Samantha McCoy, $0.99, ISBN 978-0463039014
Romantic Suspense, 2017
The hero of Samantha McCoy’s The Enforcer is a twofer: Zander Evans was a former Navy SEAL turned MC big bozo. His manly nickname is Reaper, which is absolutely original, and the MC is called the equally original Devil’s Henchmen.
Oh, and he’s had his manly heart crushed by a ho, before, so in order to avoid getting hurt again, he’d stick around and stick it to more hos. Anyone surprised that he is a cranky fellow?
Reaper looked around the smoke-filled bar. Yep, just another day at the office. As always, the place was packed with the clubhouse usual – brothers and the whores trying to become their ol’ ladies. He hated this place. Maybe hate was a strong word. He would rather beat home, laying in his bed, icing down his sore leg, but he was on duty tonight.
You thought I was kidding about the hos, huh? I’m just using the hero’s language. Anyway, why is he cranky?
As VP of the Devil’s Henchmen MC, he was responsible for ensuring everything ran smoothly tonight. Sledge, the MC’s President, was gone for the day to get his kid sister.Well, she really wasn’t a kid, he thought to himself. Sledge’s sister was a twenty-two-year-old woman, who apparently likes to pick all the wrong guys. This isn’t the first time he’s had to rescue her from a bad relationship. As a matter of fact, he had to do this same thing last year. Sledge ended up sending a couple of guys over to her place to chase off the low-life she was trying to get rid of because apparently, the guy wouldn’t take a hint.
That sister will be our heroine Amber Parks. Reaper meets her for the first time when Sledge brings his sister to the bros and hos club—wait, sister and Sledge… is the author trying to sneak in a Sister Sledge reference here? That’s so un-MC, isn’t it?
Anyway, I’ve just quoted the first paragraph of the story, which I’ve broken down into two parts to make things a little more readable, and yes, this is one of those stories that see the author giving away the whole premise within the first 100 words of the whole thing.
Amber needs help to get out of an abusive relationship, and guess which fellow is appointed by her brother to protect her from the SOB that thinks of her as a punching bag.
Seeing her all battered and bruised… well…
Looking at Amber, he wondered what her flesh would feel like wrapped around him. What she would taste like and he felt his dick come to life, thinking she probably tasted like pure honey.
That’s absolutely not creepy at all!
Damn, she was gorgeous, Reaper thought.
Is anyone going to help her see that her bruises and wounds tended to, or are these gentlemen just going to stand there and drool at her while humping the air?
This story runs a very predictable route: next there will be sex, a lot of obsessive-horny mental monologues from Reaper about how she is his woman now and he will protect her no matter what, the heroine getting sexual healing and true love handed to her without much effort on her part, and the villain thoughtfully shows up after the two have decided to be in love, just in time for some dramatic finale.
The author has a clumsy and lumbering narrative style that doesn’t allow much room for subtlety or nuances, but at the same time, there is a certain charm to it that I can’t fully define. Normally, such IKEA assembly manual style would make for a dry and dull read, but the often over the top way the story lurches from one trope to another helps to keep things entertaining. It also helps that Amber, while a damsel in distress through and through, isn’t a perpetually hapless and limp precious porcelain doll.
There isn’t much here that feels authentic. Aside from men calling women hos and one another some self-aggrandizing nickname to give it a superficial MC flavor, this thing could have been easily been transplanted to any other “band of brothers” series: the guys could be dudes running a bodyguard agency, MRA, NRA, and the whole thing would still be business as usual.
Perhaps that’s why I can’t help being charmed by this thing. This is a laughably obvious story that is cobbled together from current bestselling tropes so that the author can cash in, and the audacity is amusing.
While there is a single name credited as the author here, this baby could easily be written from committee, as there is nothing about it that feels distinctive or unique—the whole thing screams: “We have everything we know you want in a romance story, because we’ve seen what’s in the Kindle bestseller lists, baby, so give us your money now!”
Of course, I can be amused and entertained because I plonked down only $0.99 for this. Had it cost more, I may be groaning instead about how much of a boilerplate this whole thing is.
So, in conclusion, I’m a cheap reader and this thing is cheap, so perhaps this is one of those unlikely pairings that actually make perfect sense!
