Book review: SMOKESHOW, by Abbi Glines

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Warning, this book ends in a cliffhanger but the next book comes in less than a month.  Another warning, this book is riveting, so this series will be addictive.

I hadn’t read this author in ages, and now I remember how addictive her books and her characters are.  I loved Maddy, she’s resourceful and resilient, coming from the crappy life she had lived with her father and brother.  When she lost her father and brother, she was brought into this opulent world of horses and rich cowboys.  She feels out of place, determined to bide her time and leave to live her life on her terms.  But then one day, at a pool party that was way more decadent than she liked, Blaise Hughes arrives, and all her plans fly out the window. 

I found Blaise too authoritative and abrasive, but Maddy loved him.  Saxon and Trev are adorable, young men in this horsy world, uber rich but not entitled.  Saxon works hard in his parents ranch and Trev is a happy go lucky guy, spoiled but not bratty.  

There’s a darkness lurking under their horse world circle, Maddy senses there are secrets, but anytime she asks, all she gets are evasive answers.  I loved the intrigue, I had my suspicions and I throughly enjoyed the story until is stopped and left me dry.

I felt that the story between Maddy and Blaise develop way too fast, but I was also grateful because the author didn’t waste time in dallying as their feelings developed.

To be continued…..

Purchase links

https://amzn.to/40ymcU7

About the author 

Abbi Glines is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Rosemary Beach, Sea Breeze, Vincent Boys, Field Party, and Existence series. She never cooks unless baking during the Christmas holiday counts. She believes in ghosts and has a habit of asking people if their house is haunted before she goes in it. She finally moved to New England into a home that is 200 + years old with it's own ghosts. She drinks afternoon tea because she wants to be British but alas she being born in Alabama, her life in New England is as close as she will get. When asked how many books she has written she has to stop and count on her fingers. When she’s not locked away writing, she is reading, and/or watching Netflix like the introvert that she is. 

You can connect with Abbi online in several different ways. TikTok @abbiglines Instagram @abbiglines Twitter @abbiglines

Book review: THE BACHELOR, by Marni Mann

The Dalton Family #5

Camden and Oaklyn

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The writing is excellent, the pace is just perfect, not too slow and not too fast.  It meanders a little because both characters, Camden and Oaklyn, are discovering each other.  Oaklyn wants Camden to be her first lover, to take her virginity.  They made a deal to think it over and gave themselves a year.  What happened in that time is that it enhanced their attraction.

Oakley is best friends with Hannah, Camden’s twin.  Hannah and Camden are lawyers and working with their older cousins, Dominik, Jenner, and Ford.  Camden reports to Declan, Hannah’s boyfriend.  So everyone is in everybody else’s business.  Therefore discretion is mandatory, since Hannah doesn’t want Camden with her bestie.  Sort of like the bro code but with besties.

Camden has this idea that he’s an eternal bachelor, never ready to settle down.  The joke’s on him, because as soon as he starts his lessons of sex with Oaklyn, he’s caught!

There are some very romantic moments in the story, where Camden waxes very romantically, very much in thrall with Oaklyn.  But most of the book is spent in very detailed and erotic sex scenes where they discover each other and Camden wakes up Oaklyn’s sensuality.  I thought it was going to be mostly sex, but then Camden surprised me.  He was romantic, tender, and loving, when he wasn’t kinky, pushy, and dominating.  Oaklyn was like the stereotype of the virginal woman, a lot of blushing, some hesitation, and a lot of trust in Camden’s superior knowledge of sex.  

I had fun when the family is all together because there is the usual bashing and banter between cousins who are close.  Hannah and Oaklyn have a love like sisters, and we get to se a domesticated Declan, felt like a domesticated tiger, but very much in love with Hannah.

The story is narrow in scope because there are no issues and no angst, just the awakening of a love that surprised Camden and delighted Oaklyn who had a crush on him since she was twelve.  Delightful, sensual, and surprisingly sweet .

