Madeline Sheehan’s Hell’s Horsemen. Joanna Wylde’s Reapers.

Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy.

Every so often, a genre will send me on a complete and utter bender. I find something that strikes a chord and that’s it; for as long as I can find the reading material (or in this case, the celluloid) to feed the addiction, I’m a total junkie.

A few weeks back, I bought Madeline Sheehan’s Undeniable, the first book in her series about a biker club known as Hell’s Horsemen. It was, loosely speaking, a romance, but a brutal one. There were a lot of things in it that morally and ethically I didn’t agree with (the treatment of the women, the sanctioning of criminal activity) but the bottom line? It was like my eyes were super-glued to the train-wrecking pages.

Murder? Check.
Extreme violence? Check.
Abuse? Check.
Completely dysfunctional relationships between the characters? Check.
A happy ending? Eh. Well, Eva and Deuce are still breathing at the close.

In short, I haven’t buried myself in a book the way I did with Undeniable for quite a long while. I liked that it wasn’t a conventional romance. That it didn’t colour inside the lines. That I was kind of disgusted with myself for cheering the bad guys. I went and downloaded the second instalment in the series, Unbeautifully (which turned out to be just as compelling), the second I’d finished reading. When I hit the end of that one, though, my genre thirst was in full swing, the need for more of the same clawing at me like a hungry crow. Cue online searches for decent comparable material. My next stop? Joanna Wylde’s Reaper’s Property. More tattooed bad guys on bikes doing, once again, not very nice things. While a lot softer and not quite as deep and textured as Madeline Sheehan’s two offerings, it did go some way to quenching the thirst.

 

 

Then the discovery to end all discoveries: Sons of Anarchy.

There’s no denying I’m more of a reader than a TV-watcher but, holy shit, I can’t seem to tear myself away from this thing. It’s everything that made the Hell’s Horsemen books so compelling and then some. Sons is far more stylish, the characters infinitely more engaging, the plot lines far wilder. (Given that the series began in 2008 and is five seasons deep already, I’d be very surprised if it didn’t have at least some influence on Madeline Sheehan’s series, which debuted in October last year). Aided and abetted by Netflix, which is loaded seasons-deep with the lure of episode cliff-hangers to battle against on a daily basis, I’ve been roaring through five-years’ worth of biker drama with barely a pause for breath. The last series I had this kind of obsession with? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can recall being heavily pregnant during a re-run season and telling my husband I couldn’t go into labour until after Tubula Rasa, the one in which Buffy and Spike finally hook up, aired. (Yeah, yeah. I know.) Let’s just say that if Sons of Anarchy had been on then, I suspect I would have been 10 months along.

I think what’s pulled me so deeply with this show is the strength of the leading characters. Gemma Teller (played brilliantly by Katey Sagal of Married … with Children fame) is one of the best anti-heroines I’ve come across in a long time and Jax, who plays her son, the perfect knife-edge balance of criminal, bad boy, and gentleman. That deliciously unholy mix of dirty hands and good heart. The cast of slightly eccentric supporting characters is no less engaging. Tig (who reminds me in a lot of ways of Mr Blonde from Reservoir Dogs), the corrupt and completely loveable Chief Unser … they all add to the unusual (and sometimes unsavoury) SOA flavour. It’s not as tightly plotted as, say, The Sopranos, but the rawness of the Sons of Anarchy draws like a magnet. Oh, and the music? Well, this girl’s a die-hard rock chick and there are some beautiful, beautiful originals and covers to go with the drama (see my title clip choice), although I wish the sound team would stop plaything thrashy rock whenever the Sons ride down the highway.

I will nearly always push a book over a TV programme. But I’m going to break my rule for Sons of Anarchy.

In the words of Neil Young: Hey hey, my my.

Need an MC fix? Pick your poison …

• Sons of Anarchy – Amazon.co.uk
• Sons of Anarchy – Amazon.com
• Undeniable – Amazon.co.uk
• Undeniable – Amazon.com
• Unbeautifully – Amazon.co.uk
• Unbeautifully – Amazon.com
• Reaper’s Property – Amazon.co.uk
• Reaper’s Property – Amazon.com

Related posts: