Kennedy Ryan’s All the Kings Men Duet, as she calls it, spans more than a decade and contains a lot of passion, danger, and drama. I’m reviewing both at the same time since they don’t really stand alone. The Kingmaker ends on one heck of a cliffhanger, and The Rebel King would not be a satisfying place to start the series.
Maxim Cade is still just in college when he travels with his father to the location of one of their planned oil pipelines, which just so happens to be on the land of an indigenous tribe. They are naturally less than thrilled about the destruction of some of their sacred lands, and there’s a massive protest that Maxim’s father wants to stop. One of the leaders of the protest is a young, beautiful native woman whose rousing speech and fierce defiance take Maxim’s breath away, to the point where he runs to save her when the police arrive with tear gas and very aggressive dogs. He even gets bitten trying to protect her and spends some time in jail with the other protesters after being arrested with them. The passionate young woman is Lennix Moon Hunter, whose mother mysteriously disappeared some years earlier, after organising a different protest. Lennix is half Apache but lives with her white father, a college professor. He might be smitten, but once he discovers that Lennix is only seventeen, he wisely tamps down any amorous thoughts, even after being bailed out of jail, he can’t forget her and her cause.
Maxim was never enthusiastic about taking over his father’s giant oil company in the first place, and after the protest, he refuses to listen to his father and cuts ties with him entirely. He puts himself through college on money he inherited from a relative and barely speaks with his family, even years later, when he and Lennix meet again by chance in Amsterdam. Lennix is there for a week with her best friends from college, and Maxim is about to embark on an expedition to Antarctica for his post-grad work. He knows that Lennix will never speak to him again if she discovers his father’s identity, so Maxim uses his middle name to introduce himself to her (he never told her his name while they were bonding after the arrest). Lennix is no longer a teenager, and the two of them spend a few days together, giving in to all the sizzling chemistry between them before Maxim needs to leave for his months-long stay on the South Pole.
By the time they meet for a third time, Lennix is working on the campaign of a liberal politician and has discovered who Maxim really is. He and his expedition mates ended up in a horrific storm in the Antarctic, nearly dying, and had to be rescued by Maxim’s father. The news of the dangerous rescue is widely broadcast worldwide, and Lennix discovers that the handsome and charming young man she thought of as Maxim Kingsman is, in fact, the son of a man she hates. Despite all of Maxim’s attempts to persuade her that he is nothing like his father and wants nothing to do with his family legacy, Lennix tells him to f*ck off and never darken her door again.
A decade later, Lennix Hunter is known as the Kingmaker. She and her best friend Kimba are among the best political consultants in the United States and have ensured victories for a large number of progressive political candidates. When Owen Cade, Maxim’s older brother, runs for president, there is no one else he wants organising his campaign, but if they take the job, Lennix won’t be able to avoid Maxim any longer. Having completely broken ties with his father, Maxim has achieved a lot of the goals he set himself in his early 20s. He’s a self-made man, having pioneered a lot of technology to limit pollution and save the environment, and he’s rich enough that he never needs to rely on his father’s money ever again. There is only one more thing Maxim has left to achieve, winning Lennix back and getting her to forgive him.
Full review on my blog.