Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Love Thy Brother
SERIES: Rebel Kings MC, Book 4
AUTHOR: Garrett Leigh
NARRATOR: Dan Calley
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 9 hours and 48 minutes
RELEASE DATE: August 15, 2023
BLURB:
Expect: His brother’s best friend. His best friend’s little brother. The soft-hearted bear and the rowdy chaos gremlin. The inevitable only happens when you let it.
“Riv, if you ever let me speak, you’d know exactly how I feel.”
I’ve told him that a thousand times, but River’s stubborn streak is a mile wide. He doesn’t want to hear it.
To him, we’re doomed. Cursed. Forbidden. Because he thinks I love a goddamn motorcycle club more than him.
My worst nightmare is losing him before I get the chance to change his mind, and in our world, bad dreams come true. Our reality is mess and pain, but I love him. And he loves me.
And I’ll fight for us to the end.
REVIEW:
Garrett Leigh continues her mesmerizing MC biker series, Rebel Kings, with another soul-deep exploration of the love between fascinating men who harbor a lot of hurt, plenty of issues, and unending love for each other. Rubi has intrigued me since the first book, Devil’s Dance. He’s a stalwart presence in the club and clearly deeply loved and respected by his brothers. He’s also in love with a different brother, Cam’s brother River, who is part of the club but refuses to wear his cut or pledge allegiance to the family unit that both dominates and has destroyed his family.
Love Thy Brother is the first book that takes place away from the Rebel King’s compound for a significant part of the book. We’ve only gotten a few glimpses of River through the first three books – just enough to convey his apparent hatred of everything Rebel Kings and convince us that his hostility towards Cam is just a thinly veiled attempt to keep his distance from the brother he loves. We have a lot to learn about River and what makes him tick, as well as to understand the context of his relationship with Rubi, Cam’s childhood best friend.
The book moves slowly for quite a while, although it still keeps a solid grasp on your attention. And while Love Thy Brother is very clearly a Rebel Kings book, gritty, raw, at times violent, it feels different because of the shift in settings and an emphasis on characters other than Cam and Alexei. What isn’t different, though, is Leigh’s crisp, expertly executed writing, intricate, addictive storyline, dry humor, cut-glass dialogue, and robust, hard-hitting emotions. Everything you love about the first three books – which you should read in order – you’ll find in Love Thy Brother, especially the found family of the club.
As noted in my reviews of the audiobooks of Devil’s Dance and Saint’s Song, Dan Calley brings an indescribable depth to these stories through his narration of the audiobooks. He matches Leigh in balancing the many competing elements of these stories – violence, darkness, personal demons and death against heartwarming found family, sarcasm, humor and emotional encounters between the sheets (and elsewhere) – and makes it feel authentic, achieving the perfect tone for the life and love stories of these biker bad boys with soft hearts and damaged souls. Calley is technically precise and his performance is invested and nuanced.
Love Thy Brother is an immersive audiobook that swept me away for many glorious hours with the Rebel Kings MC. Highly recommended.
RATING: 
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