Category / Brooding Hero

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Duke of Midnight by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-bookdukeofmidnight
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Maiden Lane, #6
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Maximus Batten, the Duke of Wakefield
Heroine: Artemis Greaves
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: October 15, 2013
Started On: June 27, 2016
Finished On: June 28, 2016

Duke of Midnight is the 6th book in the Maiden Lane series and by far my most favorite. Towards the end of Lord of Darkness, the 5th book, once again Elizabeth Hoyt makes a startling revelation, perhaps the most astonishing one at that since the series began. The identity of the 3rd Ghost of St. Giles, this time someone who is more driven by his own personal vengeance against those that had done him and his family wrong, a member of the nobility, not to mention a member of the Parliament itself; Maximus Batten, the Duke of Wakefield.

Readers who have had their run ins with Maximus in previous books in the series would have been hard pressed not to be intrigued by all that he is. Projecting a cold and formidable front, the Duke of Wakefield is someone who seems to be as straitlaced as they come, his utter dislike or perhaps even hatred for gin and makers of gin something that is known all over the country. While Maximus works hard to push through relevant laws that could tackle with gin making, something which he believes most passionately is the core reason behind the decay of society, at night, Maximus dons the mask and costume of the Ghost and traipses through the worst of slums in London, in the hopes of finding clues that would lead him to the villain he has been pretty much searching for a major part of his adult life.

Artemis Greaves is a character that came into prominence through the introduction of her beautiful cousin Lady Penelope Chadwicke into series, for whom Artemis is companion to. Lady Penelope is someone who wants nothing but the best for herself. Thus, determined to have Maximus as her husband, Penelope embarks upon the quest with much fervor, which does earn her the attention of Maximus in his usual cool, aloof and calculated manner. There is no joy in a transaction which Maximus believes suites him rather well. There is no fire that burns in him to possess Lady Penelope, unlike Artemis her companion who makes him want to go into hiding with her by his side and forget the whole world.

Artemis gets under his skin without Maximus knowing of it, their interludes during the quiet hours of the morning on his estate grounds something that pricks and prods at him until his emotions are tangled up in need for none but Artemis. But Artemis is one with her own agenda to push forward. Someone who is ready to do anything for the freedom of the one man for whom she would lay down her whole life for, even if it means enlisting, bribing or even coercing the help of the powerful Duke himself to do so.

There are multiple reasons why Duke of Midnight ended up being my favorite of the series. For anyone who knows of my reading tastes, I am someone who is drawn to dark characters, a bit ruthless and driven by needs that they cannot control when it comes to the heroine in question, no matter how hard they may try. Maximus was that hero for me from the Maiden Lane series. Brought up to take his rightful role as the Duke, the responsibilities of being one are thrust upon him at a tender age when both his parents get killed. Maximus has to grow up overnight without having time to properly grow into the duties required of him. Thus makes Maximus a hard man, a man who is principled, a man who often times comes off as cold, aloof and removed from the rest of the world, an image that serves him well most times.

Maximus is also the only Ghost of St. Giles who actively continues his training for the role, having turned part of his home into a training facility where he subjects himself to grueling hours of training so that he is one lethal machine of brawn, intelligence and strong will, focused on getting to the truth behind the murders of his beloved parents and making those responsible pay.

That strong ironclad will of Maximus was something that I admired and bemoaned over in equal doses. There is something quite alluring about a man who knows his own mind, well, for that matter I love a woman who knows her own mind as well – but with Maximus, him being my favorite hero in the series, I am allowed to be a little biased. The fact that his attraction and want for Artemis clouds all his senses does not make him give up on what he has planned for his life, but rather, he wants Artemis on his terms, as hard headed and stubborn it makes him. But the beauty of it when it comes to heroes who are strong minded comes in their submission to the greater force of love for the heroine, which is an aspect I enjoyed in Duke of Midnight. The moments of jealousy which overtakes Maximus during the heady encounters with Artemis, the ones that makes him go all “mine” with sheer possessiveness – those were the moments I reveled in.

Artemis is a heroine who shone equally bright in the story. With a future that looked bleak, with nothing to her name but the goodwill of an uncle who took her in, Artemis’s determination to work against the odds nevertheless, to prove the innocence of her brother was something that resonated deep within me. Even her burgeoning feelings for the Duke is something Artemis is willing to sacrifice in order to see to it that her beloved brother is removed from Bedlam, where he is rotting away into an existence that would prove to be the death of him, sooner rather than later.

I believe that Artemis is the best fit for someone with such powerful emotions and desires as Maximus. She is able to get through to him in a way that no one else can, her ability to read him so effectively being a quality of utmost importance given how easily he can don on a mask that would show to to the rest of the world that nothing touches him, when in fact things deeply do. Artemis dares him to show to her that side of his that few would ever see – the one without the artifice that society dictates he wears whenever he goes out and about. That for me, was the beauty behind the union between Artemis and Maximus when all was said and done.

Loved it all, which is why I would recommend this book with the whole of my heart!

Final Verdict: Earthy & evocative, with just the right touch of erotic; scorches the pages & moves the heart.

Favorite Quotes

A shrill whistle rent the air. Percy, who had been trotting along beside them, lifted his head alertly before racing to Wakefield’s side. Bon Bon scrambled on short little legs to keep up with his new friend.
Artemis watched the dogs go and found herself staring at the duke. He was looking in her direction, and even at this distance he was commanding, almost as if he were demanding something of her.
She felt light-headed.
Then Penelope tapped him on the arm and he turned to the other woman to smile and make some comment.
Artemis shivered despite the bright sunshine.

Something quickened in him, rising, hardening, reaching eagerly for the challenge. She was no soft society lady. She might disguise herself thus, but he knew better: she was a goddess, wild and free and dangerous.
And a most suitable opponent.
He picked up Lady Penelope’s gloves and, unsmiling, saluted Miss Greaves with them. She bowed to him, equally grave.
Maximus turned to the house, thinking. He had no idea how he would do it yet, but he meant to best her. He’d show her that he was the master, and when she’d admitted his victory… well, then he’d have her. And he’d hold her, by God. His huntress.
His goddess.

Ridiculously, he thought he could feel his heart beat faster. Despite their antagonism, despite her threats to his equilibrium, he wanted to see her, and right now he wouldn’t examine why.
In another few steps he made the clearing with the pond and looked about. He could see the dogs milling a quarter way around the pond—even Bon Bon was there—but he couldn’t yet see her on the path.
And then he did see her and arousal went straight to his cock.
Artemis Greaves was in the pond, as graceful as a naiad, her skirts bound up at her waist, standing thigh deep in the sparkling water.
How dare she.

Maximus glanced away so she couldn’t examine too closely the expression on his face. “Who was he?”
“Thomas Stone. The son of the town’s doctor.”
He sneered. “Beneath you.”
Her gaze hardened. “As you so kindly pointed out, my father was notorious for his flights of fancy. Too, I had no dowry to speak of. I couldn’t very well be choosy. Besides”—her tone softened—“Thomas was quite sweet. He used to bring me daisies and violets.”
He stared, incredulous. What sort of imbecile brought such common flowers to a goddess? Were it him, he’d shower her with hothouse lilies, peonies overflowing with perfumed bloom, roses in every shade.
Bah, violets.

“What”—he turned and seized both her arms—“has gotten into you?”
“He’s dying,” she whispered furiously, trembling within his grasp. “I didn’t receive the letter until almost noon—because Penelope didn’t think it important enough to give it to me earlier. Apollo is lying in that hellhole dying.”
His jaw set as he searched her face. “I can have a carriage readied for you to return to London within the hour. If the roads are—”
She slapped him, quick and hard.
His head turned slightly with the blow, but other than that his only reaction was the narrowing of his eyes.
Her chest was heaving as if she were running. “No! You must go to London. You must get him out. You must save my brother because if you don’t, I swear upon everything I hold holy that I’ll ruin both you and your illustrious name. I’ll—”
“Little bitch,” he breathed, his face turned fiery red, and he slammed his mouth against hers.

“You come to a bachelor’s rooms—bedroom—well after dark all by yourself to give him a trinket you could just as easily hand him in the morning.” His voice was mocking. He wanted to break her suddenly. To make her feel the rage he did at the situation they had been placed in. Were it not for her history—and his—he might’ve courted this woman. Might’ve made her his wife. “Have you no care for your reputation?”
She stepped toward him until she was so close he fancied he breathed the same air as she and when she tilted her face up to look at him he saw that she wasn’t nearly as calm as he’d imagined.
“No,” she murmured, her voice a siren’s song, “none at all.”
“Then I’ll be damned if I will,” he muttered and kissed her.

He pulled back, his chest heaving, and looked at her angrily. “Don’t start something you mean to stop.”
She met his gaze squarely. “I don’t mean to stop.”
His eyes narrowed. “I cannot give you marriage.”
She’d known. She’d never thought he could—she would’ve sworn so had she been asked a minute earlier—but his blunt words were an arrow of pain piercing her heart nonetheless. She bared her teeth in a smile. “Have I asked you to?”
“No.”
“And I never shall,” she vowed.

She shivered.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten when your fichu slipped from your dress,” he murmured. “Strange, for I’ve seen more immodest décolletages at every ball I’ve ever attended, yet I’ve been entirely unable to remove the thought of your breasts from my mind.” His gaze flicked up to hers, dark and enigmatic. “Your breasts and other parts of you. Perhaps it’s the very fact that you usually cover yourself so modestly in public that makes the unveiling that more anticipated. Or perhaps”—he bent and whispered in her ear—“it’s you. Merely you.”

