The highly anticipated third book in Katie McGarry’s Thunder Road Series is released today!
LONG WAY HOME is a Young Adult Contemporary Romance being published by Harlequin Teen.  Grab your copy of the next book in this emotionally charged series, and don’t miss Violet and Chevy’s story! 

 

Amazon  |  Kobo  |  BAM  |  B&N  |  iBooks  |  IndieBound

 

---

---

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Violet has always been expected to sit back and let the boys do all the saving.

It’s the code her father, a member of the Reign of Terror motorcycle club, raised her to live by. Yet when her dad is killed carrying out Terror business, Violet knows it’s up to her to do the saving. To protect herself, and her vulnerable younger brother, she needs to cut all ties with the club—including Chevy, the boy she’s known and loved her whole life.

But when a rival club comes after Violet, exposing old secrets and making new threats, she’s forced to question what she thought she knew about her father, the Reign of Terror, and what she thinks she wants. Which means re-evaluating everything: love, family, friends . . . and forgiveness.

Caught in the crosshairs between loyalty and freedom, Violet must decide whether old friends can be trusted—and if she’s strong enough to be the one person to save them all.

 

“An intoxicating and unforgettable story that kept me glued to the page.”
—Kami Garcia, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Walk the Edge

 

 

Add it to your Goodreads Now!

 

---

Review

“Two roads. One path. Can’t take both.”

5 shining stars!

I am a mad fan of all things Katie McGarry, and I love this series. Set in the world of a legitimate motorcycle club, and telling the stories of the younger generation – those who were born and raised in the club and who are now approaching adulthood. From the first book of the series I fell in love with Chevy and Violet, who grew up together, became best friends, fell in love and then lost it all. I have been so excited to get their story, and this book did not disappoint. It’s a heartfelt second-chance-romance, and a wonderfully written coming of age story. It was everything that I wanted, and I absolutely loved it!

Chevy and Violet have shared a strong connection for as long as they can remember, but that all changed when Violet’s father died and her grief, anger and fear for the safety of her family saw her turning her back on the Reign of Terror MC and the people she had called her friends and family for her entire life. Chevy’s father died before he was even born, but as the Grandson of the Club President, the Terror has been Chevy’s whole life, so when Violet left that life, she also left him behind. He has been without her for over a year, but that doesn’t mean his feelings have changed, and it tears him up to continuously see the girl he has always loved, yet to have the foreign and heartbreaking distance between them.

Some people, like me and Violent, aren’t supposed to break up. Some people like me and Violet, don’t know how to be near each other when we do part ways.

But one terrifying night is about to change everything, when Chevy and Violet are thrown together in the worst of circumstances – clinging to each other and fighting for their very survival, each of them discovering secrets that will change their lives.

I love the way that Katie McGarry weaves her stories together – giving us two strong characters and showing us their personal journeys, and then weaving those two storylines together into an honest, real, raw and emotional love story, and that’s exactly what she’s given us with Chevy and Violet. The book is written in dual POV, and I could understand where both of them were coming from – Chevy struggling to figure out who he is and what he wants, torn between his love for his girl and his love for his family and terrified to lose either of them. And while I was worried how I would feel about Violet after she had already left Chevy brokenhearted, I could totally see where she was coming from – she wants more from her life than what she sees as possible if she stayed within the MC world, she wants safety and security, and she wants to be more than just an old lady. She wants Chevy, and she’s not afraid to tell him exactly what she wants from him, and I love her strength as she fights for what she needs.

“I am not your property, I am not a dog … I am your equal, and I deserve the love and respect that comes with that because that’s what a real man does when he loves a woman.”

God, I love these two together!!! Violet and Chevy have such a wonderful dynamic. It’s clear that they are both still very much in love with each other, they don’t deny that. And I loved the glances, the touches, the smiles, and the comfort that they got from each other. But there are legitimate reasons why they aren’t together, and I love the maturity that they show in trying to work through all of that.

“Ignoring our problems won’t make them go away. We’re playing a dangerous game, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know how many more hits I can take.”
“You want me to walk away?”
“No,” she says quietly. “I never wanted you to walk away. I need you, but I don’t know how to be with you. You need me, but you don’t know how to be with me either.”

Their love story is both heartbreaking and beautifully romantic as they fight to find their way back each other. Two best friends who know each other inside and out, whose memories are completely intertwined, and who are made to be together – it’s real and emotional and intense, and I loved every moment of it!

“I love you,” I whisper. “I can’t remember a time when I haven’t loved you.”

