Review: Kaleidoscope Hearts (Hearts, #1) by Claire Contreras

4 stars! ****

Author: Claire Contreras

Title: Kaleidoscope Hearts (Hearts, #1)

He was my older brother's best friend.
He was never supposed to be mine.
I thought we would get it out of our system and move on.

One of us did.
One of us left.

Now he’s back, looking at me like he wants to devour me. And all those feelings I’d turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me.
He broke my heart last time.
This time he'll obliterate it.

ARC review: Shattered Blue (The Light Trilogy, #1) by Lauren Bird Horowitz

3.5 stars! ****

Author: Lauren Bird Horowitz

Title: Shattered Blue (The Light Trilogy, #1)

For Noa and Callum, being together is dangerous, even deadly. From the start, sixteen-year-old Noa senses that the mysterious transfer student to her Monterey boarding school is different. Callum unnerves and intrigues her, and even as she struggles through family tragedy, she’s irresistibly drawn to him. Soon they are bound by his deepest secret: Callum is Fae, banished from another world after a loss hauntingly similar to her own.

But in Noa’s world, Callum needs a special human energy, Light, to survive; his body steals it through touch—or a kiss. And Callum’s not the only Fae on the hunt. When Callum is taken, Noa must decide: Will she sacrifice everything to save him? Even if it means learning their love may not be what she thought?

Review: The Girl I Was Before (Falling, #3) by Ginger Scott

3.5 stars! ****

Author: Ginger Scott

Title: The Girl I Was Before (Falling, #3)

I’m the selfish one. I suppose that’s the nicest thing people say about me. I’ve heard the other things, too. “Paige Owens is a pretty girl with nothing else to offer. She’s just a good time at a party. She’s stupid, heartless, cold and useless. All she cares about is getting a guy to look at her. Why would anyone want to be her friend?”

Some of those things are true. Others were true. They’re all hurtful.

None of it matters.

I’m ready to make the hard choices. I’m ready to face the consequences. I’m ready to be the girl I was before, and I’m done being the one who lost her way.

I’m ready to become the girl Houston Orr sees when he looks at me.

Houston isn’t a star athlete. He doesn’t play in a band. He’s never going to be president, and his life is so far away from simple and easy it isn’t even funny.
He wasn’t part of my plan. But I’m starting to think plans are overrated, and maybe our stories are what we make them. And mine depends entirely on me, and the choices I make…starting now.

Houston is my fairytale. He’s perfectly imperfect. He’s poetry and life. He’s truth and heartbreak, all rolled up in a tall body with dark hair, broad shoulders and green eyes that lull me into submission. He’s nothing I ever thought I wanted, but the very thing I need. He’s the only guy I’ve ever really loved, and he thinks I’m a princess. I fell into him, and now I’m holding on.

But sometimes life takes away our ability to choose. Sometimes…things aren’t in your control. Sometimes, it hurts to be selfless. My only hope is that when it comes time to choose, I get it right.

Welcome to my once upon a time and wish for happily ever after.

Review: You and Everything After (Falling, #2) by Ginger Scott

3 stars! ***

Author: Ginger Scott

Title: You and Everything After (Falling, #2)

I’m that teenaged girl who has MS. You haven’t met me, but you’ve seen me around. You probably know my sister. We’re twins, and she’s the pretty one. Maybe you’ve heard about my reputation, how much I like to hook up at parties—how easy it is to get me in bed, get what you want, and forget about me after.

Forget what you think you know. I’m leaving that girl behind.

College is all about new beginnings. So from now on—I’m just Cass. And the rest…it isn’t written yet. And no one else gets to write my story for me.

--------

“Tyson Preeter doesn’t do can’t.”

That’s exactly what I want people to think when they see me. I am strong, invincible, confident, intelligent—arrogant. I’m the man who always finds a way around, over and through—until there’s nothing left. Since losing my ability to walk six years ago, I’ve relearned life. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t want charity. And I don’t do love.

It’s better this way, saves my disappointments for me, and me alone, and it saves my strength for everything I want.

But Cass Owens is about to wreck everything. She’s about to steal all of my strength away from me, because she needs it more. She’s about to break all of my rules, and break down all of my walls. She’s about to own me…completely.

And I’m about to let her.

* This is the second book in the Falling Series, and it is scheduled to release Dec. 5. Book 1, This Is Falling, is out now. Each book can be read as a standalone and will focus on a different couple.