He slid his thumb between her folds and found that nub at the top, pressing down as he watched her face. She arched involuntarily, the sensation singing through her limbs.
A muscle ticked on his jaw, his face stern and ruthless, as he pressed again, his finger finding her entrance and slipping in.
She bit her lip, staring back at him, refusing to break their gaze, wanting him to continue.
“God,” he whispered. His nostrils flared suddenly, and seemingly against his will, he kissed her.

She held her breath.
His eyes flicked open to look at her. “Be brave.”
She raised an eyebrow, waiting.
He grinned.
There was a pinch, a growing pressure. She tensed. It hurt. He was so big and she felt suddenly small and fragile. Was this truly meant to be?
He leaned down and brushed his lips against her nose. “Sweet Diana.”
Then he shoved hard.
She inhaled. It burned, but that didn’t matter. She was called Artemis, and a huntress could withstand pain.

“Diana,” he whispered. “My Diana.”
She touched the corner of his lips, and he opened, taking her thumb into his mouth, biting tenderly on her flesh.
She felt his belly rubbing against hers, the wet slide of his hard flesh in hers, the brush of his chest against her nipples, and she liked it. There was no pain now, only a feeling of closeness. Of animal intimacy. Perhaps she’d been wrong: perhaps this was the moment a woman was nearest to the wild animal: when she was without constraints or thought, no society telling her what she must do and what she must not. Free from civilization.
They were bound together in this primitive act.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her like a predator. Calculating, waiting.
He held her gaze, and she saw a faint smirk curl one corner of his mouth. The rug was suddenly gone from her lap, and then she felt the slide of her skirts up her legs.
“Do you remember that morning?” he asked, his voice impossibly deep. “You emerged from the pond like a goddess triumphant. You’d flaunted your ankles the day before”—he brushed warm fingers over her left ankle, making her shiver—“but that morning I saw the tender curve of your inner thigh, the sweet bend of your knee, the shy sweep of your calf. You revealed them as coyly as a siren singing a man to his ecstatic death—and you didn’t even know it, did you? By the time you reached the shore I was hard as iron.”

His thumbs rubbed slow circles on her hipbones as if to gentle her or maybe to keep her relaxed. Although if that were his purpose, it wasn’t working. She still held his gaze in defiance, but her breath was quickening as if she were climbing a staircase.
Abruptly he looked down.
He stilled, simply staring at her. He made no movement, but there was a wild possessiveness in his eyes that made something inside her stretch and purr in response. He wanted her. Wanted this part of her. She was suddenly jealous of any other woman he’d ever looked at like this. He hadn’t the right—they hadn’t the right. This look, his expression, this moment was only between them and no one else.
They were a universe of two.

His movements were sharp and abrupt as he drove himself into her again and again. He was nothing like the sophisticated aristocrat he was in front of others. One corner of his mouth twisted in a sneer, his eyes a glaring furnace. He used her body for his own pleasure, for his own need, working her up and down on his cock. He was little more than an animal now.
And she gloried in it. She—she—had driven him to this. Had made a man who captured kings and foreign diplomats with the surety of his eloquence quite simply lose his mind.
He pushed up with all his might, shoved to the hilt within her, and froze, head thrown back in an agony of pleasure.
She leaned forward and delicately licked the salt sweat from his lips as his seed flooded her.

He lay on top of her, his upper body braced on his arms but his hips and legs weighing her down. Trapping and holding her.
“You’re mine,” he said, laying his cheek against hers. “Mine and no one else’s.”
“Maximus,” she warned.
“Yield, Diana,” he whispered, parting her legs. She could feel the thick heat of his cock pressed hard on her bottom. “Yield, warrior maiden.”
“I’m not a maiden. You took that.”
“And I would again,” he growled. “I’d steal you away and keep you in a castle far from here. Far from any other man. I’d guard you jealously and every night come to your bed and put my cock into your cunny and fuck you until dawn.”

“Do you want that, Diana?” he muttered into her ear, his breath humid on her skin. “Do you want to be mine and only mine, away from this cursed world, in a place inhabited by just we two?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice fierce.
He levered himself up. “I’d go a-hunting in the day and kill a fine stag. I’d bring it back to our hidden castle and dress it and cook it over a fire and then I’d sit you on my lap and feed you, morsel by morsel. All your sustenance would be by my hand and mine alone.”
She laughed then, for she knew he didn’t truly want such a biddable doll. She squirmed and turned in a sudden movement so that she lay facing him.
“No, I’d hunt with you by your side,” she said as she reached up to pull his face down to hers. “I am your equal, my lord. Your equal and mate.”
“So you are,” he breathed, and bit her lip.

 “Diana,” he murmured in her ear, licking. “Diana, you are everything I’ve ever wanted and shall never have.”
Tears pricked at her eyes and she opened her mouth to sob.
“That’s it,” he said. “Weep for me. Bear my pain. Take my come. For I can give you nothing else.”
And he thrust into her in hard, sharp punches, each movement striking against that place within her. She gritted her teeth and bowed her head into the pillow. It was too much. Too little. A continual assault against her senses.

He opened his eyes. “Never leave me.”
She shook her head, breaking free from his rein and rising like the huntress she was. She let his poor cock slip to the very mouth of her before slamming herself back down. She rode him. Her thighs were strong and lithe, her brows drawn down in resolute purpose, and her lips were parted wide in something very like wonder.
It was the last that made him move. Dear God, if he couldn’t have anything “else, if she was determined to hollow him out and leave him a husk, then he would remember this:
Artemis riding him like the goddess of the hunt.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | BAM | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

ARC Review: The Good Fight by Julianna Keyes

Format: E-bookthegoodfight
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Time Served, #3
Publisher: Carina Press
Hero: Oscar Hall
Heroine: Dr. Susan Dufresne Jones
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: July 25, 2016
Started On: May 22, 2016
Finished On: July 22, 2016

Book 3 in the Time Served series was a novel experience for me. This was my first time reading a book told in the first person totally from the hero’s point of view.

34 year old Oscar Hall is the one who managed to get away from the shit hole that is pretty much Camden where he grew up. Years later, having had the success he had sought back then, Oscar returns, wanting to give back something to the community that is pretty much wasting away.

Oscar meets the formidable Dr. Susan Dufresne Jones by chance at the hospital where she works. The interest on Oscar’s part is immediate, perhaps because Susan gives off the “nothing amuses me” vibe rather effortlessly. However, things don’t work out as smoothly as Oscar envisions it for him and Susan. Though off to a rocky start, Susan and Oscar work things out by taking one day at a time, while at the same time Oscar sees to his dreams of building something that could give back to the people of Camden.

Miscommunication, the fact that both Oscar and Susan try to keep a lot of things bottled up, and most of all mistakes that both Susan and Oscar makes in the course of their relationship tests the strength of the bond that forges between them. A bond that is often seen to be rather fragile, but stands firm in many a storm it weathers through.

The Good Fight is not a story that just looks into the romance and the relationship that grows to life between Oscar and Susan. Rather, it focuses on Oscar’s relationships with various other secondary characters, the ups and downs that he goes through while trying to build his dream into a reality that is sustainable and long-lasting, and his own shortcomings when it comes to trusting his ability to hold onto and be worthy of someone like Susan.

I loved the whole mess that was Oscar’s life as it was portrayed through his inner thoughts. It was messy. It was real. That was what I connected with most and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved the friendship that was between Oscar and 24 year old Jade Romero, who puts up a false sense of bravado for the rest of the world to see. I would love to see whether Jade gets her own story, preferably with Wyatt, the man who does not get along at all with Jade, someone who is able to charm any man out of his pants and then some.

While I loved the novelty of the experience of reading a book solely told from the male lead’s perspective, I felt that when it came to a character such as Susan, without knowing how she saw things through that logical and direct to the point sort of brain of hers, proved to be the reason why I failed to connect with her on an emotional level. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the ending that took place a year after the story takes place, which gave me all warm fuzzies on the inside and showed to me that the bond between Oscar and Susan was one that was very real.

Susan I believe, was the character that got shortchanged because her story is the one that sits on the backburner, simmering and calling for attention where little if at all was given. I wanted to see Susan emerge out of that cold and logical shell of hers long enough to realize that there was more to life than being in a constant state of competition with ones own self to achieve more, to be better. That there was a daughter who required her love, understanding, empathy and kindness so that she might grow up and embody the same characteristics that Susan could teach her.

While there were bits and pieces of Susan’s interactions and difficulties when it came to dealing with her 11 year old daughter, whom we met in the 2nd book of the series In Her Defense, I would have loved to see that take centrestage in the story, be it even for a little while so that readers would have been able to see a warmer side to Susan, a character who comes off cold at first and began to thaw towards the end of the book.

I would have thought that given that this novel was totally told from a male perspective, that there would be more sex scenes involved of the kind that would make for a panty melting read. But, contrary to that notion, I found that the sex scenes were more toned down than the previous two books in the series. Not that the ones that were included were any less hot or potent. But perhaps owing to the fact that I had some difficulties in connecting with Susan on an emotional level, I found myself a bit removed from what was happening in the bedroom until towards the latter part of the story where Susan broke out with a gut wrenching confession of the difficult times she had had with trying to make her previous marriage work, a marriage that had already been doomed to failure.

It is a testament to Julianna’s talent that even with all the issues I had that I managed to enjoy the story that unfolded. Perhaps it was because through Oscar’s life, the reader gets to experience a wide range of diverse characters, and get to see something fresh develop and burgeon to life right in front of your eyes. The whole concept of cultivating produce inside the confines of a building is an idea that is being explored quite fervently across the world, and to read about it and feel as if you were a part of the experience, that was one of the best aspects of this story.

Recommended for fans of stories that feature characters who are real enough to make mistakes and wise enough to own up and learn from them. Makes for great reading!

