Avenging Angels: Bad Medicine (Avenging Angel #4) by Kristen Ashley

I adore Kristen Ashley, and I will always auto-buy her books but I am just so unsure about this series.

I love and adore the Rock Chick series in all its over the top madness. I think it was of its time (2008 to 2013) and the wackiness of it was endearing and fun. I just feel like this series is kind of a cheap imitation of it. I’m not saying I want the Angels to be in mortal danger or anything, but the lack of adversity makes everything really low stakes, and things aren’t as compelling. As a result everything feels very trite and silly. This makes me feel bad, because I don’t want to sound like I’m advocating for trauma porn, I’m not, I just feel like there is something missing. Some adversity without that adversity being a sexual assault would be a good start!

I think Willow’s ex and her past experiences with shitty men, were an attempt to introduce some adversity into her story but it felt really unresolved. I mean she was actually sexually assaulted as a teen with her ex boyfriend staging photos of her to make it look like they had sex, but that was glossed over with an ‘I’m over it’. Gabe also had some pretty shocking trauma that while not glossed over, didn’t feel like it was given the proper amount of exploration.

Bad Medicine is supposed to be a book that closely resembles Rock Chick Revenge, and we get to see the parallels between the Stark cousins. I think by trying to almost recreate that book, we get a very watered down version of Luke and Ava. Willow’s inner voices were also practically a carbon copy of Ava’s. I mean I guess the good news is I won’t need to reread Rock Chick Revenge anytime soon.

But look, even the worst KA is still a KA so I’m going to read it. I’ll continue to read this series, but I won’t be counting down the days like I do with some of her other series. These books are fun, and it is nice that our heroines don’t have to endure terrible things to get their HEA, I just think that those stories would have been better told without the specter of what the Rock Chicks went through hanging over them. I’m so over the recycled characters, it’s making them all feel less special.

Willow and Gabe got their HEA and they both deserved it, Gabe was also a pretty good communicator which is rare in a KA book, but I could of also done without the boring ‘ex girlfriend is a bitch’ trope to move the story along.

This really seems like a very moany review but it’s a solid 3 star read!

Synopsis:

Willow Knightley has just been through it with her ex-mooch of a boyfriend. But sadly, he’s just the latest in a long string of men (starting at birth) who didn’t treat her right.

She decides her only recourse is to give up on men forever.

The problem is, her friend/acquaintance/one-time bodyguard, member of the Nightingale Investigations & Security team, Gabriel Stark, has targeted her as His One.

Gabe’s been through it at the hands of women too, so he knows exactly what he wants.

And he wants Willow.

Willow states her case against them being an us, but she doesn’t count on the fact that not only does Gabe love a challenge, he lives for them.

Up against an onslaught from a man who rinses his own whiskers out of the sink, Willow might not stand a chance.

But then, while the Angels are trying to figure out what’s got one of their informants very jittery, she gets a hint that there are demons in Gabe’s history, and she has to know.

The bets are on…

And luck favors a Stark.