Book Review – Shooter by Dahlia West

Shooter is the first book in the Burnout series written by Dahlia West. It’s a hot biker story that will not just only give you heat inducing romance but with suspense, mystery, action and friendship. This story is highly recommended!

Shooter by Dahlia West
Series: Burnout, #1
Published October 4th 2013 by Createspace
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
334 pages
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository
Find on Goodreads

Chris “Shooter” Sullivan has returned to his home town of Rapid City, South Dakota to pick up the pieces of his life shattered by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He only wants to focus on holding what’s left of his old unit together, running his garage where he builds custom bikes and cars, and pretending that his murdered father’s motorcycle gang doesn’t exist.

Hayley Turner is a young woman with her own traumatic past. Fresh off the bus from Nowhere, USA, all she wants is a job and a place to live, until it’s time for her to leave again. She doesn’t want to make friends, or enemies, least of all the ex-Army Ranger who obviously doesn’t like her. She bristles under his watchful eye. He’s even got her convinced she’s bad news.

But circumstances force two people who don’t need anyone to need each other more and more. The more Chris gets to know Hayley, the harder it is to stay detached. And the more Hayley gets to know Chris, the more she realizes she’s been alone for so long she might never recover from it.

Review

**This one’s another book I read during my break, *wink.

I do like badboys riding on big bikes with their black leather jackets on but I honestly haven’t read much biker stories before. And my! I haven’t expected that having to read only a few chapters of this story made me consider having a biker boyfriend, haha.

During the first chapter, we were introduced to Hayley who is obviously on the run from someone. She goes to other town every six months as to keep her identity hidden from the person who’s after her. Then while she’s on the new town, she met the ex-ranger now a biker, Chris who is mostly known as shooter.

I really love how the story is going. I enjoyed almost 60% of this story mostly because of Hayley’s sassiness. Dang! This girl is definitely a pro in sassiness. I love that her relationship with Chris wasn’t done fast but giving them a lot of time to really know each other and for giving us the reason to really root for them.

I love girl power, but it’s also fun to read great guy friendship, especially when most or all of them are so good looking. Aside from family, I also love reading stories with tight friendship and Chris’ squad is definitely fun and inspiring to read.

For Hayley, I have to say that she became my ultimate girl crush when I’ve got to learn more about her. She was a mystery on the first few pages, but the moment she met Chris, dang! The sassiness of this girl is to the highest level. She’s obviously on the run from someone but that didn’t stop her from being such an amazing and thoughtful person especially after she met Chris and got to get close with his friends too. She’s like the group’s baby sister that they need to protect but definitely not for Chris, because for him, she’s more than just a sister, she’s HIS. I hate surprises but I love mystery, especially guessing about what happened before so I guess that’s also the reason why her character caught my attention. And when her story was out, man! I was really surprised and sad at the same time. I’ve read stories before where one or both of the main characters had a really rough past, but my! Hayley got it worst. I can’t even fathom how she can smile and sass like nothing bad happened before. And not just that, her determination to help someone was really nice. That’s why halfway through the story, I was silently praying that all her troubles will be gone for good. You can’t see it in the early chapter, but she sure is one tough of a girl for having to survive such a traumatic incident.

For Chris. My! This guy screams hot the instant he was introduced. I like my book hero who’s a bit irritable and a douche, so when I saw those qualities on Chris, my full attention was instantly on him. He’s an ex ranger so I understand his concern for his friend Maria who’s an owner of a bar in town when she hired Hayley. She was obviously lying about herself so he thought she will only bring trouble and his friend Maria had enough of it. Aside from the little assholey side, I also noticed that he’s very demanding, that everything he says is like a law you can’t just break. And that’s a no-no for me, but dang! This guy is just hard to resist. I really love him when he’s with Hayley, they just really belong to each other. I’m not really into an ex military man but because of him and his friends, I am converted haha.

Another thing I like about this story was the addition of mystery and suspense. I love that this story didn’t just gave me a hot ex-military man but a biker who obviously based on his nickname is a dangerous person making his character more sexy. Aside from making me swoon, this book also made me laugh my heart out as well as made me shed some tears too. The scene when Hayley shared to them her dark past and what Chris’ response was just heartwarming. It even makes me appreciate and be proud for Hayley for being able to deal with it on her own. Aside from the romance, humor, mystery and suspense, this story also contain amazing friendship between Chris and his guys. I was even attracted to Tex now (even if I’m not into BDSM *wink), but Caleb sure sounds sexy as heck. So I guess I’ll sandwich myself between those two hotties? Haha igat ra te.

I honestly do love the story but there were some few things that I dislike. There were some unfriendly words but I think it was because most of then we’re biker term or maybe something else that’s why I wasn’t familiar of them. Also, there were times that I need to reread some lines to be able to understand what they really mean so it was a bit discouraging. I hate crazy b*tches and it’s disappointing that there’s one in this story. But in all fairness, I love that they give each other the time to explain. Plus, there’s these HOT guys who’s always there to lend a hand so the two of them could patch things up. I definitely didn’t like the sexy parts but it was fine.

Reading my review, I guess it deserves a 3.5 stars rating but I am depending my overall rating not just on how it affected me but on the fact that this story contains a lot of things – romance, humor, suspense, mystery and friendship. So yep, I have to say that despite all the issues I encountered, this story totally deserves my 4 stars rating.

It’s the first in the series and it definitely has HEA. Now, I can’t wait to check out Tex and Caleb’s stories.

If you want yourself a hot biker, then you may want to check out Shooter, *wink.
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Book Preview and About the Author

I live in North Carolina with so many pets that every time it rains I consider building an ark. I majored in English Education, though most of my jobs have involved using my hands: framing art, grooming dogs, stocking shelves. I started writing about seven years ago to avoid going back to a real job.

I’ve recently taken up roller derby just to test my health insurance coverage.

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