weren’t for Emilio—the dark-eyed Road Captain who makes Jude question every vow he’s ever made. Jude was pretty sure he wasn’t destined for love the way his brother was, but when Emilio falls to his knees and asks him to stay, he finds it’s almost impossible to tell him no.
Even if it means walking into the line of fire to save a man with ragged, broken wings.
Wicked: “Come on, Tiger. Claw me up.”
Hawke doesn’t talk about his past—and it’s not because he has a stutter that rarely lets him speak more than three words at a time.
The shadows of what was haunt his every waking hour, but the Broken Chains MC have been a sanctuary he never expected. And Hawke is the sort of man who knows better than to cross lines, especially when it comes to the safety of his brothers.
But when Jax, the VP of the Cobras, looks at him like he’s a whole man instead of shattered pieces of the person he was before he left his home behind, he can’t help but want to be just a little bit wicked.
Review: A chain is no stronger than its weakest link is more than a simple cliché in the Broken Chains MC series. Smokey, the club President, believes that weak link is himself. While his missteps and secrets have undoubtedly caused friction between him and his VP, Gunner, and have caused the other officers to question decisions that have served to weaken their already precarious standing as a club of queer bikers, the brothers remain loyal because they each have found a place they belong. Some of the men have taken on a new identity, but that doesn’t mean they’ve escaped their pasts, which remains especially true for Smokey and Gunner. It’s their pasts, specifically, that catch up to them, affecting their brothers and providing the long arc of the series.
The morally-gray hero is a staple of this series, and E.M. Lindsey establishes each of their protagonists’ backstories in their unvarnished truths. These men have been beaten, neglected, assaulted and left for dead, used as weapons of violence, and some have left or been cut loose from other clubs, which profoundly impacted who they’ve become. They are touch-starved and they wall themselves off from their feelings, but as with that link in the chain, it’s also true that a wall is only as strong as its fractured point. The one thing each of these men have in common is that while they may be damaged, they aren’t broken, there is strength in their perseverance, and it’s for the men who come into their lives and sneak behind those fractured walls that they strive to be a little more whole. Those men also fight their own battles, so they understand what it means to struggle, to overcome, and to love without judgment. They may not understand the attraction at first, nor comprehend the depth of the impact it will ultimately have on their lives, but by each novels’ end, there’s little doubt the reader has been offered a love story amongst the morally dubious brand of justice.
This series tackles the brutality inherent in its protagonists’ lives as well as the physical and emotional challenges they and each of their love interests face. For two of the characters, Logan and Hawke, ASL is their primary means of communication—Logan because he’s Deaf and Hawke because he has a profound stutter—and I appreciated the way the author addressed this. Logan and Hawke didn’t adapt to their partners and the other club members; everyone else adapted to them. Gunner’s little sister, Maggie, not only plays a huge role in Tidal Wave, she’s also a catalyst for Gunner to learn sign language so he can communicate with Logan. Hawke’s love interest, Jax, the VP of another MC who has a thing for the kind of pain Hawke loves to deal out, is already fluent thanks to his grandmother.
Each of the books in the series play out the romantic theme that these men didn’t find perfect people, but they did find the person who was perfect for each of them. It didn’t take long for them to figure that out—when they knew, they knew—but there were external factors, people who want to see the Broken Chains dead, that provided the challenge to each of their HEAs. This might be one of the sweetest (for lack of a better word) MC series I’ve ever read. Even in the face of some of its darker elements, there is no question this is a romance series.
Rising Tide is the next book in the series, and will tell Rory’s story (Smokey’s brother), and a man named Ghost who himself has had an interesting role in the series so far. Rory is a fantastic character, and I’m looking forward to his book with loads of anticipation. Readers are given teases to his backstory, and I’ve come to love his character. He’s not a patched-in member of the Broken Chains, but he’s nevertheless an integral cog in the club’s machinery. Rory is blind, badass, and puts up with nobody’s BS. He’s also in grad school but is putting things on temporary hold to deal with the threat to the club. It’ll be interesting not so much to see how Ghost handles Rory, but how Rory handles Ghost. Something tells me Rory is going to be in charge of how things play out between them, and their dynamic is going to be off-the-charts edgy and full of sexual tension.
None of the book in this series should be read as a standalone. The characters and their storylines are all interconnected and are connected to the coming war with a ruthless enemy. Survival of that enemy is not an option. There is no gray area where this is concerned. When it means the safety of the people they love, these guys will make sure the threat is eliminated. Permanently. And they’ll make sure it hurts—badly—before they put that threat down.
You can buy Broken Chains MC Series here:
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