It’s hard to rate a book when the male protagonist has everything stacked against him and everything else skewed in the favour of the heroine whom he’d treated so badly a long time ago. (Casa)Nova, aka Landon, is hard not to despise for his actions which I found abhorrent in every way: ditching the girl he loved, then self-medicating the hurt away by becoming a manwhore and then only rushing to make reparations when they meet again— while keeping hair-raising secrets along the way.

There’s a ton that I can probably write about when it comes to Nova’s failings and there are that many to start with. By cowardly not going after the girl he wanted when he regretted his actions yet sleeping with so many others to get over her, then only deciding to do something about it when their paths cross is one. His inability to do anything but “self-medicate” with sex and not righting his wrongs before she came back into his life is another. That he took money and put his dream above her was even more unforgivable. As with my issues with second-chances stories, clichés can and do run the river dry, with lines such as “I thought about you everyday (even while sleeping with others who didn’t mean a thing to me, or whom I used to get over you” made it difficult to take Landon seriously at all. But clearly, this is my own bias in operation as well but I can safely say that the story is truly an exercise in grovelling, an uphill battle of lesson after lesson in winning trust back after the deepest kind of betrayal.

There is some convoluted history that muddies the waters however, and Rebecca Yarros does try to make Landon grovel as best as he can—the punishment befitting the crime, so to speak. I felt sorry for Rachel, who, though not initially blameless, was made too much of a pawn in some high stakes game of sponsorship and ambition: that she was collateral damage in the midst of people who played her over and out.

That said, Yarros does write emotion quite well and it was gratifying to read that Rachel’s hurt wasn’t glossed over too easily and how it (rightfully) took a lot for Landon to make things up to her. Even if I thought that the concept of the Renegades cruise/study tour was a little far-fetched, the exotic locales and the death-defying activities do provide a different setting for this particular story and a different kind of heart-pounding action that’s not just limited to the bedroom. It’s clear this series is still finding its stride and I’m more than a bit curious whether the rest of the characters would get their own books.