This is how book endings should make you feel
I was considering breaking up with trilogies for good, until I got my hands on Devil’s Cut, the last book in J.R. Ward’s The Bourbon Kings trilogy. Guys, I think the curse is broken!
One part Dallas, one part Downton Abbey, and one part Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, The Bourbon Kings series drops us into the lives of the Bradford Family, owners of the largest and most popular bourbon distillery in Kentucky. Because this is essentially (and with full acknowledgement of the author) a soap opera, the characters are all ridiculously good looking, spoiled, and borderline amoral. It has everything a good daytime soap should- drama, angst, a suicide, a murder, adultery, embezzlement of company funds, sex in wine cellars, a secret illegitimate child, a scandalous upstairs/downstairs relationship, bad parenting, and copious amounts of day drinking.
What makes it so, so much better than a soap is that there is honest-to-god character development, and by the end of Devil’s Cut, the characters have matured from shallow, callous, and jaded aristocrats into actual human beings who’ve learned from life’s hardships and their own mistakes. If you haven’t read the first two books GO DO THAT NOW. I’ll wait.
Lemme catch you up on that plot…
…and I’ll try to do it with as few spoilers as possible. The first book in the series, The Bourbon Kings, introduces us to the Bradford siblings and some of the staff at their massive family estate, Easterly. Edward, the oldest, once a handsome and talented VIP poised to take over the family business, is now a bourbon-soaked shell of his former self after being kidnapped, tortured, and held for ransom in South America-a ransom his father refused to pay. Gin, the only daughter, is unapologetically self-absorbed, promiscuous, and addicted to her opulent life of Gucci, diamonds, and lavish house parties. She carries on a mutually destructive on again/off again relationship with the gorgeous family lawyer, but hasn’t gotten around to telling him that he’s the father of her 16 year old daughter.
Bad boy Max abandoned the family years before and hasn’t been heard from since (but of course he’ll reappear, because they ALWAYS do). And notorious party boy and ladies man Lane has just returned from a two year exile in New York after breaking the heart of Easterly’s head horticulturist Lizzie King (because anybody who’s anybody has their own horticulturist. Obviously. Are you saying you don’t have one?).
Fast forward to Devil’s Cut; Edward is in jail after confessing to a murder that we don’t reeeeally think he committed; Max has appeared from whatever rock he was hiding under to drop a huge secret on the family; Gin is stuck in her marriage of financial necessity to an abusive asshole while pining for her one true love, and Lane is struggling under the weight of handling the family’s financial crisis while still trying to rid himself of his cheating, gold digging wife so that he can wed Lizzie, aka “the help.” On top of it all is the failing health of Miss Aurora, Easterly’s head cook and surrogate southern “mama” to the Bradford children. SO! MUCH! DRAMA!
Devil’s Cut starts with so many questions, and delivers so many satisfying answers. Sometimes I just want my trilogies to have a warm, gooey ending where everyone gets their HEA and all loose ends are tied up in neat little bows, and that is exactly what J.R. Ward delivers. Why can’t all authors do this? Just give me my happy-third-book-ending, dammit!
NBC has also purchased the rights to the series and a pilot script has been ordered, so you need to read them and when the TV show is a massive hit and all your friends love it you can flip your hair over your shoulder like a boss and say “yeah bitches, I’ve already read the books.” Because admit it, that’s satisfying AF.
Devil’s Cut is available August 1st!
Written by Janna
Stay-at-home mom to the world’s cutest two-year-olds. Deeply obsessed with Lord of the Rings, The Office, and traveling as often and as far as possible. Devout online Scrabble player. Amateur historian. Professional reader. Dabbler in writing and Scotch whiskies. Creator of possibly the best PB&J ever. Follow me and watch my twitter account gather dust @janna_rpw
