Tag Archives: Made Me Cry

Review: The Billionaire Submissive by Joely Sue Burkhart

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Billionaire Submissive (Billionaires in Bondage)The Billionaire Submissive by Joely Sue Burkhart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for an honest review at The Romance Evangelist.

Joely Sue Burkhart is one of the writers I wish would release more books each year because I enjoy reading them so much. Her Connaghers series is one of my favorites in contemporary BDSM romance, so I was thrilled to hear that she was starting a new Billionaires in Bondage series with this first title, THE BILLIONAIRE SUBMISSIVE. Sure, it’s an overplayed trope, but who better to breathe new life into it than someone who has already established her credentials in the BDSM romance field? After reading this book, I can say without hesitation that Ms. Burkhart has more than validated my confidence in her ability to make the BDSM Billionaire trope her own, with a story that’s as beautiful and touching as any romance I’ve read in a long time.

The premise of THE BILLIONAIRE SUBMISSIVE is as simple as its title, and as complex as its hero and heroine. Donovan Morgan has learned the hard way that only money and power can get you what you want, and even then, they aren’t always enough. He has employees all over the world at his beck and call, but what he really needs is to serve at the feet of a woman worthy of his submission. As a public figure, Donovan can’t just wander into any BDSM club, or show up at a local munch, so he asks his trusted private investigator to find the best and most trustworthy Domme in the immediate vicinity. But when his ace PI uncovers a woman who could be more than just the perfect Mistress, Donovan will soon discover that true submission is only part of what he needs, and just the start of what he wants to give her.

Lilly Harrison is a stained glass artist by day, Dominatrix for hire by night. Both feed her soul, but only one pays the bills. When she first meets Donovan under his pretext of hiring her for an elaborate window design project, Lilly senses the submissive inside the bossy billionaire. But when she realizes why she’s really there, it’s only against her better judgment that Lilly decides to take a chance with Donovan and all the possibilities he brings. Their sexual connection is instant and undeniable, but a happy ending is far from certain, and the road there could break them both as easily as the stained glass in Lilly’s window. It will take everything they’ve got before all the delicate and jagged pieces come together for their hard-won Happy Ever After.

I’ve read dozens of billionaire BDSM romances, and more than a few with a FemDom theme, but THE BILLIONAIRE SUBMISSIVE is currently the only one where every aspect has clicked perfectly into place for me all the way from the first page to the last. Both Donovan and Lilly are fully realized individuals who aren’t forced together by external events, but who agree to an exclusive D/s relationship in spite of Donovan’s initial heavy-handed tactics and Lilly’s reluctance to make him her sole client. As their story unfolds, we get both points of view without ever being bogged down in superfluous descriptions, or confused by excessive head-hopping. Best of all, their romance is shown as an ongoing work-in-progress throughout the book, with the natural give and take that any two people with reasonable boundaries and expectations would experience, albeit one where the woman is dominant in the bedroom and the man is dominant outside it. Lilly is never awed by Donovan’s wealth or status, but learns to accept that he will never allow her to jeopardize her own safety and well-being. In turn, Donovan learns that you can’t force love and trust; you can only show yourself worthy by giving it without question in return. And when some terrible misunderstanding threatens to derail everything near the end, Joely Sue Burkhart once again avoids manufactured drama, instead giving us the ultimate scene of trust between Donovan and Lilly that demonstrates all they’ve learned from each other and proving their love and trust is both genuine and mutual. Their HEA is as real and as beautiful as the glass window Lilly has created for Donovan’s office building, only infinitely more precious. That ending and the journey to it is why THE BILLIONAIRE SUBMISSIVE is now officially the best FemDom romance I’ve ever read, and my best romance for this year so far. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book in this series.

View all my reviews

Review: Avenge Me by Maisey Yates

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , ,

Avenge Me (Fifth Avenue Trilogy, #1)Avenge Me by Maisey Yates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for an honest review at The Romance Evangelist.

