Hope Townsend has spent long years searching for the brother she was brutally separated from when their mother was murdered. Now, thanks to help from a mysterious source, she’s found him deep in the Medicine Bow Mountains on the remote compound of the notorious White Kingdom Brotherhood motorcycle club and prison gang—a viper's nest of drug runners, murderers, and thieves. The only person who can help her is one of the club’s most lethal members—a man who goes by the road name "Mad Dog."
Colorado's infamous Wall Street hacker, Max Cameron, served five years of his twenty-seven-year sentence before being recruited by the Red Team. Now a seasoned operative, Max has gone under cover in the motorcycle club of the white supremacist prison gang that befriended him in jail. His mission was simple until Hope Townsend, a female mechanic, came along and gummed-up the works.
Nothing about Hope is as it seems, and Max struggles to keep her out of danger…and out of his heart. When his team finds evidence she’s working for their enemies, Max will have to decide where his loyalty lies: with his team or with the woman he loves.
"Elaine Levine is a wonderfully fresh and original voice in western romance. RACHEL AND THE HIRED GUN is full of fast-paced action and powerful emotions. I loved it!" -- Joan Johnston, New York Times bestselling author of A STRANGER'S GAME
"A pair of appealing, well-matched protagonists (with a bit of a history), a slimy villain, well-drawn secondary characters, and plenty of action make this rough-and-ready Western one that fans are sure to enjoy." --Library Journal on AUDREY AND THE MAVERICK
"A beautiful romance…keeps the reader hooked from the first page to the last.� -New York Times Bestselling Author Catherine Anderson about LEAH AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Though this is the third book of a romance trilogy, the story stands quite well on its own. Elaine Levine gives us a multi-level story about trust and being able to overcome personal fears to achieve a goal. Set in the post-Civil War era, Leah and the Bounty Hunter gives us a window into the rough-and-tumble lives of our settler-forefathers and what they did to succeed against lawlessness and the incredible challenges to settle the old West. An enjoyable read, recommended. --Monica E. Spence, Historical Novels Review on LEAH AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER
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ABOUT ELAINE:
Elaine Levine is an agoraphobic who lives in her son’s basement and runs doggie daycare for his pack of hounds. Her mind, however, is irrepressible, and she fills the endless moments of endless days crafting romance fiction from dystopian headlines she reads online. Be warned—her stories are addictive and dangerously appealing to those with similarly twisted minds and hopeful hearts.
I liked Eden. But she kind of let Max bulldoze her. I did not get the attraction. Once again, this author proves to be really strong on the suspense/thriller side. But the romance takes a back seat. At least the development of it does. It seems to be just dropped into the story and doesn’t always make sense. But I did like the story and the couple.
I have been waiting for Max's book and wasn't disappointed in the least with all twists and new developments for each character. Elaine has made yet another great addition to the series. Each book though they need the other to complement and helps them to make sense, they are still so much the individual character's story that you are always drawn in. You love each of the guys and/or hate them or their actions in equal measure and that takes true talent which Elaine has proven. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes this genre and style. I'm about to lend it to my mom so she can read it.
I don't know how Elaine does it. All of these guys are so dramatically different and yet she still manages to make you fall in love with each and every one of them over and over again! I loved checking in with everyone from the previous novels and Max? You can't help but love Max and ache for all he's gone through. I was floored by all the little twists and turns and connections that come together in this novel! Romance novels are usually pretty predictable but not so with Elaine Levine. There's always something unexpected just around corner. Can't wait to see what happens next!!
This is Max and Hope's story. Hope has been searching for the brother she has never met for a long time. She has found out he is at the WKB biker compound and goes there to be the club mechanic. Max is undercover in the biker gang as Mad Dog and you can't help but love him and root for him to win the girl. Lots of plot twists and mysteries still to be solved.
3.5 stars A little slow and tending toward the all-encompassing conspiracy plot with an all-knowing villain. But the characters are great. I loved Mad Dog aka Max, and Hope was surprisingly refreshing. Their relationship was engaging and warm, a perfect romance in the midst of a war.
The story of Max and Hope has such an emotional depth to it that it will be one of those stories that remains me for a very very long time. There is so much going on in this story that involves not just Max and Hope but the entire Red Team. It kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time holding my breath chewing my nails as I turned page after page, gasping and catching my breath as the details became more clear, though at the same time causing other details to only sit there and make you go HUH, WTF?? One of the best series I have read. I highly suggest that you start this series with book one so that you can fully understand what is going on as the books feed from each other directly and build the mystery of what is going on.