Final Verdict: Gritty, honest, hard hitting and real!

Favorite Quotes

“Oh, Jesus, Oz, please,” she begs some time later. “I can’t—I need—just do something.”
“I’m doing something,” I tell her.
She whimpers and writhes, her body laid out like an offering, and I ease off and position myself on top of her, elbows on either side of her head. For the first time since I penetrated her I drag out my cock so just the tip is left inside, and dip my head so my lips brush against her ear. “Squeeze,” I order.
She squeezes the head of my cock with her pussy and I shudder violently, unprepared for how amazing it feels.

Her lips and tongue feel like they’re everywhere, tracing the shell of my ear, the pulse points over my throat, my collarbone. When she frees one hand to reach between us to undo the button at the top of my pants, I seize the opportunity to slip my own hand down the back of her shorts, sliding my fingers as low as I can until I find the damp heat between her thighs. I moan at the contact, then moan again when her fingers wrap around my cock, stroking like the pro she is. Pump, twist, fast, slow. It feels good, but it feels like a fucking textbook, too. Like she read the chapter, took notes and aced the test. I want messy and flawed. I want real. I want the scratched-out lines and the red ink and all the steps that come before you figure out what gets you off fastest.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | BAM | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

greatread

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-booklordofdarkness
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Maiden Lane, #5
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Godric St. John
Heroine: Margaret Reading
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: February 26, 2013
Started On: June 24, 2016
Finished On: June 27, 2016

Lord of Darkness delivers the story of the second Ghost of St.Giles, Godric St. John, who made for a brief but rather intriguing secondary character in Wicked Intentions, the first book in the series. The idea that more than one Ghost of St. Giles is in operation took root during the debut book and solidified with the delivery of Winter’s story that precedes this one.

Godric marries Lady Margaret Reading under “duress”, thinking that he would more or less be able to live his chosen life with a wife he would have little to do with. Godric has no intention of being drawn into the shaky emotional grounds where love takes root and loss is a given when you give your heart irrevocably to someone else. Godric mourns the death of his first wife, who had lived a life of illness, withering away in front of his very own eyes, taking a huge chunk of his heart and soul when she had finally being laid to rest.

After 2 years of residing in the country, Margaret Reading (Megs) decides that it is time for her to seek out her husband, for the sole purpose of getting herself with child. For that to happen, Megs has to get over the fact that Godric can never replace the love of her life, whose untimely demise at the hands of a mad man known as the Ghost of St. Giles is something she is looking to avenge. On the first night of her return to London, Megs runs into none other than the infamous Ghost, whom she has every intention of killing without knowing the true identity of the man behind the mask or the circumstances that had led to the murder.

Godric puts up a valiant effort in the face of the onslaught that Megs wages in order to get her husband to bed, long enough to put his seed to good use. But in doing so, Megs finds that it is more difficult than she thought to keep her heart and emotions separate from the physical aspect of a relationship that her body betrays her in every manner possible. But Megs is determined to keep her husband at a distance in the face of the war that Godric wages when it comes to giving her pleasure of a kind that she never thought she would find with anyone else.

While Godric is determined to weed out the true killer who was behind the murder of his wife’s lover, every kill Godric makes in the name of the Ghost, the avenger and protector of the weak that works in darkness, he sheds one more piece of his soul to the abysmal darkness that has become his friend ever since his wife had departed from his life, or perhaps even since before. Whether the real danger comes from his wife, determined to hold a piece of herself back from him, or from the dragoons captain equally fervent in his pursuit of the dastardly Ghost of St. Giles, or from the inquiries Godric makes as the role of savior he has taken upon himself for the weakest, remains to be seen as the novel reaches its ultimate culmination.

While Lord of Darkness delivers two protagonists who are mourning lost loves in their own right, the wealth of grief that Godric harbors in his heart was one that got to me. Not that the pain that Megs had undergone was any less, but Megs had the time to heal in a way that Godric never gave himself the opportunity to. For me, Megs was the toughest character to like or even perhaps love in this story. While I understood that she did not want to betray the memories of the first man that she ever truly loved, I couldn’t quite accept the way she tended to hold pieces of herself back from Godric in bed and out of it in a way that continued to kick Godric where he hurt the most.

Godric yes, is a big boy who can handle himself. But the fact that he capitulated towards his wife’s needs sooner than Megs did was telling in a way that didn’t quite sit well with me. Godric is a very giving man, perhaps too giving. Godric’s long and painful journey nursing his wife in her long journey towards an ultimate death should clue in characters to the sort of honorable and faithful man that Godric is. To have that kind of soul once again give and give until Megs realizes in her own time that she mirrors and echos Godric’s feelings was just a little too late in coming for me.

I also had a teeny problem with where Godric’s feelings of love for his wife suddenly emerged from. Though story delivers a connection that had been forged between Godric and Megs way before she had turned up at his home in London, I wanted something more for both of them. Something more tangible and tension of the kind that could have made the book that much better in my opinion. This is a trope that could have delivered a ton of angst if it had been steered in that direction, but nevertheless Hoyt manages to deliver a read that takes your breathe away and then some, even with all the teensy problems that I had with the heroine.

Recommended!

Final Verdict: With each book, Hoyt delivers enchantment of the kind that stays with you forever!

Favorite Quotes

When his breath caught, when his pace quickened, so that her hips sank beneath his into the soft mattress, she swallowed, straining her eyes to see in the dark. When he suddenly stilled, buried deep in her throbbing flesh, locked with her in animal intensity, she wanted … so much.
But all she received was what she’d asked for.
His seed.

She gripped his arms as he shoved resolutely against her, seating himself fully. She looked up, trying to see something of him in the darkness. An expression, perhaps how he held his head.
But he was simply a large male shape.
And yet … she knew it was him. Would’ve known it blindfolded. Whether by scent or some more primitive means—perhaps an alchemy of souls—she felt him bone-deep.
Godric. Poised above her.
Godric. Withdrawing his cock in one long, pulling slide.
Godric. Flexing his hips back into her with a final twist at the end.
He was overpowering her senses, laying claim to her soul.

It caught her by surprise when it came, no slow buildup, no warmth diffusing through her body. This was fast and hard, a fire sweeping through limbs already weakened by the previous orgasm. She was dimly aware of her hands scrabbling at his sides, his shoulders, as she tried to urge him to do something. She was going to expire, to die, if he didn’t pick up his pace, didn’t take his cock and ram it into her.
And whether because he could sense her extremity or because he was there himself, he did it. He let her legs fall and braced himself on his strong, straight arms and slammed his hips into her, making violent, urgent, blissful contact with her. The bed rocked, the headboard banging rhythmically against the wall, and any other time she would have been mortified, but right now … right now she was in paradise. White light obscured her vision as bliss flooded her being, seizing her, shaking her, giving her life.
She could fly like this, perhaps live eternally.

He’d made it worse for himself; he knew it the moment her fingers curled into her pretty cunny. Her lips parted moistly, her head thrown back as she began to stroke herself, and it took everything he had to keep from spilling. To watch her pleasure herself as she rode his cock and not end this too soon.
“That’s it, darling,” he whispered low, coaching her, wanting to see her bring herself to fulfillment. “It’s sweet, isn’t it? Touching yourself, letting me watch. Do you like it? Do you enjoy putting on a show for me? Parting your pretty lips, letting me see how moist you’ve become, fucking yourself on me?”
The crudity seemed to jolt something within her. Her eyes widened, her back arched, and he felt the muscles of her sheath grip him tight, so tight.
Right before he lost control himself.

He seemed to take forever, widening her, burrowing into her swollen tissues. Then he made a final shove and she felt the fabric of his leggings brush firmly against her bottom.
He held himself there and she could hear the sound of his rough breathing in the quiet of the room. She bit her lip, mirroring his earlier grimace. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath—and he hadn’t even started to move.
And then he did, a slick, hard slide that rubbed against something wonderful inside of her. She couldn’t help the squeaking cry she gave, and as if her hips moved of their own accord, she began bumping back against him.
He huffed a rough laugh. “So impatient.”

His breath caught and he swiveled his hips, grinding against her, leaning close over her, whispering low in her ear. “You’re touching yourself, aren’t you?”
She swallowed, closing her eyes in bliss. “Y-yes.”
“God,” he muttered, and she wondered if he’d finally lost the power of speech.
Perhaps he had, for he suddenly planted one hand over her shoulder and shoved hard into her, pressing her into the mattress. He was pushing her body up the bed with quick, forceful jabs that spread her apart, made her see a starburst behind her closed lids.
A spike of near-painful pleasure bloomed between her legs, flowing and expanding through her, a river of sweet completion. She moaned, loud and low.

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-bookthiefofshadows
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Maiden Lane, #4
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Winter Makepeace
Heroine: Isabel Beckinhall
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: July 1, 2012
Started On: June 15 2016
Finished On: June 22, 2016

Towards the end of Scandalous Desires, book 3 in the Maiden Lane series, there comes perhaps a startling discovery for some, and for the rest, something that they might have already been suspicious of when it comes to Winter Makepeace. Winter’s role in the home for foundling children has made him a very prominent secondary character in the past 3 novels, one that endears readers to only part of who he is. By day, he is the controlled, stoic headmaster of the home, and at night, he assumes the persona of the Ghost of St. Giles, a figure revered and feared in equal doses, a man who keeps to the shadows of the night and hunts those that preys on the weak.

Isabel Beckinhall the Baroness of Beckinhall, who is widowed at a young age, makes her free of certain restrictions when it comes to moving about in the society. Becoming a patroness of the foundling home gives her a sense of purpose, something she actually looks forward to in a way that perhaps helps heal the broken aspects of her heart and soul. When she encounters the injured Ghost of St. Giles, even though she is much curious and more than a little intrigued about the identity behind the mask, she respects the Ghost’s wishes and refrains from inquiring further. Little does she know that the Ghost is none other than Winter, a man whom she thinks to be too rigid and dour faced to be of an interest to her.

