Custom Built
A Steamy Romantic Suspense
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- $1.99
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestselling author Chantal Fernando brings you the thrilling first book in the Fast & Fury series, fully loaded with intense emotions and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
After losing her job, saying goodbye to a lifelong dream and having an all-around cruddy year, Bronte Pierce needs a break. A job at Fast & Fury might be just the thing to reset her life, even though she knows nothing about custom motorcycles. But taking a job isn’t the same as keeping it, and her fresh start quickly turns into a fresh nightmare.
Starting with her boss. Crow is hardheaded, stubborn and brutally honest. He may be easy on the eyes, but he runs with a motorcycle club and he’s anything but friendly to Bronte. She suspects he has a softer side—just not for her.
Her whole life, Bronte has known that the only person she can truly count on to save the day is herself. But when a single murder turns into a conspiracy and the threat to her life is more than she can handle alone, it’s Crow who comes through—and her newfound family might just become her greatest strength.
Fast & Fury
Book 1: Custom Built
Book 2: Custom Made
Book 3: Custom Love
Knights of Fury
Book 1: Saint
Book 2: Renegade
Book 3: Temper
Knights & Dragons MC
Book 1: Decker's Dilemma
Book 2: Rhett Redeemed
Book 3: Answering Atlas
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The twists of a suspenseful mystery keep the pages turning in the first Fast & Fury romance from Fernando (Temper), despite the lackluster nature of the love story itself. After Bronte Pierce loses her job at a private investigation firm, she finds administrative work at Fast & Fury, a custom bike shop owned and operated by the Knights of Fury motorcycle gang. Her new boss, Crow, initially gives her the cold shoulder, but when they run into each other after hours, a night of sexy dancing changes the direction of their relationship. When Bronte's father dies in mysterious circumstances, Crow provides a shoulder for Bronte to lean on as she teams back up with a former colleague to find out what happened to her father, uncovering family secrets along the way. Though the multilayered mystery will hold readers' attention, Bronte and Crow's developing romance is by-the-numbers. Die-hard fans of the good girl/bad boy trope will find plenty to enjoy, but seasoned romance readers will have seen this all before.
Customer Reviews
A suspenseful steamy romance!
Bronte gets laid off from her job and she gets offered a job at a custom motorcycle shop. Her boss (Crow) is a hot tattooed biker ... not her normal type at all. Crow seems to be pleasant to everyone but her, so she just can't understand this attraction she has towards him. When it becomes clear that her life is in danger, Crow steps up to protect her.
This is a suspenseful steamy romance that had me rooting for Bronte and Crow to have a happily-ever-after. The book has a good storyline, but at times I felt that the banter was not realistic ... but the steamy scenes made up for it.
I received an early copy courtesy of Harlequin - Carina Press through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
felt disconnected
CUSTOM BUILT is the first instalment in Chantal Fernando’s contemporary, adult FAST AND FURY erotic, romance series-a spin off from the author’s KNIGHTS OF FURY MC series. This is twenty-four year old, PA Bronte Pierce, and mechanic/Knights of Fury MC member Xeno Crow’s story line. CUSTOM BUILT can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty but I recommend reading TEMPER (Knights of Fury 3) for back story and cohesion.
Told from first person perspective (Bronte) CUSTOM BUILT follows the building relationship between twenty-four year old, PA Bronte Pierce, and mechanic/Knights of Fury MC member Xeno Crow. Bronte Pierce was let go from a job she loved as the assistant to a private investigator. With no other job prospects in sight, she reluctantly tells her father and uncle about her struggles when her uncle comes through with a new source of employment. Enter mechanic/Knights of Fury MC member Xeno Crow, the manager of Fast and Fury Custom Motorcycles. What ensues is the building romance and relationship between Crow and Bronte, and the potential fall-out as the sins of the father demand payment in full.
Bronte Pierce is the only daughter of Freddy Pierce, and as such is the apple of her father’s eye but family secrets run dangerous and deep, and Freddy is about to pay the price for sins of the past. Caught up in the mayhem, Bronte calls in her former boss to start an investigation into the who, how and why, only to discover that her father and uncle’s secrets run much deeper than she could have ever imagined.
The relationship between Bronte and Crow begins acrimoniously as Crow appears to take an immediate disliking to our story line heroine but a night out with friends finds Bronte on the dance floor with Xeno Crow, and all bets are off for the foreseeable future. Crow had struggled to keep his distance from our story line heroine but the heart wanted something more than a working relationship. The $ex scenes are passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
We are reintroduced to several members of the Knight of Fury MC: Temper and Abbie, Skylar and Saint, Renny and Izzy; mechanic and custom motorcycle designer Cameron, as well as Bronte’s father Freddy, and her uncle Neville; Bronte’s friend Billie; her former boss and PI Nadia, Crow’s sister Heidi; Jean and her daughter Anne.
CUSTOM BUILT is a story of family, secrets and sooooo many lies. Bronte Pierce was hit with the reality that everything about her life and the family she knew and loved was predicated upon a lie, and as such she was pulled into the fall-out of her father’s hidden life. The romance is seductive; the characters are colorful; the premise is intriguing but there was something missing. I felt disconnected from the characters; there was no palpable energy even though so many murders, deaths and threats to our story line heroine- it was like everyone was just going through the motions, like a bad B-movie.
As stated in a previous review for the author, I wish the story line was told in dual perspective as we are oblivious to Crow’s whereabouts on many occasions, and the behind the scenes happenings. Our hero would appear and disappear without explanation or reason, and in this I felt there could have been so much more detail to add the world building and the series.