CURRENT ORDER The Edge of Courage (Red Team Book 1) Shattered Valor (Red Team Book 2) Honor Unraveled (Red Team Book 3) Kit and Ivy: A Red Team Wedding Novella (Red Team 3.5) Twisted Mercy (Red Team Book 4)
bated breathe... that is what I did while waiting for this book to come out. Elaine had a gift of making her characters come to life (even if it's my imagination). Max and Hope's story is now one of my favorites (Ty is still my favorite).
Max is a smart guy with a complicated past. Hope is a brave girl looking for her long lost brother. It only seems right that Max would jump in head first to help the damsel in distress and he loses his heart in the process. And OMG the piercings!!!
My only issue is the nice little teaser or dear Elaine added to the end. I will be biting my nails until the next story.
Max's story was a really great read and EL did a really good job of holding the reins of this at times seemly out of control story. If you haven't read EL, you should really start with the first book, as there is alot of past history that comes together in this book. I can't wait for the next book. Please, please don't let this head for a threesome between Owen, Selena and Val. I think Selena should end up with Owen and Val needs someone to take some air out of his balloon.
The mystery continues and intensifies. Twisted Mercy is that book in the series that adds more question to your piles and also connects the pieces of the puzzle in a way that leaves you hungry for more and then some. The book flows in perfect rhythm with the uniqueness and personal demons of each teammate, and their adjustment to a new team member, a female who is bringing some heat to a hot summer. We discover crucial information about how the Red Team's modus operandi used to be in the early years, and how it affected Max Cameron's life in a devastating way. The team just starts to scratch the surface of the overwhelming power that the mysterious King holds in his hands. Is he a man? A myth? A group? The only thing for sure is that King has spiderwebs everywhere and that war is unavoidable. Nothing is as it seems and yet the dots keep twisting and connecting. Max is a passionate character that will warm your heart with his powerful emotions and his sweet roughness. Hope will enchant you with her inner beauty, determination and blind adoration towards a brother who she has desperately sought since she was a child. Lion, Hope's brother is a new key character that will be impossible not to love. I hope he gets his own book because he is worthy of it. Twisted Mercy is another brilliant book in a series as addictive, complex, intriguing, and suspenseful as the master mind who wrote it.
Another home run for Levine. This is the long-awaited fourth entry to the Red Team series. The novellas are part of the overall story but the main threads of suspense are in the regular novels. In this story, we get to understand what makes Max Cameron run, and why he was willing to spend so much of his life undercover with a white supremacist motorcycle gang.
He runs into an almost immovable object. Her name is Hope, and she's searching for her baby brother, literally ripped from their family as a baby. She has received some cryptic messages as to where she can find him and therein lies the story. How she intersects with Max's undercover is the story! If you've read the first installments, you'll want to read this one quickly to see what happens next. I can't wait for the next one.
BTW, if you like the idea of a female motorcycle mechanic who is really good at what she does, you'll like Hope. A lot.
it made me cry. so much emotional pain. a member of an anti terrorist team is undercover with a motorcycle outlaw gang when approached by a woman who crashes into the group. he claims her to spare her from gang rape. she's searching for her lost brother. there's a mix up with his anti terrorist team, she's forced to leave their compound and her lover goes with her. she's kidnapped, battered, tortured before he rescues her. she's then shot saving his life. and finally granted safe harbor with the heroes group. she finds her brother but he's fighting his own battles against the thugs ....but she and her hero plan to marry. her young warrior brother plots revenge for all the boys tortured by the mc gang....they call his small band lion's pride. Hope I don't have to wait 18+ months for the sequel...
4-4 1/2 stars. A little MC, a little commando, a little romance, a little steam, and A LOT of suspense made for a super entertaining read. I think this author has a good writing style with a nice flow, and well rounded characters. I really liked the H in this one, I thought his struggles seemed realistic. I did like the h too, however, I almost felt her to be too good to be true. Sometimes her actions did not mesh with her personality--I don't know how else to explain it. I thought intimate scenes were very spicy, but well done. I have read the others in this series. Reading those first will definitely help in understanding secondary characters, but I thought the author did a good job catching the reader up on the ongoing plot-line. I do believe this is one of my favorites from this series.
Always a good series, just not my favorite couple/story, a bit too gritty. Not enough of the lighter side from the rest of the Team that usually offsets the drama. Ok, Val getting a pink mani was fun, however the usual humor and joking amongst the guys wasn't as prevalent here. This story just didn't keep me as entertained as some have and very little involvement with the other Team members as with past bks. And was it just me or did all the guys just seem too growly grumpy? It ends on a surprise of sorts that sets up the intrigue for the next bk. Looking forward to it. But what I'm most looking forward to is which guy does the author have planned for Selena? Owen or Val? There was some territorial action going on between both but no real clue as to who'll pair up.