When Winter’s role as the headmaster of the foundling home is thrown into jeopardy, it is up to Isabel to teach him of the ways to move about in the elite of the society. Thus Isabel embarks upon a dangerous mission in more ways than one. A particularly precarious one to her heart when it is in danger of sliding into being utterly in love with Winter, Isabel becoming the one ensnared in the risky venture of teaching Winter the art of seduction and more.

Hoyt has a way of taking on tried and tested tropes in the world of romance and bringing something fresh and vivid to readers at the same time. In Thief of Shadows, Isabel is the older heroine, the experienced widow who takes on lovers of the same kind, that is until she is taken in the arms of Winter Makepeace. Winter is younger than Isabel by many years, inexperienced and a virgin to boot, which makes him doubly more delicious in a certain sense. His inexperience does not stop him from becoming a lethal force to be reckoned with in the bedroom and out of it, his nocturnal activities bringing danger of a whole different kind to his doorstep as he grows more and more weary of his chosen path in life.

Winter has lived a life of self-imposed control and and rules that had never left him wanting before. However, with Isabel in his life, the vividity of life that she brings to his otherwise dark, dull and grey existence is one that he is hard pressed to turn away from. Little by little, Winter learns that he could have a life that includes Isabel as the woman by his side, the woman who manages to turn his world upside down just by walking into the same room.

In Winter, Isabel finds the room to grow, to seek solace of a kind she never thought would ever come her way. Scarred in a way she never admitted to even herself, it is Winter who brings to her life something she has always yearned for, but has completely turned her mind away from because of the futility in wishing for something she is no longer capable of. That alone was a beautiful aspect of the story and I loved Winter wholeheartedly for how he dealt with Isabel’s wounds. For Isabel, there is no turning away from the man who sees her, really sees her, the woman behind the facade she presents to the rest of the world.

It takes a writer of immense talent to keep up the momentum of a series through each and every single book. Hoyt has managed to do that and more in the Maiden Lane series, which is why I would recommend these hot and delectable reads of love, mystery, and steamy sex to all romance readers out there!

Final Verdict: Steals your heart, storms your emotions and leaves you begging for more!

Favorite Quotes

“Would you like me more if I knew how to simper and twist my words?” he demanded.
His sudden aggression made her reply without thinking, straight from her heart. “No. I like you as you are.”
She licked her lips at her admission and his gaze settled broodingly on her mouth. It felt like a brand, that look. A physical touch more intimate than any embrace. Her lips parted in wonder and his eyes rose slowly to meet hers, for once unshielded.
Dear God, what she saw in that look! How he had hidden these many years behind the guise of a simple schoolmaster, she didn’t know. Anger, passion, lust, and surging hunger swirled in his stormy eyes. Emotions so stark, so strong, she didn’t understand how he kept them under control. He looked as if he were about to attack her, ravish her, and conquer London and the world itself. He could’ve been a warrior, a statesman, a king.

She opened her lips against his. He claimed her like a barbarian marauder. The kiss was rough, unpracticed, and without finesse, and yet Isabel felt a trembling thrill go through her. She was used to civilized embraces, carefully thought out, impeccably implemented. Mannered and cool. The Ghost of St. Giles, in contrast, was a storm breaking over her, all passion and emotion.
All real man.
She felt his arms come about her, pulling her tight against his chest as he bent her helplessly, lost, falling, her heart half beating out of her breast. And she knew—she knew—that she kissed not only the Ghost of St. Giles, but Winter Makepeace as well.

His eyes opened, his sensuous upper lip twisting in a snarl. “I’ll never forget you no matter what.”
And he grasped her hips firmly, shoving up into her. He was untried, inelegant, jerky, and rough—and she loved it.
She flung back her head and laughed breathlessly.
“Damn you,” he growled, jamming himself in and out of her, his cock ruthless and hard. “Do it.”
She looked down at him, a goddess supreme. “Fuck, you mean?”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “Make love. Make love to me. Now.”

“Slowly,” he whispered, and covered her mouth with his.
For a moment she forgot everything. His tongue was in her mouth, warm and strong, masculine and insistent, and his cock was pushed so far inside her that her feminine lips were spread wide. He had her. He was in control.
Then he began walking, still kissing her, and the motion was exquisitely seductive, a subtle nudging, a sweet, rhythmic rocking.
She moaned against his lips. “Winter.”
“Yes,” he murmured back. “Yes.”
Then her back was against a wall and he’d braced his legs. Suddenly he was driving into her. Fast. Hard. Deep. Exactly right.
His teeth were bared, his lips pulled back, and his eyes glittered as he stared at her. “Yes.”

“Now,” he whispered, and withdrew his cock an incremental amount. So tiny, less than an inch, surely. So small it should hardly matter at all.
But when he thrust back inside her, quick and hard and nearly brutal, the movement sent her hips grinding against his hand, trapped between her and the mattress. Sent her gasping for breath as the sensation spurred all her nerve endings to a nearly painful pleasure.
“I love you,” he whispered as he thrust again. And again. Each movement controlled. Each small movement devastating in its effect. “I love you.”
She lost all concept of time. She lost her place and surroundings. She couldn’t remember who he was—who she was. She lost her mind.

“So brave,” he murmured into her hair, stroking it. “So beautiful and brave.”
“I’m not beautiful,” she rasped. “You shouldn’t see me like this.”
She must look like a hag, and the horror of her gauche tantrum and her naked vulnerability made her hide her face in his shoulder.
But he placed a gentle palm under her chin and turned her face back to him. “I’m privileged to see you like this,” he said, his eyes fierce. “Wear your social mask at your balls and parties and when you visit your friends out there, but when we are alone, just the two of us in here, promise me this: that you’ll show me only your true face, no matter how ugly you might think it. That’s our true intimacy, not sex, but the ability to be ourselves when we are together.”

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | BAM | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-booknotoriouspleasures
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Maiden Lane, #2
Publisher: Vision
Hero: Griffin Reading
Heroine: Hero Batten
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: February 1, 2011
Started On: June 01 2016
Finished On: June 04, 2016

My journey into reading through the backlist of Elizabeth Hoyt continues, this time with the second book in the Maiden Lane series. Notorious Pleasures brings us the story of Lady Hero Batten, the daughter of a Duke, who has pretty much perfected the etiquette that is required of her in polite society. The final nail in the coffin where she is concerned is her betrothal to the Marquess of Mandeville, a union that is forged much like a business transaction as is the norm.

Lord Griffin Reading returns to London after almost a year, Griffin preferring to reside in the country residence where he harvests crops. It has also been three years since Griffin and his brother Thomas had become estranged, a source of much anxiety to their mother. Griffin hides behind a veneer of notoriety that precedes him, which makes it easier for his brother to continue with his feeling of disdain, sitting on higher moral ground where his brother is concerned.

When Hero at first walks in on Griffin, it is to find him in a less than savory position with the lady of the manor, forcing an instant dislike to come into place with one another. While Hero dismisses Griffin as someone who is not trustworthy, a man seen to be controlled by his baser appetites, Griffin considers Hero to be a bit too uptight, someone who could use a bit of loosening up, perhaps in bed and out of it. What both Griffin and Hero refuses to accept is that their dislike hides the real reason behind their perceived animosity towards one another – their instant attraction to each other.

What Hero does not realize is the trouble she is getting herself into by agreeing to an engagement with a man whose brother becomes the sole focus of her desires. It certainly does not help matters to realize that Griffin too feels the same way, and with society having already gone through one episode of scandal concerning Griffin and his brother, Hero is hard pressed to find a way to combat the unquenchable desire Griffin arouses in her.

Notorious Pleasures might not be a story well received by readers who have delicate sensibilities, especially when it comes to grey areas concerning that of loyalty towards ones betrothed. Furthermore, Griffin embarking on an affair of the flesh and the heart with the woman who would rightly become his sister in law in the future might be a bitter pill to swallow for some readers. I, however had no such problems with the story that emerged. I am always for authors who pushes the boundaries of the accepted norm. It is always a matter of how an author deals with the fallout. Life teaches us day in and day out that it is one gigantic lump of mess, which everyone is best trying to traverse without falling flat on their face. To read stories that are realistic in this nature is what I crave and Hoyt certainly does that and more with her stories.

With Notorious Pleasures, as is the norm with all her works, Hoyt manages to draw in the readers into a complex and multi-layered story that sees the emergence of Griffin’s character as one that is worth so much more than the initial impression he makes. There is a core of strength and loyalty inside of him that makes him appealing on so many levels. There is also the fact that the hidden facets of his character that emerges in the story makes him the actual hero where the two brothers are concerned, not that Thomas is a hard core villain of the variety people might think him to be given this statement. Even though his interest in Hero might make people look upon Griffin in a less than favorable manner, his saving grace comes from the fact that his brother too is not entirely honest with himself when it comes to his impending marriage with Hero.

Hero is a woman who is torn between the conventions demanded of her by society, by her powerful brother, the Duke of Wakefield and of course her desire to slay it all and stand with the man who makes her insides tremble with want whenever he walks in to a room. Griffin certainly does not make it easy for Hero to stay away from him, nor does he make it easy for her to walk away from the hedonistic pleasure that is to be found in the circle of his arms. The ultimate decision that Hero finally makes would not have been an easy one, which made me mighty proud of her for doing so, rather than opting for the easy way out.