AVENGE ME is the first full-length novel in the Fifth Avenue series, where each story revolves around the suicide of Sarah Michaels, and the long-term effects of her tragic death on those who were closest to her. In this book, it’s been ten years since Sarah killed herself, and although her three best friends from college meet every year to commemorate the sad anniversary, it’s only now that justice might finally be close at hand. Austin Treffen, the last one to hear from Sarah and the son of the man they believe responsible for her suicide, has received an anonymous note claiming to have proof of his father’s guilt. So when he pretends to reconcile with his family at the company holiday party in an attempt to get more information, the last thing Austin expects is to be swept off his feet by a beautiful woman. But when that woman turns out to be Sarah’s younger sister, the two of them may have to choose between their desire for each other and their need to avenge the dead woman who still haunts them both.

I’ve always been a fan of Maisey Yates’s category-length romances, but AVENGE ME was a revelation in how well she was able to set a tone of impending danger and maintain it flawlessly over nearly three hundred pages. The true violence has already taken place before our story begins, but as we learn more about Sarah from her friends and her sister Katy, the loss feels recent, even as more details about Sarah’s final days are revealed. But even though Sarah is ultimately what brings Austin and Katy together, it’s their budding relationship which is front and center, as it should be in any true romance. What I especially enjoyed about AVENGE ME was how it wasn’t just sexual chemistry and their common loss that made the hero and heroine so well matched, but how they had both been damaged by their dysfunctional childhoods despite the vast financial gulf between them. Although it’s obvious to the reader that Austin and Katy belong together, it’s not a sure thing that they will permit themselves to embrace a shared future, and I was genuinely concerned that there would be some sort of cliffhanger somehow that would keep me from the HEA that I needed to read and they deserved to have. Any romance writer that can make me worry about the happy ending when I already know there IS a happy ending is uncommonly good at writing romance, and that’s what Maisey Yates has done in AVENGE ME. If the next two books in the Fifth Avenue series are half as good at maintaining this degree of delicious uncertainty, I am going to be a very happy reader.

View all my reviews

Review: Flying by Megan Hart

Reviews, , , , , , ,

FlyingFlying by Megan Hart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Megan Hart was one of the very first writers I found when I started looking for quality contemporary erotic romance books in the past few years, and she’s still one of the best. To be fair, what she writes is more erotic women’s fiction than romance specifically, since there is absolutely no guarantee that any of her books will have a true Happy Ever After for her main characters, but enough of her books have qualified that she’s one of my favorites in the genre. However, and I’ll acknowledge this is on me more than her, her last few books haven’t been as enjoyable for me as her earlier works, and I was becoming concerned that I might have to stop reviewing her books, as we just didn’t seem to mesh well anymore.

So it was with some trepidation that I started reading FLYING, although the blurb made it sound like something I would absolutely love. I’m so happy to say FLYING is Megan Hart back to where I love her – ripping my heart out for a heroine who could just have easily been me, in a situation that only she could make me understand and want to see end in a better place than where it began.

Stella is hanging on to her sanity by her fingertips, and it’s only by spending weekends away from home with strangers she picks up on airplanes and airports that she can temporarily forget all the loss in her life. Matthew starts out as yet another sexual escape for Stella, but ends up being someone who could make her break all her rules, including the one about never letting another man into her heart.

I had a tremendous amount of sympathy for Stella and refused to judge her for how she had chosen to cope with what had happened to her family. So when she found herself falling for Matthew, I was more worried about how she could possibly survive another loss than about any repercussions in her real life. But as damaged as Stella might be, Matthew is even more, and although I loved them together, I was so proud of how she finally called him out for not valuing her as much as she had him, and how she forced him to take the next step toward a genuine relationship with her if that’s what he really wanted. So when she went on to finally deal with all the dangling ends in her real life after the events which had blown it apart, I was cheering and happy even before the surprise happy ending, because I knew that she was going to be okay with or without Matthew.