Review: This is Falling (Falling, #1) by Ginger Scott

4 stars! ****

Author: Ginger Scott

Title: This is Falling (Falling, #1)

First, I had to remember how to breathe. Then, I had to learn how to survive. Two years, three months and sixteen days had passed since I was the Rowe Stanton from before, since tragedy stole my youth and my heart went along with it.

When I left for college, I put a thousand miles between my future and my past. I’d made a choice—I was going to cross back to the other side, to live with the living. I just didn’t know how.

And then I met Nate Preeter.

An All-American baseball player, Nate wasn’t supposed to notice a ghost-of-a-girl like me. But he did. He shouldn’t want to know my name. But he did. And when he learned my secret and saw the scars it left behind, he was supposed to run. But he didn’t.

My heart was dead, and I was never supposed to belong to anyone. But Nate Preeter had me feeling, and he made me want to be his. He showed me everything I was missing.

And then he showed me how to fall.

ARC review: Marked (Shadows in the Dark, #1) by Charisse Spiers

2 stars! **

Author: Charisse Spiers

Title: Marked (Shadows in the Dark #1)

Welcome to my fucking world. My name is Kaston Cox and I’m a criminal’s worst nightmare. Most people run from darkness, but I live in it, require it, and thrive in the night. Some call me a monster, some a lover of evil, and others, the devil himself, but they’re all wrong. I’m just a shadow in the dark. I speak for the innocent when no one else will. Once I have marked you, you better beg for forgiveness, because your time has run out…

Revenge is the ultimate wage for evil. Some just can’t stomach to do it themselves. That’s where I come in. I am the ultimate judge when called upon for justice. I will decide who lives and who dies. Blood may be on my hands, but it’s not the blood of the innocent. Remorse is nowhere to be found. I don’t give a shit if you understand. I can live with the man I look at every day in the mirror. My soul was tainted the day I was conceived. You think you know me? You have no fucking idea. I am who I am because of what they did to her, and to him. They were my family. This was the only form of restitution he believed in. I owed him everything. I took over the empire he built. This is how I repay him. There was only one rule: never allow emotions to form. Numb and heartless are the only two ways to live.

What I never included in the plan…was her.

My name is Lux Larsen. My life is as perfect as it can get. I’m a partier, a seductress when it comes to something that I want, and the ultimate sexual con artist. I use my body to get what I want and I’m not ashamed. Designer tags are what I’m after. I love sex. I’m good at it. Fuck double standards. Guys can do it, well guess what, so can I. I will never be caught back on the other side of the tracks for as long as I live. I left that hellhole years ago. I’ll do anything to stay away. You can call me a whore if you want, but I just look at it as I’ve decided to become a player in a man’s game, and I’m a fucking pro at it. Love is for the weak minded. Weak is something I’ll never be.

I never anticipated the predator that would find me. I’m now his prey…but I’m not sure I can run.

The world likes to think that love is only pure, only for those that do good, but what no one considers is when bad has to be done to formulate a different type of good. Two of the most random people can be a perfect match, being placed together like pieces to a puzzle. Being in the wrong place at the right time can be terrifying and it can also be exactly what is supposed to happen, because sometimes…love is born in the dark.

Review: Tryst by Jordan Silver

1 star! *

Author: Jordan Silver

Title: Tryst

She’s the eighteen year old best friend of his only daughter, one look and he's hooked, but going there might open up a shit load of problems he didn’t really have time for. But her body haunted his dreams and his dick would give him no peace until he got it what it wanted.

He’s older, loaded and hot; what’s a girl to do? I know what this girl will be doing….him. My girly bits have spoken loud and clear and as inexperienced as she was, she had no doubt she could more than handle the brawny tattooed hunk that all the girls were raving about.

Review: Bound by Temptation (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles, #4) by Cora Reilly

3.5 stars! ****

Author: Cora Reilly

Title: Bound by Temptation (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles, #4)

Liliana Scuderi has been in love with Romero from the moment she first saw him. After her sisters were married off for tactical reasons, she hopes she might be allowed to choose a husband for herself, but when her father promises her to a man more than twice her age that hope is crushed. No begging can make him change his mind.

Romero has always ignored Lily’s flirting. Her age and status made her off-limits but even someone as dutiful as him has only so much control. Wanting her when she’s supposed to marry another man could mean war between New York and the Chicago Outfit, and Romero has always put the Cosa Nostra first.

Lily suspects her sisters and Romero would risk everything for her, but is her happiness worth that much? Is love worth a war between the Cosa Nostra and the Outfit?

