cover image Undaunted

Undaunted

Ronnie Douglas. Morrow, $13.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-238960-2

Douglas (a pseudonym for YA author Melissa Marr) opens her Knights in Black Leather series with this satisfyingly angsty new adult contemporary. Things are going just fine for Aubrey Evans until her father is caught embezzling and her mother leaves him. Aubrey is shuttled off to her grandmother’s home in Williamsville, Tenn., while trying to decide on her next course of action. What this good girl doesn’t expect is that she’ll fall for the town’s resident bad boy: Zion, a member of the Southern Wolves Motorcycle Club and, despite appearances, a kind young man. Relatives and friends discourage them, and then danger looms; Zion and Aubrey pursue a lifelong romance while fearing that their lives may be cut short. Though the pacing is a bit uneven, Douglas’s characters are terrific, riding smoothly over the rough spots. Agency: Writers’s House. (Sept.)