Sunday, May 31, 2015

Review:Yield to Me (Club Excelsior #1) by Sarah Castille

No-holds-barred attraction...

Amateur MMA fighter, Marcy Foster is determined to win the state championship. But dark secrets and a broken trust mean there's one submission she just can’t master. Fortunately Club Excelsior has hired a coach who knows all the right moves.

Sexy, confident and commanding, fight consultant Jax demands control, both in and out of the ring. But once he has Marcy against the ropes, Jax knows he’s in too deep. He has the dominance to give her what she needs, but once he unleashes her hidden passions, there's no going back.

Under Jax's skilled hands, Marcy submits to her deepest desires. But when her personal and professional worlds collide, she is forced to face a brutal truth — yielding to her darkest needs may be the one thing that costs her the fight...and her heart.

*This novella was originally published in the New York Times bestselling anthology, Unraveled, and now contains 50% new content*


Buy Links

 Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | ARe | Indigo

What I thought about Yield to Me

Marcy is a professional fighter, but her trainer recognizes that something is holding her back.  Whenever an opponent gets her in a submissive position, Marcy wants to collapse.  In comes consultant Jax, and there's an instant spark between them along with the knowledge that business and pleasure don't mix.

But they don't pay attention to that business rule, and it isn't long before Jax has her up against the wall.  He immediately figures out Marcy's problem -- being a submissive in the bedroom is creeping into her professional fighting life  and that's messing up her chance to be a real fighter. 

When Marcy finds out what Jax is thinking, she needs to prove him wrong.  The sex between these two is hot, and there's more romance than fighting in Yield to Me. Will Jax and Marcy find a way to be together? Can Marcy be the competitive fighter she wants to be?  Two big questions that get resolved nicely before the end of this novella. 

A quick, easy and enjoyable read with a nice switch with the fighter being a woman. 

ARC provided for review.


About the Author




New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author, Sarah Castille, writes contemporary erotic romance and romantic suspense featuring blazingly hot alpha heroes and the women who tame them. A recovering lawyer and caffeine addict, she worked and traveled abroad before trading her briefcase and stilettos for a handful of magic beans and a home near the Canadian Rockies.

Connect with Sarah at:  

Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Review & Excerpt: What Piper Needs (Pushing the Boundaries #2) by Amanda Abbott

WHAT PIPER NEEDS 
(Pushing the Boundaries #2)
Release Date:  June 1

Piper and Michael Collins have it all. They’re in love, both have successful jobs, live in a nice neighborhood, and have a great sex life—that is, up until recently. Over the past six months everything has started to drag. Even though they’ve led an “extracurricular” lifestyle for a long time, things have gotten boring.

Piper decides to liven up her marriage in a big way, which she does with a little encouragement from her pal Caroline at their weekly STD happy hours. She jumps in and sparks between she and Michael fly. First with hot selfies, office sex, and later with some much needed risk-taking.

From there, Piper and Michael make a Top Ten Sex List and start ticking off their wildest fantasies. Piper becomes fearless--the things that made her panic in the past no longer holding her back--but when they both arrive at Michael's number ten, is Piper really ready?

*This book is super steamy hot, filled with out-of-the-box moments. The book contains: explicit sex, hardcore toys, and group sex.


Pre-order LINKS:

Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Google 

Amazon UK | Amazon CA  

Excerpt
 

Honestly, Piper. You never listen to me anyway. If you did, you might find my advice helpful.”
“I do listen. It’s just hard to focus when, you know, focusing takes so much effort.” Piper
Collins sat in her usual spot, a comfy overstuffed chair by the window, half-listening to her sex therapist, Marianne Cummings, talk about all the changes she needed to make in her life.
Piper suppressed a snicker when she thought of her therapist’s last name, which she did often, sometimes right in the middle of a session. She’d chosen this woman solely based on her name when she’d found it listed in the directory under sex therapists.
I mean, come on. It’d been a no-brainer.
Piper had been seeing her weekly for the last eight years, without fail, and Marianne really was worth the money. But Piper never took her advice.
Well, hardly ever.
Piper was a little more attentive today because she was looking forward to sharing Marianne’s sage advice with her bestie, Caroline Stratton, tonight for their weekly STD meeting, which included wine, lots of laugher, some lewd jokes, and plenty of talk about sex.
The acronym stood for Sexual Therapy for Deviants.
It was an utterly nonsensical name for their weekly wine-soaked therapy sessions, but Piper thought it was funny, so she had christened it the very first night, and STD it had stayed.
Caroline, her best friend and neighbor, had gone through her own sexual metamorphoses a few months ago. Mostly in thanks to Michael, Piper’s husband of ten years, spilling the beans about their own extracurricular sex lifestyle. But Caroline wouldn’t be caught dead talking to someone about sex, except for Piper and her own husband, Jason. She was too embarrassed and too proper to open up to a stranger.
So this was Piper’s way of paying it forward.
But, in reality, these new weekly meetings were helping Piper almost as much as they helped Caroline. Caroline had actually made Piper feel more normal than she had in years, so there was something to be said about your girlfriends being the best counselors.
“It’s a wonder your brain isn’t the consistency of scrambled eggs with all that’s going on in there. I see you’re thinking about something hard,” Marianne interrupted her thoughts. “You have no idea what it is you need. That’s why you come here to see me.”
“My brain is not the consistency of scrambled eggs,” she told Marianne, smiling. “I’m just really good at compartmentalizing.”
“I’d say avoiding is a more apt description of what’s going on inside that head of yours.” Marianne took her glasses off her nose and let them rest on her chest, using the rhinestone chain Piper had given her as a gift years ago.
“Fine, avoiding. But, whatever. It’s not going to happen.”
“I think you should rethink that,” Marianne told her. “It’s high time for you to stop being afraid of your own sexual pleasure and jump back in. Start taking risks again. No more watching from a safe distance, feeling left out of the fun. It’s time to be adventurous again, just like in the rest of your life. You’re such a vibrant soul. It’s a pity to constantly miss out on all the sexual
adventures that await you.” Ms. Cummings was a product of the sixties. She advocated a lot of free love, which Piper was totally on board with.
But this was different.
Jumping in could produce a ripple effect, one she might not recover from. Or at least, that was her fear. “I’m not afraid. I’m terrified. What if that thing”—Piper waved her hand in the air aimlessly—“happens again? I can’t risk it. I don’t feel ready.”
“That thing? You mean your mental breakdown?”
“Um, yes. Exactly that.”
Piper still had trouble admitting it had ever happened.
It’d been a dark time in her life, and it’d been a blessing that she’d only been out of it for
a few weeks, not months, or even years. When she’d been right in the thick of it, she’d felt like the weight of the world was crushing the life out of her. And she felt like she couldn’t breathe for days on end. Her husband Michael had finally coaxed her out of it, giving her a lot of love and understanding, but she wasn’t willing to risk it again, not even for something she needed desperately—to feel sex again. To be scintillated by something.
To have an orgasm shake her to her core.
“Well, that was over seven years ago,” Marianne reminded her, “and from everything you’ve told me, you’re no longer satisfied with your sex life the way it is right now. Things have to change, or it’s going to adversely affect your marriage. You’ve been participating in open sex for the last nine years, and I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’ve assimilated very well to the lifestyle. Even though what brought you here was sex with another man other than your husband. You need to start putting yourself out there again so you can find your real pleasure, and in the process strengthen your marriage.”
“Or things can just stay the same.” Marianne chuckled.
Piper didn’t think it was unprofessional for her therapist to laugh at her. They’d been together for too long to not be completely comfortable with one another. “I know that’s your fear talking. And I’ve been saying the same thing to you for the past year. So you’re either going to listen or you’re not. But now that you have this friend to confide in—what’s her name again?”
“Caroline.”
“Yes, Caroline. Maybe she can help you see the light better than I can. Piper”—she leaned forward in her straight-backed chair—“there is sexual pleasure in your future if you allow it to happen. Lots of it. You are a bright light on this earth. All you need to do is make up your mind to live again.”
Now it was Piper’s turn to chuckle. “I have news for you. Caroline is not going to be an advocate of me swapping things up. She had her own little run-in not too long ago, and she’s still recovering. She will want me to stay nice and safe.”
“Have you explained everything to her?” “Not exactly.”
“Try it. She might surprise you.”
***
“I think you should fuck the shit out of him.” Caroline drained her third glass of wine and peered over the rim at Piper, her eyebrows up at her hairline. “What? Was that too much?”
“Caroline Elizabeth Stratton!” Piper was legit shocked. And, to date, not a lot of things shocked her. “I cannot believe that just came out of your proper Southern mouth! I’m aghast.” She laughed.
Caroline set her glass down and smiled at Piper across the table like a shrew. They were in Piper’s kitchen for a change, the breakfast nook to be exact.
“I’m no Southern belle,” Caroline replied. “I think we’ve established that many times over. But I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the fact you haven’t had an orgasm in six months! And this is the first I’m hearing about it! What the hell, Piper? I thought we shared everything now. I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re the one who’s responsible for me being in this lifestyle at all, which has been less than six months. You sat there in my kitchen and painted this fantastical picture of raw carnal pleasure, delights around every corner, and you’re not even living it! What a farce!”
Piper swirled the wine in her cup. The ruby liquid arced close to the rim leaving a thin film behind. This was one of her favorite wines. A Cabernet mix. She saved the good stuff for her nights with Caroline.
They’d been meeting every Thursday for three months like clockwork.
Most of the time at Caroline’s, because she worked from home and it was easy for her to host. But Michael, Piper’s husband of ten years, was out of town and Piper had taken a rare day off from her hectic job at the ad agency and had made them a bunch of their favorite foods, including homemade guacamole, which Caroline was currently munching on.
Piper set her glass down and rested her arms on the table. “I couldn’t tell you before because it’s embarrassing. I used to be the queen of orgasms. I could have ten in a row. Now, zilch, nada, nothing. Telling you I’m failing in the sex department, when you were all hopped up on free love, wasn’t going to happen. I don’t do Debbie Downer. I’m a perpetual Debbie Upper. You should know that by now.”
Caroline leaned over the table, a chip in one hand, and a recently refilled wine glass in the other. “Well, we’re going to fix your sex slump. You just have to leave it to me...”