AN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER RIDE FROM BEGINNING TO END!
Oh. My. God. Elaine Levine has raised the bar with this gripping story! It pulled me in from the first page and simply would not let go. She ripped my heart out and left me wanting more. This book has everything we have come to expect from the Red Team Series and more. I could not put it down!
Max 'Mad Dog' Cameron has an unbreakable strength forged in the fires of his own personal hell. Hope Townsend is the only light to reach the dark recesses of his soul. Thrown together in the brutal world of an outlaw biker club, Max has no choice but to protect Hope from himself and the rest of the club. But who is going to protect his heart from her?
This book is getting 5 starred reviews all over the place and I can't understand why. I loved the other books in the series but this one seemed forced. I have forced myself to read half of it and I'm not sure it's worth reading the rest. So far I don't feel any chemistry happening between the character. Bits and pieces of other characters were thrown in randomly to set up future books but it just felt like it was breaking up the story instead of adding to it. A little surprise bondage thrown into the "I'll help you but you have to spend the night with me first". This was a big miss for me however I am willing to give her next book a try.
WOW-- really good.. A side of Max that I did not expect. I had been wondering what he did at the compound and it was great to get behind the scenes and more information about what is happening there. She is a perfect match for him.. Strong, independent and determined.
A great story... I had read the Kit and Ivy wedding story and to see this one back up and then lead into the wedding was classic and interesting.
I like that the story continues but each character gets their own story while including others in the story to.. Like Owen, Selena and Val and then Fiona and Kelan... I can not wait for the next books to be released...
Wow!! Listened to the audio book, Eric G Dove does another brilliant narration. This story is drama filled, action packed, heart stopping and actually made me tear up near the end, it's that good. There is a continuing story running through this book and the plot thickens with each book. OMG Mad Dog Max is just a gorgeous character, I absolutely adore him and it was him that made me tear up, so glad he found Hope. Hope is another strong female character, this series is full of them and it makes reading them that much more enjoyable, loved every page!
So it has been some time since I read the last book in this series but it is getting more complicated and not in a good way: Things that were mentioned in passing are suddenly major plot points and the plot itself just keeps getting murkier. Maybe it is just me and I have just read too many book in between the last one and this one... I wont be reading the next one.
In this book we see Max really diving into his undercover role with WBK � a 1% MC. There are many things going on, but the mission and end game are the same for the former Red Team members. They’ve taken Selena on as a full time member and Max, saving Hope as she’s tormented during initiation to WBK, puts them together whether it was on his to do list or not.
We learn more about Max, his (pierced) appearance, and his backstory � as well as his time in prison (which is what landed him a spot on Red Team prior to working for Owen.
We have Hope (a great motorcycle mechanic) and her issues with altering her life to find and try to save her brother.
While there is plenty of story here � I just had an issue connecting with Max and Hope.
Steam Level:
2.5 out of 5
One thing I loved:
This book was honestly just ok for me. Nothing really stood out here as it did in pervious books in the series.
One thing I disliked:
I had a much more difficult time getting into Max’s story. I felt we would hear Val’s or Kelan’s next as they seemed to have more mention in previous stories. When it was mentioned several times that Max was into pain, I really thought some of that would come out in the adult scenes as well.
Discrepancies:
I remember in an earlier book Selena being mentioned at 5�8� (though I could be mistaken) and in this one she is 5�9� � additionally, book 3.5 maybe should have been book 4.5 as in this book Kit and Ivy are still working up to their wedding. It does happen toward the end of the book (in much less detail than the novella), but I still do believe the in depth event should have been book 4.5.
Rating:
3.5 out of 5
Other Notes:
I purchased this book as an ebook on Kindle
This book was 460 pages
I began reading the book on January 4, 2023 and completed it January 5, 2023.y 5, 2023.
Maximilian Caulfield “Maddog/Mads� Cameron is a hot, complicated mess! It would probably be wise for Hope to avoid him altogether but instead she proceeds with extreme caution.
Max is deep undercover at the West WKB compound when Hope Nelson, aka Hope Townsend, goes undercover to find the baby brother she’s never met. Unfortunately, said brother is posted at the WKB compound as a watcher for the mysterious “King� and his assets.
Hope is in the middle of a brutal initiation to become the new wrench when Max’s hangarond urges him to intervene. Fortunately for Hope, Max saves her from the worst and places her under his protection. Unfortunately for Max, although he doesn’t trust her or buy her story, he’s attracted to Hope from first glance, and well, you know where this is headed.
