Debut Novel~ARC Review: ~ Salvation ~ {Heal Me #1} by Stephanie John

 

It’s hard to believe that this is Stephanie John’s first book! It's a beautifully written contemporary erotic romance. I won't be surprised if we see her at the top of romance bestseller lists in the future. 

 In her debut novel Stephanie brings us the story of 

Nate - the hot, rich, loyal

 but broken (yay! love that!) CEO 

and Kara – his sexy, smart, but damaged 

Finance Director, who’s determined to stay single after a previous relationship ended badly. 

 

Honestly, this had my name written all over it!

I was so happy to see this arc offer, 

 I love office based erotic romance with 

not so perfect characters!

The story’s told from Kara’s POV which worked

 really well and brought us realistic closeness between her and Nate and also Mai her best friend – what a great girl! I’d love to read her story too.

 

Okay, I need to have a little rant! YIPPS!...

It drives me nuts when books are a bit too long for no other reason than to write what's already been done to death - like the Pretty Woman moments in this one... we don’t always need a shopping trip or to

 know that penthouses are 'the best'!! 

And I’d rather have a couple less sex scenes in a 

book than somewhat repetitive one's. 

(They had so many, that it seemed at one point 

 like they'd never get off each other!!!)

A few less (that are breathtaking) will leave me in awe, a few too many and I get bored UNLESS each scene is completely unrivaled - and that's very rare!

Anyway, that’s my half star off and my rant over!

 And not to say that this isn't paced well, 

because it flew by for me, it’s very hot, 

sexy and readable.

All in all, it’s a terrific story, with plenty of great banter between the characters (loved!), plenty of story to get your teeth into and (to be fair) plenty of sex to curl your toes through 

if that's 

what you're looking for!

There is a cliffhanger at the end of this one - but it isn't major so I'm looking forward to book 2 to sort that out and give me my HEA! 

LOVE that it's a duet too, 

there aren't enough of those around. 

Thanks so much for offering us your debut novel Stephanie!

ARC REVIEW: FERVENT by Gemma James

Wow! I loved this unrelentingly dark read. 
The story continues for Rafe (yum!) & Alex, 
their passion sizzles and the story is paced 
at a fast, intense speed from the first chapter on.

I was kind of blown away by it! 
It's definitely not for the fainthearted!!

I'm not going to lie, as fantastic as this story is, 
it is hard going in parts because there's 
a lot going on and mixed in with this terrific thrilling 
(but sometimes tragic and awful) story
 is an incredibly passionate (but dark!) love story 
that has my full attention. 

 I love the way that Gemma writes a story and pulls me straight back into it with each new book in the series - 
it's as if I read the previous one only days before. 

And OMG what an ending!! 

I can feel a really big finish coming in vagrant! Sqeeeeeeeeeee!

(Click on those abs ladies!)

His Gift~His Ransom (A Dark Billionaire Romance series 1-6) by Aubrey Dark

“I’m going to take you to the edge of darkness,
my Lacey. My little artist.
You’ll see the colors I can paint with my touch.”

First off, in my honest opinion 

(coming from someone that reads a lot of dark romance!) 

this isn't a dark read at all!

But it is one of those that's two sides of the same coin...

On one side we've got Lacey, the curvy tomboy street artist LACE, who's uncomfortable in anything that isn't street gear! She's struggling to make ends meet and falling for a billionaire was never on the cards for her! 

Besides (like the majority of us) she doesn't believe for a moment that he could possibly love her back anyway. 

And on the other, Jake. 

A lonely billionaire who doesn't believe in love 

because he's lived almost his entire life without it.

 

Unbeknownst to Lacey, Jake's also KAGE 

a notorious and famously anonymous street artist.

Throughout this serial read I felt a lot of empathy for Lacey, she's somewhat gripped by her jealousy and concern that she's setting herself up for a fall. The social circle that Jake's immersed in are nothing less than the perfect, elegant, wealthy people that you'd expect him to have and he's really no better than that - she sees him as perfect too. 

Being a girl that helps her friend out (not so simple... there's a dress involved! 'Grrr') by delivering a cake from her bakery to his party the last thing she expects is that he will think that she's his 'gift' (read: high class ~BDSM and whatever else one desires~ hooker!) for the week from his good friend! 

And so begins a intriguing, somewhat gripping story that I couldn't put down until all 6 were read! There's a decent back story to the series, secrets are unfolded - it becomes clear that all is not how it seemed - I liked that, because ultimately they were falling for each other!

There's no major cliffy's, it's continues smoothly and gets better each time. 

But! 

I admit, I did spend the best part of the series right along with Lacey thinking is this real or is he stringing her along?

If it's too good to be true and all that...

I won't give the story away, it's nicely written, simple, mostly just the two main characters which I think helps it along... 

There's some lovely hot and dirty bits!

(she is of course a virgin for a chapter or two!)

There are moments where my heart broke for Lacey, especially when it felt like the classic 

'being in a room full of people but feeling completely alone' 

It was very real.

Loved that this story does (of course!) have a HEA! 

And it's a beauty! 

It completely settles all of Lacey's concerns...

LOL PHEW! 

I'll look forward to more from this author!