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    Caine's Reckoning
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    Caine's Reckoning
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    Caine's Reckoning
    Ebook493 pages7 hours

    Caine's Reckoning

    By Sarah McCarty

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook



    Caine Allen is definitely not the marrying kind. But when he rescues a kidnapped woman and returns her to town, his honor and his desire for Desi won't allow him to let her go.

    From the moment he beds Desi, Caine knows turmoil will follow. Desi might have the face of a temptress, but she also has a will of iron. And while she needs his protection, she's determined that no man will control her again. They establish an uneasy bond, but it isn't enough for Caine. All he wants is to keep her in his bed. But with a bounty still on her head, first he must keep her alive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarlequin HQN
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781426879098
    Unavailable
    Caine's Reckoning
    Author

    Sarah McCarty

    Before becoming a full-time writer, Sarah McCarty traveled extensively. She would bring a pencil and paper with her to sketch out her stories and, in the process, discovered the joy of writing. Today, Sarah is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the award-winning Hell’s Eight series, and is best known for her historical and paranormal romance novels. You can contact Sarah through her website at www.SarahMcCarty.net.

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    Reviews for Caine's Reckoning

    4/5

    159 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      So wonderfully romantic and sensual. I absolutely LOVED this book!
    • 3/5
      I don't know what it is, but the last several books that have come highly recommended to me have been rather disappointing. Caine's Reckoning isn't an exception, unfortunately.So the basic premise sounded okay to me - Caine Allen, Texas Ranger, saves Desi, who was held at the mercy of several "men" who raped and abused her for a year. Caine has to marry Desi for Reasons, and then they fall in love. Pretty typical romance novel fare, but not necessarily BAD.Except I didn't really get into the book. I finished it quickly, true, but that was mostly because I skimmed over the sex scenes. And there are a LOT of sex scenes. Not that I have anything against sex scenes, mind you, but straight alpha male sex just does nothing for me. I can't fault the book for having those scenes in it, because I knew what I was getting into, but...yeah, definitely impacted my enjoyment of the book.Besides the sex, there just didn't seem to be that much of a relationship between Desi and Caine. Nearly all of their interactions centered around sex. And then there's the whole "Desi is a rape victim and Caine, the 'hero,' keeps trying to force her into having sex" thing that I just can't even. I really blocked it out my mind for most of those scenes because I couldn't have finished the story if I really thought about it. I don't know, I guess that I was expecting more from a book that was so highly rated.And then the ending! Argh!!! To wrap up all of the loose ends, instead of showing how they figured out who the "bad guy" was, the author just has Desi write a letter to her still-missing sister explaining who it is and giving out a name that we, the readers, have never heard before. Not cool!I am interested, however, in reading Tracker's book, which is the fourth in the series, so damn it, I'll have to read the next two books before I get to his. ;D
    • 5/5
      A really good book. The story was solid. The characters were great. The sex was hot. I love the way this author writes, detailed and expressive, and it never got boring.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! This was very much a serious relationship building story about an abused woman brought back to life with the help of a good man. There's lot of steamy romancing and interesting dialogue between the two characters. There are a lot of other characters in the book that we get glimpses of but not enough to detract from the storyline or to force us to remember everybody. However, you get a good feel about the upcoming books which I'm dying to read now! I really liked both of the characters in this story and couldn't help but fall in love with Caine. I also liked that the heroine, although abused as she was, had a lot of spunk and stood up for herself.
    • 4/5
      This was a pretty good book,I sometimes had trouble following certain scenes, but for a book I read while traveling it fit the bill.
    • 1/5
      I was sucked in by the hot cover, but this story was so horrible and bothered me so much I had to add my review. The premise of this story is so hard to swallow. It uses so many old fashioned female cliches that it sucks the life out of the story- our heroine's feminine power and sexuality is contained in her long hair that men just can't resist(really, please.); and somehow the feminine way in which she swallows her tea is just so erotic that Caine can't resist her (innocent virgin in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom, argh-enough already). Finally, I am a fan of erotic fiction, but I'm so mad to be blind-sided with the sexual relationship of the leads to be tied up in her continual rape by the villains and the hero. Our heroine has been held captive and raped for over a year and our hero marries her to save her from further rape by the villains and then he forces a sexual relationship on her to build trust in him in the first two days of meeting. Somehow, forcing her to have sex to build trust is supposed to also reinvent her as a caring wife and erase her horrible past. I'm absolutely disgusted by this story, and I can't believe a whole series was built off it
    • 3/5