The only problem I had with FLYING was what kept me from giving it a full 5 star review, and that’s the deliberate use of the third person present voice for all the scenes where Stella is living through one of her “flying” sequences. I realize that was done to help set those off from her “real” life, and it definitely works in that respect. But that type of writing is extremely difficult for me to read, and when the entire first chapter of the book was in that style, it took me several days to finish, resisting my impulse to DNF the whole book at that point. Once the second chapter began in third person past voice, I was able to read and enjoy the rest of the book without issue. It’s likely most other readers won’t have this problem reading third person present, but if you do, just hang in there and finish that first chapter, because FLYING is definitely worth every effort.

View all my reviews

Review: Arrest by June Gray

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , ,

ArrestArrest by June Gray

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

This review may contain spoilers for DISARM, the first book in this series. You should not try to read ARREST as a standalone, as it assumes you are already familiar with events of the previous book that are not always fully explained in this one.

I enjoyed reading June Gray’s DISARM romance novelettes after they were released as a full length book back in 2013, so when that book was acquired by a major publisher, I was happy that there would be two more books in the series. ARREST picks up where DISARM left off, with Henry and Elsie newly married and embarking on the rest of their Happily Ever After together. But just because they got past all their previous obstacles doesn’t mean that there aren’t new ones now that they are finally married. The primary source of their problems now is Henry’s new career as a law enforcement officer. It was bad enough when he was still in the US military and being sent into a war zone for months on end. Now Elsie has to worry about him every day and night, forever dreading a future where he doesn’t come home safely at the end of his scheduled shift. Their shared adjustment to this new reality, combined with his reaction to Elsie’s independent career as a web designer and the usual dips and bumps that happen in a marriage, constantly threaten their happiness even as they both know that they could never survive away from each other. The story of ARREST is how each crisis in Henry and Elsie’s marriage ultimately makes them stronger together, and better able to deal with whatever life throws at them next. But the journey isn’t easy and when Henry begins to rely on his old destructive coping mechanisms, it will take both of them working as hard as they can to get to the true happy ending they’d thought they already had on their wedding day.

As much as I enjoyed the previous book, the way Henry was always retreating from Elsie when he was upset did get to be tiring after a while, so I was worried that I might not be as sympathetic to him when all the new bad things started happening to them both in ARREST. However, I was quite happy to be proven wrong in my concern, as it appeared that Henry has indeed grown emotionally since then. The love he and Elsie have for each other is never questioned, and it never wavers. But as they and we already learned before, love isn’t enough to keep them together if they can’t communicate and compromise, and in ARREST, Henry and Elsie must both relearn those painful lessons if they’re going to stay married and happy together.

ARREST also has the advantage of hanging together better as an complete story from the start, as opposed to the previous title. We are shown once again how their past continues to affect their present, but also how they are aware of how easily they could fall back into a vicious cycle of hurting each other, however inadvertently. Being able to see Henry and Elsie take real steps toward a fully reciprocal relationship made reading through all their pain and sadness worth it for the true happy ending awaiting them both. ARREST is an excellent example of how the “marriage in trouble” trope can be realistic without being too depressing. But I’m relieved that the next story in the series will be about someone else, so I can be content in the knowledge that Elsie and Henry have finally earned their HEA and won’t have to suffer any longer.

Ratings:

Overall: 4
Sensuality level: 3.5

View all my reviews

Review: Fall From India Place by Samantha Young

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fall from India Place (On Dublin Street, #4)Fall from India Place by Samantha Young

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 may contain spoilers for previous books in the On Dublin Road series. You can probably read FALL FROM INDIA PLACE as a standalone, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’ve been a big fan of Samantha Young’s On Dublin Road series from the very beginning, with each book in turn reminding me why New Adult romances have become so popular in the first place. Her characters have genuine roadblocks in their lives that don’t appear just to gin up extra drama, and their coping mechanisms are completely understandable in the context of each story. And although each story is set in the same world with previous couples continuing to appear as recurring characters, each one is also unique in terms of what brings the main couple together and what threatens to keep them apart.

