Tag Archives: Berkley

Review: Jaded by Anne Calhoun

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Jaded (Walkers Ford, #2)Jaded (Walkers Ford, #2) by Anne Calhoun

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

The small town librarian and the police chief. It may be a cliche, but JADED shows us why it works. When you live in a town as tiny as Walkers Ford, everybody knows your business. We saw how destructive that could be in UNFORGIVEN, the first book in this series, and fear of those repercussions is reflected in the behavior of our hero and heroine when JADED begins.

Alana is one of those people who choose a small town as a place to hide from their responsibilities back in the big city. She’s spent her whole life hiding from others, content to let her famous sister be the public face of their family’s foundation while she works tirelessly behind the scenes. It wasn’t until their mother pushed a family friend to propose marriage that Alana finally fled her privileged life in Chicago for a place where she could directly influence the lives of people in need. What Alana didn’t count on was a landlord who would make her regret her decision to leave Walkers Ford when the job was done.

Lucas grew up in Walkers Ford, but had left years before to be a cop in the big city of Denver, returning only after he believed his actions had led to the death of a young man he’d mentored there. After a bitter divorce and the descent of his beloved cousin into drug addiction, Lucas has become too cynical to believe that love was worth the trouble it could bring, even as he embarks on a secret fling with Alana. But as she prepares to leave Walkers Ford for good, he has to decide if he can take one more chance on love and on her.

Anne Calhoun’s UNFORGIVEN was one of my top ten best reads of 2013, so I was especially excited about reading this next book in her new Walkers Ford contemporary romance series. As much as I enjoyed its over the top drama and angst, I was relieved to see the level was dialed back a bit here in JADED. We have a hero and heroine who are both spending all their time doing everything for everyone else in their lives, but unlike the stars of the previous book, neither of them seems to have an unhealthy level of self-loathing. Still, the fear of small-town gossip keeps them from going public with their liaison and feeds into their respective worries that the other isn’t looking for anything beyond a temporary fling.

Lucas and Alana are brought together by their shared inability to keep their hands off each other, and their intimate scenes are loaded with sexual chemistry and undeniable passion. As their affair progresses, the responsibilities they each have threaten to tear them apart. But the love they find with each other helps Lucas and Alana reach the balance they both need in their lives and begins to heal the pain which had brought them to Walkers Ford.

What Anne Calhoun shows us in JADED is that you can’t do your best for others if you won’t give yourself the same amount of consideration first. It’s a lovely return visit to Walkers Ford and bodes well for the next book in the series.

Ratings:

Overall: 4.5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

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Review: Letting Go by Maya Banks

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Letting Go (Surrender Trilogy, #1)Letting Go by Maya Banks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings

LETTING GO is the story of a woman who already found and lost her perfect love, but has decided after three years of lonely mourning that it’s time to go after the one thing that was missing in her otherwise perfect marriage. Josslyn will never forget Carson and the once in a lifetime love they shared. But both Carson and his sister Kylie suffered unspeakable abuse from their alcoholic father and could never have understood the need Josslyn had for a man to take charge in the bedroom and bring her both pleasure and pain. Three years is a long time to mourn. It’s time for Josslyn to find someone who will dominate her sexually in the way her late husband never would.

After Carson’s tragic death, Dash was the solid stable core at the center of Josslyn’s upside-down life. As her husband’s business partner and best friend, he has worked hard to ensure that she was taken care of in all ways, except the one he most desired. For unknown to anyone except Josslyn’s late husband, Dash has been head over heels in love with her since the moment they met. It was his misfortune to fall in love with his best friend’s girl, but to his credit, he never acted on those feelings or even gave her a hint he felt that way about her. Now that Josslyn is finally ready to put her marriage in the past, Dash will stop at nothing to make sure that she becomes his. He was prepared to take his time and move slowly toward his goal, even if it meant ignoring the Dominant side of his personality, That all changed when Dash saw Josslyn walk into a private BDSM club on the arm of another man. Could Dash have her as both his love and his submissive? Or would Carson’s memory always be an obstacle between them?

One of my favorite erotic romance series last year was the Breathless trilogy by Maya Banks, so I was happy to learn that she had another one planned for this year. Just like with that series, the Surrender trilogy features a group of interconnected characters with overlapping storylines but each book can still be read as a stand-alone story. This first book does a good job of setting up all the relationships between this group of friends and provides clues to how the other two books will progress without turning into a data dump. A special bonus for readers of Maya Banks’s Sweet series is the appearance of Damon Roche and “The House”, his members only BDSM club in Houston. This trilogy takes place in that world so I’m looking forward to more glimpses of those beloved characters in the next two books.

