Sassy Southern Book Affair: Blog Tour: Her Ride by Rachael Orman

Title: Her Ride

Author: Rachael Orman

Genre: Adult Romance

Publication Date: June 2014

Tour Host: Dreams Come True Promotions

Being happy. It sounds so simple. Yet, it seems that it’s always just out of reach for Shannon Ryan.

After serving overseas for six years as a female United States Marine, Ryan is finally getting out the military. But coming home to live with her biker brother and his motorcycle club is more difficult than she thought it would be. Much has changed in the years that she has been gone, including Ellis, her brother’s best friend and childhood crush.

Ellis 'Dirty' Crane is the second in command for Tormented Souls Motorcycle Club. The only thing he lives for is the club, that is until Ryan comes home, no longer the wild little girl that followed him around. The two things standing in his way of getting what he wants are Patrick, Ryan's brother and leader of the club, and Jeremiah, Ryan’s boyfriend.

Can Ellis break through Ryan’s walls? Burn them and Jeremiah down? Prove to her brother that he’s the right man for her? Or is Ryan hiding more than she’s letting on?

Add to Goodreads

4.25 Stars!

Shannon Ryan comes home from the military to her brother, Patrick's, house. She plans on staying for a few months before hitting the road on her bike. She will have to stop in DC to sign her discharge paperwork, but then, she plans on riding with no destination in mind. As soon as Ryan gets home, she runs into her brother's second in command, Ellis. Patrick and Ellis are part of a motorcycle crew, so they have road names, as does Ryan, but she doesn't really call them that very often, so I don't think of them, in my mind, by their road names. I actually sometimes got thrown off when any of these three were called by their road names because I didn't recognize them by those.

Ellis is basically Ryan's teenage crush, and it seems like he has finally begun to return the feelings. Ryan has a long time boyfriend, however, in Jeremiah, who is still overseas in the Marines. Things kind of seem to fall apart for Ryan after this. You begin to see that the person that Ryan thinks she is - this tough, almost ex-marine, biker chick - is really not her at all. Sure, she has dealt with a lot of things in her life, such as losing her parents at a young age, being raised by her older brother, who formed a biker group, joining the Marines, and other things, but she truly seems like she has formed that tough exterior only because she had to. She doesn't really seem to do the tough attitude, biker chick thing very well. She has let Jeremiah run all over her for several years, and she always seems to be a little out of place at her brother's house. I'm not sure if that is intentional, but it doesn't really seem to me like she is a good fit where she is.

Ryan also has one of the characteristics that I truly dislike because she ends up having some really major secrets that she doesn't want to tell anyone about so as not to "trouble" them - the martyr types drive me nuts! The things is, both Ellis and her brother, Patrick, tell her multiple times that they are there for her and that they want to help her with things. They don't even know some of the really big things that she needs help with, either. They come through for her, however, after a particularly tough visit from Jeremiah, and Ellis and she begin to form a closer relationship. They take of for DC on Ryan's planned trip, and it is on that trip that Ellis begins to see everything that Ryan has been hiding from them. He helps her see that it is okay to ask for help and that others really do want to help her.

I enjoyed seeing all of the growth that Ryan had to go through. She lost her parents at a young age and then had to face some other tough things. She tried to prove to herself that she could handle everything, however, by joining the military, but it took coming back home for her to learn that strength is often about asking for help. I really loved seeing that she finally got that by the end of the book. It sounds like Patrick's story is next, which I look forward to reading, as well! My copy did have several grammatical errors, but I have since received word from the author that the updated/about to be released copy has been fixed.

Jessica

Rachael is a stay at home mom with 2 young daughters and a husband that keep her constantly on her toes. She lives in the extremely hot state of Arizona, where she reads and writes away the blistering heat outside. She is a cancer survivor with a quirky personality. She’s been an avid reader for as long as she can remember and been writing since she was in high school. Her hopes of being a writer were crushed when she was young but one day she decided she was going to do what makes her happy and that was to write.