Review: Rock the Heart by Michelle A. Valentine @M_A_Valentine

Title: Rock the Heart

Author: Michelle A. Valentine

Series: Black Falcon #1

Publication date: November 15th, 2012

Pages: 330

ISBN: 9781479390045

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):
For the last four years, good girl Lane has regretted breaking up with Noel Falcon. She thought she was sensible when she took him his dreams of being a rock star would get him nowhere, but now that he's a rock god and her career is stagnant, she realizes just how wrong she was. When Noel hires the marking company where Lane is an intern, she's forced to see him again. If she wants to land her dream job as executive within the company, she has to win him over and secure his account. Too bad Noel is still pissed at her for breaking his heart.

When Lane's company flies her to a Black Falcon concert to gain Noel's attention, emotions run high the moment she sees him and realizes she's far from over him. But Noel's countless trysts with groupies and his cocky attitude make Lane believe he isn't the same guy she once loved--now he seems to only want her body. Then after Lane discloses she needs him to procure a job, Noel proves he's a changed man by forcing her to go on the road with him in order to get it.

After Lane reluctantly takes Noel up on his offer, she becomes willing to do whatever it takes to keep him satisfied, even if it means succumbing to his seductive ways. Lane finds deception is a dangerous game and she's not the only one playing.

Review:
Rock star romance has become a mainstream fascination in today's book market. I am not the only groupie of the genre but I am possibly one of the most fascinated. Throw in a bit of sexual angst with the common issues every rock god has to deal with while on tour and you got the makings of a book I am willing to binge over and over again.

Lane hadn't given her first love, Noel, much thought since they had broken up four years ago. But when she sees him back stage at a concert he is at and gets the cold brush off, she remembers why they parted ways in the first place. Little did she know though that Noel wasn't finished with her. He calls her marketing company and demands Lane head up his charity but only if she comes on the road with him and his band. Lane tries to find a loop hole but must eventually decide between her career and her dignity.

Noel has been trying to forget his heartbreak from the moment Lane left him. He buries himself in booze, drugs, groupies, and music. When Lane breezes back into his life he wants to pay her back for all the pain she set upon him. He wants to get under her skin and into her pants as soon as humanly possibly. He wasn't counting on the resistance Lane puts up nor the game she wants to play. Can either of them get out with their hearts intact?

Noel was one of those main characters where you don't know from one page to the next whether you're going to hate him or love him. One minute he was being deliciously seductive in his pursuit of Lane and the next he was being a complete and utter douchebag. That is the male gender though. It takes a lot for me to actually feel connected to the female character of a story. Lane was delightful in her determination to show Noel she didn't want a thing to do with him while desperately trying to fight the feelings that are rearing their ugly head.

Rock the Heart will rock your world and leave you sweaty, sore, and desperate for an encore.

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Review: Knight & Stay by Kitty French @KFrenchBooks

Title: Knight & Stay

Author: Kitty French

Series: Knight #2

Publication date: May 4th, 2013

Pages: 220

ISBN: 9781484920060

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):
Sophie Black has turned her back on both her cheating husband and her sexy, enigmatic boss, Lucien Knight. When she hits rock bottom, she finds herself drawn back into Lucien's glamorous no strings, high stakes world of intensely erotic encounters.

Bold and beautiful, Lucien is a walking, talking Viking sex god--the ultimate rebound guy. He is a seductive world of pleasure without limits or commitment, but can Sophie's already bruised heart survive his strictly no ties rule?

When her husband returns with his tail between his legs, Sophie is faced with the toughest decision of her life. How does she choose between the man she vowed to love forever and the man who she hadn't planned on loving at all?

Knight & Stay is a star-crossed romantic adventure that spans the globe from Paris to the glittering artic northern lights, a sexual odyssey of love and lust that changes the loves of everyone involved forever.

Review:
After the cliffhanger of the first book, Knight & Play, (not nice, Kitty) I had to pick up the next book in the series and see what happened with Sophie and Lucien after their devastating parting of ways. I couldn't let the story end there and keep my sanity. I had to know. I had to see what was going to come of the couple that rivaled Christian and Anastasia completely.

After the confrontation with her husband, Sophie has cut men out of her life completely. She has quit her job at Lucien's empire and pushed her cheating husband in the waiting arms of his mistress. She is determined to get her life back on track herself. She even returns to the toxic environment of the job she held before she met Lucien, but one grope and comment too many from her sexual harrassing boss leads her right back to Knight Inc and the man leading the company. Sophie is determined to keep their relationship platonic so she can collect a paycheck and heal from all the hurt she has experienced, but Lucien has other plans...

Lucien tried hard to give Sophie what she needed. A friend and a friend only is what he agreed to when she came back into his life asking for her job back. But Lucien is far too tempted by Sophie. He can't shake how good she made him feel and how their relationship transcended the sexual and made his cold heart take a few tentative beats. Temptation gets the best of both and brings them right back where they were before their parting of ways.

