Review: Twisted Heathens by J. Rose

Twisted Heathens by J. Rose

Series: Blackwood Institute #1

Publication date:

Pages:

Spice: 

Synopsis:

From the bestselling author of Sabre Security and Briar Valley comes a dark, found family why choose romance featuring a self-destructive heroine and the tortured men determined to save her from herself.

WELCOME TO BLACKWOOD INSTITUTE.

WHERE BAD GIRLS COME TO DIE.

Murderer. Unhinged. Remorseless. Insane.

I've been called it all while rotting away in a maximum security psych ward, imprisoned for my crimes. When I'm given a chance to escape this hell, it's an offer I can't refuse.

I'm transferred to Blackwood Institute, purgatory for the dangerous and disturbed. The deal is simple. Complete the three-year experimental program and you're free to leave.

I have no such intentions. People like me; we're born to die. There's no life for me out there. I'll do whatever it takes to end my pitiful existence.

This time, nobody can stop me. Not even the four fellow patients with dark secrets and damage that rivals my own.

A tight lipped cutter.

A manic nymphomaniac.

A possessive control freak.

A shadowy ghost from my past.

The clock is ticking. If I'm not careful, the demons that frequent these blood-stained halls will get to me before I can take my own life.

Game on.

Author's Note: Twisted Heathens is a dark, contemporary reverse harem romance set in an experimental mental health institution. This is book one in the trilogy and it does end on a cliffhanger. Set in the J Rose shared universe.

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Review:

Brooklyn, by her standards, was living on borrowed time. She knew that she owed her pound of flesh for what she had done to land herself in her current predicament. The problem with living in a high-security mental institution is that everyone is watching so it leaves very little time for her to plan and enact her retribution. When the opportunity to attend Blackwood Institute came around she thought it was her ticket to finding a way out under the watchful eyes of the peace and love doctors. However, what she hadn't accounted for was running into four men that would make her question all her plans and feel something other than self-hatred for the first time in years. A mute cutter who spoke without words straight to her very soul. A cocky bisexual maniac who has never met a good time he didn't revel in. A protective control freak who wants to make her a part of the family. And finally a man from her past who she loved and lost in one of the most tragic ways possible. But Brooklyn has no time for affections or the makeshift family. She has other plans. But as she finds out, there is something more sinister to Blackwood than she had originally thought and maybe the voices in her head were trying to save her from the torture the facility could unleash on her if she didn't fall in line with the rest of the drooling masses.

When I was scanning through the Goodreads description of this I saw there was a reference to M M Romance and it almost deterred me. In a reverse harem I tend to favor a dynamic that is completely focused on the female instead of extra interlocking romances all being worked together. It dulls my focus on the FMC's romance a bit and takes a bit away from me. However, this book I decided to brave all the same. It was not what I had expected. There was two of the four men who were bisexual, or at least one who was and the other who was open to the idea, and it wasn't entirely unappealing. I was able to fully engross myself in the dynamics between all the people involved. I contribute that to the author's ability to create romantic entanglements within the reverse harem but not detract from the main romance focus.

Brooklyn was a bit infuriating but when you think of what she has gone through and what she was struggling with it was hard to not understand her. She was trying so desperately to keep people away so that she could navigate her plans without any further involvement. When she started to open herself up to the men she started to show the real person underneath and just how broken she truly was. She hid herself behind anger and resentment but she was ready to crumble at any moment. Her relationships with each of the guys were at different degrees and for different reasons but they all spoke to a part of her that she was trying to leave buried under all her guilt.

I found Twisted Heathens to be a uniquely set story of mental illness healing, love, and chosen family that I devoured in no time at all. I would highly recommend J. Rose's universe to anyone who is interesting in poignant and beautiful writing with a hint of crazypants mixed in.

 

Review: Forever Ago by J. Rose

Forever Ago by J. Rose

Publication date: May 26th, 2021

Pages: 336

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

Pick up this dark romance standalone novel, packed full of soul-destroying love, sizzling tension and guaranteed to break your heart one page at a time!

HALLIE

I'm alone in the sea of my grief until I meet Zeke, a tornado of complications who leaves destruction in his wake. I fall hard and fast, despite all the warning signs.

Our love story is far from a fairy-tale. But if it hurts, then it's real.

There's a monster hiding beneath his tattooed skin, an addiction that will tear us apart. I can't lose him, but I'm powerless to fix wounds that simply run too deep.

How do you save someone who doesn't want to be saved?

ZEKE

I've been a shadow of my former self ever since the crash, consumed by guilt. A chance encounter in bereavement therapy changes everything.

