On My Bookish BS

 So I've said before I love Brittany Ann. A few times. I'm going to say it again. I LOVE BRITTANY ANN. Seriously.  First it was dark, baseball, mafia romance. Then it was cowboy and bull rider romance. Then it was street racing romance. Now we got bounty hunter romance.  The first half of the Catch Me duet , Catch Me When I Fall, was just released on August 26th and I DEVOURED IT. If work and being sick interfered I would have finished it same day but alas... real life.  The story of Carrie and Grayson is wild, steamy, dramatic and ends on an INSANE cliff hanger that literally had me flipping the last few pages going WHAT THE CRAP! NO WAY! and HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE DUET!?!?!?  Not since the Dean-cliff-hanger in the Batter Up series have I screamed at Brittany like this ... so it's been a while but it was well deserved then and even more so now. How dare.  Carrie has been in an in-patient rehab facility since her finding the b...

Rounding out the RinaVerse is the well loved Legacy of Gods series. This is where I started reading Rina Kents work and there's a reason I read 30+ books in total to make sure I knew how everything tied together.  First we meet Killian Carson, son of Asher and Reina Carson, and Gwyndolin King, daughter of Astrid and Levi King, in God of Malice. She's grieving the death of her friend Devlin who drove his car off a cliff and she's got mad survivors guilt because he wanted her to go with him when Killian comes upon the scene and gives her a choice - sex or death. Which sounds sexy in theory but kinda rapey.  Killian is a bad, bad, BAD man, a med student, a member of a mafia feeding club called the Heathens and an all around baddie. And seriously hot. He is waving red flags like a high school flag squad and I'm still like YAAAAAAS.  Gwyn is an art student, empathic as fuck, very sweet and virginal, and totally out of her depth. Yet she wades into the world of the Heathens ...

 I was lucky enough to be an ARC reader for Exile by Poppy Fitzgerald and let me tell you... HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER GO READ THIS NOW.  We met the FMC of this book, Serena, in Poppys first book, Astray, where she was a police officer attempting to help Eloise when she was being stalked. Serena said she understood... and here we find out why. Serena is working at the local coffee shop and Dominick, a local officer, comes in every day and there's flirting. When they finally go out on a date she is so taken by his generosity and up front kindness that she overlooks the red flags like a blind bull.  But why would she want to see the worst in people when she was living with a sick mother, severe traumatic brain injury from the car accident that killed her father, and barely scraping by to put herself through college. She was due something good and here was a protective, generous, cop who was bound to protect and serve who wanted to give her the world.  Until everything go...

The Monster Trilogy is the last stop on our trek through the RinaVerse. This may be the most interesting in terms of drama that we've gotten to enjoy from Rina thus far.  Back when we were with Ria and Kyle a secret came to light about Aleksander, the closest body guard to Kirill Morozov and this series explores that in incredible depth.  We travel back to Russia to the military and special ops training and meet a younger Aleks and Kirill and how they became so close, what they survived, and the journey from military brothers to... something more.  This was a weird book to me at first and I wasn't sure it was going to pass the sniff test for handling issues of gender identity well but it far surpassed my expectations. I love Aleks and Kirill together and they are by far two of the most multidimensional characters we get to meet in the RinaVerse.  Total whiplash while reading this series. I'm going to give this an extra high rating of 5.25 out of 5 for the wild ride i...

All aboard for the next stop in the RinaVerse journey - The Deception Trilogy. When I first read the Legacy of Gods series, Lia and Adrian Volkov made my spider sense tingle. There was something about their history as told from the perspectives of Anti and Jeremy that made me wish to know more and now I do. I know it all and and I am SO FREAKING HERE FOR IT.  First of all, Adrian is the father of the LOG kids that would NEVER do anything to hurt his woman. The lengths Adrian goes to in this series for his beloved is just insane. There's murder, mayhem, lies and deceit to the rest of the bratva, but he does everything with his eyes on the prize of bringing home his one true love - Lia.  When I started reading and met Winter I was like WTF IS THIS. THIS IS NOT ADRIAN FROM LOG! And then as the story progresses and you see the facts, the truth behind his actions... it is swoon worthy in that way only dark romance guys can be. Did he do bad? Was he an unmitigated ass? YES and OMG Y...

Continuing the RinaVerse sojourn we come to the flip side of the Reina/Ria story with the Throne of Power duet.  Ria, the twin that wound up with the mafia, and assassin extraordinaire Kyla Hunter get their time to shine in this duet full of drama, death, betrayal, and spice.  As they come together we get to see the power of a woman taking her place in the world of made men while her arranged marriage to the lost heir of another family both threatens and heightens her power.  Kyle is so freaking hot, y'all. I mean honestly once they start banging I'm like "Can you stop fighting this and do that more, because DAAAAAAAAAMN.' He's that hot. And has that British accent. And he's like the best trained killer of a generation. Give in and stay in, hon. You won the mafia husband jackpot.  This duet is so freaking fantastic I read it twice because I enjoyed the story and the prose so much. 5 stars. No notes.

So, know how I've been all like "Spicy!" when it comes to books up till now? Well this is where Kents books started to get ghost pepper hot for me. The Empire series is four interconnected, standalone novels that are all legit super spicy.  In Empire of Desire we get to watch as Gwendolyn Shaw struggles with her feelings for her dads best friend and business partner who is also like 17 years older than she is. When a tragic accident leaves her father in a coma, Nate and Gwen wind up in a marriage of convenience which is fun for neither of them until it super is. Once the spice starts it ratchets up to a boiling point.  Nate has big daddy energy and his relationship with Gwen is delightfully dirty in the best of ways. Who knew vanilla could be so kinky?  Empire of Sin brings us back to the boys from the RES and Knox Van Doren, foster brother of Teal Van Doren, big time lawyer, international playboy and all around bad ass. When he meets Anastasia mafia princess, on the run...