ARC Review and Blog Tour: Intrepid by Keri Lake

In the corner house of an empty street, there is a boy inside a box. In that boy, there lives a secret, one so dark, it’s sealed with locks. 
Nearly ten years have passed since the night I was captured. Tricked and betrayed, I suffered the hours of brutal torment with death’s cold whisper across my skin. And when the nameless faces that haunted my nightmares took everything and everyone I loved, I feared I’d never be free of the darkness. But that's the thing about fear. Over time, it breeds anger, and when anger fills the box, vengeance bleeds out. 
It's been almost a decade since I escaped their hell, staying in the shadows, hiding my demons, and God help them now that I've tasted retribution and crave more of it. Blood is the price for pain, and I vow to take everything and everyone they love. I’m no longer a frightened boy, but the intrepid vigilante, a ruthless executioner, who will stop at nothing to punish the depraved few that stole my life and walked free. 
The plan is perfect, except for her. The one woman I'm forbidden to have, whose soothing touch settles my fractured mind. My angel of mercy sent to silence the voices. Yet, not even she can save me from the black void wherein my skeletons lie buried beneath the truth. Because in order to feed my thirst for revenge, I have to destroy the very thing that gives me purpose. 
Tooth for a tooth, heart for a heart. 

Keri Lake wrote my very first dark romance, Ricochet, and started me down a path toward kidnapping, revenge, and mafia tales. And nearly three years later, Ricochet remains one of the very best of its kind. 

So when I saw that another installment in the Vigilantes world was coming soon, I immediately signed up to read it. And I'm so glad I did. Come with me through the jump and see what I thought of Intrepidw. Spoiler free, of course. 


Intrepid is an interesting blend of current events and flashbacks to the events a decade ago that shaped what's happening now. The current events are your typical dark romance stuff: boy meets girl, boy prepares for carrying out his revenge, boy charms girl while girl is charmed and charms in return, boy ticks off gruesome revenges while working up to the big one. It's interesting and that stuff alone would make for a decent novel.

I'd come to trust people by how much pain their eyes held, and his bore the endless depths of sorrow. 

But the sheer brutality and horror of the flashbacks made Intrepid something else altogether for me. Of course I'm not going to give specifics about what damaged our hero so deeply, what horrified me more than any other brutal book I've read. You just have to read it, but be warned: it's incredibly difficult to read. When I got through the terrible part I told Zee that this makes Ricochet look like Snow White, and I stand by that assessment. Guys. It's dark. But I truly, deeply respect that Keri Lake is willing to go there like that. Life can be fucking brutal and it does no one any good to sugar coat that. 

But mostly, I did it because I could. Because there wasn't a soul left on earth who gave a shit if I fell to my death, and that thought gave me the freedom to do whatever the fuck I wanted. 

The brutality and pain also make the beauty of the friendships and the love story that much more wonderful. When I was reading the horrible parts I kept reminding myself that this is a romance, and that's what kept me reading. The couple are young, giving this the feeling of being a really brutal New Adult book, but aside from the heroine's college classes, their experiences gave them a maturity that made me forget their youth. Plus Ty are Sera are incredibly sexy and their love scenes made the world melt away. 

I wanted Sera. I wanted her more than anything. More than watching that fat prick's face twist in pain. More than my fury and the insatiable craving for revenge. I wanted her more than the fucked up life that awaited me--the blackness on the horizon promising death.     It wasn't about her beauty, her smarts, her body, although those had certainly left their mark on me. I was drawn to her light. Her purity and innocence, as if I'd been buried alive in a cold dark tomb for too long, before being given one breath, one moment of warmth on my skin. I craved her as much as the air and the heat I needed to feel alive again. 

My very favorite part of the book is slightly spoilery, so if you don't want to know anything, skip this paragraph. Even in my most beloved book that feature strong, fierce, badass women, those women always have strong partners, always fight back-to-back with their heroes and with their friends. In Intrepid, Sera does the saving, and I fucking LOVE that! The lady saves the gentleman in distress and it.is.awesome. Thank you, Keri Lake, for that perfect, brilliant, badass scene. 

Have you ever hated someone you were supposed to live, and loved someone you were supposed to hate?

All in all I have to thank all the gods that the romance was beautiful, because the darkness in this one was truly horrifying. And I love that Keri Lake has the guts to delve into the darkest recesses of humanity, because it's nearly impossible to read, but it's so worth it. Life is all about duality, light and darkness, joy and pain, sorrow and love, and Keri Lake captures that duality brilliantly in Intrepid. 

Wench Rating:

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