Review: Tyrant (King #2) by T.M. Frazier

4 stars! ****

Author: T.M. Frazier

Title: Tyrant (King #2)

I. Remember. Everything.

Only now I wish I didn't.

When the fog is sucked away from my mind like smoke through a vacuum, the truth that has been beyond my reach for months finally reveals itself.

But the relief I thought I would feel never comes, and I'm more afraid now than I was the morning I woke up handcuffed in King's bed.

Because with the truth comes dark secrets I was never meant to know.

I will put the lives of those I love most at risk if I let on that my memory has returned, or if I seek help from the heavily tattooed felon who owns me body and soul.

I don't know if I'm strong enough to resist the magnetic pull toward King that grows stronger every day.

He's already saved me in more ways than one. Now it's my turn to do whatever it takes to save him.

Even if that means marrying someone else...

Review: King (King, #1) by T.M. Frazier

5 stars! *****

Author: T.M. Frazier

Title: King (King, #1)

Homeless. Hungry. Desperate.

Doe has no memories of who she is or where she comes from.

A notorious career criminal just released from prison, King is someone you don’t want to cross unless you’re prepared to pay him back in blood, sweat, pu$$y or a combination of all three.

King’s future hangs in the balance. Doe’s is written in her past. When they come crashing together, they will have to learn that sometimes in order to hold on, you have to first let go.


Warning: This book contains graphic violence, consensual and nonconsensual sex, drug use, abuse, and other taboo subjects and adult subject matter. Although originally slated to be a standalone, KING is now a two part series.

Review: Trouble on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery, #3) by Avery Flynn

3.5 stars! ***

Author: Avery Flynn

Title: Trouble on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery, #3)

What fun is life without a little bit of trouble?

Retired supermodel and forever wild child Olivia Sweet is nothing but trouble. The youngest Sweet triplet is back in her hometown, but instead of a triumphant return it’s a parade of humiliations. She’s broke, homeless and dealing with the fallout from her scumbag ex-boyfriend publishing naked pictures of her to a revenge porn website.

Staid and stalwart veteran Mateo Garcia has seen more trouble than a man ever should in his lifetime. He’s gone from pretty boy Marine to a small town police chief with a chip on his shoulder and scars covering the left side of his face. Now his former lover, Olivia, is back in town and living next door.

When the two are forced to work together to fix up the crumbling veterans’ center, the sparks fly between the beauty and the man who sees himself as a beast. Not everyone is happy that Olivia is back home though and Mateo has to choose between the town who wants her gone and an uncertain future with a woman who he thinks could never love him…

Review: Gabriel's Redemption (Gabriel's Inferno, #3) by Sylvain Reynard

2 stars! **

Author: Sylvain Reynard
Title: Gabriel's Redemption (Gabriel's Inferno #3)

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.

Review: Gabriel's Rapture (Gabriel's Inferno, #2) by Sylvain Reynard

2.5 stars! ***

Author: Sylvain Reynard

Title: Gabriel's Rapture (Gabriel's Inferno #2)

Professor Gabriel Emerson has embarked on a passionate, yet clandestine affair with his former student, Julia Mitchell. Sequestered on a romantic holiday in Italy, he tutors her in the sensual delights of the body and the raptures of sex. But when they return, their happiness is threatened by conspiring students, academic politics, and a jealous ex-lover. When Gabriel is confronted by the university administration, will he succumb to Dante's fate? Or will he fight to keep Julia, his Beatrice, forever? In Gabriel's Rapture, the brilliant sequel to the wildly successful debut novel, Gabriel's Inferno, Sylvain Reynard weaves an exquisite love story that will touch the reader's mind, body, and soul, forever.

Review: Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno, #1) by Sylvain Reynard

3.5 stars! ****

Author: Sylvain Reynard

Title: Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1)

Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.

When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.

An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love and redemption, "Gabriel's Inferno" is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man's escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible...forgiveness and love.

ARC review: Beware of Me (Dark Obsession, #4) by Cynthia Eden

3 stars! ***

Author: Cynthia Eden

Title: Beware of Me (Dark Obsession, #4)

Walk on the wild side with New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Cynthia Eden's dark new romantic suspense, BEWARE OF ME.

Criminal. Killer. Monster. Ethan Barclay has been called many things in life, and he usually doesn't care what people say about him. He's tough, hard, and brutal when he needs to be. But even the most dangerous of men can have a weakness. Ethan's weakness has--and always will be--Carly Shay.

