Hell on Wheels

Black Knights Inc., Book 1

By: Julie Ann Walker

Narrated by: Abby Craden

Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Black Knights Inc. - Behind the facade of their tricked-out motorcycle shop is an elite special ops team assigned the jobs too hot for anyone else to handle.

Ex-Marine Nate "Ghost" Weller is an expert at keeping his cool - and his distance - which makes him one hell of a sniper. It's also how he keeps his feelings for Ali Morgan in check. Sweet, sexy Ali has always revved his engine, but she's his best friend's baby sister ... and totally off limits.

Ali's never seen anything sexier than Nate Weller straddling his custom Harley - or the flash of danger in his eyes when she tells him she's in trouble. First, something happened to her brother, and now she's become the target of a nasty international organization. With Nate, her life is in the most capable hands possible - but her heart is another story altogether.

©2012 Julie Ann Walker (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"In her riveting debut, Walker delivers a mystery laced with red-hot romance." ( Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Don't judge a Book by its cover.

Funny, fast read. Awful book cover. Glad I saw it afterwards. Loved all the characters.

The narration is just iffy, but the story rocks.

I loved the story! What a great start to a series. Meeting all the characters made me want their stories now! I liked Ali, and Ghost immediately, and the story went up and down and tugged at the heartstrings. It also had funny and sarcastic moments I really adored. I can't wait to hit book 2, which I will shortly. :)

As for the narration, I didn't like her male voices at all. It didn't exactly ruin the book for me, but I have to admit it was close. I liked the female voices and the narration, as well as the story, but it had to be something I let go of being bothered by, or I wouldn't have finished the book, and that would've been a disservice, because it was great. I don't ever wish there's a different narrator for subsequent books, but I wish for it this time. The males voices were awful.

Great book

My friend has been after me for also most a year to read this book I love it

Narrator is toxic to the book.

This book would have been higher rated if not for the narrator. She was a good narrator except for one thing. All her male voices sounded like McGruff the Crime Dog. Very hard to get into a sex scene with that ridiculous voice of the hero. At times I considered quitting and asking for my credit back from Audible because it was so distractingly ridiculous. I continued on, however, because the story was pretty good. No more books will be purchased with this narrator by me, however.

Poor narration - Story ok

The story line was ok, but I would much prefer the 'angst' to end sooner so the story can move along.

I have come to the conclusion that there should be two narrators in an audio book - male and female. Nate sounds like he is 5 ft tall and weighs 100#, with a very sore throat. It really takes away from the story. Allie's voice is too childish.

There were parts where I was laughing out loud - I like it when the author feels it is ok to put humor into a story when the main theme is romance/thriller. After all, life is not all one or the other.

I will probably purchase the next book. I really hope the angst has calmed down and will not be the predominate theme in all the books to come, but from the ending in this book, I am thinking book two will have a great deal of self-doubt (I love him/her but he/she hates me). Hopefully it won't be drawn out like this story was.

I hope there will either be a different narrator, or this narrator will adjust the voices.

narrator wasn't right for this book

Very Disappointed. This one was just meh!
This one was kind of boring to listen to. She was a great narrator for the House of Commare series by Kristin Painter. Her male voices in this book were awful. i have book 2 and I think I will read the ebook instead of listening to it.

It started with Ali Morgan being mugged and followed by someone. She turned to Nate “Ghost” Weller and the Black Knights Inc, her late brother's co-workers. Ali had a suspicion that whomever was after her had something to do with her brother's death and the Black Knights were the best equipped people to protect her.
Black Knights was a covert military ops team posing as a motorcycle club. They do jobs that the CIA or military wanted plausible deniability on.

Of course, Ali has had a crush on Ghost for ever but he always kept her at arms length. Well, except for that one time on the beach (a phrase repeated over and over and over again till I thought I would just scream), Ghost had tasted of her nectar but since then he barely acknowledges her existence. Very cliche stuff because it was quite clear Ghost was nursing a similar crush on his best friends little sister.

Anyway, Ali was in possession of some files that her brother sent her before his last special ops job where he was killed. And someone was willing to kill in order to get those files back from Ali. What was on it? Who in the government was conspiring with the enemy? Nate was going to find out before they got to his Ali.

I listened to it and I am cringing because I bought books 1-4 on both audio and e-books. I will try book 2 before I give up, but the writing was very average, the story has been done and done much better than this. I didn't really feel the connection between Ali and Nate.

Recommended

Excellent. Great storyline. Enough twists to make it interesting. Overall good characterization. I only had insignificant issue, although the female lead was strong in some things (being able to shot and wanting to face things head on) in many ways she was so wimpy, crying and throwing up all the time. It just got annoying after awhile.

Great story

This one had me on the edge of my seat from the very first. The characters were beautifully flawed, and I love that in a book.

The narrator kills it for me

I love this series. I have read it many times. I was thrilled when I ran across it on audio. However, the narrator…just NO! She cannot do a man’s voice, at all. There is nothing sexy or appealing to Ghost’s or any of the guys voices. I had plans on getting the whole series on audio, but unless the narrator changes, I won’t bother.

Needs different narrator

Liked the story, but the narrator drove me crazy! Characters were either talking thru their noses or sounding like grizzly bears. Not sure I can listen to the next one.