Cat Porter:
Random & Rare (Lock & Key #2)
Blurb:
I am that gash in her soul. Once I loved Grace, really loved her. And she loved me, and it was so fucking beautiful. Once. That pendulum swings to and fro. We’re here, and then we’re — No. How can that rare beautiful be rendered irrelevant, intangible when I still feel so damn much? Does all that energy, that glory, that significance simply dissolve? Turn to smoke? To nothing? It can’t. It just can’t. Are the moments that shape us absolutely random? Is time not fluid? I made promises to them, to her. Especially to her. Promises I still burn to keep.
REVIEW
How can that rare beautiful be rendered irrelevant, intangible when I still feel so damn much?
I can’t even find the words to describe how much I loved this book. Random & Rare is one of those “rare” books that I actually read slowly because I just didn’t want the story to end. Sexy, incredibly thrilling, creative, emotional, uplifting – this book has it all. I really didn’t think anything could match the power and beauty in Lock & Key but the author did it again.
Cat Porter is the real deal. She really touched me with this book. The first part of this story is told by Dig. Yes, that is Grace’s husband. I never imagined that he could have so much to say, and that his story would get under my skin in the way that it did. Dig and Grace are quite literally soul mates, destined to be together and fiercely loyal to each other always.
You might think you know Grace and Dig’s story from Lock & Key, but there is so much more to their history! I thought that I loved Miller, but Dig, oh my God, he stole my heart forever. I do not often cry during books (I read a LOT), but Random & Rare reached right down into my heart and squeezed tight.
“My hand stretched out over the warm skin of her stomach. Grace’s body was our temple, our bit of holy, where both of us connected and exploded together in some sort of glorious, furious symphony. Her skin was still flush with the pleasure I’d just given her, and my mark stained the skin on her sweet ass. Forever.”
Dig’s life is not easy. He is a member of a rough MC and he is a trusted officer of the club. But nothing is at it seems and every action has a reaction and a consequence. Cat Porter is a gifted storyteller and all the threads of both books are woven together here into a beautiful, sexy, satisfying and explosive conclusion.
“You’re in my bones, Grace. Can’t stand straight without you, baby. Can’t.”
Dig is a fatalist, and his life is a very gritty one. But he loves Grace with all his heart and tries his best to shield her from his violent world. Trust me, their story did not end in Lock & Key and if you love MC stories, Cat Porter is an absolute one-click author. You will fall in love with the characters from these books and will not soon forget them.
Favorite quote:
“But everyone else’s random would never be rare for me. My random was a demon that kept attacking me, gorging itself on my entrails like the unsatisfied feral beast it was, dancing his grotesque dance on the road before me.”
(ARC provided by the author in return for an honest review.)
Excerpt:
RANDOM & RARE by Cat Porter ©2015
“You want to come with us, Grace? Hang out. Just have some fun. ’Cause, to be honest, babe, looks like you could use it.” Sam squeezed my shoulder, and then his hand slid down and stroked my upper back. “Offer stands, Grace. We’ll be at the Bullock if you want to let off some steam. No obligations, no questions asked. You don’t feel like going home to that husband of yours, baby, you don’t have to.”
“The fuck you say.”
A sudden hush filled the bar. My eyelids slid closed at the raw anger in the deep voice I knew so well. Sam’s hand on me stilled.
Tania pivoted on her stool. “Now that’s gotta be your old man!”
Sam let out a choking noise from the back of his throat and removed his hand from me. From behind the bar, Randy fidgeted and swallowed.
“Yes, that’s him,” I said.
“That’s your cue to leave, Sammy,” Tania said in a sour voice.
I glanced up at him. “Bye, Sam.”
“Have a nice road trip,” Tania continued. “And I’d advise, you should find an alternate route on your way back to Texas, if you know what I mean. I’d watch it in Colorado, too. There are One-Eyed Jacks there as well.”
“One-Eyed who?”
Tania chuckled. “Best get going now.”
“Yeah.” Sam frowned, his eyes glued in the direction of the doorway.
I still faced the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sam’s friends gathering their jackets and shiny helmets and hustling toward the exit.
“Goodbye, Grace,” muttered Sam.
I raised my head and focused my strained vision on the reflection in the side mirror of the bar to see a towering and very wired Miller clad in ripped jeans and a white T-shirt smudged with oil. His large dark eyes looked fierce from behind a curtain of raven hair, the colored prisms of the late afternoon sunlight glaring around him, as he filled up the doorway, standing perfectly still.
Tania slid my phone down the bar to me. “I called your hubs on your cell, so you know.”
“I don’t like being thrown under a bus, so you know.”
“You were dragging this shit out. That is not the Grace I know.”
Miller’s gaze was drilling lasers into my back. I tucked my phone in my bag.
Tania strode over to Miller. “She needs to wake the fuck up.”
“You Tania?” he asked.
“Yes, I am. Spank her if you have to.” Tania marched out of Pete’s, the door swinging behind her.
I took in a breath and wiped a hand across my mouth. Heavy booted footsteps drew closer, and my breath caught. His chest rubbed against my back, fusing his body heat with mine, as his long arms framed me, his hands planted on the bar top. His warm breath was like steam on the side of my face.
“Babe, what are you doing?”
“Hanging out. Bumped into Tania.”
“Who was the dick hanging over you? Took everything I had not to bust in that pretty face of his.”
“Old boyfriend from Texas. Passing through with some of his friends.”
Miller picked up my beer glass and drained it before slamming it on the bar and pressing his chest into my back. “Oh, yeah? He didn’t know you were living here?”
“How would he know that?”
He tilted his head. “Long as he’s not passing through you on his way out of town.”
About the Lock & Key Series:
Lock & Key (Lock & Key #1)
I suppose some of us have to get really dirty before we can become truly clean. I was allegedly South Dakota’s most famous old lady. Sixteen years ago I survived my old man’s murder Never again. Never again will I surrender my heart. Never again will I sacrifice to the Club. But that all changed in one night. I came home and crashed into him, and my past and present blew up in my face. Both of us lonely, running on empty, and unwilling to admit it. Until now. Now I feel things I’d forgotten about, want things I’d cut out of my insides. Love not only stings when you lose it, when it’s ripped away from you. When it first sinks its teeth in you, it can cut just as raw and sting just as deep. I’d forgotten that. Who holds the keys to betrayal? To suspicion? To trust? To brotherhood? To family? To redemption and a bleeding heart? Right now, I just might. Warning: This work of fiction contains graphic language, sex, and material some readers may find objectionable.
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About the Author:
Cat Porter was born and raised in New York City, but also spent a few years in Europe and Texas along the way. As an introverted, only child, she had very big, but very secret dreams for herself. She graduated from Vassar College, was a struggling actress, an art gallery girl, special events planner, freelance writer, restaurant hostess and had all sorts of other crazy jobs all hours of the day and night to help make her dreams come true. She has two children’s books traditionally published under her maiden name. She now lives in Athens, Greece with her husband and three children, and freaks out regularly and still daydreams way too much. She is addicted to the History Channel, her iPad, her husband’s homemade red wine, really dark chocolate, and her Nespresso coffee machine. Writing keeps her somewhat sane, extremely happy, and a productive member of society.
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Ruth says
This is a great review. I have read Random & Rare and was totally blown away by it’s intensity. I loved it and pray that there will be more stories from Grace’s world in the future. LOVE, love Lock & key and now Random & Rare stories.