Hallie invades my life with her soft smiles and fiery passion. She becomes my whole world and for the first time in so long, I have a reason to live.

My demons aren't so easily beaten. I should walk away, yet I can't bring myself to leave the woman who took my broken pieces and brought me back to life, one kiss at a time.

I'll fight this addiction to my very last breath for her, but the road to recovery is never simple. If I'm not careful, I might just drag her to hell with me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Forever Ago is a dark, standalone college M/F romance. Full trigger warning is available inside the book.

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Review:

Hallie doesn't know how to cope after the loss of her father to cancer and her mother and unborn brother ten years prior to that in a car accident. She has been going through the motions and never fully embracing that she was still alive even while they were gone. It was when she sought out bereavement counseling that she met the man who seemed just as wounded and lost as she was. Ezekiel blows into her meeting and snickers at all the sad saps who actually get anything out of the times they share together. At first Hallie thinks the smug man beside her couldn't possibly be in as much as pain as the rest of them but one look in his green eyes changed her mind. Zeke and Hallie were then on a whirlwind rollercoaster of grief, loss, and addiction that threatened to consume them entirely every step of the way. Zeke is ready to let the drugs consume him entirely as penance for causing the crash that took his younger brother's life. But with Hallie as his guiding light and the star in the sky to follow can he find his way through? And will Hallie learn that she is not as alone in this world as she once thought she was?

What did you do to me, J. Rose?! I had this sinking feeling in my stomach all the way through the book as I watched the back and forth between Hallie wanting to save Zeke and him throwing in the towel over and over to try to run back to familiar habits. I knew when I reached 56% and things seemed to be perfect that something was going to happen and nothing prepared me for the sobfest that I engaged in. Hallie was such a wonderful character that just wanted to do right by her man and Zeke desperately wanted to wrangle his demons for her. I loved watching how deeply they fell but Zeke pissed me off every chance he got. It was written really realistically. That cowardice whenever things got touch. The self-blame when anything went wrong. The desperation to hold onto sobriety even though you may not fully be ready for it yet. I was rooting for the couple. 

This book was absolutely heart-wrenching but it conveyed such a powerful message. The way to know if an experience was real is if it hurts. That pain means that for a moment you loved and were loved. Mourning the loss of love is healthy but after a while you have to try to keep moving forward despite it. The loss never leaves you. There are times when I think about my best friend who died and it aches deep within my soul. But I get up every single day and keep going because he would berate me silly if I didn't. 

I loved this book from start to finish. I felt things the author portrayed deeply and the only advice I have when you inevitable read this, readers, is to keep a tissue box near. 

Review: The Unrequited by Saffron A. Kent

The Unrequited by Saffron A. Kent

Publication date: July 13th, 2017

Pages: 340

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

Layla Robinson is not crazy. She is suffering from unrequited love. But it's time to move on. No more stalking, no more obsessive calling. What she needs is a distraction.

The blue-eyed guy she keeps seeing around campus could be a great one--only he is the new poetry professor--the married poetry professor.

Thomas Abrams is a stereotypical artist--rude, arrogant, and broody--but his glares and taunts don't scare Layla. She might be bad at poetry, but she is good at reading between the lines. Beneath his prickly facade, Thomas is lonely, and Layla wants to know why. Obsessively.

Sometimes you do get what you want. Sometimes you end up in the storage room of a bar with your professor and you kiss him. Sometimes he kisses you back like the world is ending and he will never get to kiss you again. He kisses you until you forget the years of unrequited love; you forget all the rules, and you dare to reach for something that is not yours.

Note: This is a standalone romance with dark themes such as cheating and stalking. It features an obsessive girl who stalks her professor and an over possessive poetry professor who falls for his forbidden student.

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Review:

Layla insists that she is not crazy even if everything she does is certifiable. She is impulsive and makes choices that she knows is wrong but she can't seem to stop herself. Like when she sees a man inhabiting the bench that she often frequents to sleep, not because she is homeless, but because it is just a place she feels connected to. When she sees him she can see the war that is waged on his face. The tired and furious expression becomes an obsession to her. She wants to unlock all his secrets and find out how his puzzle pieces match up with hers. But he is there and gone in a flash. However, when she keeps seeing him she chooses to follow him. She wants to know who he is and why he calls to a part of her that she can't seem to escape. Turns out he is the new poetry professor and while she never had any interest in poetry, she suddenly wants to understand why he is. Layla throws herself into a class she doesn't understand and tries to impress the professor. The more she interacts with him the more the two press into each other like heat seeking missiles. The problem is Layla is still in love with her best friend that she forced to sleep with her and then abandoned her. And her professor, Thomas, has a wife who doesn't seem to want him to even breathe in her direction. The loneliness and longing to feel something other than it sends the two of them on a crash course into bad choices and a relationship doomed to fail. Can two broken and unloved souls find solace even for a moment in each other?

