Hot but Psycho - Coffin Nails MC California (Gay M/M Romance Novel)

Sex & Mayhem, Book 5

By: K.A. Merikan

Narrated by: Nathan Kelly

Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Stand-alone long novel - contains a HEA ending.

Live fast. Die young. F--k hard.

Red Jack. Rude. Crude. Horny ginger mess. In love with...himself.

Loki. Deadbeat. Volatile. Stalker. Terminally ill. Fatally in love.

When it comes to men, Red Jack has three rules. The guy has to be hot, out of town, and not up for repeats. It’s a good way to keep the gay flings far away from the eyes of his brothers in the Coffin Nails Motorcycle Club, and he will make damn sure it stays that way. When a hookup takes an ominous turn, and the sexy stranger turns up at his house, the heat is on. Loki invades his life and just won’t leave, wreaking havoc wherever he follows Jack, but getting rid of him becomes harder with every kiss.

The world crumbles around Loki when he finds out he has cancer. As if his life wasn’t shit enough already. With only a few months left, he decides to live to the fullest and get every last wish on his bucket list fulfilled. One of those is fucking the hot bearded biker he meets the same night he got the bad news. Big, confident, and dangerous, Red Jack is all Loki ever wanted in a man. After all, he deserves one last shot at love. Who cares if Red Jack is a stubborn, closeted asshole? Loki knows what he wants, and he won’t settle for anything less. Even if it kills him.

Possible spoilers:

Themes: Outlaw motorcycle club, criminal activity, hurt/comfort, abuse, stalking, revenge, bucket list, coping with illness, first love

Genre: M/M dark romance, suspense, drama

WARNING: Adult content. Steamy scenes, strong language, graphic violence, abuse scenes, drug use. Listener discretion advised.

©2015-2020 K.A. Merikan (P)2020 K.A. Merikan

A dark, gritty and fast paced hurt/comfort!

This was a hot, fast paced hurt/comfort listen.

I absolutely loved Wyatt Baker's performance in this one.
Absolute perfection!

This book is angsty as hell, dark, steamy and will take you on an emotional roller-coaster.

Red Jack and Loki were perfect for eachother. The writing is dark, gritty and compelling.

If you enjoy a steamy opposites attract, hurt/comfort listen this is for you.

good listen

I enjoyed the listen. I had a little trouble feeling a connection to the charters. I loved the storyline just seemed like the charters did not fit their roles(if that makes sense). The story was very long it seemed maybe it did not need to be that long. I have really enjoyed this series. This one was a good listen It just seemed a bit off.

Fun trailer trash!

This book was so stereotypical in every way!!! it’s good for a laugh! That’s about it!

Dark and Twisty Love Story

This couple was literally the most dysfunctional couple of all time. I’ve listened to quite a few of these K.A. Merikan books in this series and read a couple too and though all the couples are a bit messy, these two might take the cake. Jack is a bit of an a-hole and abusive, and Loki is a stalker who tramples over boundaries and has his own abusive streak at times. Still I couldn’t help but love them, sympathize with both of them, and enjoy them together. And their love scenes were scorching, not to mention the emotional intimacy between these two. I did like seeing some of the characters I knew from other books like Sam and Candy, but I found Sam’s insistence for the truth from Jack a bit hypocritical knowing from his book he has a pretty big secret of his own. I thought it might have been a nice scene after Jack confided in him that he shared what no one else but Candy knows, but sadly that didn’t happen. I also thought the doctor who cause so much trouble should have paid monetarily for what he did. Anyways, getting back to the couple at hand, they certainly took a lot of risks with getting revenge but I really enjoyed listening to their love story unfold. Wyatt Baker was perfection as always. This was a fantastic, dark and twisty love story.

Amazing

This book is a lot. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for dark romance beginners? Or you might be scared off. The relationship in this book is not a typical one at all, and the characters have a weird way of showing they love and care about each other that is not healthy. They do come to a realization at one point about their toxic behaviors though.

The reason I decided to give this book 5 stars is because this book COMMITS and stays true to the characters, because it is an unhinged book from beginning to end and I respect the authors decision for going all in and not letting up on that gas pedal at all. This is the last full length m/m book in the Sex and Mayhem series for me, and I’m glad I saved the best for last!

Content notes include dubcon, sexual assault, misogyny, homomisia, stalking, breaking and entering, character lying about another character having HIV to other people, character thinking he’s going to die from cancer, assault, abuse, domestic violence, cop brutality, attempted drowning, car accident, drug use, torture, and murders.

I definitely surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this book. It’s hard to put down a book when you have no idea where it’s going to go. Red Jack is not the easiest character to love. When we meet him at the beginning, he’s abrasive, he’s rude, and he’s extremely homophobic even though he’s into guys and hooks up with them on the regular.

