The Reading Escapade: June 2016

ARC Review: Think Again by Isabel Lucero

29 Jun 2016

Book Title: Think Again
Author: Isabel Lucero
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 25th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

He thinks I don't know.
He thinks he's getting away with it.
He thinks karma won't come back to get him.
He needs to think again.

Men think women are vindictive, and maybe they're right. But when we get to the point of being cold, calculating, and vindictive, it's because they pushed us there.
Not only is my husband unaware that he's pushing me too far, he also doesn't realize that I just met a man who's ready to catch me.

I think he's just my new co-worker.
I think it's just innocent flirting.
I think I'll be able to keep my morals.
I need to think again.

28 Jun 2016

Book Title: The Bourbon Thief
Author: Tiffany Reisz
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 28th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

From the internationally celebrated author of the Original Sinners series comes a brand-new tale of betrayal, revenge and a family scandal that bore a 150-year-old mystery

When Cooper McQueen wakes up from a night with a beautiful stranger, it's to discover he's been robbed. The only item stolen—a million-dollar bottle of bourbon. The thief, a mysterious woman named Paris, claims the bottle is rightfully hers. After all, the label itself says it's property of the Maddox family who owned and operated Red Thread Bourbon distillery since the last days of the Civil War until the company went out of business for reasons no one knows… No one except Paris.

In the small hours of a Louisville morning, Paris unspools the lurid tale of Tamara Maddox, heiress to the distillery that became an empire. But the family tree is rooted in tainted soil and has borne rotten fruit. Theirs is a legacy of wealth and power, but also of lies, secrets and sins of omission. The Maddoxes have bourbon in their blood—and blood in their bourbon. Why Paris wants the bottle of Red Thread remains a secret until the truth of her identity is at last revealed, and the century-old vengeance Tamara vowed against her family can finally be completed.

24 Jun 2016

Book Title: Yours
Author: Jasinda Wilder
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 18th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

When my husband Oliver died, my life ended. My purpose, my passion, my everything bled out with him on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Ollie was an organ donor. His eyes, his brain, his lungs, his heart…parts of my Ollie went out and saved lives.

Then His heart, beating in another man’s chest, found its way back to me, and I found myself faced with an impossible choice: hold on to the pain and beauty of the past and the memory of the man I loved, or reach for a bold new future, knowing each heartbeat will be a reminder of all I’ve lost.

•••

I wasn’t supposed to live past thirty.

My grandfather died at forty-five. Heart failure.

My father died at thirty-five. Heart failure.

The doctors told me my whole life that I wouldn’t see my thirty-first birthday. My heart was going to give out. It was just a matter of time: a rare blood type and an unusually large heart meant essentially zero chance of a transplant.

I proved them all wrong…by dying on my thirty-first birthday.

And then I woke up, alive, with another man’s heart inside my chest, and his widow on my conscience.

I spent my whole life preparing for death, and now I have to learn how to live. Only, as I soon discovered, living is the easy part.

Loving, and allowing myself to be loved…well, that’s a whole lot harder.

23 Jun 2016

Book Title: Empire of Dust
Author: Eleanor Herman
Series: Bloods of Gods and Royals #2
Release Date: June 28th, 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fantasy

In Macedon, war rises like smoke, forbidden romance blooms and ancient magic tempered with rage threatens to turn an empire to dust

After winning his first battle, Prince Alexander fights to become the ruler his kingdom demands—but the line between leader and tyrant blurs with each new threat.

Meanwhile, Hephaestion, cast aside by Alexander for killing the wrong man, must conceal the devastating secret of a divine prophecy from Katerina even as the two of them are thrust together on a dangerous mission to Egypt.

The warrior, Jacob, determined to forget his first love, vows to eradicate the ancient Blood Magics and believes that royal prisoner Cynane holds the key to Macedon's undoing.

And in chains, the Persian princess Zofia still longs to find the Spirit Eaters, but first must grapple with the secrets of her handsome—and deadly—captor.

New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Herman entwines the real scandals of history with epic fantasy to reimagine the world's most brilliant ruler, Alexander the Great, in the second book of the Blood of Gods and Royals series.

22 Jun 2016

Book Title: A Beautiful Sin
Author: Terri E Laine & AM Hargrove
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 23rd, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

Since I was a boy, my desire was to marry the church. To give my vows and life over to God despite the corruption in my soul.

I am a sinner, the embodiment of temptation, or so I’ve been told.

Yet, I’ve never touched, never kissed, never sought the company of another until her.

