RELEASE DAY REVIEW ~CONTRACTED BY MARNI MANN~

Title: Contracted

Author: Marni Mann

Release Date: June 28, 2018

MY RATING: ★★★★★

Years ago, I was burned by a woman.

I forgave, but I haven’t forgotten, and it’s a road I’ll never go down again. 

My career has become my life instead. I’m Max Graham, the biggest music agent in the business. Women love me, but I don’t do love anymore. I’ve found another way to meet my needs.

Eve Kennedy—stylist to the stars and total bombshell. By far, she’s the most daring woman I’ve ever had in my bed with a sexual appetite as ferocious as mine. 

We might just have the hottest sex life in Miami and LA.

We don’t date anyone else—although, sometimes, we invite someone for a night. We travel the world, and I lavish her with gifts. But she knows my career comes first.

And the best part? For the past two years, she’s been happy with our arrangement.

Or so I thought. 

I’ve survived heartbreak once before, but this one could be the end of me.

Holy heck. If I thought I loved Marni Mann's books in the past, I didn't know what true love was. THIS BOOK IS FREAKING AMAZING. As in, in my top 10 of the books I've read this year, and I would just like to be able to read it for the very first time again. Eve and Max are EVERYTHING. They set their world on fire with the amount of heat their attraction generates. There sex life is so unassumingly wicked. And their emotions and personalities held me willingly captive throughout there amazing story. 

This book did me in. I seriously devoured it in a single afternoon, and was left feeling completely bereft and in a funk. I was not expecting this much passion, this much emotional savagery, or to be this fascinated. Just be prepared to dedicate some serious time to Max and Eve, because they deserve it. Their story is one of a couple who set out to act on their undeniable chemistry, but found themselves eyeballs deep in an emotional entanglement with their hearts. 

I can't say enough good things about this book. It's simply not possible. I will say without a doubt it's a must-read, and I will be recommending it far and wide to all who will listen. It's amazing, and it's really as simple as that. 

Happy Reading!

*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*

Best-selling Author Marni Mann knew she was going to be a writer since middle school. While other girls her age were daydreaming about teenage pop stars, Mann was fantasizing about penning her first novel. She crafts sexy, titillating stories that weave together her love of darkness, mystery, passion, and human emotion. A New Englander at heart, she now lives in Sarasota, Florida with her husband and their two dogs who subsequently have been characters in her books. When she’s not nose deep in her laptop working on her next novel, she’s scouring for chocolate, sipping wine, traveling to new locations, and devouring fabulous books.

NEW RELEASE REVIEW + GIVEAWAY ~SHAMELESS KING BY MAYA HUGHES~

Title: Shameless King

Author: Maya Hughes
Series: Kings of Rittenhouse #1

Release Date: June 28, 2018

MY RATING: ★★★★★

A deliciously steamy enemies with benefits romance.

Declan McAvoy. Voted Biggest Flirt. Highest goal scorer in Kings of Rittenhouse Prep history.

Everyone’s impressed, well except one person…

After a blow out in high school, Makenna Halstead and I were happy to never have to cross paths again. Except life has a way of knocking you straight in the teeth with a puck when you least expect it. She hasn’t just returned to my life, she crashed into it like a wrecking ball...into my college kingdom, into my class, and smack dab into the seat next to mine. My new lab partner to be exact.

For years we hated each other... I may be King on the ice, but she is the Ice Queen. She has no problem calling me out, doesn’t back down, and her piercing blue eyes have me picturing more than than just my arms wrapped around her.

Now we’re stuck with each other and there’s no getting around that fact that we have to work together. My hockey career hangs in the balance. Problem? Oh, yeah.

I can’t deny it. I want her. More than I ever thought I could want a woman. I’ve got one semester–only four months–to convince her everything she thought about me was wrong.

Will my queen let me prove to her I’m the King she can’t live without?

Only one way to find out...

It's no secret I'm a hockey romance junkie. But this new series... well, the Kings of Rittenhouse are undeniably sexy, adoring, and scrumptious! This series kicks off with Declan's story. And this man, because he is allll man, is swoonworthy to the nth degree. And what makes him even hotter is his Ice Queen, Makenna. 

Two misinterpreted kids from high school who had it out for each other gladly parted ways at graduation, and then life throws them back together in college, where the misinterpretations keep fueling new fire in their feud. It's always said there's a fine love between love and hate. And that could not be more true. Mak and Declan are at each other's throats with destruction as their end game, which quickly turns into love bites and drawing out moans and the best kind of pleasure. These two were insatiable in their dislike for each other, until it they became unexpectedly insatiable in their lust and love. 

This book takes sexy to a new level. Makenna and Declan are insanely hot. I mean...wow. Their passion knows no bounds. But behind the passion and their previous placement as enemies, these two have had the world stacked against them at times. Which in truth, is what led to the aforementioned misinterpretations, past and present. But Declan's sweet nature, and Makenna's inherit vulnerability can't be hidden forever. Their tough exteriors come down as they get closer. But as they give in to their emotions, their passion, and their need for something more in life, it may just be enough to scare them away from the intense reality of their relationship before they can find happiness and truly resolve the tortured parts of their pasts that still dictate their lives. 

This book is sublimely perfect. I loved Makenna. I loved Declan. I loved the hilarious, and enticing cast of friends we got to meet (and will hopefully see more of in the future). Makenna and Declan's story is one that shattered my heart a bit a times, and then turned around and had my laughing, or trying to catch my breath (I know I mentioned these two were hot, but I'll say it again: WOW). For every page I turned I just kept needing and wanting more. I loved every second of it, and if you're in the market for a steamy, enemies-to-lovers book, grab this one now, because it's to-die-for amazing!