 

What I thought about What Piper Needs
The second book in the Pushing the Boundaries series by Amanda Abbott is pretty much like the first -- a committed couple looking for something "more" in their sex life. Piper's been adventurous in her sexual activities in her ten year marriage with Michael, but is currently experiencing a definite lack of orgasms. With her friend Caroline, and the help of a therapist, she figures out how to put that spark back into their sex life.

Her husband Michael is all for bringing the fun back into their life. He patient, kind and super understanding of Piper's needs. They do have some communication hiccups but they are quickly taken care of. Much like the first book in this series, I really wanted to see more of his thoughts on things, and it is a bit of a stretch that he's just so very perfect.

I like this series, and I think this quote from the book captures the feel of what it is I like about this series very well:


"You mean, this is how we've always thought about sex, right? Free for the taking and open to enjoy?"

This was a quick read with lots of passion and low levels of conflict, perfect for when you don't want something too heavy, but want something hot.



Author Bio:
Amanda Abbott lives in the Midwest. She's the author of many books, both on her own and some published in New York. She loves traveling, seeing the world, and above all she loves to write. These stories have blossomed out of her pure love of all kinds of romance, but especially humor + sexy combined. Taking the question of "what if" and making it real was an absolute thrill to write. And there's more in the hopper! To keep up with new series and new releases, head to her website www(dot)authoramandaabbott(dot)com and be sure to sign-up for her newsletter!


Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1GzfRb1

Friday, May 29, 2015

Cover Reveal & Giveaway:Lust by Alyssa Rose Ivy

We are so excited for this Cover Reveal
(and the book!)
for Alyssa Rose Ivy's LUST!