For me, the best part of LETTING GO was how Maya Banks portrayed the perfect tension between Josslyn’s needs and Dash’s insecurities. Just because they want to make things work doesn’t mean that their new life together is without problems. The problems they face are exacerbated by their inability to fully share what they are feeling, and the initial disapproval from their friends and loved ones only makes things worse. Josslyn’s struggle to embrace her new life with Dash feeds into his irrational sense of competing for her love with the ghost of her dead husband. Their individual fears and doubts inevitably lead to a terrible misunderstanding, and it takes a near tragedy to finally force them to communicate more fully so they can have the happy ending they both deserve.

LETTING GO is a beautifully written depiction of how a widow and her late husband’s best friend learn how to move forward as a couple while honoring the memory of the man they both loved. It features Maya Banks at her best, with the heart-rending emotions and scorching sex scenes her readers have come to expect. Kylie’s story is next in GIVING IN, and I can’t wait to read it.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 4 (intense private BDSM scenes between the hero and heroine, one semi-public BDSM scene involving a second man)

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Review: Melting the Ice by Jaci Burton

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Melting The Ice (Play by Play, #7)Melting The Ice by Jaci Burton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

MELTING THE ICE is the latest entry in Jaci Burton’s long-running sports romance series and although I have only read the first Play By Play book, I had no problem picking up this one as a stand-alone. The setup for the hero and heroine combines two of my favorite tropes – best friend’s little sister and second chance at love – so I was confident going in that it would be a good read.

Carolina had always had eyes for Drew back in college, but his Big Man on Campus status combined with her shyness and inexperience kept her from making the first move. When she successfully propositions him at an off-campus graduation party after having a few too many, she experiences the first and best sex of her life. But when Drew tosses her aside the next morning without apology, Carolina chalks it up to a bad life decision and swears never to give him another chance to hurt her. Years later, her life is completely devoted to the launch of her new fashion line, and she barely has any spare time to sleep or eat, let alone moon over the guy who got away.

Drew has never forgotten his one night of bliss with Carolina and realizes his behavior afterward will make it hard for her to ever trust him again. Back then, he was young and dumb, afraid of committing to one woman when he was working toward a professional hockey career. Carolina has done her best to avoid Drew ever since then, but when her brother Gray suggests him as the perfect model for her new menswear line, she’s in no position to object. Older and wiser, Drew realizes this is his best opportunity to go after what he stupidly tossed away before, and make Carolina his for good.

What I always appreciate about Jaci Burton’s romances is how she provides just the right amount of back-story for her hero and heroine. She’s adept at showing exactly what brought them to this moment and helping readers empathize with them through all their setbacks on the way to their happy ending. Both Carolina and Drew have so many things going on in their lives that could easily derail their romance in addition to the giant obstacle of their drunken college hookup. But as they first realize that their attraction hasn’t faded, then decide to take advantage of it for as long as it might work out, we also see that there is genuine love there, and that ultimately nothing can get in the way of their happiness if it’s what they both want.

The best part of MELTING THE ICE for me was what wasn’t there. There wasn’t an evil ex-girlfriend trying to break them apart, or someone trying to steal Carolina’s designs before her big show, or a tabloid trying to use their public moments together to embarrass her father before an election. There was just the growing love between Carolina and Drew as they learned to trust each other and themselves, while the world went on around them. It wasn’t boring – the moment when Gray discovers that his best friend and baby sister are together is especially fun – but it wasn’t overwrought with angst and drama, either. That’s what made Melting the Ice another great Jaci Burton story, and reminded me that I need to go back and read the other books in the Play by Play series!

Ratings:

Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

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Review: An Indecent Proposition by Stephanie Julian

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An Indecent PropositionAn Indecent Proposition by Stephanie Julian

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

AN INDECENT PROPOSITION starts out as the story of how a young woman at the end of her financial rope agrees to sex with a stranger for an outrageous amount of money. Julianne’s father left both her and her mother in a deep financial hole on his permanent way out of town after her mother’s bout with breast cancer. Five hundred thousand dollars is too much for Julianne to turn down, even if it means a night of sex with a stranger. What she didn’t count on was losing her heart to not just one, but two men who were worth so much more to her than the cash she desperately needed.

