Review: The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward

The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: NAL
Date: July 28, 2015

Lane Bradford grew up in a family that makes the sweeping sagas of oil barons from Dallas look like redneck reality television. Miles upon miles of country estate and horse farms and distilleries make up the holdings of the Bradford family, but the cornerstone of their wealth is based firmly in the Bourbon they create. Only the best comprises the Bradford family Bourbon and everyone knows it. Lane was never meant to be anything more than a spoiled rotten rich kid that didn’t have to take over the family business. Firmly settled in the middle of the pack, he knew that his older brother Edward was the responsible one. You see, Lane only cares about one thing; the lead horticulturist from his family’s estate. Lizzie is a self-made woman who lives and breathes the Bradford fortune every day, but she understands that it’s from the ‘other’ side of the stairs. No matter that she’s in love with Lane, she knows that he’s well out of her reach. It’s not just his status either. The fact that he ended their relationship by getting engaged to a socialite didn’t help much.

So much intrigue and drama make up the Bradford family saga that it’s really hard to give an accurate synopsis without retelling a majority of the book. And let me tell you, this book is setting up for something big. If you like wide, sweeping family tales full of twists, turns and sometimes just plain old evil, you’re going to love this book. Fans of any night time soap opera will devour this book. Easily. It reads like a weekly dose of drama doled out page by page. Once sucked in, you just can’t stop turning the pages to see what happens next.

I’ve not read any of J.R. Ward’s previous work (I’m sure there are gasps of outrage from some out there. The woman is a NYT bestselling author after all) but this one got me hooked. The Bradford family makes the Kardashians look like the Brady Bunch. Old money mixed with new money, horses and bourbon are all splashed across the rolling gorgeous hills of Kentucky in this book. And by the end, you know it’s only the beginning. I finished this one and if I’d been near my computer, I would have been asking the publicist when the next one is ready. I knew when I was reading that the number of pages was pretty thin for where we were in the story. But I still didn’t expect it to end there. And I was ready to read more.

Now for my conservative readers, this is not a Christian book. Don’t even go into with the question of that. It’s rated R and for good reason. There are no punches pulled here with regards to what the family is doing to each other, with each other, and around each other. It’s well and duly noted.

But if those sorts of things don’t bother you and you’re looking for a new series that will leave you begging for more, The Bourbon Kings is definitely the one.