I have never really read a book that like this. Most romance books tend to turn away from cheating because of how taboo it is. People don't want to read about a couple who are likely doomed to fail because they are in love with other people. Especially not when one is married, even to an emotionally distance wife. I thought I would hate that subject matter out of sheer principle. However, I saw how lonely and hurt Thomas and Layla were and wanted them to find some sort of happiness. Throughout the book I was dreading the ending. I just had a feeling that in the end Thomas's wife would turn things around and he'd be fully invested in her again. Even Layla seemed resigned to this face. She was willing to sacrifice her own happiness to give Thomas what he needed in that moment and didn't care how things turned out for her. 

Layla was so chaotically unhinged that I worried for Thomas sometimes. I feel like if she wasn't willing to let him go at any point, she would hunt him down and there would be nothing he could do about it. But even being as crazy as she claims she isn't, she was still a character I found endearing all the same. 

I think Saffron Kent wrote a darkly poetic work of fiction that I gobbled up in a single night. I was lost in the way Thomas and Layla worked through their feelings and everything that was intertwined. 

Book Blitz with Excerpt + Giveaway: The Magical Tea Shop by Aimee O'Brian @aimeeobrian @XpressoTours

The Magical Tea Shop by Aimee O'Brian

Series: Charmed Love #1

Publication date: January 7th, 2025

Published by: Tule Publishing

Synopsis:

In the small town of Hazard, finding your soulmate might require magical intervention.

Ivy Wayland has a bet with her sister who says you can't have it all--success in business and love, but not both. Since opening her tea shop, Ivy knows where her priorities should be, but she has her heart set on her landlord. All her life, she's heard the family lore about how their antique cookie press infuses homemade cookies with so much love that the recipient will fall head over heels for the giver. Ivy decides to take the chance.

Jaxon Langford is ready to move on. The only thing stopping him from selling up is concern about how some of his small business owners would fare with a greedier landlord. When one of his enthusiastic tenants brings him a tin of delicious-looking cookies, he's charmed. He takes the cookies to his baseball team's practice, only to watch them be devoured without getting so much as a bite.

Suddenly, Ivy has her pick of the town's eligible bachelors--except Jaxon. How can she prove her sister wrong and win Jaxon's heart?

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Excerpt

Ivette Wayland caught her breath. With the sun shining down on him, Jaxon Langford always caught her just a little unawares. He only lived upstairs, but every morning she found herself anticipating his first appearance of the day. She gazed through the plate glass window of her cozy tea shop as his little black Scottie dog scampered to keep up with his long strides. Jaxon halted just outside her door.

Would he enter?

She ached to run her fingers through that molasses-brown hair, still damp from the shower and sparkling like sugared ginger crinkles. It was ridiculous how much she yearned to touch him. He was her landlord, for goddess' sake. Ivy reined in her longing. Jaxon paused on the sidewalk and quickly stepped over to hold open the door for the tiny, elderly Hazel Bestwick, president of the Hazard Historical Society.

Please come inside, Jaxon.

A couple of young boys on their way to school, backpacks swinging, asked him a question. Jaxon leaned down to answer. He fist-bumped the taller of the two boys and grinned. Jaxon's smile shot straight to her core. As if sensing her watching, he glanced at the window, trying to see through sunlight bouncing off glass, his eyes the color of a well-steeped Irish breakfast tea.

She let out a little sigh. What she wouldn't give to have him for...

"Focus," said a voice behind her.

Ivy jumped and blinked twice to bring herself back to reality. "You have customers. Remember your goals."

Her older sister's constant criticism put her on the defensive. Ivy swung abruptly to face her, causing her high blonde ponytail to smack her own cheek. She shoved it back. "Business is steady."

"My business is steady." Holly drew herself up straighter in her pink bakery smock smoothing a hand over her flawless updo before sweeping an arm out to draw Ivy's attention to the nearly empty tearoom. "Your business is slow. And he..." She flapped her hand toward the window "...is a distraction to success. You can't have it all."

Having lived in both California and Texas, award-winning author AIMEE O'BRIAN now resides in the beautiful wine country where she writes dark, sexy, funny romance. With her three children grown and experiencing their own adventures, she and her husband are free to explore the world. When she's not reading, writing, or planting even more flowers in her garden, she can be found stomping through ancient ruins and getting lost in museums.

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