📚Renegade Hearts by Nikki J Summers📚
🛍️UK Amazon: https://amzn.eu/cizE6eB 🛍
***********SPOILERS***********
I absolutely loved this storyline, the way that this story opened the universe that Nikki has created, it really set the tone of the series and the types of characters that you will be expecting to be introduced to.
I adored the introduction Nikki gave us to Emily, it explained the type of person who she was before the tragedy and who she was after with the aftereffects. Nikki was able to paint Emily in a picture for us throughout the story which helped the story to be an amazing read. She was able to do the same with Ryan which had a girl wanting more but you left satisfied either way. From the beginning you didn’t know the path which this story would go, which helped to keep it gripping because you didn’t know what was going to happen next which left me unable to put the book down, sadly being on a weekend away, I had to. Horrible family.
The thing that I wasn’t expecting was the relationship that Emily had with her parents and how controlling and closed down it was. You could feel how Emily was feeling, which made the situation more gripping and in its own way, intense. The relationships were strained after Danny’s, Emily’s older brother’s, death, which was something that happened with families. The way Nikki was able to write their emotions in Emily’s P.O.V was artistic. As well as Emily’s relationship with her parents, the other relationships were revealed with Effy and Liv. From reading Psycho first there isn’t much to say, but to know more about their background was great and to see the interaction between the three girls was amazing and really helped to explain the three of them in more detail, especially Liv’s attitude and not being able to trust a guy, that was really explained in this book and an eye-opener to her personality, cannot wait till I get to Effy’s story (SOON!).
Ryan’s family, well easily put I love his father, so sweet and his older brother Connor (as I’m an only child I wouldn’t really know) being the typical big brother who wants to tease their young siblings and partners. I loved the strong network, living together, supporting each other, and working in the garage together after the accident of his Mum, it was so beautiful. It cannot be described any other way.
Onto the relationships with the Renaissance Men, (Brandon, Finn, and Zak) they all have their moments with both Emily and Ryan, some you can expect, and others are surprising, but you can relate to the emotions and the situations so way by the way that Nikki has written the scenes. Sometimes I felt my heart going out to a lot of the scenes, even when Ryan and Emily were angry at another character, I couldn’t help it. I felt a part of the story, like a fly on the wall, which is what I love the most about reading, getting to be nosy into other people’s lives, even fictional ha-ha.
I’m a sucker for a story about a guy crushing on a girl for years, especially when it’s a typical bad boy and good girl type story. Ryan crushing on Emily and how he defended her against anyone, even his best mates was just so heart-warming, I didn’t know what to do but swoon for him on so many different levels. I adored how Ryan was the one who kept everyone away from Emily and how Danny allowed everyone to believe it was him, it really set the tone for the friendship Danny had with the boys on so many levels that it was almost like we were reading two stories in one but there was on strain in doing that, it was natural and beautiful. I loved how we read Emily’s pull and push with her feelings for Ryan, how she’s attracted to him but she tries to resist but is failing, even when he is using her to get answers for Danny’s death. The growth between them both, how they grow, not only together but individually, it is amazing and god damn amazing. I say that a lot about Nikki’s works, but I cannot think of other words that express how the characters are described to us in their backstories or growths. I could not get over the way that Ryan and Emily got together when they finally gave up and just went it for and chose themselves but also each other.
Learning the truth about your parents, the people you look up to can be a struggle and damn right heart-breaking on so many levels and I felt them all when Emily learnt the truth about her father, laundering money from the town, being responsible for Danny’s death and having another daughter with a mistress. Especially the way that she found out, no one should find in public humiliation, at least it wasn’t aimed at her, but it might have well been with the aftereffects, which were common and soul-destroying. I adored how Finn was the one who was able to talk Emily down and get her to see things differently, really helped the reader to be ready to read his story in the future. My heartstrings were being pulled left, right and centre with him and I loved it, ready for his story. I couldn’t get over the slightly typical but realistic situation of both Ryan and Emily searching for each other, Ryan to explain everything to Emily, to apologise, to allow her to take her anger out on him, to cry into him, anything she needed he wanted to be by her side. He didn’t care which emotion he got off Emily, he just wanted to see her. Emily just wanting to be with him, not wanting to think just to be with him. I loved it. I cannot get over how Brandon was written, I expected two things from Brandon the teasing to be a way to get to Ryan, to make him more like Brandon or he actually loved Emily, I prayed for one of them and got the other which actually threw me on my ass and made me reread what I had just read. I couldn’t get over the aftereffects and I felt like they were justified in the heat of the moment, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before peace talks and slowly bridges being built between the friends.
After Ryan and Brandon fight, we got an amazing chapter featuring Brandon which I loved so much and didn’t know how much it was needed until I read it. It really set the tone for the next book in the series, Tortured Souls, and it really opened Brandon up in a whole new light after the incident. From the incident, we got two epilogues one for Ryan and Emily which was a real goodbye from their story, and it was a beautiful ending to the story but also one for Brandon, which was a see you soon and I flipping loved it.
Renegade Hearts was beautifully written, and I will never get over this story, it was exactly what it was meant to be, typical in some places but in others, it threw you off. It left me gripped, and if I didn’t have to put the book down, I wouldn’t have. On to the next one, Tortured Souls: Rebels of Sandland #2.