Devil's Cut

The Devil’s Cut by J.R. Ward is a 2017 Ballantine publication.

A fantastic conclusion to the Bourbon Kings series-

I have loved, loved, loved this trilogy! The series was inspired by the author’s love for those scandalously delicious nighttime soap operas like ‘Dynasty’.

This trilogy has been like a guilty pleasure, totally sudsy, very dramatic, and wildly entertaining. I loved the family saga which is centered around the Bradford's, an uber wealthy Kentucky family who made their fortune with their own brand of Bourbon.

This last installment finds Edward, the eldest son, sitting in jail after having confessed to murdering his father. Facing a long prison sentence, Edward will have to put aside any chance he may have had with show more Sutton, who is the CEO of his family’s strongest competitor.

Meanwhile, Lane has taken over the family business, struggling to find a way to keep the company alive after his father’s death.

And then there is Gin- trapped in a cruel marriage, believing money defines her, who has lost, once and for all, the love of her life- Samuel T., but, is secretly working to leave a legacy for her daughter and is finally ready to step up and do what is right.

I could have handled a few more chapters in this series, but if it had to end, this was the perfect way to tie everything up.

I cheered for those who finally broke through, cried over inevitable developments, and sighed over those wonderfully tender moments between lovers and family.

I have enjoyed all the juicy scandals, the biting dialogue and watching from the sidelines while this crazy mess of a family rose to the occasion, showing true grit and determination and proving they had more substance than what you might see on the surface, and that with or without money, this family is loyal despite the obstacles in their way.

There are still many dark secrets and shocking revelations to uncover in this installment and of course it's not short on drama!! The author did an amazing job of wrapping everything up, giving each character a chance to make their own way on their own terms.

At the end of the day, this series has been about family, about facing adversity, about making sacrifices for those you love, and how evil and malice is no match for true love!!

The Bradford’s will land on their feet and will be stronger than ever before!!

Overall, this is a rousing and inspirational conclusion to this amazing family saga!! Bravo, J.R. Ward, Bravo!!

4.5 stars show less

Devil’s Cut is the final book in J. R. Ward’s Bourbon Kings series. Even though they’re highly dysfunctional, I’ve loved reading about the Baldwine family and all of their trials and travails from the beginning. Where some readers saw nothing but a spoiled rich family, I saw four siblings who were emotionally wounded on a deep level and torn apart by their father’s terrible abuse. I also saw a family in shreds from everything he’d done and their fortunes in question as his death revealed the true extent of his greed and misdeeds. As this story opens, we see that none of the Baldwine siblings – neither Edward, Lane, Max, nor Gin – really care one whit that their father, William, is dead. Quite to the contrary, they’re show more glad that he’s gone, and I can’t blame them. But with his death, they’ve discovered just how bad of a businessman he was. He embezzled money from both private family trusts and the family owned Bradford Bourbon Company to invest in a string of fake or failed businesses, leaving the family legacy on the verge of bankruptcy, with creditors practically knocking down their doors to get repaid, when they don’t have the liquidity to do so. This leaves them in a very precarious financial position. On top of that, the four siblings have basically scattered to the four winds, each nursing their own wounds from William's mistreatment. By the end of the previous book, it was also revealed that William's death was indeed murder, one which Edward confessed to. Devil’s Cut didn’t end up being quite the mystery I was expecting, though. Instead, it’s about the family pulling together in the wake of their father’s destruction. And perhaps more importantly it’s also about them finding reconciliation in a number of different ways that left me with a warm, content feeling in the end.

As the youngest of the three brothers, Lane never thought he would ever find himself in charge of BBC if and when his father passed away. As the oldest, it was always expected that Edward would take up that mantle, but circumstances changed it all in a heartbeat. Lane is not the businessman that Edward is, so from the start, he’s been having a hard time of it, not only because his skills aren’t as good, but also because of the mess William left him to clean up. With the help of his best friend, Jeff, an investment banker, he’s been slowly making sense of the company books and trying to keep the BBC solvent. On top of that, he’s been doing his best to try to hold the family together, and that’s a big job indeed. Luckily he has the love of his life, Lizzie, to help him out. They reunited in the first book of the series, and she’s been his rock throughout all the problems that have come their way. Even though there have been a few bumps along the road, each book has taken them to the next step of their relationship, which I’ve very much enjoyed. Lane and Lizzie have been the core couple around which the rest of the characters and the plot revolve, and they’re very well-suited to that role.