      Romance is not my genre. That said, I love cowboys. I also love how the Hell's Eight series, while heavily focused on the romance, does not let that be the only driving force behind the plotline. Caine's Reckoning is the opening to an engaging mystery, with interesting characters and a fascinating journey through history. It certainly helps that all the boys of Hell's Eight are sexy gun-slingers with a dark side. The heroines of Hell's Eight, Desi especially, are not the simpering, eyelash-batting girls that have turned me off of the this genre. They are strong, independent, and opinionated, something I believe most modern women can relate to. The rest of the series explores this quite a bit more than Caine's Reckoning, with tends to stick with a few stereotypes character-wise.Worth a read - I'm still having trouble putting it down, and I reread it often!
    • 5/5
      In my opinion, many erotic romances have a tendency to suffer from an overabundance of sex and underdevelopment of plot. Fortunately, Caine's Reckoning has no such issues. It has an interesting and engrossing storyline while still maintaining the steamy sexuality that tends to mark erotic romances. The overarching plot of the series, that of eight mostly unrelated but sexy alpha men who have banded together as a “family” to fight evil and injustice, reminds me in some ways of J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Although I have to say that since one features sexy cowboys in the old west and the other sexy vampires in a contemporary urban setting, the similarities for the most part, end there. The individual premise of Caine's Reckoning was interesting as well. Between the heart-stopping romance, Desi's struggles to overcome her past, some wild west action, and a light mystery surrounding one of Desi's abusers and his motives, I had a hard time putting the book down. After reading several reviews for this book, I was expecting it to be very violent. While there were a couple of shoot-outs and one short 2 ½- page nightmare sequence that contained an explicit sexual assault, I found that most of the violence was left to the reader's imagination, and wasn't much worse than many other books I've read. That's not to say that it would be easy for everyone to read, and for this reason, I would caution sensitive readers about the content. I think that it simply didn't bother me as much, because in my opinion, the author didn't delve quite as deep into the emotional fall-out to Desi's psyche as some other authors with similar characters have done, and Desi was a very strong heroine as well.I thought that Desi was an admirable heroine, a young woman who had suffered unthinkable abuse, and yet had never truly allowed herself to become a victim. When the story opens with her courageously fighting her captors like a hellcat while the other women sat passively by, I immediately liked her. Later when she showed tremendous vulnerability, it only endeared her to me further, as did her ability to frequently blush in spite of her “experience.” I also found her to be relatable as a young woman who had been raised as a prim, proper lady, but who always felt a burning passion inside trying to surface. It wasn't until she started stubbornly holding herself at arms length from Caine's gentle, loving overtures, that I had a bit harder time with her character, but ultimately, her actions were understandable in light of her past. Some stubborn heroines can tend to annoy me, but that wasn't really the case with Desi. I think I just spent most of that part of the story worried that her willfulness would cause her to do something really stupid, but when she exhibited intelligence and ingenuity in the end, she truly earned my respect. I also thought that when Desi was finally able to fully let herself go and surrender to Caine, trusting him completely, their resulting lovemaking was both darkly passionate and thoroughly beautiful and romantic, a heady combination indeed.Caine was an incredibly appealing hero. Having lost his family at a young age, like all of the Hell's Eight men, he has a dark tortured past too, but it wasn't explored in as much detail as I would have liked. I suppose that is understandable though, as there shouldn't be too much darkness in one novel, or it would become depressing. Actually, I thought that Caine had a wry and sometime self-deprecating sense of humor which I enjoyed, and which also helped to lighten things up a bit here and there. He is a very dominating alpha male, but he has a heart of gold and isn't afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve when it comes to Desi. He also pampers her in the most thoroughly romantic ways, and has some of the most swoon-worthy lines I think I have ever read in a romance novel. I absolutely loved the way that he is completely committed to their marriage and being faithful to Desi right from the start, even though he had no intentions of getting married anytime soon and basically only agreed to it out of a sense of honor and duty. Even though Caine's every instinct is to dominate, he puts his own needs on hold and shows Desi an unbelievable amount of patience. I liked that Caine was very intelligent and intuitive when it came to Desi's needs. Time and time again, Caine proves that he is an honorable man who can be trusted with anything and who is the epitome of a true gentleman, a diamond in the rough. Even though I'm raving about him, Caine did have a few impatient moments when he allowed his desires to get the best of him, but I was still able to admire him because he immediately recognized his mistakes and admitted he was wrong. All in all, I thought he did pretty well for a guy in the old west who didn't have access to a psychotherapist for his wife.;-) Caine is definitely a hero I'll remember for a long time to come.Though Caine's Reckoning was good enough to earn a place on my keeper shelf, it wasn't quite perfect. There were several scenes, a few of the love scenes in particular, that I thought were a little too verbose. I'm all for whispering sweet nothings during lovemaking, but sometimes it seemed like they were carrying on an entire conversation. In my opinion, it made these scenes feel rather forced, like the author was trying too hard to convince me of the character's passion and feelings instead of showing me. I think a few more descriptive