LUST
is a New Adult Paranormal Romance
releasing July 16, 2015 and
the second novel in her
The Allure Chronicles Series!
  LUST - cover

Cover design and photography by Mae I Design.

Add LUST on Goodreads!

Lust (The Allure Chronicles #2)

After years of searching Daisy and Owen have finally found each other, only to face the threat of being forced apart. If they are unable to stop Daisy from becoming an Allure, she will forever lose the ability to love.

Desperate to stop the change before time runs out, they must decide what price they are willing to pay to save their love.

  And don't miss LURE, the first book in The Allure Chronicles and SEDUCTION'S KISS, a prequel novella:
  
LURE
 

Amazon * Nook * iBooks * Kobo * Google Play * Smashwords

About LURE: There's danger in the beauty... Two years, six months, and twenty-five days. That's how long it had been since I'd seen my winged hero— not that I'd been counting. I'd suffered through years of counseling just to convince my friends and family that I wasn't crazy and knew he didn't exist. But he did. And I was done waiting. Days after college graduation I headed back down to New Orleans to retrace my steps and find Owen again only to find my life was about to get even crazier... thanks to the most beautiful and dangerous of all paranormal creatures, the Allures.   

Seductions Kiss

Amazon * Nook * iBooks * Kobo * Google Play * Smashwords

About SEDUCTION’S KISS: *Prequel novella to Lure (The Allure Chronicles #1)* Never agree to a road trip to New Orleans with your roommate. At least not when your roommate is dragging you along while she reconnects with an ex-boyfriend. Possible consequences of failing to take my advice: 1) Unknowingly going out with a vampire stripper 2) Getting kidnapped by said vampire's nest mates 3) Falling head over heels for your winged hero Believe it or not number 3 is the worst one, especially when no one believes you that he exists. 

Alyssa Rose Ivy- Author Photo
    

Alyssa Rose Ivy Bio: Alyssa Rose Ivy is a New Adult and Young Adult author who loves to weave stories with romance and a southern setting. Although raised in the New York area, she fell in love with the South after moving to New Orleans for college. After years as a perpetual student, she turned back to her creative side and decided to write. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two young children, and she can usually be found with a cup of coffee in her hand.      

Twitter ** Author Goodreads ** Pinterest ** Website 

 SEDUCTION'S KISS Goodreads ** LURE Goodreads ** LUST Goodreads

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Blog Tour with Excerpt & Giveaway:Defining Love (Volume 1-3) by Elizabeth Reyes

Title: Defining Love (Volume 1-3)
Author: Elizabeth Reyes
Genre: NA | Contemporary Romance
Release Date: Vol 1 (05/05), Vol 2 (05/12) & Vol 3 (05/19)
Hosted by: As the Pages Turn
Synopsis
Being friends before becoming lovers makes for stronger relationships.
Aaron and Henrietta can certainly attest to this. It takes time to develop the kind of deep relationship each is in. Both are committed and fiercely loyal to a lover they each consider their best friend.
Then one night Aaron and Henri meet.
After a single conversation, neither can explain the profound connection they’re feeling. Is it intrigue? Lust? How can one chance meeting—one conversation–possibly have them questioning everything they ever believed about love?
________________________________________________________
Synopsis
Denial is a dangerous part of desire.
Aaron offers Henrietta a position at his business and she takes it—despite the intense connection they felt the day they met.
While neither can deny they’re feeling something, both are in committed relationships with someone they love profoundly. Neither would ever dream of acting on something that’s clearly just a physical attraction.
But sometimes your mind takes longer to accept what your heart already knows . . .
________________________________________________________
Synopsis
Their hearts have belonged to their significant others for years . . . and then they met each other.
Doing the right thing means cheating is not an option.
So it’s time to decide.
Should Aaron and Henri stay with the ones they love or take a chance on something so extraordinary it’s impossible to even explain—understand.
Making such a life-altering decision is truly scary.
But even more scary than that?
Regret.
Defining Love. Which is the forever kind?
________________________________________________________

