Name: Bane
Rating: 4.048192771084337 (83 reviews)
ISBN: 9781717110985

L.J. Shen

Bane Naked surfer. Habitual pothead. A con, a liar, a thief and a fraud. Last I heard, he was extorting the rich and screwing their wives for a living. Which is why I'm more than a little surprised to find him at my threshold, looking for my friendship, my services, and most puzzling of all-looking humbled. Thing is, I'm on a boycott. Literally-I cut boys from my life. Permanently. Problem is, Bane is not a boy, he is all man, and I'm falling, crashing, drowning in his sweet, perfect lies.

Bane

Levi-Mae 

‘My Whole Life Has Been Pledged to This Meeting with You

 - Pushkin. I only knew one person who went gaga over the Russian poet, and, like the famous Alexander, he was currently six feet under. My friends began to paddle back to shore. I couldn’t move. It felt like my balls were ten tons heavy. I didn’t believe in love at first sight. Lust, maybe, but even that wasn’t the word I was looking for. No. This girl fucking intrigued me.’

‘Jesse Carter was going to be mine before she even knew me. Before I even knew her.‘

‘I wanted her before. Before she became business. Before the truth caged her in. Before the secrets gushed out. I never did get to surf that day. My surfboard broke. Should have known it was an omen. My heart was going to be next in line. And for a small chick, she did one hell of a fucking job obliterating it.‘

‘Beautiful things were often so useless.‘

‘The old Jesse would explain, and bargain, and argue. The old Jesse would try to save face. The old Jesse was dead.’

‘Baron Spencer, dubbed Vicious by everyone who was unfortunate enough to know him, smirked.‘

‘She was beautiful, but she looked like a dazzling tragedy, specially designed to fuck you up.‘

‘Because I found you in the dirt that’s called life, and you stood out. Like an opportunity I cannot miss.‘

‘Always part ways with people you love like you’ll never see them again.‘

“Stop being so afraid of love. It can’t kill you!”

“You can’t be afraid of love, my dear. It’s like being afraid of death. It is inevitable.”

‘A poet. An explorer. A romantic. A culture-loving, dragon-slaying princess.‘

‘The ink at the nape of her neck reminded her that I, too, was a sin.’

‘I was the guy everyone knew, and she was a ghost desperate to be forgotten.‘

‘She actually smiled a real smile for the first time, and holy fucking shit, Jesse Carter needed to smile for a goddamn living. She could very possibly bring about world peace, and I wasn’t even entirely exaggerating. It was those dimples. They dented that smooth, pale face of hers like a patch of dirt in the snow.’

‘No, she wasn’t a snowflake. She was a snowstorm.‘

“And you’re stalling.” She grinned. Hot. Fucking. Damn.

My eyes locked on hers as it touched my lips. “You’re going to regret it,” I hissed into the brown foam on my lips. 

“So are you,” she whispered, her eyes holding mine.

‘We weren’t a boy and a girl. We were two lonely, fucked-up souls. It made wanting Bane in my life acceptable.’

‘Falling in love is when you lose yourself slowly, piece by piece. Infatuation is when you lose yourself all at once. Love is like ivy. It wraps around you, chokes every part of you quietly. It is not patient, or kind, or gentle. It is needy, cunning, and suffocating.‘

I have a fat ass crush on Bane and Jesse. 

Like hands down this couple is tied with Dean and Rosie. 

I mean this is a very fucking healthy couple. They have great communication and they never tried to fuck each other over. Even though their relationship started out as a part of a business deal. 

I loved how protective Bane was of Jesse’s boundaries and made sure no one including himself invaded it. 

I loved how he helped her instead of manhandling her problems. 

Jesse is a fucking queen and I love the two of them so fucking much. 

Keira 💫

I have a fat ass crush on Bane and Jesse. 

Like hands down this couple is tied with Dean and Rosie. 

I mean this is a very fucking healthy couple. They have great communication and they never tried to fuck each other over. Even though their relationship started out as a part of a business deal. 

I loved how protective Bane was of Jesse’s boundaries and made sure no one including himself invaded it. 

I loved how he helped her instead of manhandling her problems. 

I loved how he just listened to her. 