details and a little less chattiness in these scenes would have made them flow a bit more naturally. There were also several scenes involving dialog, especially among multiple characters, where I had a difficult time determining who was speaking. Going back and reading the passages a second time usually cleared things up, but having to do this multiple times throughout the book was rather distracting. I would have to say that Desi's ability to overcome her past, not only the abuse but the sexually repressive atmosphere in which she was raised, was a little too quick, taking mere weeks instead of the months or even years that any real woman would have likely needed. However, since this is fiction and it was good otherwise, I can allow for a little creative license. I was also a little disappointed that the mystery surrounding the ringleader of Desi's captors was not fully resolved nor justice fully exacted, but I think this was meant to be something of a cliffhanger ending that is going to carry over into a future book or books. Overall, though this was a very good novel that I would definitely recommend.Caine's Reckoning is the first book in the Hell's Eight series. It introduces the eight members of the group, some with brief background information and some only by name, but one, Sam, is given a slightly more detailed background and more scenes. He becomes the hero of the next book in the series, Sam's Creed. The third book, Tucker's Claim, is due out next spring with another, currently untitled, volume to follow by the end of 2009. Though she is not directly on the canvas in Caine's Reckoning, Desi's twin sister, Ari, is mentioned and does play a part in the mystery that was left unresolved. I suspect that she may become the heroine of a future book, possibly paired with Tracker, since he was the first to volunteer to search for her. Unfortunately, if my assumption is correct, it could be a while before readers get to experience their story. Caine's Reckoning was my first read by Sarah McCarty, but I am really looking forward to continuing the Hell's Eight series and checking out the other books that she has written too.Note: This book contains explicit language, violence (as mentioned in my review), and sexual situations, including mild domination/submission, spanking and anal sex, which some readers may find offensive. However, considering the subject matter, everything was handled very tastefully in my opinion.
    • 5/5
      "She'd rather be nibbled to death by ducks". HAHAHA best line outta the whole book. This book has a lot of information in it setting the platform so to speak for future books in the series. I love the men of Hell's Eight and Caine sets a wonderful example of what's to come with the rest of Hell's Eight men. Desi has lived through a nightmare existence I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. She is a spitfire and doesn't know the word quit which is admirable and entertaining. I love the part when she sleep walks into the study where Caine is talking with some of the other men and climbs into Caine's lap and snuggles him clinging to his neck and sighs "safe" into his chest. Had to laugh at the "Demon Rooster, Cantankerous". She's appalled that they use relations with a corn husk filled fake chicken to distract him while she gathers eggs but comes to realize it is what it is. We learn about Ari, Desi's twin sister who is still missing presumed to be suffering unimaginable horrors if even alive. Tracker promises Desi he wil find her and bring her to Hell's Eight one way or another. Great start to a great series!
    • 5/5
      This book it alitte harder to write a review on then others. We meet Desi as Caine and the Hell's Eight Rangers are tracking her kidnappers across the Texas plains. Desi is a hell cat in her defiance of her captures. It is for that reason that she catches the eye of Caine. The other women kidnapped will have nothing to do with her, which adds to Caine's sense of protect over Desi. As her past comes out Desi has been treated horribly in the hands of men. This is were some of the book annoyed me slightly. Caine is your typically alpha dominate male character. But at times to me he almost came off as cold. He could have been more understanding. But of course they work it out. Over all I loved the book. It made you cry, was hot and steamy and all the characters of Hell's Eight Ranch are equally interesting. I will be reading the next books. Can't wait to see what she develops with Tracker and his brother.
    • 2/5
      Well let me start off by saying I totally understand why this book is all over the map when it comes to reviews. My emotions did a rollercoaster ride throughout the whole book. I want to add here that I was glad I chose the ride but can't say I enjoyed the whole thing. :DWe have the classic "abused by men in the Wild West" heroine that is rescued by the "alpha tough cowboy" of the Wild West. In this case the abused heroine has been severely used by some high dollar citizens. The hero rushes in with his high libido and dominating personality. This was where I got a bit mad. I felt he should have been a bit more sensitive to what she had been through from before. I was turned way off by a few of the earlier scenes. She became a Barbiedoll to me. I did keep on reading despite my instincts to quit at this point. I was glad I did. The sex scenes were very sensual and hot!!!I won't go on besides this point to ruin it for everyone else but this book will be a test for some.
    • 4/5
      Sarah McCarty writes hot, hot books. There's not much plot or even sense to them, but there's loads of sexual tension and a sweet sense of burgeoning trust and relationship building, making this a romance with intense sex scenes rather than just straight porn. In this book Caine rescues Desi after a botched kidnapping and then marries her. She was abused for a year and has trust issues, but they work them out. It appears to be the first of the Hell's Eight books - at least there were no other wives around!
    • 5/5
      Caine is straight up Alpha!! Loved his story, it was a great beginning to an awesome series!