Edward is the oldest and he has always looked out for his younger siblings. Even when they were just children, he often took the severe punishments meted out by his father to save one of the others. That’s why I never truly believed that he was guilty when he confessed to his father’s murder at the end of the previous book. I couldn’t have blamed him if he had been the perpetrator, though, because William treated Edward abominably, even trying to have him killed at one point. As a result, Edward spent weeks in a South American jungle being tortured, and he’s never been the same since. Broken in both body and spirit, he retreated to his horse breeding farm, The Red & Black, avoiding everyone and drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a bottle. However, he’s always been in love with Sutton, who is the daughter of BBC’s chief competitor and now that her father is disabled, she has become the CEO of their company. Luckily for Edward, his feelings are reciprocated, but before turning himself in to the police, he broke off the relationship of a sort that they’d begun. I’ve always loved Edward for his selflessness, and I also love Sutton for loving him in spite of everything. If anyone in the series deserved an HEA, it was these two.

Gin is the youngest Baldwine, who started the series more worried about where she was going to get the money to continue living in the manner in which she was accustomed, than about anything that was going on with the family or the company. She also has a teenage daughter, Amelia, to whom she gave birth when she was just a teenager herself and whom she’s largely ignored for most of the girl’s life. Gin has basically had a habit of making one bad decision after another, perhaps the worst of which was marrying a man for money who ended up abusing her. It was also pretty crappy of her to not tell the man who fathered her child that he had a daughter. However, William’s death and the subsequent problems that arose from that event have slowly been making an impact on Gin, causing her to turn her life around. The love of her life has always been Samuel T., who is also Amelia’s father. Samuel T. is a brilliant attorney and a playboy who tries to self-medicate with tons of booze and women even though Gin is the one who he’s never been able to get out of his system. Throughout the years, these two have shared a highly dysfunctional, tit-for-tat relationship, where they sometimes sleep together but always end up hurting each other. Underneath all the anger and bad feelings, though, it’s obvious that there’s no one else in the world who completes these two except each other. Out of anyone in the series, I think Gin and Samuel T. showed the most growth. In this book, they really impressed me by finally maturing into the responsible adults they always should have been.

Last but not least, middle brother, Max, was absent throughout the first book with no one really knowing where he was for the past few years. He returned to the family estate of Easterly but was still barely seen in the second book. Now in this final book, he gets a few of his own POV scenes, and what we find is a man who’s hurting just as much as his siblings, but who has tried to run away from his problems instead of facing them. Right before he left Easterly, Max overheard his parents arguing and discovered a dirty little family secret, and that’s why he left. He finally returned, feeling that now that his father is gone, he has a responsibility to tell the truth, but he doesn’t plan on staying. The one person who might change his mind, however, is Tanesha, the woman who got away. Tanesha is the daughter of Miss Aurora's (the woman who essentially raised all the Baldwine siblings) minister and is a resident doctor at the local hospital. She and Max shared some sexy times before Max left town, and both of them are obviously still very attracted to one another. Although I didn’t really get to truly meet Max until this book, I got just enough insights into his character to like what I saw and believe that he deserved an HEA too. Anyone who loves bad boys on Harleys should love Max. That coupled with his extraordinary singing ability and the fact that he dared to engage in an interracial relationship made him all the more appealing. I almost wish we could have gotten an even closer look at this couple, but I’m happy knowing that they’re in a good place by the end of the story.

All of the secondary players who were seen in the previous books return. Jeff is still the acting CEO of the BBC and continues to do his best to help Lane out of a very sticky situation. Mack, Lane’s friend and the company’s master distiller, finally reveals that he’s found a new strain of yeast that could be worth millions, but he might have to give it all up to save the company. Shelby, Edward’s friend and employee, never loses faith in his innocence and is instrumental in bringing the truth to light. Greta, Lizzie’s friend who used to help with the landscaping but is now working as the estate’s new controller, helps sort out the books. Gary, the head grounds keeper at the estate has a big secret. Little V. E., the Baldwine siblings mother, actually seems to be doing a little better now that her abusive husband is gone. Although she’s still suffering from dementia, she’s seen wandering around the estate a few times, which leads to a surprising reveal. The villains, Gin’s abusive husband, Richard, and Lane’s soon-to-be ex-wife, Chantal, also get their comeuppances, which made me quite happy. Finally was Miss Aurora, the family’s cook and the woman Lane calls his real momma. She’s been suffering from terminal cancer throughout the series and in this one is on her death bed, not even conscious most of the time. She’s always been a driving force in the Baldwine’s lives, loving them and being their conscience. I think she can now look down from heaven and say that the sacrifices she made paved the way for the family’s reconciliation.