Keegan and Erik have been inseparable since they met in college and soon after formed their own wildly profitable bio-metrics company, but not in the way most people thought. They prefer to share a woman sexually, and had done so successfully until Erik was nearly killed in a lab explosion. The years of reconstructive surgeries and painful rehabilitation have done little to restore Erik’s confidence in his appearance, and his withdrawal from the world weighs heavily on Keegan. But when Erik spots Julianne working as a catering server at their company event, he knew he had to have her. And Keegan will do everything he can to make sure that happens, even if it means walking away from both of them for good.

AN INDECENT PROPOSITION was originally published as a five part e-serial, and that was how I originally read it, waiting impatiently for weeks between releases. The passionate romance and scorching sex scenes kept me reading, even as the individual cliffhangers made me crazy wanting to know what happened next. But I wondered if the read would be just as satisfying when glued together as one complete story.

The good news is that yes, AN INDECENT PROPOSITION does work well without the forced reading delay between each of its five segments. Some serials have a real issue with maintaining continuity, one that isn’t obvious until repackaged as a full length book, but this never happened here. The sections flow naturally into each other, even though the originally defined separations are still used (i.e. five sections labeled as “Chapter One”), and the transitions hold up with the closer proximity.

Best of all, the relationship between Erik, Julianne and Keegan still packs the emotional punch that kept me reading for months. It never veers into overkill, even with the compressed timeline and often problematic “insta-lust” trope transforming a bizarre business transaction into a 3 way affair that may or may not become a lasting 3 way relationship. I’m glad I had the opportunity to read AN INDECENT PROPOSITION in both incarnations, and I’m looking forward to a follow-up book featuring Erik’s sister Katrina.

Ratings:
Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 4 (MFM menage, light BDSM, voyeur play, semi-public sex)

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Review: Gabriel’s Redemption by Sylvain Reynard

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Title: Gabriel’s Redemption
Author: Sylvain Reynard
Series: Gabriel’s Inferno #3
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Format: ebook/print/audio
Release Date: 12/3/2013

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.

Publisher Summary:

Professor Gabriel Emerson has left his position at the University of Toronto to embark on a new life with his beloved Julianne. Together, he’s confident that they can face any challenge. And he’s eager to become a father.

But Julianne’s graduate program threatens Gabriel’s plans, as the pressures of being a student become all consuming. When she is given the honor of presenting an academic lecture at Oxford, Gabriel is forced to confront her about the subject of her presentation – research that conflicts with his own. And in Oxford, several individuals from their past appear, including an old nemesis intent on humiliating Julia and exposing one of Gabriel’s darkest secrets.

In an effort to confront his remaining demons, Gabriel begins a quest to discover more about his biological parents, beginning a chain of events that has startling repercussions for himself, Julianne, and his hope of having a family.

My Review:

This review contains spoilers for Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture, the first two books in the trilogy. You could try to read Gabriel’s Redemption as a stand-alone, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

When we last saw Julia and Gabriel, they had just reconciled and married after a tumultuous time during which they were forcibly separated after the scandal of their illicit relationship had nearly cost both of them their academic careers. Now safely wed, they are working on how to navigate a marriage between one imperious Dante specialist used to having his own way and one equally stubborn Dante specialist-in-training who loves her man but wants to make her own way in the field they both share. Julia has a very important lecture to present at Oxford and it’s that lecture which sparks their final journey through their not-so-distant past, with nearly every friend and foe reappearing for one last hurrah.

Sylvain Reynard has stated publicly that a third book in the Gabriel’s Inferno series was never planned, and that Gabriel’s Redemption is the direct result of the fans requesting it. I’m always wary of books that are produced as a love letter to the fans, as the need to please can either result in something that’s just a repeat of the previous book(s) or worse, a plot that abandons everything readers had loved before and ruins their memories forever.

I am so very relieved and pleased to report that Gabriel’s Redemption is neither a boring rehash, nor is it a betrayal of the series. For a huge fan like me, reading this book was like coming back to a place that you have always loved but haven’t visited in quite some time. There was drama (the good kind that doesn’t make you want to throw the book against the wall) and humor (the Professor is finally able to laugh at just how much of an ass he can be) and suspense (whatever happened to all the incriminating photos of Julia with the Senator’s son?). The enemies who had previously threatened Julia and Gabriel’s happiness all got to come back for one more shot, while the dear friends and family who had aided our lovers in their triumph over evil returned to help once again. All the loose ends from the past were addressed and resolved, and by the end of the book, I knew that our Dante and his Beatrice were finally going to live Happily Ever After – no epilogue required. Gabriel’s Redemption is the best gift to those who love Julia and her Professor and it made me love the whole series even more. 4.5 stars