•••• Defining Love ~ Excerpt ••••

“What about you? Anyone special in your life?”
The sweet smile fell for a moment, but she recovered quickly then nodded. The immense jealousy that gutted me so instantly not only surprised me but had me sitting up straight.
“Eddie,” she whispered then smiled, but it wasn’t as genuine as her earlier smile when she referred to Mia and me being perfect for each other. “We were friends for a long time, too, before anything happened.”
Unable to so much as force a smile, I stared at her silently. Of course she was spoken for. Of course someone had claimed her already, despite how young she was. In the short time I’d known her, I’d come to discover what an amazing young woman she was and how easy it felt to talk to her. She made me feel comfortable when I spilled my guts about all the aspirations I had for this business. And it was heartwarming to see the genuine enthusiasm not only when she spoke of her own goals for her future but when I spoke of mine.
Swallowing hard, I fought the unreasonable anger that she hadn’t mentioned her boyfriend before. She’d told me about everyone else in her life. Why had she left this out? “Is he back in California?”
Those sweet brows narrowed and she shook her head. “No. Edi’s my roommate.
The one you met today.”
It didn’t register at first. Then when it did, it still didn’t make sense to me. Surely I’d misunderstood. I stared at her, speechlessShe couldn’t be saying what I thought she was saying. Was she pulling my leg or did she misunderstand what I meant by someone special? But then her comment all but jumped at me. The one I’d been too inundated with jealousy to focus on earlier. We were friends for a long time, too, before anything happened.
What happened?
It was the burning question, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask, so instead I said the only thing that came to mind. “Oh. So you and Edi . . . are . . .?”
I couldn’t say it. It didn’t seem possible. I had nothing against the lifestyle, but I would’ve never believed Henri to be gay. I knew it was none of my business, but I would’ve thought Bea or Eileen might’ve at least mentioned it. I was still ready for her to laugh and say she got me, but she wasn’t even smiling now. Instead, she just offered a nod. “Yes, we are.”

•••• What I thought about Defining Love ••••

Defining Love is a bit of a different sort of romance and I really liked that about this three volume story. Henrietta doesn't have much, but when a long lost aunt takes her in, she finally has a home that she can call her own. She's able to make friends, one of which becomes someone that is very special to her. When they go away to college together, Henri's best friend becomes more to her than just friends. 

Aaron is a good guy. He's stayed committed to his high school friend then sweetheart, Mia. But he knows deep in his heart that Mia isn't the "one". When he meets Henri, he gets a glimpse of what that means, and it's only a matter of time that these two connect, but there are a few hurdles for them to cross first.

I liked this story for it's diversity and it pulls off the concept of the "one" person that's meant to be. It's a lot about fate, and I loved that about the story. It wasn't hard to see how both Henri and Aaron got involved and attached to the people they are with, but it's inevitable that Henri and Aaron find a way to be together because their attraction is just that strong.
 

This meant-to-be romance takes a few twists to get to its conclusion, but the final payoff is satisfying. If you like contemporary romance with a bit of a twist, you might like Defining Love. 

ARC provided for review. 

•••• About Elizabeth Reyes ••••

Elizabeth ReyesUSA Today Bestselling Author, Elizabeth Reyes continues to answer to her calling on a daily basis. Since releasing her debut novel Forever Mine (Moreno Brothers #1) in 2010 she has now published 9 full length novels total and fast at work on the next. The excitement her Moreno Brothers, 5th Street, and Fate series have garnered has far exceeded her wildest dreams. It is with as much excitement that she’ll continue to put out books related to these series as well as introduce brand new ones very soon.
In 2014 she will take her next step in the exciting world of writing and publish her first traditionally published book with Simon & Schuster/Atria. But she will continue putting out self-published books as well.

•••• Giveaway ••••

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Blog Tour Review: Kill Switch (Devil's Night #3) by Penelope Douglas

About Kill Switch One woman’s worst fears come to life in the third novel of the Devil’s Night dark romance series by New Y...