Purchase links

FREE with Kindle Unlimited

https://geni.us/TheBachelor

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3DyHdF0

About the author

USA Today best-selling author Marni Mann knew she was going to be a writer since middle school. While other girls her age were daydreaming about teenage pop stars, Marni was fantasizing about penning her first novel. She crafts unique stories that weave together her love of darkness, mystery, passion, and human emotions. A New Englander at heart, she now lives in Sarasota, Florida, with her husband and their yellow Lab. When she’s not nose deep in her laptop, working on her next novel, she’s scouring for chocolate, sipping wine, traveling, or devouring fabulous books.

Connect with Marni

Facebook: http://bit.ly/MarniMannFB

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1597153177180837/

Instagram: http://bit.ly/MarniMannIG

Pinterest: http://bit.ly/MarniMannPin

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2IsSRWC

Bookbub: http://bit.ly/MarniMannBB

Website: http://marnismann.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5400988.Marni_Mann

Verve Romance: https://ververomance.com/app/marnimann

Sign up for her newsletter: http://marnismann.com/newsletter/

Book review: CONTEMPT, by A. Zavarelli

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Incredibly long and dark, excellently written, very multilayered and complicated.  The book is written in two time periods, the present and the past, alternating every chapter.  The past starts when Madden and Bianca first met in the ranch when they were seventeen, the current when Madden is in the motorcycle club in Las Vegas and suddenly sees a woman who looks just like Bianca, the woman he loves.  She has been absent for more than four years, after the murder of his brother, Adam, who was also her fiancee.

The author did an excellent job in moving the story along, coordinating events in the past with events in the present.  It was as if we needed to read the chapter of the past to understand what just happened in the chapter of the present time.  The plot was very well organized and made it very easy to understand the sequence of events.  

There’s a lot of passion, love, betrayal, infidelity, love triangle, rockstar, drug abuse, forced arranged marriage, domestic violence, sexual abuse, amnesia, paranoia, a whole maelstrom of emotions.  It’s dramatic without being melodramatic, but it felt like a lot of drama that endures for interminable chapters.  I found it exhausting and oddly fascinating, given the whole spectrum of human emotions, both dark and light.

The love between Bianca and Madden lives eternal during all the years they were apart and the years they were together.  Their relation sometimes seems toxic, I felt they were at times selfish, but in reality, they were soulmates with a broken destiny.  Initially, I felt they were more toxic than loving, and at moments their back and forth was tiring.  I was ready for them to give it up, but Bianca more than Madden was tenacious in her love and her devotion.  She kept their love alive even when Madden was lost in his demons and his addictions.  It was truly a struggle of evil forces and a devotion that endures through abuse, war, and addictions.  By the end of the story, I was happy to finally have an HEA, and exhausted from all the story telling and emotional ride.

Purchase links

FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ZlR7Co

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/Contempt

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3YLxMKG

 

About the author

A. Zavarelli is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of dark and contemporary romance.

She loves writing about tortured heroes and the strong heroines who love them. When she's not putting her characters through hell, she can usually be found watching documentaries in the name of research.

She lives in the Northwest with her lumberjack and an entire brood of fur babies.

 

Connect with A. Zavarelli

Website: https://www.azavarelli.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13549895.A_Zavarelli

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/A-Zavarelli/e/B00U2562W8

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/azavarelliauthor/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/943497375705372/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/azavarelli/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AZavarellibooks

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@azavarelli

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/a-zavarelli

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/azavarellibooks/

Book review: A CRUEL ARRANGEMENT, by TIJAN

Kings of New York #2

Ashton & Molly

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read A Cruel Arrangement and now I have my usual problem after reading Tijan’s books: book hangover! I had no idea how Ashton’s book would turn out, since he’s dark and likes to hurt people.  But then the author made a brilliant move, she gave him Molly Easter, a girl who is flaky, kind, gutsy and caring.  

Her thought processes are so foreign to Ashton that she kept him on his toes all the time, she very easily disobeyed his rules, had a perfectly logical (to her!) reason for doing so, and got spidey senses when there is something wrong and won’t back down from helping.  She’s a wonderful person with a dark side (she calls it “the switch”) and completely perfect for Ashton.  She broke through his defenses and obliterated the wall he had around his heart.