In FALL FROM INDIA PLACE, the timeline has advanced several years past the last book in the series, and many of the previously featured couples are married with young children of their own. Hannah Nichols, the younger sister of Braden and Ellie, is now all grown up at 22, teaching high school English by day and a weekly adult literacy course at night. Her job and extended family appear to be enough to keep Hannah content, but there’s a lingering sadness there, thanks to the only man she’d ever wanted but could never really have.

Marco D’Alessandro was introduced in BEFORE JAMAICA LANE as the busboy at a local Italian restaurant and Hannah’s first school girl crush. We only got a brief glance at them together back then, but it’s clear in this new book that something significant happened between them in the interim when when Hannah finds Marco’s picture in a box of old things that her mother has asked her to clean out. It’s at that moment that FALL FROM INDIA PLACE begins to tell Hannah and Marco’s entire story in both the past and and present, showing exactly how what they shared before could be the one impossible obstacle to finding that happiness again for good.

One of the things I loved about FALL FROM INDIA PLACE was how we got a complete picture of the adult Hannah living in the present day before Marco was ever mentioned. We see that her love life is practically non-existent, even as her friends from school keep trying to fix her up with eligible men. We also see how she channels her kind and loving nature into her job and interactions with family, while never really having much to do for her own happiness. So when Marco suddenly reappears in Hannah’s life after five years missing in action, it’s like a bolt from the blue for both her and the reader: Where has he been? Why did he leave? How can she possibly take him back? And that’s when both we and Hannah start to get a much better picture of who Marco was, why he left, and how that made him the man he is now. When Hannah agrees to give March another chance, it becomes obvious that the time apart has made them both better suited to each other in a way they never were before. But the secrets they both still carry from that time are on a collision course toward an inevitable confrontation that will either help them heal completely or split them apart forever.

What surprised me the most about FALL FROM INDIA PLACE wasn’t that I was able to eventually figure out what secret each of them was keeping back and how those two secrets would be in such horrible conflict with each other, but that I was actually happy with that outcome and how it was ultimately handled. It proved that being able to see where the story is going to end up isn’t a bad thing when the path there is written so beautifully and the actual events play out in a way you might not have expected. That’s what I’ve loved about every book in this series, and why FALL FROM INDIA PLACE was such a wonderful read for me. I can only hope that Samantha Young can keep up this consistent level of excellence in all the books to come.

Ratings:

Overall: 5
Sensuality level: 3

View all my reviews

Review: In Your Corner by Sarah Castille

Reviews, , , , , , , , , ,

In Your Corner (Redemption, #2)In Your Corner by Sarah Castille

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

This review may contain spoilers for On The Ropes, book 1 in the Redemption series. You should be able to read In Your Corner as a standalone book.

ON THE ROPES was one of the first Mixed Martial Arts themed romances I read back in 2013, and it’s still one of the best. So I was excited to learn that there would be additional books featuring other characters in the world of Redemption. IN YOUR CORNER picks up two years after the events of ON THE ROPES, and tells the story of that couple we saw break up so painfully before: Jake and Amanda. Back then, anyone could see that although they were from different worlds, they still had not only an undeniable sexual chemistry, but also an emotional affinity as two people who had learned the hard way not to trust anyone but themselves for protection and safety, especially of the heart. So when Amanda pushed Jake away for good after he made a terrible snap judgment in a moment of weakness, we knew they weren’t quite done with each other. And now it’s two years later, and they’ve both grown and changed in ways that will prepare them to write the ending to that story at last.