Review: Because We Belong by Beth Kery

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Because We Belong (Because You Are Mine, #3)Because We Belong by Beth Kery

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

This review contains spoilers for Because You Are Mine and When I’m With You, the first two stories in the series. You could try to read Because We Belong as a stand-alone book, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

After having to read the previous stories in this series as serial novels, it was a huge relief for me that Because We Belong was being released as a complete book from the start. The prologue takes place hours before the dramatic moment in When I’m With You when Ian found out that his mother had died and that he and his good friend had both been fathered by the same man who had raped their mothers and thousands of other women before his death. We then move forward six months to find that Ian has been missing that entire time, with only his personal assistant Lin knowing where he is or what he is doing. Francesca has moved back into the house she once shared with all her old roommates while trying to go on without Ian, angry and sad that he has refused to contact her even once. When Lucien returns to ask for Francesca’s help in managing a delicate financial crisis at Noble Enterprises, her decision sets off a chain of events that put her in danger from an unknown enemy and force her to confront the mania driving the man she doesn’t want to live without.

I loved Ian and Francesca so much in Because You Are Mine, and hated having to wait each week for the next entry in the story. When I’m With You was a good read in its own right, but because the focus was on Lucien and Elise, it was less compelling for me right up until that heart-slamming chapter when Lucien revealed his relationship to Ian just before Ian found out his mother had died, leaving that same night to see his family in England. I was shocked to find that Ian was still gone and not communicating with Francesca months after that night, and that got me even more hooked into Because We Belong, as I wondered what the hell was going on with Ian and what might happen next.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I tore through Because We Belong as fast as I was able to read without skimming or missing a single word. All of Francesca’s feelings were front and center in this book and I felt what she did as it was happening. My relief was palpable when Ian finally made contact, yet I cheered her on as she made him see just how much he had hurt her by his absence, and never allowing him to succumb entirely to his obsession with his late father’s past.

In Because We Belong, the passion between Ian and Francesca is just as deep and true and undeniable as it ever was, and their intimate moments burn up the pages whenever they come together. The growing threat to Francesca’s life is intrinsic to the overall story but never overwhelms the romance between Ian and Francesca as they rediscover the love they both had feared they’d lost. Best of all, the end of the story sets up another book in the series, so we’ll be able to see more happy moments between Ian and Francesca now that they’ve defeated both the internal and external threats to their happiness. Because We Belong is a fantastic entry in the Because You Are Mine series and was worth every minute I had to wait before I got to read it.

Ratings:

Overall: 5
Sensuality level: 4 (BDSM elements including light bondage, anal sex and voyeurism, threats of sexual violence and discussion of rape)

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Review: The Fifth Favor by Shelby Reed

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The Fifth FavorThe Fifth Favor by Shelby Reed

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

I had only recently discovered the books of Shelby Reed when I got the opportunity to review this reissued version of THE FIFTH FAVOR, originally released by Ellora’s Cave back in 2004. It tells the story of a woman who was looking for a big break to help boost her career as a reporter for a sleazy tabloid magazine but ended up finding the one man who could fill the emotional hole in her life. But when the man you love makes his living by sexually servicing other women, can the love you have for each other survive the fallout when he stands accused of murder?

Billie has just come out of a failed marriage where she had been starved for affection from her ex-husband who then proceeded to dump her for a woman more worthy of his love. All she has left is her career, and that isn’t going all that great, either. When her boss arranges an interview with one of the most sought-after male escorts at an exclusive brothel for women, Billie is only thinking about how this assignment will help her at work. But when she meets Adrian, it’s all she can do not to allow herself to fall into his arms like every other woman he’s serviced before her. To his credit, Adrian doesn’t see Billie as just another woman to be romanced, although he’s not quite sure what it is about her that he finds so irresistible. When Adrian becomes a suspect in the possible murder of Lucien, his best friend and fellow escort, both his and Billie’s lives are turned upside down and it’s not a sure thing whether they’ll still be with each other with so many obstacles in their path to lasting love.

In THE FIFTH FAVOR, Shelby Reed displays her considerable ability to show her characters’ range of emotions without becoming maudlin or mawkish. Adrian knows his secret life has been a lie, yet it takes the double-whammy of meeting Billie and the death of Lucien to shake him out of the destructive rut he’s been in for so many years. Billie’s self-esteem is hanging by a thread when the most beautiful man she’s ever met actually wants to be with her, but she can’t help thinking that it’s all just part of his polished persona as Adrian, and not the real man who truly loves her. The way they come together and slowly chip away the walls they’ve each been hiding behind is what makes THE FIFTH FAVOR such a remarkable read for me, and the steps they each make toward their ultimate happy ending had me crying several times all the way until the end of the book. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 4

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Review: Colters’ Gift by Maya Banks

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Colters' Gift (Colters' Legacy, #5)Colters’ Gift by Maya Banks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for a honest review at Seductive Musings.

