Review of Bounty (Colorado Mountain #7) by Kristen Ashley
Bounty is the seventh book in the series Colorado Mountain.
Justice Lonesome has had a life of bounty, but she's still searching for something. Then the unthinkable happens, and she's left grieving. She runs to the Colorado mountains and buys a large home and ranch outside Carnal, Colorado.
Deke Hightower has lived his whole life with next to nothing. His home is a trailer he parks at a lake near Carnal during the winter and takes on the road in the warm months, drifting across the country, wherever life takes him. It's the only way he can breathe. Because of this, he knows finding a woman the way his friends have will be impossible.
When they meet, Deke knows Justice won't be the woman that rides with him, so he keeps her at arm's length, and she takes it because she wants him any way she can have him.
But when Justice finds herself a pawn in a dangerous game, Deke makes a decision about Justice that opens him up to bounty.
I was excited to read this book and put it off because I wasn't ready to finish this series. Though at the end of this book there was a note that there would be one more book. Yet this one was published in 2016 and there's no sign of the supposed book about Wood and Maggie.
For most of this book, I was delighted. But the last couple of chapters were a letdown, and it took down a good part of the book. The climax was intense, and it gripped me. But it didn't take advantage of the suspense element that had been building throughout the book and instead drew from something barely mentioned early in the book. It felt like the work she did building the suspense element wasn't worth anything because she didn't use it in the climax. I was waiting to find out how it would work in and how it would play out, then it didn't. It left me frustrated and unsatisfied.
The characters of Deke and Justice were well developed and filled out into lifelike people. I wanted Justice for a friend and thought Deke was hot as hell and would make an excellent partner. If I wasn't married, I'd lust after him myself. I did a little anyway, but we'll keep that a secret. They were well matched, and I rooted for them from the beginning. Their chemistry was solid from the prologue on, and I spent the early chapters of the book wanting to shake Deke.
When they finally got together, I cheered, though the trigger for it was intense and scary. Deke's reaction to Justice's brush with danger was sweet, though it revealed him as a major alpha. The brush with danger also showed how many good friends Justice already had in Carnal.
I love Carnal and all the characters in it. All the regulars in the books that take place there, especially the ones that don't have their own books, like Krystal, Jim-Billy, Shambles, Sunny, Twyla, and so many others that make the town come to life. They all treat the famous Justice like any other person, like she isn't any different from them. It made me like them more. I love that I always know where I am in Carnal, though I wish I knew the layout of the town better.
Descriptions were good as always with Kristen Ashley, and I had a solid picture of Justice's house, even as it changed continuously through construction, and I knew just what Deke's Airstream looked like. I do wish she'd given more basic reminders of what different places in Carnal looked like. I especially noticed it in La La Land when Justice went there the first time.
Dialog was fantastic, though I have noticed that the men in all the books in the series speak much the same. I don't know if that's a Kristen Ashley thing, or just this series. It's not good, though.
Overall, the book was great. I would give it a higher rating if I didn't have such a big issue with the climax. I'm sad to leave Carnal and Gnaw Bone behind, but I'm looking forward to more Kristen Ashley in the future.
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