When Amanda discovers that Jake is her new client at the stuffy corporate law firm where she’s been working herself to death in an attempt to make partner just to please her never-satisfied parents, the shock is almost too much to bear. She’d never known Jake was from a well-off family with a large and successful business. Now he needs a lawyer, and quickly, but he quickly makes it clear that he won’t allow it to be her. His seeming rejection of Amanda triggers a series of events that begins with her being forced to quit her job and ends with her broken and bleeding in a dark alley just down the street from Redemption. Jake and his fellow MMA fighters at Redemption try to rescue Amanda from the downward spiral that pushed her into that near-fatal alley. But will Amanda finally ask for the help she needs even when refusing it means losing Jake for good?

Jake had tried to forget Amanda after their painful breakup, but losing both her and his brother Peter was too much to bear. Being forced to take over the family business after Peter’s death has isolated Jake from everything else good in his life, especially the people at Redemption who were his true family after his parents had rejected him. But now that Amanda is back, Jake isn’t going to make the same mistake a second time. And when he’s done, he’ll have everything he always wanted before: the professional MMA career, the camaraderie of his Redemption family, and Amanda.

As much as I loved ON THE ROPES, I was even more blown away by IN YOUR CORNER. I think it’s because unlike Max (Torment) in the previous book, there’s no mystery about who Jake is or what really makes him tick. He’s a guy who came from wealth, but never found happiness until he discovered his love of MMA at Redemption and got his life turned in the right direction. There’s really no secret about who Amanda really is, either.. She’s spent her whole life striving for the wrong goals, all because her father wanted a son and both he and her mother were too busy with their own legal careers to spend much time making sure their only daughter was actually loved and cared for. It took the dramatic events put into play by Jake’s rejection of Amanda as his lawyer to force them both to give a chance at happiness together one more try, but it took all their good friends to keep pushing them back together every time one or the other started falling back into their old patterns of rejection and hurt feelings.

Usually a romance where the hero and heroine keep splitting up and coming back together would annoy me, but IN YOUR CORNER neatly avoids the usual traps which would otherwise doom the book to failure. As corny as it sounds, each time Jake and Amanda seem to be taking a step back, they really do end up taking two steps forward, and the small successes start adding up. By the time we reach the final black moment where it appears Amanda will lose everything she’s fought for, including Jake, all the lessons she’s learned the hard way start to kick in, and she is able to step back from the abyss this second time. Both Amanda and Jake realize that they need to love each other as they are, and accept that what they have together is exactly what they need. Along the way, we learn more about the various characters who populate the Redemption world, and the impending setups for future romances in the series. Redemption may be an MMA training center, but its name represents more than that for the people who have made it a success, and IN THE CORNER is show how true that is for both Jake and Amanda. It’s a moving and passionate look at a couple who learn to fight for what they want until they win, both in and out of the Redemption ring, and one of the best books I’ve read this year.

View all my reviews

Review: Best Erotic Romance 2014, ed. Kristina Wright

Reviews, , , , , , , , , ,

Best Erotic Romance 2014Best Erotic Romance 2014 by Kristina Wright

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 text of the review can be found there.

One of the things Cleis Press does best is their yearly anthologies of short erotic stories, usually pegged to a specific theme or conceit. So with Best Erotic Romance 2014, I knew there would be some wonderful sexy times between couples who truly love each other, and that’s exactly what I found.

View all my reviews

Release Week Blog Tour and Review: The Last Good Knight by Tiffany Reisz

Promo, Reviews, , , , , , , , , , ,

The Last Good Knight by Tiffany Reisz
An Original Sinners novella told in five parts

LGK 1 coverScars and Stripes by Tiffany Reisz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s lust at first sight when Mistress Nora encounters a sexy newcomer to The 8th Circle. She’s happy for the distraction, since she left her lover, Søren, but her session with Lance is cut short when her boss, Kingsley Edge, reveals they’re all in danger….

 

 

LGK 2 coverSore Spots by Tiffany Reisz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With a potential stalker on the loose, Kingsley hires Lance as Nora’s bodyguard, but stipulates no sex while he’s on duty. Frustrated by the ex-SEAL’s noble chivalry, Nora is driven to seek release with the one man she’s trying to forget….