Notorious Pleasures also continues the thread of story related to Silence Hollingbrook, whose marriage had practically died in front of her when Silence had taken matters into her own hands regarding the possible incarceration of her husband. Hoyt does a remarkable job out of leaving the reader wanting for more, and much more, and that is exactly why the Maiden Lane series is a must read for all romance readers out there!

I would also love to gush a bit about the beautiful covers that graces Hoyt’s novels. Each and every single cover featuring a couple is beautiful. The colors, the setup and layout as if it had come out straight from the pages of the book itself. Love them all!

Final Verdict: With a Hoyt novel, one is never a choice. One is never ever enough!

Favorite Quotes

“Please,” he moaned. “Please.”
He turned his head and licked across her nipple before gently closing his teeth over the tip. She gasped, her head falling back against his shoulder. He worried her nipple, then let it go to kiss it softly.
“Stroke me,” he gasped, and let her hand go.
She did, pulling up over that hard flesh, hidden beneath her skirts. That part of him that made him a man.
“Like this?” she whispered, low and intimate in the rocking carriage. Outside, London passed by. Inside she held a man’s penis in her palm.
“Yesss,” he hissed before tonguing her other nipple. “Exactly like that.”

She looked up at him, so full of his flesh. Was this all there was?
He seemed to understand the question in her eyes. He lay against her, his upper half braced away from her on straight arms. He smiled again, this time rather grimly, and grunted, “Feel.”
Then he slid against her, his penis slowly pistoning out and into her. She gasped. He did it again, his eyes watching hers, and swiveled his hips, grinding down on her.
“Oh!” With her hips tilted up, his body was hitting that spot exactly, each pull of his cock adding somehow to the exquisite sensation.
“Feel, my heart,” he whispered, and she saw that his eyes were glistening.

He reached the apex of her sex and spread his hand, pressing down quite explicitly on her clitoris.
And she jerked, hard and hot, falling from a great height, the wind whistling past her ears, glorious in her descent.
He arched away from her and pulled his cock partway out, then slammed it back into her, rough and fast and relentless. He thrust in and out in short, jerky, controlled movements, never so hard as to rattle the door, never so soft as to let her down from her fall from on high.
She wanted to scream, wanted to shout aloud with joy. This rapid energy was too much, was not enough. She wanted him to continue forever. She bit, gently, precisely, on his earlobe and his mechanical rhythm stuttered. He jerked, arched, jerked again and then thrust one last time, holding himself deep within her.
She felt heat flood her insides.

“Shhh, it’s all right,” he murmured as he settled between her thighs again. His penis was naked and big. “I’ve got what you want and need, if not love.”
She shook her head, no longer sure, no longer able to decide what was real and what was sexual excitement. “I don’t—”
“Hush.” The head of his cock nudged her entrance, and she felt the delicious stretch. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
A rough edge lined his voice now. He entered her, one slow inch at a time, and it was torture. She made to arch up, to embed him all at once, but he shifted one hand, holding her hips firmly down.
“Take it,” he growled. “Let me give you this at least.”

She arched beneath him, her hands scrabbling at his shoulders. He slammed his mouth over hers just as she opened it to scream. Hot flashes of lights were going off behind her eyes. His cock was rubbing, rubbing, rubbing over that one delicious spot, and she was going to die from the endless pleasure.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth, and she sucked it helplessly. He ground his hips into her and shuddered. She felt the tremors wrack his big shoulders. He tore his mouth from hers and groaned, long and low, his body shaking as it poured life into hers.

“Does he watch you like I do? Does he know that your eyes turn to diamonds when you’re aroused?” He nipped along her neck, his kisses insistent and hard. “Does he know that you like to read in Greek but loathe drawing? Does he wait with bated breath for you to arch your left eyebrow so prissily—and then grow hard when you do?” He thumbed both her nipples at once, bringing a surge of heat between her thighs. “Tell me, Hero, goddamn it to bloody hell, tell me: Does he make you feel like I do?”
“No!” Her answer was a despairing wail.
His thumbs were between them, spreading her folds as if he had every right, as if she was his, now and forever, until the end of time, amen. And then he was in her. Hard and hot, moving so exquisitely she began to cry.

“Do you love me, Hero?” His pale green eyes were full of torment. “Do you love me like I love you?”
And she cracked apart on his words, a stream of liquid heat pouring forth from her center. She trembled beneath him, trying to tear her gaze from his as her passion exploded within her. As rivers of sweet pleasure spread through her thighs and belly. As her heart fractured and re-formed.
But he wouldn’t let her look away. He held her gaze as his own eyes half closed and the muscles of his face, neck, and chest tightened. She watched helplessly as he convulsed above her, his big, strong shoulders gleaming with sweat.
He thrust into her once, twice, three times more and held himself there, tight against her, their bodies locked, as he orgasmed. His eyes pled silently with hers, defiant and proud.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | BAM | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-bookwickedintentions
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Maiden Lane, #1
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Lazarus Huntington
Heroine: Temperance Dews
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: August 1, 2010
Started On: May 31, 2016
Finished On: June 01, 2016

Having finished the Princes trilogy, I turned my attention towards the Maiden Lane series next. Wicked Intentions is the debut book in the much raved about Maiden Lane series and a book I must say that I loved to pieces from start to finish. True to her trademark, with Wicked Intentions, Hoyt once again delivers a story that can only be termed unconventional at best, with a hero and heroine who are unabashedly unapologetic in embracing who they are meant to be, when they accept the truth that their collective future lies with one another.

Lazarus Huntington, known as Lord Caire is a man who is known for his unusual sensual appetites. Searching for a murderer in St. Giles, where the poorest of the poor live, Lord Caire enlists the assistance of the most unlikely of partners, Temperance Dews, a 28 year old widow, running the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children alongside with her younger brother Winter Makepeace in the slums known as St. Giles.

Though Temperance would like to say no to Lord Caire’s request, what he offers in return is too crucial for the home for Temperance to turn away from. Even though Lord Caire does not tell Temperance whose murder it is that he is investigating, every expedition in the dark of the night that these two embark upon brings them closer to one another in a way it would not have been possible if otherwise. Lord Caire in return, introduces her to members of the elite society, from whom she might be able to procure required funding to keep the home up and running, a home that is running seriously low on funds.

While the investigation brings simmering to the forefront, emotions that Lord Caire and Temperance would not have dared otherwise give voice to, there exists the fact that for someone like Lord Caire who does not believe in the happily ever after, his place does not lie with a woman like Temperance. Similarly, Temperance deals with her misgivings about someone like her, who is not part of the elite society being with a person as important in the inner circles of the upper echelon as Lord Caire. However, none of that truly means anything in the grander scheme of their unabashed desire for one another.

I loved all aspects of Wicked Intentions, especially the backstory of the heroine Temperance. Here is a heroine who is less than perfect, who succumbed to temptations that she should not have, a sin for which she has been atoning for in more ways than she realizes. Her previous marriage while it had not been a bad one, had not been enough for a woman like Temperance, someone who hides her sensual nature behind the life of atonement that she has chosen for herself since the untimely demise of her husband.

Lord Caire on the other hand, having had a difficult childhood, has a hard time with intimacy of the kind that appears normal for most of us. While the story hints at his wild sensual needs, I did not witness any sort of overly risque behavior on his part, though yes, he makes for a very fine specimen in the arena of bed sport. The sex scenes while tastefully done, were of the panty drenching variety, and I kid not. The carriage sex scene in this story has got to be THE hottest and wildest scene of passion that takes place inside a carriage, from all the historical romances that I have read to-date. There is also the jealousy that Lord Caire exhibits, at the merest mention of Temperance’s deceased husband – I had such a fun time reading about the way Lord Caire goes practically rigid whenever his name comes up in discussions, quite heated ones at that I must say.

The only aspect that I wished had been explored further was why Lord Caire shied away from intimacy of the kind that most of us take for granted. Though I understood the psychology behind a past that had marked him, I just wished for a deeper understanding of where he was coming from.

As expected, this book also introduces characters that would get their own books as the series progresses along. One secondary character very prominently featured being Temperance’s sister Silence Hollingbrook, whose marriage lies in utter ruins by the time Wicked Intentions ends, wetting the appetite of the reader definitely for more!

A very satisfying start to the series all around. Definitely recommended!

Final Verdict: Entices to immerse oneself in the enchanted world that Hoyt builds around you!

Favorite Quotes

One moment she was crying in fury up at him and the next he’d swooped down and caught her mouth. Hard, with no mercy. She gasped at the shock. He ground his mouth against her soft lips. She felt his teeth, tasted his hot tongue, and that part of herself, that wretched, sinful, wrong, part broke free and went running. Reveling in his savagery. Rejoicing in his blunt sexuality.
Completely out of her control.
Until he raised his head and looked down at her. His lips were wet and slightly reddened, but otherwise he showed no sign of that devastating kiss.

“Pay attention.” His voice was ragged now.
Something wild and feminine thrilled at the roughness of his voice, at the knowledge that she was affecting him, despite his sophistication. She opened her mouth beneath his, biting back at him, and he inhaled sharply. Then his mouth was crushing hers, roughly, almost out of control, a male creature dominating a female. His female.
He shifted again, his penis drawing back, finding her entrance and notching into her. He raised his head only far enough to whisper, “Now.”
He shoved powerfully.

She tore her mouth away from his, panting, her wrists twisting under his hold. “Stop.”
“No,” he whispered, an unseen ghost. “Let go.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” He levered himself up a little more and began a slow twist of his hips as he drove into her, and somehow, the pressure, the pleasure, the heat, and the expectation all released at once.
She flew apart, sobbing, gloriously free, no mind, no soul, only a single throbbing point of shining beauty.