Their pasts are tied together--twisted and melded by blood and death. Walking away from Carly was the hardest thing that Ethan ever did, but it was also his one good deed. He knew Carly deserved far better than him, and he wanted her to have a perfect life, a life that didn't involve paying for Ethan's sins.

Only now the secrets from their past have been revealed, and Carly's life is on the line. Ethan's enemies, Carly's enemies--the predators are closing in on them. But Ethan isn't going to let Carly be threatened. He will move heaven and hell to protect her. He won't lose Carly, not again, and for those foolish enough to try and take her from him...they are about to see just how deadly Ethan truly can be.

ARC review: That One Night (That One Series, #1) by Josie Wright

4.5 stars! *****

Author: Josie Wright

Title: That One Night (That One Series #1)

All it takes is just one moment to change the course of your life. For me, it was one perfect night.
I have always had a thing for my brother’s best friend, Ben. When I found him on my parents’ couch, drowning his sorrows in a whiskey bottle, my attempts to comfort him quickly turned into a night of raw and intense passion.
My foolish heart hoped he might feel the same way I do.
But Ben wasn’t there to stay and I woke up the next morning alone with a broken heart.
I attempted to forget the guy with a smile to die for and a touch that sets me on fire.
I thought I was over him.
I thought he was gone forever.
Until, eighteen months later Ben returns and learns my secret. Now, he is hell-bent on winning me back.
He plays dirty.
And he won’t stop until he gets what he wants—me.

But he has secrets of his own.
Secrets that could destroy everything we might have and everything we are.

ARC review: Beautiful Surrender (Forever, #3) by Priscilla West

3 stars! ***

Author: Priscilla West

Title: Beautiful Surrender (Forever, #3)

“What gives you a thrill Kristen?”

The conclusion to the Surrender Series by Priscilla West.

No one is who they seem to be.

Kristen let Vincent into her heart because he seemed so different from everyone in her conservative world of wealth management. She thought they shared something special, but when she realizes that Vincent has been playing her the entire time, her heart is crushed.

As Kristen’s relationship with Vincent reaches a crisis point, a man from Kristen’s past returns looking for a second chance. Is her ex-boyfriend really looking for redemption or is his goal something more sinister?

Kristen struggles to hold herself together, until she discovers a revelation that will change everything.

ARC review: Secret Surrender (Forever, #2) by Priscilla West

3 stars! ***

Author: Priscilla West

Title: Secret Surrender (Forever, #2)

“What gives you a thrill Kristen?”

I knew that giving in to Vincent Sorenson was a risk, but it was one I was willing to take. I had hidden my heart for so long and for the first time in a long time, Vincent was close to breaking down the walls.

When a trip to Vincent’s exclusive private island reveals the real Vincent underneath the layers of suave nonchalance, I thought we were close to the start of something special.

Just when things were looking up for us, I would discover the one secret that Vincent never intended for me to find.

ARC review: Forbidden Surrender (Forever, #1) by Priscilla West

3.5 stars! ***

Author: Priscilla West

Title: Forbidden Surrender (Forever, #1)

“What gives you a thrill Kristen?”

The minute I saw Vincent Sorenson, I knew he was trouble. Billionaire. Bad boy. And dangerously sexy. He was everything I craved, and nothing I needed.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t just avoid him. The higher ups at my company decided they needed his business, and I was on the team to bring him in. Vincent Sorenson didn’t seem as interested in business as he was in me, but I knew that was a door better left unopened. If I got involved with him, it would only unearth the pain I spent years trying to bury.

I thought I had it under control, but I seriously underestimated Vincent’s seductive charm and silver-tongue. I would soon find out how delicious it would feel to let myself fall into this forbidden surrender.

Review: Wrong for You (Before You, #3) by Lisa Cardiff

3.5 "little Violet" stars! ****

Author: Lisa Cardiff

Title: Wrong for You (Before You, #3)

Alec Reed, the drummer for Chasing Ruin, has secrets…lots of them. He can’t even remember a day without them because it all started before he was born. He’s spent his life trying to outrun his past until he ends up back in the town where it all began.

Violet Emerson knows exactly where her life is going and exactly what she wants until Alec Reed walks into her life. With his dark tattoos and his sexier than sin eyes, Alec is everything her parents warned her about. She knows she should keep her distance, but something about him sucks her in and she can’t let go.

Will Alec’s secrets destroy everything?