 

 

LGK 3 cover
The Games Destiny Plays by Tiffany Reisz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Shocked to see Nora’s bruises, Lance is furious that she put herself in danger and demands to know where she got them. As Nora confesses her true nature, she’s equally shocked to learn that Lance has some secrets of his own, drawing them together despite Kingsley’s orders….

 

LGK 4 coverFit to Be Tied by Tiffany Reisz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With her feelings for Lance warring with her recent encounter with Søren, Nora returns to Lance’s bed and finds herself toying with the idea of…toying with him on a permanent basis. But after she gets a glimpse into his personal angst, Nora realizes she has the power to rescue this white knight….

 

LGK 5 cover
The Last Good Night by Tiffany Reisz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Now that the perpetrator has been apprehended, Nora sadly acknowledges she doesn’t need a bodyguard anymore. She adores Lance and wants to keep him but is faced with a dilemma—if she uses her connections to help Lance, she’ll have to give him up forever…

 

****************************************************************************************

Amazon US
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Barnes & Noble
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Author Bio & Contact Links:

Tiffany Reisz lives with her boyfriend (a reformed book reviewer) and two cats (one good, one evil). She graduated with a B.A. in English from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky and is making both her parents and her professors proud by writing BDSM erotica under her real name. She has five piercings, one tattoo, and has been arrested twice.

When not under arrest, Tiffany enjoys Latin Dance, Latin Men, and Latin Verbs. She dropped out of a conservative southern seminary in order to pursue her dream of becoming a smut peddler. Johnny Depp’s aunt was her fourth grade teacher. Her first full-length novel THE SIREN was inspired by a desire to tie up actor Jason Isaacs (on paper). She hopes someday life will imitate art (in bed).

If she couldn’t write, she would die.

Twitter: @TiffanyReisz https://twitter.com/tiffanyreisz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littleredridingcrop
Website: http://www.tiffanyreisz.com/

****************************************************************************************

My Review:

It’s no secret around these parts that I am a huge fangirl for Tiffany Reisz’s Original Sinners. (Team Søren, in case you were wondering.) So despite my equally well advertised weariness with romance serials, I knew I had to get my grabby hands on her new five part Original Sinners serial, THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT. It tells a brief but memorable story of how Nora found some momentary solace in her 30th year on earth (and 2nd year separated from her first and only love) with a type of hero not seen too often in erotic romance: an alpha male submissive.

Lance is an ex-Navy SEAL who just got a job working security for the one and only Kingsley Edge in the infamous 8th Circle BDSM club where Nora is now the top earning Dominatrix. But for Nora, Lance isn’t a job – he’s a treat, and one she’s deserved for quite some time. They share the beginning of what promises to be an amazing sexual encounter, when the one person who could enter Nora’s inner sanctum uninvited arrives to whisk everyone away to the safety of Kingsley’s townhouse. Another Dominatrix has been nearly beaten to death at a rival BDSM club, and the fear is that her attacker looking for others to harm in much the same way. Of course, Nora refuses to abandon her clients, so the next best compromise is for her to accept her own personal bodyguard until the culprit is found. And because Nora can never catch a break in such things, the bodyguard Kingsley’s picked for her is Lance, with a strict “no sex” rule in place for the duration.

During its five part story arc, THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT provides a fascinating peek into Nora’s life at a time not long after she left Søren but before the events of THE SIREN. It’s obvious that Søren is still the only man for her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not going to take advantage of her time with Lance, a man who would never permit himself to behave in any way other than with honor, even to the detriment of his own happiness. Along the way, we meet a few members of Nora’s eclectic clientele, and see how having a bodyguard can be a real advantage for her, especially when a new client gets himself placed on the No-Play list for gross disrespect and generally bad behavior. And as Nora and Lance form an emotional connection in lieu of a sexual one, we discover just how much Lance has sacrificed to protect the person most beloved to him. Once the danger to Nora is neutralized by one of my favorite Original Sinners, Griffin Fiske, she and Lance can finally have the many-splendored night they’d been prevented from sharing earlier. Their physical joining is just as spectacular as both they and we had anticipated, with a deeper level of intimacy that only strengthens their newly formed bond. But the true heart of THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT lies in the grave wrong done to Lance by his ex-wife and a society that refused to accept him for what he was, culminating in Nora’s deliberate violation of Kingsley’s number one rule in the name of justice, even at the cost of her own new-found joy.