While Devil’s Cut perhaps wasn’t quite what I was expecting it to be, I very much enjoyed it nonetheless. There are a couple of shocking revelations that very much took me by surprise. In fact, once William's killer is finally revealed for certain, I initially thought it wasn’t real and that the person had other motives for confessing. On the one hand it seemed a little out of character, but on the other, it made perfect sense. I know I’m not being very clear here, but I can’t say much more without giving away spoilers. In any case, it leads to a very satisfying ending. The main reason I read romance is for the HEAs. Nothing makes me happier than getting that wonderful happy ending for the main couple. Well, I got that and more here. After everything William put them through, no one deserved their HEAs more than this family, and nothing could have been sweeter than seeing each and every one of them, even a couple of supporting players, happy and on the road to a brighter future, not only in their personal lives but also as a family unit and in their business dealings. That made Devil’s Cut a lovely and very welcome wrap-up to this family saga that left me with warm fuzzies all over. show less

0 Stars
I'm very familiar with J.R. Ward's melodramatic writing style and her vivid heroines and heroes. I usually love her novels but she really falls short in this series. The only novel in the series that was truly entertaining was the first novel . After reading The Angel's Share I didn't have very high expectations for The Devil's Cut but it was worse than I thought. The best thing about Ward's writing style is her character development. Normally by the time I finish one of her novels I feel as if though the character's could just jump of the page. Quite a few of the character's pivotal to the overall story remain undeveloped; the gardener, Jeff the financial college buddy, the third brother Max, Edwin Macklin, Amelia, and Miss show more Aurora. In addition some of the previously developed characters such as Edward , Sutton , and Shelby are now ignored. A disproportionate amount of page space is given over to Lizzie and Lane. Unfortunately for me these were two less interesting characters.
The plot is neatly wrapped up, too neatly. Plot devices and details, come out of nowhere. Few of the characters have to work to change personality pitfalls, and nobody uses any intuition or deductive reasoning to figure out anything. For example the murder weapon is conveniently found hidden someplace a ten year old would find it. Also there is no reason given for the murderer not disposing of the weapon in the very conveniently placed river. Another example is the way the family extricated themselves from their financial difficulties. Without giving anything away it's akin to finding a winning lottery ticket in an unused jacket pocket. Characters resolve years long conflicts in the blink of an eye , and suffer no real consequences for questionable actions. I understand that the tone of the book is supposed to be over the top romantic but this goes beyond romantic fantasy into pure unbelievable fantasy.
P.S. I actually found myself speed reading just to get to the end quicker, so I could be done with it. show less

Devil’s Cut
The Bourbon Kings, Book 3

I Picked Up This Book Because: The conclusion to a delicious trilogy.

The Characters:

The Bradford/Baldwine Family:
Assorted significant others and family friends:

The Story:

So many things happened in this book I’m not sure how to sum it all up. Here’s a random list: Miss Aurora dies, Lane and Lizzie get pregnant, Amelia find out who her father is, Edward is released from jail and reconciles with Sutton, the real killer confesses, Gen and Sam T reconcile, we find out Edward is not William’s son, we find out who Edward’s father really is. Edward makes a connection with said new father, Max returns home, the Bradford Bourbon Company is saved. I’m sure there is much more but that’s all I show more have off the top of my head.

It was all written beautifully and performed masterfully. I laughed out loud. I cried actual tears. I was often in a state of shock. I was late to work a lot because I was sucked into this world. I’m so very sad to see this trilogy end. I want to see what is a head for this troubled family. I want to keep riding their ride.

The Random Thoughts:



4.5 Stars show less

Ward's southern soap opera gets a proper wrap up of all story threads from books one and two. As a child of the 80's, this trilogy is reminiscent of that eras Dallas and Dynasty. It is a fun ride and perfect for anyone wanting a summer read with a bit of heart and ALOT of Bourbon! 🥃

This review may contain spoilers, so fair warning, upon reading the review. Also my tags may have spoilers in them so be forewarned before checking out full review.