In addition to their relationship dramas, they both have a lot of figuring out to do in their personal lives, and as Chevy looks to the past for answers, Violet is dealing with a new and terrifying threat. It’s intense and exciting, and though it had the potential to becoming annoying, I thought it was handled really well, and it ties in nicely with the other books in the series and the over-arching storyline of the Rein of Terror’s ongoing war with the Riot MC.

I also loved the strong theme of family – both the family that you have and the family that you make, and I loved getting to see more of the private side of the MC members (Eli in particular), as Chevy and Violet figured out their relationships with the people in their lives, and their places in their world, setting their course for their future in the way that they want it to be.

“As much as you want to, you can’t take all our pain away. Hurting, it’s a part of life, and if you try to stop any of us from being in pain, that means you’re not allowing us to actually live.”

And then there’s the absolutely sensational cameo that will have long-time Katie McGarry fans squeezing with excitement. There’s a wonderful tie in to the Pushing the Limits series that was a fantastic treat, and I can only hope that we get to see more of that storyline in future books.

I loved this book. Once again, McGarry has taken me on a wonderfully intense and emotional ride. I fell in love with Chevy and Violet, and I loved their story. It was beautifully written, absolutely captivating and everything that I was hoping for.

I loved it – 5 stars.

 

The Thunder Road series

 

---

Excerpt

CHEVY

            The instructions of the English homework I didn’t do hangs out from the top of my folder: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both.

Story of my life.

According to my football coach, I chose wrongly on the two crap paths I had to face last week. I just ran into Coach on the way to English, and he ripped into me for my sorry decision-making skills when it came to me choosing to stand up for the Reign of Terror Motorcycle Club instead of a member of my football team.

I didn’t just get my ass chewed out, his tirade made me late for English with no tardy note. Which is great since my English teacher hates late students like I hate riding  my motorcycle in forty degree weather while it rains.

I round the corner, then peek through the small window on the door of my class. Ms. Whitlock stands in front of her desk in her patented white button-down shirt, gray pencil skirt, and dark-rimmed glasses. From the back row, my best friend Razor meets my eyes and shakes his head. Damn. That means she’s in one of her moods where she’s refusing to let anyone in.

I’m not a tail-tucked-between-my-legs type of guy, but this lady is one of the few who can reduce me to begging. If she doesn’t let me in, then she’ll mark me as absent, the front office will think I skipped, and that means I won’t be able to play at tonight’s football game.

The window rattles when I knock. The entire class turns their heads in my direction, but Ms. Whitlock doesn’t. The muscles in my neck tighten. She is one of the hardest core people I know and my grandfather is the president of a motorcycle club. That says something.

She starts for the white board and I knock on the door again. This time, Ms. Whitlock does look my way and she grants me the type of glare reserved for people who kick puppies. I got it. I’m late. I’m the scum of humanity, so let my ass in so I can play football.

There’s this guy in my club, Pigpen. He’s about the same age as Ms. Whitlock, late twenties, and he’s a walking hard-on for this woman even though she would never give him the time of day. He practically runs into walls when she’s around because he’s too focused on checking her out. I don’t see gorgeous—all I see is seriously pissed off and the person standing between me and playing.

Ms. Whitlock points at the clock over her desk. She’s telling me I can wait. If I’m lucky, she’ll open the door after the quiz that I’ll receive a zero on. If I’m not so lucky, she won’t open the door at all.

Two pathetic paths and I could only travel one. Nowhere in that stupid poem did it mention there was good and bad to both paths and that sometimes it’s best not to choose, but to set up camp at the fork and do nothing at all.

I slam my hand into the nearest locker, almost relishing the sting.

“Feel better?”

A glance across the hallway and I freeze. Doesn’t matter how many times I see her in a day, she still manages to take my breath away.

 

 

---

RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY

One $100 Amazon Gift Card for one winner

ENTER GIVEAWAY

The Escapist Book Blog is not responsible for this giveaway

---

Katie McGarry

Katie McGarry was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Katie is the author of full length YA novels, PUSHING THE LIMITS, DARE YOU TO, CRASH INTO YOU, TAKE ME ON,  BREAKING THE RULES, and NOWHERE BUT HERE and the e-novellas, CROSSING THE LINE and RED AT NIGHT. Her debut YA novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS was a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction, a RT Magazine’s 2012 Reviewer’s Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Contemporary Novel, a double Rita Finalist, and a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Teen Pick. DARE YOU TO was also a Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction and won RT Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Young Adult Contemporary fiction in 2013.

Website  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Goodreads  |  Pinterest  |  Tumber  |  Instagram