She licked him, tasting, wanting to bite. Wanting to devour this man she could neither let go nor fully possess.
She opened her mouth over the tendon at the side of his neck and bit down hard.
He cursed, the sound loud in the carriage. He took her head between his palms as if to forcibly dislodge her, but then abandoned the attack. Instead his hands were suddenly at her skirts, pushing, shoving them upward as he continued to curse steadily.
She clutched at his shoulders to keep her balance as he jostled her, bringing her legs to either side of his hips. She could feel her skirts up around her waist, but she had her eyes closed, savoring the taste of his flesh in her mouth.

She arched her back, feeling his cock, large and insistent, those fingers, assured and relentless. This was wrong, so wrong, and it felt so very, very good.
“Temperance,” he whispered, sliding his left thumb across her mouth as he rubbed his right against her clitoris.
She opened her mouth, licking his thumb.
“Temperance.”
Her hips bucked, once, twice. Her head fell back even as she drenched his penis in her orgasm. She opened her eyes as she came, watching him beneath lowered lids. His face was drawn, his mouth a tight, tortured line.

“Damn it, Temperance.” His voice, normally cool and dispassionate, was ragged.
She smiled and leaned forward, rubbing herself against him, using his hard, hot flesh to arouse herself. She bent, tilting her hips, and took his bottom lip between her teeth.
He might’ve sworn then—the words were unintelligible—but his purpose was certainly clear. He grabbed her hips in a firm hand and brought her up, shoving his cock in place with the other hand and bringing her down hard.
Oh, ecstasy!

He slapped her bottom through her skirts. “Ride me.”
She pouted. “No.” She liked this, this subtle grinding, this wonderful rubbing.
“Ride me, damn it.” He pressed his thumb against her, and for a moment she saw stars.
Then he took it away again.
“Nooo,” she moaned.
“Then ride me. Please.”

She wanted to tell him—to cry aloud to him—how very much he meant to her. But then she lost her pace, faltered, and fell against him, her body convulsing uncontrollably. Dimly she was aware that he clutched her hips with both hands now, that he was bucking beneath her, driving his length again and again into her open flesh. She sobbed into his shoulder, waiting, her muscles turned to liquid, her center a furnace. He pumped into her without mercy, and she turned her head to watch him, saw when he tilted his face to the ceiling, his mouth open, his teeth bared in a silent bellow.
His semen flooded her.
He was arched, his hips tilted up, her knees nearly off the seat as he held himself in her, pumping out his essence.

He positioned his cock at her entrance, his mouth open and panting, and she watched him as he shoved himself inside her. His head was arched back as if he suffered some unbearable pain. As if he were about to expire.
“Oh, God,” he panted. “I can’t… I can’t…”
And he began pounding into her, shoving her back into the chair, clutching her legs against his chest so that she had no purchase, no way of defending herself against his assault.
Not that she wanted to.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | BAM | Kobo | eBookMall | ARe | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-booktheserpentprince
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Princes, #3
Publisher: Forever
Hero: Simon Matthew Raphael Iddesleigh
Heroine: Lucinda Craddock-Hayes
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: September 1, 2007
Started On: May 30, 2016
Finished On: May 30, 2016

I should have known better than to pick up the next Hoyt book to read in the wee hours of the morning. Practically read in one sitting, The Serpent Prince is the final book in the Princes trilogy. The Serpent Prince once again delivers an unconventional romance, bringing together two very different protagonists, one being a Viscount, hellbent on seeking revenge for the death of his brother, the heroine being the sheltered daughter of a retired sea captain, being courted by the vicar of town’s little church.

It is Simon’s revenge seeking ways that lands him on a narrow lane in the town of Maiden Hill. Which is how Lucy finds him and nurses him back to health. Lucy does her Christian duty by Simon, even though her father identifies Simon as a threat to his daughter’s emotional well-being and neatly ordered life.

Simon and Lucy’s attraction to one another is an immediate one, though neither wants to admit to the fact. Simon because has no room in his life to court an innocent maiden the likes of Lucy and Lucy because she knows that getting together with someone like Simon is not for her, a small town nobody. However, fate has a way of bringing together lost souls that seeks and yearns to become whole, and that is exactly what happens to Lucy and Simon as well.

Simon, even though he does right by the woman who makes him want to finally start living once again, is unable to let go of his need for exacting revenge on those he holds responsible for the untimely demise of his brother. Feeling responsible over the fact does not make it any easier to let go, which is perhaps why Simon spends more time seeking that rather than spending an equivalent amount of time and effort on the woman who wants Simon to stop doing something that would only keep tainting his already blackened soul.

While I enjoyed The Serpent Prince immensely, I however did not find myself as enchanted with Simon and Lucy as I would have liked to be. Simon was too focused on his need for vengeance than on anything else, while Lucy seemed confused about what she wanted and needed, or perhaps should want and need. Given her upbringing, I guess it was a given that Lucy would not be able to condone what Simon was actively seeking, however, it is a testament to the strength of emotions that Lucy feels towards Simon that makes her feel so torn between what her heart and mind dictated. In one sense, I felt that Simon took more than he gave back, perhaps a necessity given where Simon’s character was coming from.

To say that I recommend Hoyt’s romances to all romance readers would be an understatement. Hoyt’s work is nothing short of magical in a world where there is too little of it left.

Final Verdict: Enchantment, incredible in its beauty lies in the words Hoyt pens.

 Favorite Quotes

She reached her hand out, hesitated, then touched his cheek lightly with one fingertip. He felt the contact sizzle throughout his body down to his very toes.
“Sometimes I think I know you,” she murmured so low he almost didn’t catch the words. “Sometimes I think that I’ve always known you, from the very first moment you opened your eyes, and that, deep inside your soul, you know me, too. But then you make a joke, play the fool or the rake, and turn aside. Why do you do that?”

She sighed and moved her legs restlessly. If Simon was watching her now, he would see her arousal, the damp prickles on her skin. He would see her nude breasts and erect nipples. The mere thought of being exposed to his eyes made her bite her lip. Slowly, she flicked her fingernails over her nipples, and the sensation made her clench her thighs. If he watched . . . She brought her thumbs and forefingers on either side of her nipples and pinched. Lucy moaned.
And suddenly she knew. She froze for an eternal second and then slowly opened her eyes.
He was in the doorway, his gaze locked with hers—hot, hungry, and very, very male.

Her eyelids drooped at his words. She wanted to taste him, to do things to him that she was only vaguely aware of. More. She wanted more.
“I want to put myself in you,” he said, guttural. “I want to stay inside you all night, to wake with you around me, to make love to you before you even open your eyes.” He knelt above her. His face was not kind, and she gloried in his savagery. “If I could, I’d place you on my lap, darling angel, and hold you throughout dinner, my cock inside you. I’d feed you strawberries and cream and not move. The footmen would come and serve us and never know that my cock was in your sweet cove all the time. Your skirts would cover us, but you’d have to remain very, very still so they wouldn’t guess.”

“I want this.” He placed his hand over the juncture of her thighs. “All the time. I want to do this”—he parted her legs and lowered his hips until his hardness nestled in her folds—“all the time.”
She moaned. What was he doing to her?
“Do you want it, too?” He moved, not entering her but thrusting his erection through her wetness. He was rubbing against her bud.
She arched helplessly, whimpering.
“Do you?” he whispered into the hair at her temple. He thrust his hips again.
Pleasure. “I—”
“Do you?” He bit her earlobe.
“Ohhh.” She couldn’t think, couldn’t form the words that he wanted. She could only feel.
“Do you?” He cradled both her breasts in his hands and pinched the nipples as he thrust over her again.
And she came, grinding her hips against him, seeing stars in the darkness of her eyelids, moaning incoherently.

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

Format: E-booktheleopardprince
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Princes, #2
Publisher: Warner
Hero: Harry Pye
Heroine: Georgina Maitland
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: April 1, 2007
Started On: May 27, 2016
Finished On: May 29, 2016

Readers everywhere would identify with the feeling of unabated excitement that courses through them when they discover an author whose voice they come to adore from the first encounter itself. An added bonus would be having the fortune of finding a long backlist of books that you can indulge in. Elizabeth Hoyt became that for me since I picked up Sweetest Scoundrel from her list of books to read.

The Leopard Prince is the 2nd installment in the Princes trilogy, The Raven Prince being my very first Hoyt novel which I read and reviewed in 2012. The Leopard Prince features Lady Georgina Maitland, owner of multiple estates who remains unmarried, labeled as a spinster given that she is 28 years old.

Harry Pye is Georgina’s land steward, a sort of superior servant considering the grand scheme of things where the elite of society are concerned. However, that does not stop Georgina’s fascination to do with all things related to Harry, even though he has been in her employment for just under six months.

Georgina laments the fact that Harry remains stoically unaffected by her, something she should try and emulate in her burgeoning feelings of curiosity and emotions of other nature towards him. When Georgina decides that she would travel with Harry to Woldsly Manor for a visit, Georgina arrives to find more than she bargained for when it comes to Harry, the village’s animosity towards him and a whole lot of danger that seems to follow in Harry’s wake.

Like in every single book of Hoyt that I have read to-date, The Leopard Prince is also filled with intrigue, danger, craftily formulated characters and mind numbing passion with a love that is as strong and virile as they come. Harry is the kind of hero that we all love to shake up. Broody and silent, Harry knows that his station in life is far below that of a lady like Georgina. The fact alone should tell him that he should stay away. But Georgina is a woman who would not be denied when it comes to passions in the bedroom and otherwise.

