Ride Steady

Kristen Ashley

Jun 2015 · Chaos Book 3 · Hachette Audio · Narrated by Kate Russell

About this audiobook

Meet the intense and sexy bad boy bikers of the Chaos Motorcycle Club in Carissa and Joker's story from Kristen Ashley's New York Times bestselling series.

The ride of her life . . .
Once upon a time, Carissa Teodoro believed in happy endings. Money, marriage, motherhood: everything came easy---until she woke up to the ugly truth about her Prince Charming. Now a struggling, single mom and stranded by a flat tire, Carissa's pondering her mistakes when a vaguely familiar knight rides to her rescue on a ton of horsepower.

Climb on and hold tight . . .
In high school, Carson Steele was a bad boy loner who put Carissa on a pedestal where she stayed far beyond his reach. Today, he's the hard-bodied biker known only as Joker, and from the way Carissa's acting, it's clear she's falling fast. While catching her is irresistible, knowing what to do with her is a different story. A good girl like Carissa is the least likely fit with the Chaos Motorcycle Club. Too bad holding back is so damned hard. Now, as Joker's secrets are revealed and an outside threat endangers the club, Joker must decide whether to ride steady with Carissa---or ride away forever . . .

Ratings and reviews

AudioBook Review: Stars: Overall 3 Narration 2 Story 3 Carissa Teodoro had everything, or so she thought: loving parents, a solid marriage and a little boy she dotes on. And then everything blew up: only her father is left for her family, her husband is a serial cheater and dumped her while she was pregnant with their son, and he’s got money to burn, just not for her or their boy – and she’s struggling to make ends meet and show her son all the love she can, even though she’s sharing custody with her ex. Nothing is quite what she hoped, and a flat tire just adds more to the mix. But the biker who appears to give her a hand looks familiar – Carson Steele (Joker) was the bad boy in high school, attracted to but never making a move on Carissa – she was pure and innocent and he was unwilling to bring her down with his dysfunctional family or issues. He’s got issues to burn, and staying away would be the smart thing – but also too much to resist. He’s falling for her, and wanting to see that she and her son have everything they need, and Chaos can help with that – but …. Like all of Ashley’s books, this one brings in several threads and people from all earlier books, revisits issues of past traumas and hurts, and gives us a ton of backstory on both characters, as well as adding in a threat that will force Joker to choose between what he wants and his past ills – it’s pretty standard romance stuff with the addition of a lovely sweet relationship wit Carissa and her little boy. At this point, I was hoping for a bit more content in the pages, while it was there, it took far too many words to get it out. Seventeen plus hours of everything but the relationship with Carissa and her little boy, and that she wasn’t a total pushover when silence or a ‘brushing off’ response was the only answer to her questions. She was the standout in this story, but the withholding of information from Joker at the start didn’t get nearly enough play. Yep – get it – you’re ashamed and concerned for her – but to lie (and omissions are lies) is just……. Narration is again provided by Kate Russell, and while I hoped for more and better – it wasn’t happening here. With a plot that felt familiar and a narration that, quite frankly, was wearing and didn’t encourage me to listen on, using emotion and variation in pitch, tone and delivery – this took much longer to listen to than other books of this length, and I can honestly say that I was happy when “The End” came. Sad, because there was more scope and potential here for actual emotive performance that reached the heights and depth of the tumult within both characters – and the twist and the ‘bad guys’ could have been less obvious to hear, but the narration here was exactly as I expected and not what I hoped. I can only say that the ‘spark’ I saw when first encountering this series with book four is attributable to my own lack of exposure to truly solid narrative performances. I received an AudioBook copy of the title from Hachette Audio for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review; all conclusions are my own responsibility.

I made a horrible mistake when I started this audiobook, I planned to listen to it over a couple of weeks. It took me three days, would have taken me two, but I life things that had to happen. To say I loved Joker and Carissa would be an understatement. To say watching them fall in love had me in happy tears more times than I could count was accurate. To say watching the people around them, the family they each built separately and together made me smile in crazy happiness would be true. To say I cheered as old friends surrounded and loved and helped them and made me giddy at their appearance would be correct. To say I loved Tack even more with every appearance he makes, and especially in this epilogue, and my heart swelled as he did so good by Joker would be exact. I have had this book for years, I have seen these characters in other books, and now that I know their story, the lives they lived before, apart, and now together, to say I am kicking myself for not having this story before now, that would be truthful. But I now have them, I have their story, and I love them immensely now, that’s the most beautiful thing in the world <3

About the author

Kristen Ashley is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of over sixty romance novels. Her books have been translated in fifteen languages, with nearly three million copies sold.

Born in Gary and raised in Brownsburg, Indiana, Kristen is a fourth generation graduate of Purdue University. Since, she has lived in Denver, the West Country of England, and she now resides in Phoenix. She worked as a charity executive for eighteen years prior to beginning her writing career.