Property of Azrael: Mayhem Makers

Okay, I have to admit the premise of Property of Azrael got me before we even reached the romance. Hallie is an indie romance author who writes about motorcycle clubs, finally gets invited to her first big author signing, loads up her barely surviving car, and promptly breaks down in the middle of nowhere on the way there. Then, because apparently the universe has a sense of humor, an actual motorcycle club comes riding to her rescue. Their president, Azrael, gets her to the signing, discovers what she writes, and eventually offers her the opportunity to spend the rest of the trip with them and experience the biker lifestyle firsthand. Naturally, Hallie calls it research, because that sounds much more responsible than admitting you’re going to Mexico with a ridiculously hot biker you met after breaking down on the side of the road.

The whole setup was probably one of my favorite things about the book because Avelyn Paige has a lot of fun with Hallie realizing that situations she normally writes about are suddenly happening to her. The only-one-bed moment especially made me laugh because Hallie immediately recognizes the trope and basically can’t believe her own life has turned into one of her books. Then Azrael starts reading her MC romances to see exactly what she thinks men like him are supposed to be like, and that becomes its own kind of entertainment. There’s something hilarious about a romance author suddenly having to answer for all the questionable things she makes her fictional men do, especially when the real biker starts getting ideas from them.

Hallie and Azrael have chemistry pretty much from the beginning, and I liked Azrael more than I expected to. He’s definitely alpha, protective, possessive, and used to being in charge, but he doesn’t spend the entire book acting like an asshole just to remind everyone that he’s the president of an MC. He’s also surprisingly supportive of Hallie’s writing instead of treating it like some cute little hobby, and I really liked watching him step into her world at the signing. Actually, watching all of these bikers encounter a convention full of women who read about men exactly like them was pretty freakin’ entertaining. Fox, in particular, was having entirely too much fun with the attention.

My biggest problem with Hallie and Azrael was simply how freakin’ fast they went from strangers to something serious. I completely bought the attraction, and I could even get behind Hallie throwing caution to the wind and going on the trip because questionable decisions involving hot fictional men are basically what keeps romance novels in business. It was the deeper feelings that needed a little more time for me. I liked them together, and some of their best moments were actually when they were just talking, joking around, or learning about each other, so I wish we’d had more of that before things became quite so serious. I think another beat or two of simply letting them fall for each other would have made the relationship hit much harder.

Hallie was a little hit or miss for me along the way too. I liked that she was funny, awkward, passionate about her books, and actually showed some common sense when a bunch of strange bikers first rolled up while she was stranded alone. Thank you, ma’am, for at least briefly considering the possibility that the hot strangers could murder you. We appreciate survival instincts around here. There were other times when her uncertainty frustrated me, particularly when she started allowing other people’s fears to influence how she viewed her relationship with Azrael. She eventually gets there, though, and when she finally decides that this is her life and she gets to choose which risks she is willing to take, I liked her a whole lot more. You know I’m always going to root harder for the woman who finally says, essentially, “Thanks for your opinion, but I’ll make my own freakin’ decisions.”

Asher was the one I spent a good chunk of the book wanting to smack. His hostility toward Hallie gets old pretty quickly, especially because he is so convinced that he knows what is best for both her and his brother. Once we learn what happened in his past, though, I understood him a lot better. It doesn’t magically excuse the way he treats Hallie, but his behavior stops feeling like hostility for the sake of creating drama. He has already seen what this life can cost someone they love, and he’s terrified of watching his brother go through the same thing. I could understand where the fear was coming from while still wanting him to mind his own freakin’ business, which actually made him a much more interesting character than I originally expected.

Honestly, the Bastard Boilers as a whole ended up being one of my favorite parts of the book. Fox, Orion, Van, and Asher have enough personality that they don’t disappear into a pile of interchangeable leather cuts and motorcycles, and I really enjoyed the banter and history between them. They actually feel like people who have known each other forever rather than a collection of future book boyfriends being introduced one at a time, although I’m certainly not ruling out that second possibility. I would have happily spent more time with the club because this is definitely more romance-with-an-MC than a gritty, club-politics-heavy MC story. There is danger, violence, and baggage that comes with Azrael’s world, but the book is much more interested in Hallie and Azrael than digging deeply into the criminal side of the club.

That becomes a little more serious later when Hallie gets a firsthand reminder that the world she has been writing about isn’t nearly as fun when the danger stops being fictional. I liked that shift because up until then, there’s almost a fantasy element to her little “research trip.” She gets the hot biker, the motorcycles, the club, the road trip, and all those things she has been putting into her books, but eventually she has to look at the parts that aren’t sexy and decide whether she still wants Azrael when his life comes with very real consequences. I just wish that side of the story had been given a little more room to build. Things escalate and resolve fairly quickly, so I never felt the kind of suspense I think the situation could have created.

The spice lands at about four peppers for me. Once Hallie and Azrael stop pretending they’re going to behave themselves, they most definitely do not, and Azrael reading Hallie’s books gives him a few ideas of his own, which I thought was a fun way to connect her writing to their sex life. There’s plenty of explicit content, but it never got to the point where I wondered whether the plot had wandered off while everybody was naked. Apparently writing spicy romance does come with occupational hazards when your new biker boyfriend decides to start doing his own research.

By the time I finished, I had definitely enjoyed myself, but I also knew this wasn’t quite a four-star book for me. The premise was fun, Hallie and Azrael had plenty of chemistry, I really liked the Bastard Boilers, and there was enough humor mixed in with the romance and danger to keep my squirrel brain entertained. I just needed more time for Hallie and Azrael’s relationship to grow into the depth of feelings the book eventually gives them, and I would have liked the more dangerous side of Azrael’s world to carry a little more weight. Neither issue made me dislike the book; they just kept me from becoming as invested as I wanted to be.

So I’m landing at 3.5 out of 5 stars and 4 out of 5 peppers for Property of Azrael. I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a fun, fast-moving MC romance with an indie-author FMC, a protective and possessive biker, found family, plenty of banter and spice, and just enough danger to prove that going to Mexico with the motorcycle club you met after breaking down on the side of the road is probably not a responsible research strategy.

Then again, Hallie did get a book out of it, so who am I to judge? Maybe I should take notes. 😉

Review By: SASSY
Owner • Creator • Queen of the Chaos
SassyReviews.com
Read, Reviewed, & BookDragon Approved… or Not.