Colters’ Gift is the latest entry in Maya Banks’ Colters’ Legacy series and with Colters’ Legacy, the additional novella included as a bonus, it concludes the story of the Colter family and their multiple generations of brothers who share and love a single woman together forever.

We last saw Lauren Wilder in Colters’ Promise, when she was rescued from an abusive relationship by her brother Max and the two men he had hired to protect her. In that story Max, happily married to Callie Colter, convinced Lauren to leave New York for Clyde, Colorado, where she could be looked after by the whole extended Colter family. Now months later, Lauren is just starting to regain her confidence and feel like herself again, while her two bodyguards, Noah and Liam, are still in New York trying to find the man who had abused Lauren. What they don’t know and Lauren hasn’t shared is that her ex-boyfriend Joel Knight is a dangerous criminal kingpin who uses his wealth and influence with corrupt law enforcement officials to do whatever he wants, including drug trafficking, prostitution, and worse. When Noah and Liam realize the danger Lauren is in, they return to Clyde both to protect her and claim her for their own. But Joel hasn’t given up looking for Lauren, and when he finds her, the entire Colter clan rallies to eliminate the danger to her and themselves once and for all.

So much of Colters’ Gift was taken up with the threat to Lauren’s life that the romance between her and the two bodyguards suffered by comparison for me. I hadn’t gotten a sense from the previous book that either Liam or Noah had harbored deeper feelings for her, let alone ones so strong that they were willing to share her. Of course the idea of being shared wouldn’t be out of the question for Lauren after seeing how happy her in-laws were in their relationships, but it almost seemed like it was being forced into the plot just to keep with the overall menage theme of the series. What I found especially odd was how the story just seemed to end suddenly with Colters’ Gift, and then the actual happy ending for everyone was in the bonus novella, Colters’ Legacy. It would have made more sense to me to just have that in the one book, but perhaps there were other issues not obvious to the reader forcing that decision.

As a longtime reader of the Colters’ Legacy series, I was happy to have final closure on the characters’ lives, but beyond that, Colters’ Gift was just an okay read for me. There really wasn’t anywhere else for Maya Banks to go with the story and I’m glad she was able to end it on a positive note with everyone happy, safe and loved.

Ratings:

Overall: 3
Sensuality level: 4 (MFM menage including anal sex, multiple threats of sexual violence)

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Review: Wicked and Dangerous by Shayla Black and Rhyannon Byrd

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Wicked and Dangerous (Wicked Lovers, #7.5)Wicked and Dangerous by Shayla Black

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Night Owl Reviews. The full review can be found here.

The connection of “Wicked All Night” to her Wicked Lovers series is tenuous at best (Decker works for the Santiago brothers whose love story was told in “Ours to Love”) but the fast pace and scorching hot sex scenes of that series are more than present here and I was a happy reader all the way to the whirlwind ending. 4.5 stars

“Make Me Yours”
Although I wasn’t familiar with this author or series, the quality of the writing and the story kept me riveted all the way through. My only frustration came from how Ryder would continue to push Lily away even though they both knew they could never be apart forever. But I was entertained enough that I will be seeking out the first book in the series (“Take Me Under”) to read about the other characters living in Moss Creek, Louisiana. 3.5 stars

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Review: The Naughty Corner by Jasmine Haynes

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The Naughty CornerThe Naughty Corner by Jasmine Haynes

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Night Owl Reviews.

The full version of this review is available at Night Owl Reviews: The Naughty Corner by Jasmine Haynes

One of the things I love most about Jasmine Haynes’s writing is the sense of humor she brings to so many of her stories. There’s something funny about everything and everyone in “The Naughty Corner” even when Lola is dealing with what appears to be a stalker sending her threatening emails and letters. The relationship between Gray and Lola starts out as a summer fling for both of them, but as it grows into something deeper, the feelings they each deal with are handled as maturely and realistically as possible under the circumstances, with a minimum of angst and drama. And because this is Jasmine Haynes, the sex scenes are sensual and passionate without being lewd or lascivious. It’s that successful combination of hot sex, deep emotions and light humor that makes “The Naughty Corner” such a fun and satisfying read.

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