I will always be Team Søren, but Lance gives him a run for his money in THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT. Lance may be submissive, but he is every inch an alpha male, and as the title reveals, a conscientious man who will always put those entrusted in his care first, no matter what the cost. He’s also funny and sweet and so amazingly hot that any woman would be lucky to have him in her life in whatever capacity she could manage. And anyone who thought Nora unable to truly commit to a man other than Søren will have their assumptions tested when seeing her with Lance in their most intimate scenes. For THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT makes it clear that one day Nora will be able to collar her own exclusive submissive without compromising her love for Søren, even if the two of them appear to be irrevocably separated. Lance may have not been fated to be that lucky man, but one day her destined submissive will appear, and THE LAST GOOD KNIGHT shows us that Nora will be ready when he does. It’s essential reading for lovers of the Original Sinners, and thanks to Harlequin MIRA releasing it all in a single week, you won’t have to wait too long to get your complete fix. 5 stars for all 5 parts.

The Last Good Knight BannerThe Novel Tease

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Giving In by Maya Banks

Reviews, , , , , , , , , ,

Giving In (Surrender Trilogy, #2)Giving In by Maya Banks

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

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

This review may contain spoilers for LETTING GO, book 1 in the Surrender trilogy. You can read GIVING IN as a standalone, but I believe you’ll enjoy it more if you’ve read the previous book first.

GIVING IN continues the story of a group of friends and family devastated by the untimely death of Carson Breckenridge and how their lives have changed since then. In the previous book, we saw Carson’s best friend finally acknowledge his long-suppressed feelings for Carson’s widow after three long years of mourning. Here in GIVING IN, Jensen Tucker, the man who replaced Carson as partner in his successful management consultant firm seeks to rescue Carson’s still-grieving sister from the emotional black hole she’s been in for most of her life. What neither Jensen nor Kylie could have anticipated was that Jensen needed rescuing just as much as Kylie, and that together they would find the path toward real healing and true love.

Kylie Breckenridge and her beloved older brother Carson had already survived a horrific childhood, thanks to his success at planning their escape and unwavering determination to keep them both alive. But Carson is gone, and Kylie feels abandoned all over again. Now there’s no one who can understand what she went through and why she can’t bring herself to live the full and happy life he’d always wanted for her. What Kylie doesn’t realize is that there is someone who senses what she feels and what she really needs, and it’s the one person who makes her angry enough to fight for what she wants, even as she resists him every step of the way. That person is Jensen Tucker.

Jensen may have only recently arrived in Kylie’s world, but he can already see that letting her continue to drift through life would be the same terrible mistake that her late brother and their friends have already made. Now Jensen is determined not only to drag Kylie out from behind her walls of self-protection, but to seek her complete emotional surrender to him as the only man who can protect her from everything she’s been hiding from for much too long.

Although I’m a big fan of how Maya Banks incorporates BDSM into many of her other books, including LETTING GO, it was just as satisfying to see GIVING IN focus more on the non-physical aspects of Dominance and submission, and how one can provide the emotional grounding for the other, even when the roles are switched. Jensen is willing to do just about anything to prove to Kylie that he can be trusted unconditionally, including suppressing his innate desire to dominate her. But Jensen’s need to be Kylie’s protector is tangled up in the damage from his own violent childhood from which he’s never completely recovered. When this unresolved trauma triggers Jensen into doing the one thing he’d promised Kylie would never happen, his heartbreaking decision to keep her safe becomes the catalyst for her to finally give him the surrender they both need for a genuinely happily ever after together.