She is my weakness, my salvation, my downfall and my freedom. Our sins are bound tighter than fate.

My name is Canaan. I am an ordained Roman Catholic priest, forever and always.

Her name is Haven. She may be my destiny, my destruction.

This is not a love story, but rather a confession of all my sins.

Warning - A Beautiful Sin is a forbidden romance that blurs lines between passion and religious faith. Please be warned, the subject matter may be offensive to some readers.

19 Jun 2016

Book Title: Ramsay
Author: Mia Sheridan
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 19th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

Lydia De Havilland is shocked when Brogan Ramsay suddenly reappears in her life. Several years before, Brogan was the son of her family's gardener, and the boy she hurt and betrayed. But Brogan is no longer the quiet, sensitive boy she remembers. Now he's a man—gorgeous, powerful . . . and seeking vengeance.

Brogan Ramsay can't let go of the memory of Lydia tricking him cruelly, leaving his heart shattered and his family penniless. And now he's back to destroy her family the way his was destroyed. There's only one problem . . . the girl who wounded him so badly years ago is now a woman who still has the power to render him breathless.

Ramsay is the story of betrayal and wrath, of the strength of regret and the power of forgiveness. It is the story of the thin veil between love and hate, and how more often than not, when we seek to inflict pain on others, the heart we wound is our own.

THIS IS A STAND-ALONE SIGN OF LOVE NOVEL, INSPIRED BY ARIES. New Adult Contemporary Romance: Due to strong language and sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18.

15 Jun 2016

Book Title: Last Kiss
Author: Laurelin Paige
Series: First and Last #2
Release Date: June 14th, 2016
Genres: Dark Erotica, Mystery/Suspense

A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE FILLED WITH DARK DESIRES AND DANGEROUS SECRETS…

Emily Wayborn has made a decision.

She might not fully trust handsome and deadly Reeve Sallis, but he is the one person that gives her what she needs. With Reeve she can finally be herself. Submitting to him is the only thing keeping her grounded as the rest of her life falls apart. But the hotelier is a master at keeping secrets and as she continues her quest for answers someone is making sure she doesn’t find them.

Time is running out and she is questioning everything she thought she knew about friendship and love. She must now make an impossible choice that will determine if she will survive with her heart…or at all.

14 Jun 2016

Book Title: Bittersweet
Author: Sarina Bowen
Series: Standalone - True North #1
Release Date: June 14th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

The new series is set in Vermont. True North is populated by the tough, outdoorsy mountain men that populate the Green Mountain State. They raise cows and they grow apples. They chop a lot of wood, especially when they need to blow off steam. (Beards are optional but encouraged.)

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the orchard.

The last person Griffin Shipley expects to find stuck in a ditch on his Vermont country road is his ex-hookup. Five years ago they’d shared a couple of steamy nights together. But that was a lifetime ago.

At twenty-seven, Griff is now the accidental patriarch of his family farm. Even his enormous shoulders feel the strain of supporting his mother, three siblings and a dotty grandfather. He doesn’t have time for the sorority girl who’s shown up expecting to buy his harvest at half price.

Vermont was never in Audrey Kidder’s travel plans. Neither was Griff Shipley. But she needs a second chance with the restaurant conglomerate employing her. Okay—a fifth chance. And no self-righteous lumbersexual farmer will stand in her way.

They’re adversaries. They want entirely different things from life. Too bad their sexual chemistry is as hot as Audrey’s top secret enchilada sauce, and then some.

Book Title: And I Darken
Author: Kiersten White
Series: The Conquerors Saga #1
Release Date: June 28th, 2016
Genres: Young Adult, High Fantasy

NO ONE EXPECTS A PRINCESS TO BE BRUTAL.

And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, who’s expected to rule a nation, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes the first book in a dark, sweeping new series in which heads will roll, bodies will be impaled . . . and hearts will be broken.

13 Jun 2016

Book Title: Backfire
Author: Keri Lake
Series: Standalone - Vigilantes #1
Release Date: June 9th, 2016
Genres: Dark Romance

No matter how unbreakable he may seem, every man has a weakness.

A year ago, my home became a bloodstained crime scene. That night marked the beginning of my hell—the same night I was tortured by my enemies and tossed into an underground prison to die.

They failed. I survived.

Now that I’m free, only one motive burns in my soul: revenge.

Lucky for me, they think Jase Hawkins is dead. Maybe I am. I’ve got nothing but a cold, merciless rage, and Black Betty, the sharp steel blade that never leaves my side.