At the beginning of this book, Loki finds out that he has a tumor and thinks he’s going to die soon (more on this later in the review), so he comes up with his bucket list of things he wants to do before he dies - no matter how out of reach or wild it sounds. This perspective puts a new meaning to YOLO in Loki’s life and attitude. I think normally, he wouldn’t be as free to be creepy or ridiculous in his actions if he didn’t think he was dying with only a couple of months to live? Because when he zeros in on Red Jack, it becomes a real stalker situation. One that Red Jack actually isn’t too keen on even though he’s extremely attracted to Loki. Like, he knows what Loki is doing is not okay, yet what he's been doing for awhile now with a woman HE wants to fall in love with him is almost the exact same thing. This gives him a wake up call desperately needed.

One of my favorite (???) moments, because it’s so ridiculous you can only laugh at the absurdity, is when Red Jack is trying to cover up Loki’s sudden presence at the biker club. Loki tells everyone within hearing distance Red Jack is his boyfriend, and, well. This isn’t Detroit, where the VP is openly gay. This is the California chapter and it sends Red Jack into instant panic. He overcompensates to hide his bisexuality by actually being extremely homophobic. It’s terrible on Red Jack’s part, but what makes the moment funny here is that Red Jack goes TOO far and even the Coffin Nails all just turn to look at him like “chill out dude don’t be so rude”. Then they all (mostly) accept Loki’s presence with the coverup story that Loki is Red Jack’s gay cousin who is staying with Red Jack and the only one with a problem with Loki then seemed to be Red Jack. Which leaves Red Jack at a bit of a loss how everything turned out.

There’s a lot of moments like this where something you expect to happen one way goes in the complete opposite direction. It makes the story unpredictable and fun to read, in my opinion.

The hardest part for me about this book is Loki’s diagnosis. If I had been reading the ebook this wouldn’t have been a big deal and I can just look ahead to see if this ended on a HFN and he dies after the book ends or whatever the case may be (which is something I have read in a romance book). I do not read stories where characters are terminally ill anymore, romance or not, if it’s a secondary character or the main. It’s just not my thing anymore. So learning that Loki has a tumor and might only be alive a couple months was a MAJOR hurdle for me in audiobook form? You can’t just glance ahead and KNOW. Ultimately, I will say I like how the authors handled this and how we ended in terms of Loki’s diagnosis, because I certainly never saw it coming and all is fine. *****SPOILER*****Loki is fine. He winds up not actually having a tumor and has something else that is easily fixed with surgery. In short, his boyfriend LIED because he’s AWFUL.

Regarding the audiobook, I found this narration a little weird? Like I know the Sex and Mayhem books were recorded and published out of series order and I hopped around and listened to them in a weird order too. But I just happened to read, like, the first 4 Guns n’ Boys and then books 6 and 9 of Sex & Mayhem before this one? Almost all back-to-back. And I don’t think anyone would necessarily notice if they weren’t listening to Wyatt Baker back-to-back like I did quite so intensely but the narration here is quite harsh sounding compared to the other audiobooks? The voices for Red Jack and Loki is abrasive? His normal narration is fine, it's just the voices he uses for the characters for the other audiobooks were much more smooth and natural sounding to my ears compared to this one. So, it sticks out.

A character I fell in love with in this book who doesn't have his own book yet for some reason is Monster! I thought I shipped him with Lucy (the woman Red Jack was chasing after) but the authors said that his would be a m/m one if they wrote it, so I guess not. It sounds like there's no more updates on that front (because would Monster be a bit like Grim?? in the psychopath way, not the amputation fetish way). I'm crossing my fingers we will eventually get a book about Monster at some point, because I really liked him and would LOVE to see him get his own HEA too! And it would give us a chance to come back to see Red Jack and Loki as well. And, maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't mind a book for Lucy to see her get her HEA too!

As of this book, I will be finished with all the full-length m/m novels in this series so I guess it's time to read the m/f and f/f books the authors wrote that fills in some of the gaps in this series and time to read the latest m/m novella that most recently came out.

Love this series

Each book is so entertaining and graphic. I love K. A. Merikan and Wyatt Baker. well worth the credit and your time to Listen.

Ridiculously romantic in unexpected ways

I was so nervous about this book, but I am so glad I did not let the description worry me too much. What starts off with a crude and almost unlikable character meeting a slightly unhinged character develops into a beautiful and romantic love story that was absolutely worth every moment. I loved the performance and the story and will listen again.

Great addition to this super series

Im not a big MC club fan but I always give K.A. Merikan a chance and I was not disappointed. Great characters and a gripping story

Ok listening

This was good narration but I did expect more from the story but it kind of flopped

hot 🔥

The title says it all Hot story.
the narrative so very good. The story was good also not just all sex.
I love the fact that I felt like I was there following along with what they were going through. a well written book.