The book is fun, funny, steamy and as always, includes characters who are a delight, family to Molly.  Pialto and Sophie love Molly like family, are completely loyal and are completely complicit in any mayhem she comes up with.  Jess starts a little distant but comes closer as she sees how much Molly cares and looks out for her.  I saw in this story that Jess has started to laugh and enjoy life, even with the weight of Kelly’s death on her.  

Molly is magnificent, she truly has had an effect on everyone, and no wonder Ashton, who is like an icicle at the beginning, melts into goo with her, but only with her and only in private.  I loved the scenes where he would carry her around because she was freaked out and only he could make her feel safe.  He would say hop on and she would climb him like a monkey!  I also loved how Molly was nosey and escapey.  She would appear behind bushes, hiding in the stairs, behind a wall, eavesdropping and generally minding others’ business.  And unrepentant too! She was a delight and I found her adorable.

I also loved seeing Ashton fall like a ton of bricks for this quirky, wonderful woman.  From confusion, to fascination, to love, it was wonderful to see his heart engage.

And let’s not talk about Molly’s theory of their group: Trace is the thinker, Jess and Ashton are the doers and thus compete with one another, and she’s the go-between, the glue that keeps them together.  “I’m like added sealant.”

Entertaining, riveting, multi-layered and fantastic!  Now I don’t know how to leave this world of Tijan!

Purchase links

FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://bit.ly/3D8g10k

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/CruelArrangement

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3wp933c

About the author

Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side. Tijan began writing after college and once she started, she was hooked. She's written multi-bestsellers including the Fallen Crest series, Ryan's Bed, Enemies and others.
She is currently writing many new books and series with an English Cocker she adores.

 

Connect with Tijan

Website: http://www.tijansbooks.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4851199.Tijan

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tijan/e/B00DJG52QE

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tijansbooks/

Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/tijansreadergroup

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tijansbooks/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tijansbooks

TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@tijan_author

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/tijan

Available now: THE RUINED KINGDOM DUET, by Natasha Knight

 

The Ruined Kingdom Duet by Natasha Knight is now available FREE in Kindle Unlimited for the first time ever! Ruined Kingdom Loyalty. Duty. Deceit. I never imagined my first trip to Italy would be to bury my father. But there I stood, alone in the ancient cathedral with my father’s casket, a handful of soldiers standing guard. It never occurred to me that anyone would disrupt the sanctity of the moment. But the Caballero brothers have little regard for the church and even less for my family. They marched in weapons in hand and turned my world upside down. They shattered what peace I had. They desecrated my father’s body. And they took what they wanted. Me. I’m a princess in a tower in a breathtaking villa. My bedroom overlooks the turquoise sea but the door is locked. And I have to contend with not one but two dragons. Broken Queen Betrayal. Destruction. Truth. He says you can only rise up once you hit rock bottom. Only be made whole once you’re fully broken. I don’t know that there’s anything left to break. Time is running out for me. Enemies are closing in at every turn. But this time I won’t be alone. One brother has vowed his protection. The other reaffirmed his hatred of me. Yet they both want me. But something dark is unraveling inside me. An event too terrible clawing its way into my consciousness. And even as things begin to change between us, it’s those memories that may undo us all. Start reading now! Ruined Kingdom: https://geni.us/5aJGl Broken Queen: https://geni.us/u641J4 Ruined Kingdom: The Complete Duet: https://geni.us/xBOVh   Meet Natasha   Natasha Knight is the USA Today Bestselling author of Romantic Suspense and Dark Mafia Romance Novels. She has sold over a million books and is translated into six languages. She currently lives in The Netherlands with her husband and two daughters and when she's not writing, she's walking in the woods listening to a book, sitting in a corner reading or off exploring the world as often as she can get away.    Connect with Natasha   Website: https://natasha-knight.com Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6478732.Natasha_Knight Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Natasha-Knight/author/B009MIHIFG Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natashaknightauthor/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheKnightSpot Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natashaknightromance/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@natashaknightromance?lang=en  Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/natasha-knight