Then she drifts into my life.

Lucia wants answers—so much so, she’s willing to fall into the darkness where my enemies lie in wait, to kill her for what she knows.

Or to take her for the depraved fantasies her body alone can rouse in a man’s mind.

Me? I want her for the fire in her touch that feeds my addiction, forces me to feel what has become numb, but my appetite for bloodshed runs deeper than flesh.

For my own sanity, I’ve vowed to stay away from her. Because she’s my only weakness, an obsession that leaves me craving more—one that could make even the most steadfast plan backfire.

12 Jun 2016

Book Title: Sacred Hart
Author: AM Johnson
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 13th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

Sleep, it was luxury I didn’t have.

I could hear it then, in the dark light of night, in the dusky morning…

The click of the trigger, the smell of her blood, the sound of the rain.

I never thought I would see her again.

She was a ghost.

She was dead.

When Maggie Wright pushed her way into my life, she brought the phantom with her, and I was helpless to her pull.

Everything I had, all of it, had been taken from me ten years ago. I had nothing but the shirt on my back, the memories that still burned through my veins, and the regret I drowned in every day.

I am Ryan Hartford...and I have nothing left to lose.

11 Jun 2016

Book Title: Tiger Shark
Author: LP Lovell
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 11th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

London’s square mile is witness to a revolution, a new breed of business woman. They call us tiger sharks. We out-earn, out-work and out-play our male counterparts. We work the system, play the game and most importantly, win. In a city full of sharks only the most ruthless make it to the top of the pool.

The number one rule: never sleep with the boss. Ever. I had no intention of breaking it until I met my new boss. No matter how strong my resolve, Landon Banks can smell weakness like a shark smells blood in the water, and I’m bleeding.

The hunter becomes the hunted, lines start to blur, and I have a choice to make. Screw or be screwed. Of course, I never was much good at taking it like a bitch. Landon Banks will be learning to grab his ankles if I have anything to do with it.

Things are about to get interesting in the game of predator versus predator. Who will come out on top?

7 Jun 2016

Book Title: All the Rage
Author: TM Frazier
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 7th, 2016
Genres: Dark Romance

They call me Rage.

My real name is like a shadow, always close behind, but never quite able to catch up.

I fly under the radar because no one ever suspects I’m capable of the kind of brutal violence I commit each and every day.

You see, I’m a girl. I’m nineteen.

And I'm a killer.

This life is all I know. It’s all I want to know. It keeps the s**t buried that I need kept buried. It allows me to live without thinking too much.

Without dwelling on the past.

Until him.

It all changes when an ordinary boy becomes my next target.

And my first love.

I have to choose.

The only life I’ve ever known has to die, or he does.

Either way, I’ll be the one pulling the trigger...

6 Jun 2016

Book Title: One True Loves

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 7th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

From the author of Maybe in Another Life—named a People Magazine pick and a "Best Book of the Summer" by Glamour and USA Today—comes a breathtaking new love story about a woman unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband she has long thought dead and the fiancé who has finally brought her back to life.

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

Book Title: Unbreak My Heart

Author: Nicole Jacquelyn
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 7th, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance

What do you do when your soul mate marries your best friend?

If you're Kate Evans, you keep your friend Rachel, bond with her kids, and bury your feelings for her husband. The fact that Shane's in the military and away for long periods helps-but when tragedy strikes, everything changes.

After Rachel, pregnant with her fourth child, dies in a car accident and the baby miraculously survives, Kate upends her entire life to share parenting duties. Then on the first anniversary of Rachel's death, Kate and Shane take comfort in each other in a night that they both soon regret.

Shane's been angry for a year, and now he feels guilty too - for sleeping with his wife's best friend and liking it . . . liking her. Kate's ability to read him like a book may have once sent Shane running, but their lives are forever entwined and they are growing closer.

Now with Shane deployed for seven months, Kate is on her own and struggling with being a single parent. Shane is loving and supportive from thousands of miles away, but his homecoming brings a betrayal Kate never saw coming. So Kate's only choice is to fight for the future she deserves - with or without Shane.

4 Jun 2016

Book Title: Illuminae

Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Series: The Illuminae Files #1
Release Date: October 20th, 2015
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

1 Jun 2016

Hello hello dear followers! As May approaches to an end, we're bringing you a special post to summarise all our May reads and those we'd highly recommend to our followers.

There were so many epic releases this month that a few made it to our Top 2016 shelf already!

* Click on book image to read our respective review *