Book Evaluation:
Plot: 🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️
World Building:🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎
Cover:📔📔📔📔📔
Hero: 🦸🏻🦸🏻🦸🏻🦸🏻
Heroine:🦸🏻‍♀️🦸🏻‍♀️🦸🏻‍♀️🦸🏻‍♀️
Intimacy Level: 🔥🔥🔥
Relationship Building: 💒💒💒💒
Heart & Feels:💞💞💞
Witty/Banter/Reaction of Laughter: 😂😂😂😂
Page Turner Level:📖📖📖📖
Narration:🎧🎧🎧🎧
Ending:🧧🧧🧧🧧🧧
Overall View: ✨✨✨✨

First Impressions
This finale continues the epic saga involving this family here. I was really show more excited to get to the finale of this dramatic trilogy by this author. I also was so ready for their HEA because this family has just gone through it in the worst of ways. We see many of the plot threads get resolved and seeing how it all comes together and the true climax of what has been building plot wise in the previous books. We have multiple plot lines for each couple. Lane and Lizzie is what I cared about the most. But these relationship threads might not be enough for everyone. It is obvious the focus of this series is the actual plot and world building and not the individual couple pairings and their individual journeys that they have.

First Line
There was someone trespassing down in the garden.

Summary
This installment features seeing the resolvement of saving the company and family business. We see the romantic threads with the other siblings have a bit more focus. Edward has been arrested for the murder of their father. Their true maternal mother, who raised them and loved them where their parents couldn’t, is suffering from cancer. And Lane is the brother that is trying to keep his family all together while also making sure that no harms comes to any of them.

What I Loved
The relationship between Lane and Lizzie was just fabulous. I wasn’t sure why Lizzie didn’t feel like she could be honest with Lane and I do wish he had known the truth of how long she kept a certain secret from him. Like she was afraid that he wouldn’t be happy when he was furious and hurt when his ex aborted his child. There is great focus on the beauty of life and the sacrifice and love that comes with valuing life over convenience. We see the true mystery who killed the father and yeah I didn’t see it coming actually. I loved how its revealed and resolved in the end. I did like seeing their birth mother find some love of her own and get some peace that she deserves. Then we have Gin and her issues getting resolved. She was such a drama queen but she really made a good redemption arc in this book especially. I really felt that change and seeing her grow in this book and I really appreciated that. The ending was fairly satisfying for the most part.

What I Struggled With
There were a few things. I felt like the actual romance in this series took a back seat and to be honest there was so much potential to focus so much more on the love stories. You could really stand by the relationship but it needed more emotion and focus. The author could have easily written more to extend that. I did feel like the one sibling we hardly see needed more attention. I barely felt anything for him and felt he would have made for great character redemption. I do think some of the plot lines with the father still remain unsolved. I would have liked to have more answers than what we received on it.

Narration
I like the narration for the male POV’s ….however the women’s tones in this narration are not good at all. I almost wished I had decided to read it physically just because not all tones of voices were done well. The women just sounded like crabby old ladies or mean girls lol It just made it more challenging to enjoy the story and series overall. I think if this had been done better or there had been a full cast for this book, it would have been way more enjoyable. These would make for great graphic audios though.

Overall View
Devil’s Cut is the finale in the Bourbon Kings series. It’s an installment that really brings together well crafted details, vibrant colors and emotion and some swoons to carry you through. I highly recommend if you love this author, soap opera’s or some sassy romances set in the south with a mystery to solve along the way….

Book Details (also in my shelves)
Sub Genre: Contemporary Mystery Romance
Character Types: Abused, Tortured Hero
Themes: Heart/Emotionally Touching, Family Saga, Soap Opera
Tropes: Accidental Pregnancy, Secret Baby, Forbidden, Second Chance

Book Perspective
3rd POV

Relationship Conflict vs Plot Conflict
Both

If you like these authors, I recommend This Book
Nora Roberts
Danielle Steel
Rebecca Zanetti

Recommendation For Reading Order
Yes--Its a series you MUST read in order.

Steam/Spice Explanations

Warmin' by the fire- a medium level of sexual tension, a balance of sexual and emotional intimacy, lighter on the details in the sexual moments.

Narrators:
Alexander Cendese show less

A somewhat predictable, maybe a little too neat, conclusion to this trilogy about a wealthy family in the Bourbon business in Kentucky. Still, a satisfying wrap up to this fun soap opera-ish story.