While Max proceeds with some caution, the new wrench for the WKB is quickly “owning� him in a very short amount of time. The amount of subterfuge is over the top as no one is who/what they appear to be. The East and West are still locked in a power struggle for Afghan drug lord al Jahani’s favor and the Red Team is preparing for Kit and Ivy’s nuptials.
When Owen realizes the extent of Max and Hope’s feelings for each other he is not happy and sends Hope packing, not realizing that in doing so he will be losing Max as well. Tempers flare, fists fly and the Red Team is down a member but will they be able to help him in time before it’s permanent?
Good story, maybe the best so far. Levine has pulled off the unthinkable in breaking the stereotype of most leading men in special forces genre by not only making Max hot and sexy, but even likable even though there is no saving grace for him...We still fall for him!
Max (Mads, Mad Dog) Cameron is a mysterious, haunted, rugged man. His life has been spent being a brilliant computer hacker, prison inmate and motorcycle club member. His undercover work for the Red Team as a hard core biker has been a long and torturous travail. To add to the complications of living undercover, Max rescues Hope Townsend from the clutches of his gang. Now he has to figure out what to do with her. He knows she's hiding something, but will it kill him, her or both of them? A complicated, convoluted but intriguing story of family gone wrong, life lived dangerously and hope reborn. I loved Max and rooted for Hope. This is a fascinating book that draws you into a forbidding world and keeps you there to grasp redemption.
You know a bit about the hero of this book because of the other books in this series. in the prior few books you got to know him a bit more as things started to heat up. Now he's into his gang up to his eye balls and only gets in deeper when he rescues the heroine. Then he's promoted to be the protector of the person who's running the gang and you know it's not going to turn out well.
The hero and heroine are likable and you can relate to them. However by the end it feels like the story just goes on forever with no ending. However it was necessary because you start to get an idea of just how tangled this whole bad vs good guys thing is.
So....Max (Mad Dog) and Hope...this one wasn't my favorite. I am not sure exactly why, I just know that there was hardly ANY back story as to how or why Max was Mad Dog and yet he was just readily accepted in to this 1% club like he had never been gone. This isn't any type of MC I Have ever heard about, 1%ers are always so cautious and to just admit him in as SAA just seemed rushed to me. As for Hope, I did like her (obviously her name is awesome lol), and she was different. A mechanic that can hold her own, but at time she almost seemed whinny which annoyed me. I don't know, just wasn't my favorite (although the advancement in the overall plot of the series was great).
I’m in absolute love with this series. Each book is so different from the previous but yet it follows the honourable lives of the red team. These group of characters are compelling and with each book you’re drawn in ore and more to their world. We’re never sure just where ms Levine will take us next. It’s one of the most original series I’ve read like this. It’s never dull and full of drama ,intrigue and suspense. I’m so thankful that I found this author and these books. Highly recommend this book and series
This has been a terrific series so far, and this book was no exception. I love the characters, humor, banter and crazy antics, camaraderie, drama, mystery, suspense, and the way that this team has become an unconventional family. It's certainly not a series that you'll want to miss. I would definitely recommend this book, series, and outstanding author.
I have loved rereading this series, getting to know the characters again, and I'm looking forward to rest of it!
I made it to Chapter 10 and was utterly disappointed. I probably should have read other books before this. There are too many characters in the story with lines for the main couple to develop any chemistry. She's only been there a day or two and she's already sneaking around the compound. You are willing to be raped by multiple people to save someone you have never met and don't even know he's alive. I'll pass.
There was a lot going on in this book. The characters each had a deep plot and I got a little lost sometimes trying to keep up. But that’s on me, not the author. The family ties and interweaving of the characters lives kept me hooked. Again, I am enjoying the continuing suspense plot in the books.
This is definitely my favourite book in the series so far. I really loved the chemistry between Max and Hope. I also loved the glimpses of the the other couples as well as the remaining single Red Team warriors. As all the previous heroes in the Red Team series, Max also has gone through something traumatic in the past but has managed to overcome it. He is currently undercover with a WKB motorcycle club under alias Mad Dog. Hope is searching for her brother and has come to find out that he is at the WKB compound. She applies for position of wrench and Mad Dog is assigned to protect her. He is apprehensive in the beginning, not sure if he can trust her, but she gradually gets under his skin. I really enjoyed how their story developed and honestly cannot wait to see what's in store for the other characters. And I also cannot wait for all my questions to be answered.
I did love this red team book. It wasn't as funny as the others. This one was way more intense. I also didn't fall in love with Hope as I did with the other ladies. I hope I She grows into a character I can love in later books. Still a great book though.
I have loved every book in this series so far. There is great drama, action, suspense and romance in these books. I absolutely loved Max and Hope in this book. Such a great bunch of characters and the story is interesting and keeps me hooked in.