Georgina’s stubborn and daring nature might be at odds with the time period within which the story takes place. But then again, history is filled with scandalous affairs of one sort or the other and I believe that is exactly why Georgina and Harry’s story fits with me. I loved the unpretentious nature of both Harry and Georgina. Harry has a way with him that makes you go all weak in the knees every single time he uses “my lady” as a term of endearment, and especially when he uses it as he talks dirty to the woman who rouses his passions unlike any other.

There is a reason why Hoyt is a revered name when it comes to the genre. The Leopard Prince serves as a small testament to that fact.

Recommended!

Final Verdict: Steamy & exciting, with a dash of mystery. Hoyt’s mastery delivers spectacular results.

Favorite Quotes

He walked toward her, his boots scraping against the rocks in the road. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d brought pistols?” His voice was raspy and deep. It demanded apology, concession, even submission.
George didn’t feel like giving any.
“I—” she began firmly, strongly, even haughtily.
She didn’t have a chance to finish because he was in front of her. He grabbed her about the waist and yanked her from the carriage. She half-fell against him. She put her hands on his shoulders to keep from toppling over. He pulled her against him until her breasts were quite squashed into his chest, which, strangely, felt very nice. She lifted her head to ask him what, exactly, he thought he was about—
And he kissed her!

He drew a finger slowly across the edge of her bodice, watching her reaction. “What do you want with me, my lady?”
Her breasts seemed to swell. “I . . .” She couldn’t think while he touched her; she didn’t know what to say. What did he need to hear? George looked around the room for help but saw only the piles of food and dishes. “I’m not sure, really. I don’t have any experience in this.”
He dipped two fingers below her bodice and brushed her nipple. She shuddered. Oh, my. Harry pinched the nipple, sending sparks all the way to her most private places. George closed her eyes.
She felt his breath caress her cheek. “When you figure it out, my lady, let me know.”
He closed the door quietly behind him.

She gripped his hips and began to move her own. Utterly without rhythm, but it didn’t seem to matter. Almost . . . Oh, heavens! She actually saw stars. She broke their kiss to arch her head into the pillow in a bliss like none she’d ever felt before.
He was suddenly gone from her body, and she felt warmth splattering onto her belly. She opened her eyes in time to see Harry throw his head back and shout. The tendons in his neck stood out, and his upper body glistened with sweat.
He was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen.

She knocked at his door.
It swung open almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting for her. “My lady.” His green eyes were heavy.
Harry’s chest was bare, and her gaze was drawn to it. “I hope you don’t mind,” she began vapidly, addressing his left nipple.
He reached out a long arm and drew her in. Slammed the door and pushed her up against it. Shoved back her hood and seized her lips. He tilted her head back and slanted his mouth over hers, thrusting his tongue between her lips. Oh, heavens, she needed this.

“My lady.” His breath puffed over her lips.
With an effort, she opened her eyes. “What?” she gasped. She felt drunken, dazed, as if she floated in a marvelous daydream.
“I hope you do not mind”—he rocked—“my boldness.”
What? “No. I, uh, don’t mind.” She could hardly get the words out.
“You’re sure?” He licked her nipple, the devil, and she jumped.
She was so sensitive, the feeling was almost painful. I’m going to get him for this.
He rocked.
Some other time. “Very sure,” she whimpered.
He grinned, but a bead of sweat ran down his temple. “Then with your permission.”
He didn’t wait for her nod but slammed his entire length into her, shoving her up the door and hitting with exquisite accuracy that place.

He withdrew again, and she could feel every inch dragging against her sensitive flesh. She waited, suspended in time and air, for him to mate her once more. And he did, his cock thrusting into her and his pelvis rubbing her exposed center. Then he seemed to lose control. He began a rapid pistoning, his movements short and jerky. But just as effective, damn him. And it began for her, spreading in waves that seemed to have no end. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t see or hear, could only moan in primitive abandon and open her mouth and fill it with his shoulder, salty and warm.
She bit Harry.
He came, withdrawing from her suddenly but keeping his arms around her as he shook and spasmed his release between them.

He reached underneath and found her mound with ruthless accuracy. “This is what you get with a common lover.” He speared two fingers into her sheath.
She gasped at the sudden intrusion, feeling him stretch her as he stroked with his fingers. She shouldn’t feel anything, shouldn’t respond when he—
His thumb pushed down on her most sensitive spot. “No finesse, no pretty words. Just hard cock and hot cunny.” His tongue trailed across her cheek. “And your cunny is hot, my lady,” he whispered into her ear. “It’s fairly dripping on my hand.”
She moaned then. It was impossible for her not to respond to him, even when he touched her in anger.

“Suck me.”
She was startled. Really? She pursed her mouth and his hips came off the bed, startling her again.
“Ahhh. God.”
His reaction, his obvious enjoyment of what she was doing, aroused her. She could feel that part of herself throbbing. She pressed her thighs together tightly and sucked on Harry’s cock. She tasted his semen and wondered if he would reach completion in her mouth. But she wanted him in her when that happened. George licked one last time and rose to straddle his hips. She guided his erection to where it should be, but it seemed so big now. She pressed and felt him begin to part her. To tunnel and push. She glanced down. The smooth red skin of his cock disappeared into her feminine hair. She moaned and almost came apart right there.

But suddenly he broke. He gripped her bottom tightly and rolled her underneath him. Then he braced himself on his hands and ploughed into her, fast and furious. She tried to move, to respond, but he pinned her to the mattress with his weight, dominated and mastered her with his flesh. She arched her head and widened her legs helplessly. Allowed him full access. Gave herself to him as he continued his relentless pounding. He grunted with each thrust into her body, and it almost sounded like sobbing. Did he feel it as much as she?
Then she fell apart and saw stars, a glorious stream of light filling her being. Dimly she heard his cry and felt his withdrawal, like a little death.
Then he lay next to her, panting.

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Just Once by Julianna Keyes

Format: E-bookjustonce
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Hero: Shane Maddox
Heroine: Katharine Burke
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication: October 29, 2013
Started On: May 20, 2016
Finished On: May 22, 2016

It had been a while since an author has taken command of all my senses when I read a story, which is why I found myself going on a reading binge on everything and anything that I could find by Julianna Keyes. At the cost of repeating myself, that is because her books opened up a whole new world of possibilities in a genre which I sometimes fear has grown stagnant with too many books with too little quality to measure them by.

Just Once by Julianna Keyes has to be my “least” favorite from the bunch of books I have read from Julianna up till now. But even then, it is a book that delivered on most fronts, which is why I loved it even with its shortcomings.

Written in the first person from the heroine Katharine Burke’s point of view, Just Once tells the story of how Kate finds herself feeling amiss, becoming disillusioned with her life, even though as a travel writer, Kate has done things and being to places most people can only dream of. Perhaps it was Kate’s desire to get back to her roots that finds her traveling to the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado, where she had spent three summers as a teenager, a place she had never forgotten even though it had been ten years since.

As the new kitchen/cabin manager, Kate hopes that backbreaking physical labor plus the serenity that comes with being surrounded by nature would rewire her brain and remove that desolate feeling that had been hounding her of late. Kate’s encounter with Shane Maddox, the ruggedly handsome and stubborn ranch foreman becomes her biggest challenge in working on the ranch, not to mention the wild and hedonistic desire that he invokes in her being a bit problematic as well. However, when Kate realizes that Shane also shares the same desire as her, at least when it comes to the bedroom, an agreed upon one night stand turns into two and before they know it, both Kate and Shane are embroiled in a passionate affair that neither saw coming.

While both Shane and Kate didn’t reel me in as the protagonists of other novels I have read from Julianna, I still loved the premise and the whole setup of the story. There’s a lot of hard labor that goes into every aspect of keeping an establishment such as a ranch guesthouse up and running. Just Once lets the reader get a bit of insight into what life is like on the other side of the equation, the one which we seldom give any thought to when we are enjoying a vacation or a timeout from the daily grind of life.

Two characters whose unfinished story that caught my eye would be that of Brandon and Hailey. I keep wondering whether Julianna would ever write down their story because there seems to be a wealth of angst to be explored in their union, if ever there is to be one.

Just like the rest of the novels by Julianna that I have read and loved, Just Once also comes bearing enough angst, spiced up sex and with a hero who cannot get enough, just like the heroine. Which is the utmost of reasons why I will always keep coming back for more where Julianna is concerned. 

Recommended!

Final Verdict: Julianna pens down yet another sinful tale of love that strikes when you least expect it.

Favorite Quotes

“But I promise to make you come,” he whispers. “And come and come and come. Until you can’t take any more.”
“Shane…”
“And then I’ll make you come again.”
Oh God.
“And when you can’t walk tomorrow, it won’t be because of your leg.”

I slide up the bed and he releases one hand so I can brace myself against the wall. I give him everything, thighs wide, meeting and accepting each brutal thrust. Sweat gathers on his brow, and his mouth mashes against mine, teeth clashing, tongues mating, until finally—finally—the pressure that’s been building for weeks finds the outlet it’s been looking for. Everything in me converges in that one place, clamping down tightly and refusing to release until Shane lets go too, until he goes rigid above me, eyes locked on mine, and we both give in. I moan into his mouth as I come, and he swallows my cry and answers with a strangled sound of his own, hips pulsing against mine, dragging every last ounce of pleasure from our exhausted bodies.

I lower a trembling hand between my legs, trying to touch myself, to finish what Shane has started, but he whispers soothing words in my ear and takes my hand away, returning it to the mattress. “I’ve got you,” he says, breath tickling my neck.
“I can’t take any more,” I moan. “What are you doing to me?”
He pounds into me harder and harder, stroking over that spot again and again until everything in me converges in one place, then finally dips his fingers between my legs, rubbing roughly and grunting, “Come,” in my ear.
I’ve been called stubborn most of my life, but not now. My body’s not listening to me anyway. It’s found a new master, and his name is Shane. I come. I come harder than I’ve ever come in my life.