GIVING IN is a remarkable story of two damaged souls who find their perfect counterpoint in each other. It never flinches from showing the long-term effects of domestic violence and child abuse while always keeping the delicate romance between its hero and heroine front and center. Up next is TAKING IT ALL, and it will finally address all the problems we’ve seen between Chessie and Tate caused by his repeated work-related absences. As sad I as I’ll be to see the Surrender trilogy end, I still can’t wait to read it.

Ratings:
Overall: 4.5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

View all my reviews

Review: Hard Time by Cara McKenna

Reviews, , , , , , , ,

Hard TimeHard Time by Cara McKenna

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.

In a landscape filled with billionaire Doms and their blushing virgin submissives, HARD TIME is a refreshing alternative, thanks to Cara McKenna’s unerring ability to take any guy in an otherwise completely undesirable situation and transform him into a legitimate romance hero. This time the hero is a convicted felon and his heroine is the town librarian working part-time at the medium security prison where the hero has been locked up for nearly beating another man to death.
Annie Goodhouse had a comfortable middle-class life she took for granted until the day when her worthless boyfriend crossed the line into abuse, puncturing her eardrum with a smack to the head when he was drunk and she was convenient. Her self-recrimination at letting it happen spurred her to get as far away from her ex as possible. And there isn’t a place farther both in distance and existence than the cold and impoverished town of Darren, Michigan.
Now years and miles away from her old life, Annie has given up on men and sex with them, although she feels the loss now and then. The last place she expected to rekindle her desire was at the Cousins Correctional Facility on her first day as its new part-time librarian. But there was something different about Prisoner 802267. In a room of frightening faces, he was an irresistible flame and she was the moth who should have known better. Annie can’t help being drawn to him, not only because of his good looks and polite behavior, but because as a prisoner, he won’t be able to control her in the way a free man could. But this was someone who had not only tried to kill another person, but still insisted that given the same situation, he’d do it again. So why is Annie even considering letting him into her head and her heart?
After nearly five years behind bars, Eric Collier is ready to stop being a number and start being a better man, one who deserves a woman like Annie. His single-minded pursuit of her is clearly ill-advised and incredibly risky for them both. Still, Eric’s ten year prison sentence ensures that they can never exchange more than heartfelt letters and furtive glances. But when Eric receives an early parole, he and Annie must learn how to begin and sustain a real relationship on the outside. As they deal with all the obstacles between them and happiness, they are soon confronted with the same forces which sent to Eric to prison before, now threatening to send him back. It’s up to Annie to convince Eric not to make the same mistake twice, even if it means losing him for good.
What I loved the most about HARD TIME was how Cara McKenna immediately set up my anticipation for what would happen and then made me believe that it could. The opening list of the prison’s rules of behavior became a framing device for Annie’s descent into madness as she violated nearly all of them in pursuit of her passion for Eric. And in this book, Cara McKenna also somehow turned the simple act of selecting clothes to wear into an erotic experience. Eric is no Dom, but his ability to dominate Annie with her full and ongoing consent just by asking her to wear a specific color or item of clothing was more sexually explicit for me than a hardcore BDSM scene. McKenna’s writing here is just that good.
Although I was happy to be back in the same world as McKenna’s previous book, AFTER HOURS, I didn’t mind not having an update on the hero and heroine from that book. I was completely caught up in the illicit nature of Annie and Eric’s secret romance behind bars, and the major adjustments they had to make once they were able to openly acknowledge their love. Cara McKenna books are always a treat for me, but this one was so lyrical, so emotional, so real, that I couldn’t put it down for more than a few minutes at a time.
Books like HARD TIME are why I make a point of not throwing around 5 star reviews for every book I love. Because I want it to mean something when I do. Cara McKenna’s HARD TIME is a five star read in every possible way, and it will be near or at the top of my Best Reads of 2014 by year’s end.

Ratings:

Overall: 5
Sensuality level: 3.5

View all my reviews