About the Book- Under Locke by Mariana Zapata
He was my boss, my brother’s friend, a Widower, an ex-felon, and a man I’d seen casually with a handful of women. But he was everything that gripped me, both the good and the bad. Worst case scenario if things turned awkward between us, I could go somewhere else. I’d gotten over epic heartbreak before, one more wouldn’t kill me.
After moving to Austin following six months of unemployment back home, Iris Taylor knows she should be glad to have landed a job so quickly… even if the business is owned by a member of the same motorcycle club her estranged father used to belong to. Except Dex Locke might just be the biggest jerk she’s ever met. He’s rude, impatient and doesn’t know how to tell time.
And the last thing they ever expected was each other.
But it was either the strip club or the tattoo shop.
… she should have chosen the strip club.
“I’d never been a big fan of that saying, “Everything happens for a reason,” but maybe, sometimes, every once in a while, things coalesced into a complex, intangible reason. With tattoos and piercings and bad words and unfailing loyalty topped with a temper. And in its own imperfect way, it couldn’t have been any better.”
Read on for our review of Under Locke by Mariana Zapata
Our Review of Under Locke by Mariana Zapata
I am a Mariana Zapata fan. I think she has aced the whole slow romance fiction. So I was actually curious to see how she would treat the biker romance in her style. Let’s just say that I am not that curious anymore. Don’t take me wrong, the book isn’t that bad but it’s just that even with slow romance, the things that I usually have issues with alpha male romance are still there in this book but somewhat less intimidating and revolting so yes in that manner I would say this was an ok one but I wouldn’t probably rate this among the top from Zapata Romances.
True to her style, the author takes the romance slowly and sensibly and gives it enough air and water to grow. But yes the characters are questionable and some of the things are hard to digest just like I have encountered in other biker/alpha romances but still, I did actually find the book to be good. I guess this is the only book so far from the author, that I could see some fillers. There were a few chapters in between where some of the events and chapters didn’t particulary make any sense or rather contribute to the story. In fact, some were a bit cringy too. Fortunately this is just a few in occurence.
The plot is ok and pretty predictable but it’s the ambience and the character developments that score in a Mariana Zapata book and you do get to see that in this book too though not as good as her other books. The romance is okay but I felt that I needed a little bit more convincing on the actual chemistry between these two characters because if you look at the bigger picture, the actual interaction between these characters was so minimal and had less scope of igniting a spark. But since we all knew that irrespective of chemistry or not, the couple would fall for each other, I too went with the flow of the book.
Some of the aspects of the plot were still uncooked because I felt a lot of them had been left unexplored or were too quickly dealt with. The whole biker gang dynamics were good and at times the book did behave as if we were aware of these biker families and their backgrounds because it tended to overlook and explain certain backstories where it was needed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would say that despite my review sounding more like a rant, the book is good. It’s a cliche biker romance but set in a slow-cooking fire. So you get all the alpha male heroism and cloth tearing and wall banging but after taking a while. I did like the book but it is not my favourite of Zapata books as I feel there were a lot of things that needed more attention and explanation.
Squirrel Rating
