Free by Kristen Ashley

Narrated by Kate Russell

The true diehard fans of Kristen Ashley will be thrilled to know that Free brings back to life all of the characters from nearly all of her prior series. So not only is Free the finale of the Chaos motorcycle club series, but it actually doubles as a great epilogue for a number of KA’s other series. Of course, the issue with such an ambitious project is that only those who have previously read or listened to nearly all of Kristen Ashley’s books will be able to follow the entire book. Fortunately for me, having listened to all of the Rock Chick, Dream Man, and Colorado Mountain series, and sprinkle of her other books from other series, I had done my homework and was ready to sit back, listen, and enjoy. Nonetheless, even with such a vast wealth of KA alpha hero love stories in my pocket, I will say that I still had a slight bit of trouble following the underlying secondary character story line from time to time. In the end, it was nothing that a little rewinding and more careful listening didn’t solve, and I came away with a whole new appreciation for the vast world that Kristen Ashley has created–though I will say that the fiction aspects of this story were the primary focus, not the love story. Additionally, the talented narration by Kate Russell makes this a great book to experience in audio format.

The primary love story in this book pertains to Rush Allen, Motorcycle Man‘s Tack and Tyra’s son. Though we have been waiting a long time for this story, watching nearly every other Chaos character find their HEA, don’t expect a huge devotion of time to the development of the love plot between Rush and his heroine, Rebel (though the love scenes are certainly steamy). As can be gleaned from his MC name, “Rush” is a man who doesn’t waste any time when he sees what he wants, and Rebel, like most of KA’s heroines, is a strong, spunky, headstrong heroine who has a knack for finding trouble, even if it is for the admirable purpose of defending others and righting wrongs. Specifically, Rebel is seeking vengeance for the murder of her friend by going deep under cover as a porn film producer which exposes her to 3 different enemies of the Chaos Club. Of course, Rush swoops in to try to convince her otherwise, and thus the story unfolds.

The narration by Kate Russell was well done, though the difficulty of bringing together such a large and eclectic cast must have certainly been one of the biggest challenges Ms. Russell has ever undertaken. Having listened to many of the prior books, I was happy with the consistency that Ms. Russell brought to the story. All that said, with so many characters in the mix, other than the few characters who have gotten a lot of book time in the past (for example, Tack), I wasn’t able to identify who was speaking merely by listening to the intonation, though I can’t imagine that any one narrator could provide different voices for so many characters. In the end though, I feel that Ms. Russell delivered the best result that could be expected from any one narrator.

All in all, I recommend this book to listeners who want more of KA’s world. If you’re looking for a grand KA love story, however, this may not be the best book for you. Frankly, even at nearly 18 hours long, there probably was enough material in this one book for 4 or 5 books, which means that the content that was there was jam packed and certainly could have used more elaboration (and grouping together as there was a lot of switching back and forth between different characters’ perspectives). Nonetheless, I listened to every minute, wanting to stay in KA’s world as long as she would provide. I suppose now my biggest fear is that with this book done, I’m not sure what is left to add to KA’s world. Perhaps it’s time for her to start a new KA world, with absolutely zero cross-over to her prior characters, so that a new generation of fans can join in again and come to discover why KA reading/listening is so addictive.

BJ