My head drops back. “Oh God.”
“He can’t help you now.” Shane turns his attention to my other nipple, biting down harder than expected and making me jerk in his arms. “Remember,” he warns, not removing his mouth. “Only say no if you mean it.”
“You make me forget,” I whisper.
Shane looks up and pulls me forward to straddle his waist, raising his lips to mine. “Me too.”
Finally—finally—he kisses me.

He thrusts impossibly hard, answering the request, shouting his release as he comes inside me. I feel a sudden wet heat between my legs and clutch him tightly, unable or unwilling to let go. When he shudders one last time, we’re both breathing hard. I can feel his heart beating against my chest, the echoing thud of mine, his sweat-damp hair on my temple.
Eventually he eases out, and as my body struggles to release him, I realize he was wrong that day on the hike when he told me I wasn’t used to fucking. The truth is, I wasn’t used to making love.

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Going the Distance by Julianna Keyes

Format: E-bookgoingthedistance
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Hero: Jarek Andrew McLean
Heroine: Olivia Clarke
Sensuality: 4
Date of Publication: January 27, 2015
Started On: May 19, 2016
Finished On: May 20, 2016

Julianna Keyes has wormed her way into my heart as an author who can deliver on all fronts, especially with the sort of characters that I love and can relate to. There are no magic solutions to problems that exists between the characters in her stories. Which is perhaps why I find it all so very realistic and convincing. Real life seldom sends your way the variety of men who one tends to encounter in most modern romances. Some of the heroes I encounter makes me want to take out a bodice ripper just so that I can read about a hero who might be an asshole, but still maintain some of those characteristics that are inherently male and yet so difficult to come across in stories of today. Which is why Julianna has become an author who is that much more precious to me. Because writers who stay true to where their characters take them are so hard to find now.

Going the Distance is a novel mostly set in the rural Chinese town of Lazhou and is told in the third person. Olivia Clark moves to the small rural town where she is practically a stranger as a kindergarten teacher. Olivia, while she craves the anonymity her position in a foreign land offers where few of the locals if ever can speak a word of English, the loneliness that she feels is a bone deep one. However, it was a step crucial to maintain her sanity from the recent past that had hurt her in a way she never thought possible. Her sole contact with people she can at least have a full conversation with comes from the crew of the Brant Construction site, which is how her path crosses that of Jarek Andrew McLean’s.

Jarek is a man who prefers to keep to himself. His previous occupation as an interrogator makes him more so, his childhood mired in violence that had left its mark on him making him taciturn at best. However, no matter how hard Jarek might try to stay away from Olivia, it turns out to be a lost cause as he becomes intrigued by the woman who does not seem to play by the rules that Jarek wants her to. Competing with the memory of an ex fiancé with whom Olivia had been with for more than half of her life is something that Jarek does not want to do, but finds himself dealing with the kind of emotions that he has never had problems with before.

As Jarek and Olivia enter into an affair which they both loosely agree would be done when their time in China comes to an end, both finds in the other the kind of healing that they didn’t believe they needed, but was exactly what their parched souls had been craving for. None of it comes easy, as it rightly should not. Real life is not made up of rainbows and unicorns and happily ever afters as we would like to think. It is messy, difficult and at times tiring, making you want to give up on the things that makes your life hellish. That is exactly what Going the Distance brings to readers, the ups and downs, the highs and lows and the beauty that emerges from all that chaos.

Julianna has a way of delivering just the right touch of angst that makes me such a diehard fan of her novels. This was such a beautiful story in the way it was told. There is no magic formula that stops the hero from becoming better, from conquering the shackles of his past that still binds him to it, nor is there one for the heroine to get over the loneliness, heartache and feeling of having being betrayed by those who should never have done so in the first place. 

On the surface, both Jarek and Olivia might seem to be your average hero and heroine. He is taciturn and rude at times making you want to shake him up, sexy and commanding in a way that is subtle yet vivid. I’m finding that Julianna is a mastermind in creating heroes with just the right touch and I find Jarek to be no exception. While Olivia is beautiful and smart, there is a loneliness deep within her that she tries to hide from, the best she can. Meeting Jarek and feeling the spark of want for the first time in a year has her taking a chance on a man who panics the moment she kisses him. Yes, she takes the chance and does so. But Jarek has so many demons hounding him, he breaks out in sheer panic every single time he believes that he and Olivia are becoming close. One night stands are how he likes his women, informal transactions at best to scratch an itch from which he can walk away the moment he chooses to.

Jarek and Olivia’s “non-relationship” relationship is one that is filled with a lot of potholes which is the reason why it was such a swell read. I love angst of the kind delivered right and I believe that there are too few books these days that hits the right combination when it comes to it. I loved the fact that Jarek was the asshole of the year at first and gave Olivia such a hard time. And yet at the same time how he couldn’t help but be concerned about hurting her and trying to think up of ways to make amends. From the onset, he is smitten, yet unable to accept the truth. Which was realistic because he has never been in a position to offer anything more to a woman and never had he been tempted to, until Olivia.

The whole setup in China, living in a remote area of China not to say the least, where you don’t know of anyone, where people mostly just treat you to a polite hello and nothing more was driven home in the story. I visited China just once, and had the fortune of visiting some places mentioned in the story. While China got into my blood in a way I never would have thought possible and would love to revisit one day, I think it would take a lot of courage on the part of anyone to make such a bold decision and move to practically the middle of nowhere and start afresh. While I would have loved to see Olivia continue her tenure in the school where she eventually won the hearts and minds of the adorable kids she was teaching, I understood her decision to leave them behind even had it been a difficult one. 

My message to Julianna is to never stop writing her characters as they are. Never give into the ‘accepted’ mold of the hero and heroine that is turning this beautiful genre into a mushy fest which sometimes I have a hard time not gagging over. But authors like Julianna makes me hopeful that there still exists a couple of authors out there who do the genre justice. 

Absolutely recommended!

Final Verdict: Going the Distance is yet another masterpiece in the way it’s so well thought out and crafted. Jarek and Olivia’s story is definitely one that is worth giving up a corner of your heart for.

Favorite Quotes

“You’re so hard,” she murmured in his ear. “So big. I want to feel you come in my hand, Jarek.”
“Fuck.” He ran his free hand over his eyes, as though he could block her out.
To be honest, Olivia was surprised to hear herself say the words. She’d never talked dirty with Chris; never really wanted to. But something told her Jarek wanted to hear it, wanted the okay to sully her hand with his release, to know he hadn’t talked her into doing something she didn’t want to do.
She kissed the shell of his ear, bit on the lobe. “What are you waiting for?” She squeezed her hand tighter than she thought he’d like and he came, back arching, teeth gritted, a pained sound dragged from his throat.

He gripped her hips, pulled out and shoved back in, too hard. Her breath hitched and she winced, and he kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Do it again.”
So he did. She held onto the desk and later onto his shoulders, and he held her hips and pounded into her with all the zealousness of a man possessed, and none of the finesse she’d probably gotten from her ex. He could feel her and smell her and hear her, and in no time at all she fit him.

“What’s your favorite movie?”
“Alien.”
“Ugh.” Then, “Jarek.” Not a sigh. An order.
“I’m going to fuck you, Olivia.”
“Good.”
“Hard.”
“Good.”
“Harder than before. As hard as I want to.”

He kicked her knees apart and held her in place as he fitted his cock to her glistening folds, then rammed inside, deep and hard, making her cry out.
He didn’t ease up. He didn’t take it easy. He fucked her, like he hadn’t really done before. He gave her everything, rough and hard, like he’d been wanting to and worried she couldn’t handle. She groaned and moaned and clawed the mattress, writhing like she was trying to get away and get closer, but he didn’t let her go anywhere. He held her down with one hand and gripped her hip hard with the other, knowing he’d leave marks on her tan skin and not giving a fuck.

She straddled him as he freed his cock and rolled on a condom, then dragged her down where he needed her most. Her eyes sank shut and she bit her bottom lip, taking him deep. He watched her face, stroking her neck and her back, eyes settling on their joining bodies. He heard her breath hitch and looked up to see her flushed cheeks as she watched him watch them. She smiled and he kissed her, thinking that he’d been doing a lot of kissing this past month. Maybe more than he’d ever done in his whole life, all combined.

He curled over her, moving his hands to squeeze her slim shoulders as he pounded inside, pouring out his release with a groan, burying his forehead in her neck. When their breathing slowed, she lifted a hand to stroke his hair, soothing him, as though she somehow knew he needed it. Letting him know without words that he could trust her, too.

“I was hoping your first time sleeping over would alleviate your fear of spending the night when you realized nothing terrible would happen.”
His laugh was pained, muffled by her skin. “It’s the opposite of terrible, Liv. You feel so fucking good. All over. You’re the best thing I’ve ever felt.”
She ran her fingers through his curls, letting them tangle. “You’re sappy in the morning. Is that why you avoid staying over?”
“Guilty.” He rocked against her, his pubic bone hitting her clit and sending her over the edge. He followed, lips fastened to her neck, hard enough that she knew she’d have her first hickey in years.

She squirmed and complained and he ignored her, pressing into the soles of her feet with his mean, awful fingers, dragging them up her calves, finding muscles she didn’t know she had. “Please,” she gasped when she was about to combust. “Stop. But don’t stop. Please.”
Her eyes flew open when he sat beside her, back resting against the padded headboard. He dragged her onto his lap so she straddled his muscled thighs, and she waited, quaking, as he rolled on a condom. She suspected he was suffering as much as she was, but it wasn’t confirmed until he held her hips and guided his cock inside her that he cursed furiously and pressed his head back as though in agony.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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