Jesse is a fucking queen and I love the two of them so fucking much. 

freya.nightwolf

Bane... well... I'm surprised Trent didn't kill him yet :))) 
I love that his friendship with Edie is still on, and Trent now trusts him ish :))) at least there's an understanding between them. Baby steps :)))
Now. Bane and Jesse. I think this is one of the toughest books I've read because when rape is involved... well I would go straight for the kill, and the way the book is written and you always find another secret or fear that slowly gets away, you always find more layers on the characters. One has something to gain, the other finds her freedom and courage and so both free themselves and also help each other in not committing something they'll regret. The way their brains work in making a plan and also being smart about it, it's really magnificent reading this book. 

I recommend this series to everyone. You can read it in order or in a different order, but however you choose, you will love every book.

Nia Kharebashvili 

”You don’t need a prince, princess. You need a sword.”


I didn’t know what to expect going into this because I didn’t really care about Bane in “Scandalous” but turns out that reading about someone other than a HotHole is pretty refreshing, to be honest. Bane ended up being one of my favorite male protagonists of this series. 
And same goes for Jesse as a female. 
Both characters were very well-written and matched perfectly and they’re love story was one of the strongest in the series. 

This book was another level of fucked-up. I thought it was a bit much but still I’m justifying this by Todos Santos being a small town and everyone has to be involved with everyone(but this reassurance is more for me than it is for you). 

Overall, I liked this book very much! I’m so sad that the series is over. I never thought I’d love it this much. It holds a special place in my heart from now on.
NA has never really been my jam. It always seemed only endless smut, delivering a meaningful message only when we’re lucky. But L.J Shen wrote damaged yet beautiful characters and made me love—along with Elle Kennedy, of course—New Adult romance.

Sarina Sherman

5 stars 🌟 wait.. this book was actually SO GOOD. I think it’s my favorite L.J. Shen book to date. I don’t know why I put it off for so long, I guess I just couldn’t get into Bane after glimpses of him in the previous books. But omg was I wrong. Roman and Jesse are absolutely everything. The way this book handled the topics was everything I could’ve wished for, and Jesse won herself back in a way that had me so excited in the end. So good!!!!

celeste

2.5 stars. at this point, i'm only reading lj shen's books to get some sense of closure about characters that i've known since book 1 because honestly there's nothing else in her books that really peak my interest anymore. i don't like her smutty scenes, i don't feel nor believe the love between the heros and heroines, and the harsh and serious topics that she usually adds to her books always feel like they're overexaggerated instead of realistic.

i'm kinda disappointed at the version of bane that we got in this book. i honestly feel like this was such a watered down and toned down version of the bane we met and were introduced to in the previous book, which was the whole reason why i was so excited to read his book. i couldn't wait to read the book about this i-give-no-fucks attitued, rebellious, cocky, up-front, straight to the point and hilarious dude and what i got was a totally sobered down and serious and kinda lacking on the humoristic side kind of dude. and a lot of that, i think, is due to the fact that this book takes place years after scandalous instead of just catching up where it left of... and i'm suspicious that the author made that choice because she needed to have an age gap between the heroine (who's 19/20) and the hero (25) that was big enough to signal how much of a 'grown man' he is, as opposed to the teenagers who ruined her life while they were in high school, and how he would never do anything to wrong her. i was expecting more from this because i went into it with a whole different idea in my head of what was gonna happen. so maybe my expectations were not met at all.

i also do not think it was necessary to have the heroine go through all that she went through. (view spoiler)[i feel like it was extremely unnecessary and borderlining torture-porn to have her be the victim of not only being gang-raped by her boyfriend and his friends, but also have her forget that she had also been raped when she was only a child by none other than her step-father and to top it all off, have every single member of her life lie to her and cover up for what had been done to her ie. her therapist, her mother and her pedophile rapist step-father. (hide spoiler)] it was just too much and did not add anything to the story. i think what had been done to her in high school was enough to set the whole story around her getting better, and getting the help she needed to start living her life again and start healing mentally and physically. so i don't understand the reason why that OTHER thing was added except for a shock factor, especially with how the event was recreated in a chapter in very graphic and specific details. i also ABHORRED the fact that (view spoiler)[her step-father got somewhat of a redemption arc??? i was disgusted at seeing that we got to see from his pov through a letter telling jesse to be strong and not to let any man do what had been done to her ever again or not let them get away with it. like dude YOU ARE A DISGUSTING PEDOPHILE AND RAPIST I DO NOT NEED YOUR FUCKING ADVICE ON HOW TO DEAL WITH SCUM LIKE YOU!!! i honestly did not think it was necessary or even tactful to have his somewhat redemption arc be thrown in those last chapters, just yikes. (hide spoiler)]

overall disappointed with this book based on how i was highly expecting it because of bane.

Bane

Reviews

Highlights