Happy Reading!

*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*

There is a giveaway for 5 eBook copies of Shameless King and a Shameless King Book Box

(6 winners total, open internationally)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Maya Hughes has always loved romance novels. One look at her Kindle is confirmation. She started writing her first romance novel while pregnant with her third child and she hasn’t looked back. Now, her romance writing addiction has replaced her romance reading addiction. 

You can find her writing on her foldable keyboard and phone anytime inspiration strikes. Her sweet and steamy stories range from rockstars to small towns and everything in between. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her three kids, running errands or vegging on the couch with the love of her life and biggest fan, her husband.

COVER REVEAL + GIVEAWAY ~FILTHY LIES BY RAINE MILLER~

Title: Filthy Lies

Author: Raine Miller

Series: Blackstone Dynasty #2, a standalone

Release Date: July 16, 2018

Cover Design: Jena Brignola

Cover Image: Scott Hoover Photography

On the day I turned fifteen years old I knew I loved James Blakney. There was a look in his eye that told me he’d finally noticed I existed in a realm beyond best-friend’s-much-younger-off-limits-don’t-even-think-about-it-little-sister. Call it womanly intuition, despite the fact I was barely qualified for being an actual woman at just fifteen—and only in the biological sense—but still, I knew I loved him.

What I never expected from him was a proposal of marriage nearly eight years later. I know it's not supposed to be a real marriage, but James is certainly making it feel that way. 

He's also hiding something from me.

But I've hidden the truth from him as well.

Lies.

So many filthy lies. 

~Winter Blackstone

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

BLOG TOUR REVIEW ~FIXED FOREVER BY LAURELIN PAIGE~

Title: Fixed Forever
Author: Laurelin Paige
Series: Fixed #5
Release Date: June 25, 2018

MY RATING: ★★★★★

Hudson Pierce-

You act so high and mighty, you and your perfect pregnant wife Alayna. With your perfect child and your perfect home.

You weren't always perfect. Your past is filled with misdeeds.

Does your wife know all your secrets?

Would she stand behind you if she did?

You think because she’s on bedrest you can protect her? How sweet.

Sleep tight, you two.

-An Old Friend.

If she’d needed a day or two in bed, upset and processing and obsessively looking through pictures of the event on social media, what would that have mattered? 

I trusted her to come back to me when she was through her anxiety. 

Maybe that was the key. Maybe she wasn't punishing me —but rather, was testing me. Seeing if I was capable of actually letting her go to work and not interfering. Not showing up, cold and demanding, when she lost track of time. 

Because in truth, I was the one who wasn't strong enough. 

For all that I blamed her for giving in to her overactive mind, I was the one who worried too much. Who was overprotective. Who couldn't handle the thought of her suffering, even only slightly. She was the one who alerted me to possibilities, her mind skittering from one thing to the next even as she stayed my rock. 

The truth was, without me, Alayna was still brilliant and clever and lovely and big-hearted and enough. 

But without her, I was nothing.

It was quite the delight to be back in Hudson and Alayna world once again. So much has changed between these two volatile and endearing characters, yet a lot is still the same. They still thrive off the fixation and control. But they've learned to harness both of their vices into a better life for their family...most of the time. Sometimes their tendencies get the better of them, but that's when the seek shelter in each other. Or even look to each other to shock them back to their reality. Hudson and Alayna may be a little twisty, but they are the best versions of themselves when they're together. Fixed Forever proved that in vivid detail. These two couldn't be the thriving parents, the insatiable couple, the ultimate power duo without each other. They have made questionable, regretful, and shameful decisions in the past, who hasn't, really? But Fixed Forever shows them recognizing their pasts, continuing to make some of the same errors, but finding that they CAN live and make mistakes, without going down the rabbit hole of destruction. They have anchors now, and when they begin to spiral they come back so much faster. 

That's the good of Fixed Forever. The bad... and by bad I mean the conflict, not the negative of the story, because let's face it there is no negative to this book. The bad, though, was unexpected and I could not figure out the answer! It was mind-boggling. And though I had several guesses, none of them were correct, which steamed me up! But that's a mark of a fantastic book.

However, this time around for Hudson and Alayna it wasn't their fixation on something, or their control that created the problems. No, it was a threat no one could have seen coming. A threat that got too close to business, to close to them, to their family, to everything. 

I loved seeing Hudson and Alayna years into the future and their family. It made my heart happy. But it wasn't all rainbows, and unicorns. Their problems very much struck a reality chord. But that realism is what makes Hudson and Alayna who they are. That's why I fell in love with them in the first place. They're a perfectly imperfect couple. 

The epilogue... sigh. Hudson is just wonderful and swoony. It was ridiculously sweet.

I will say, the after ending has me feeling ALL sorts of ways. But what I can conclude, is that I can't wait for that to manifest into it's own thing... And on that note, I'll leave you with my final thought: buy this book, devour this book, you will not be sorry!

Happy Reading!

*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*

With over 1 million books sold, Laurelin Paige is the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling Author of the Fixed Trilogy. She's a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there's kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn't seem to complain, however. When she isn't reading or writing sexy stories, she's probably singing, watching Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead, or dreaming of Michael Fassbender. She's also a proud member of Mensa International though she doesn't do anything with the organization except use it as material for her bio.