But then Sophie's husband returns... He wants his wife back and is willing to fight for her if he has to. He wants to prove to Sophie that they can be the loving couple they set out to be when they got married. Can Sophie's heart return to her apologetic husband now that Lucien owns a part of it?

I loathe Sophie's husband. He's a cockroach I just want to set on fire and watch shrivel. He doesn't appreciate Sophie and never did. He uses her in every sense of the word. He comes back into the picture when Sophie is starting to blossom once more from the depressed state she was in when she lost both Lucien and her husband.

Lucien keeps showing aspects of his personality and heart in every turn he makes. One minute he's a complete alpha male who wants his woman at any cost and the next he's the loving, supportive man he needs to be for Sophie. I fall for Lucien right along with Sophie and feel every bump in the couple's road as they move along through their lives.

Knight & Play is the second part of Lucien and Sophie's love story that takes the shattered remains of it's readers' hearts from the first book and pieces it back together.

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Review: Knight & Play by Kitty French @KFrenchBooks

Title: Knight & Play

Author: Kitty French

Series: Knight #1

Publication date: November 23rd, 2012

Pages: 210

ISBN: 9781484920145

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):
There's only one thing in life Lucien Knight really hates, and that's husbands who cheat on their wives.

There's only one problem in Sophie Black's life. Her cheating husband...

From the moment Lucien & Sophie meet, the seal is set.

CEO of Knight Inc. Lucien Knight is catch-your-breath gorgeous and damaged by his troubled past in Norway. All grown up and relocated to London, he's built his empire of adult clubs from the ground up to become the gorgeous patron saint of the sex industry. No one knows the dark childhood secrets that have given Lucien a backbone of steel.

No one until Sophie Black, that is... From the moment girl-next-door Sophie accepts the job as Lucien Knight's PA, she understands how Alice must have felt when she tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Lucien takes her safe, vanilla life and plunges her head first into a huge dish of fantasy flavours. He strips away all of her inhibitions, and when he instructs her to select three new toys, she realizes he has more than a game of Monopoly on his mind...

How far is Sophie willing to go? And what happens when she has to step back into reality again?

Review:
I had seen this book floating around Amazon for some time and the cover was really beautiful (c'mon, you and I both know that sometimes the cover is what draws you in first). It was simplistic but still held an allure that kept drawing me back in. It was only once I subscribed to the Kindle Unlimited Program and found it available as one of the books that I could read for free that I couldn't keep my curiosity at bay anymore. I decided to do the dangerous thing of not even reading the synopsis and going in blind. I was not disappointed.

Lucien Knight is your typical billionaire with a heavy chip on his shoulder. He has his life pretty much set and there is no reason to deviate because he doesn't want for anything. At least he doesn't think he is lacking in anything, until his newest PA applicant meekly wanders into his office... From the moment Lucien sets eyes on Sophie Black and her fidgeting innocence he can't help himself but try to tarnish her purity. What he didn't expect was that Sophie would rise to the challenge he presented her.

Sophie was tempted by her newest boss, Lucien, from the moment he hired her. Even if the job she had taken wasn't what she had expected, Sophie was intrigued by the sexual world Lucien lived in. When Sophie suspects that her husband is cheating on her, and has been for quite some time, she reluctantly starts to explore her sexuality with the help of the domineering and delicious CEO. What she finds in that world may not just rock her world but also steal her heart completely.

I really enjoyed Knight & Play. Lucien was very cold and kept Sophie at arm's length in the beginning but watching him thaw and making it so believable was well done by the author. He didn't completely change from the beginning of the story, it took time as it would with normal relationships. People don't change simply by meeting a person that tempts them to do so. That is what is wrong with a LOT of romance books these days. That insta-love that changes an unmovable character from the moment their eyes locked.

Sophie was adorable. I don't find many female characters that portray innocence or naivety likable very often but Sophie was a breath of fresh air. She was comical at times with her new experiences in the sex industry and all the lovely items that go along with that world. She was a quick study though... but who wouldn't with a Norwegian god of a man leading the way?

Knight & Play is often compared to bestseller Fifty Shades but it's a delight in it's own standing. This book doesn't center around BDSM completely, it explores it all. It opens the world of sex to its readers and welcomes them with a sultry smile.

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Review: Captive in the Dark by C.J. Roberts @AuthorCJRoberts

Title: Captive in the Dark

Author: C.J. Roberts

Series: The Dark Duet #1

Publication date: August 29th, 2011

Pages: 277

ISBN: 9780615429502

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):
Caleb is a man with a singular interest in revenge. Kidnapped as a young boy and sold into slavery by a power-hungry mobster, he has thought of nothing but vengeance. For twelve years he has immersed himself in the world of pleasure slaves searching for the one man he holds ultimately responsible. Finally, the architect of his suffering has emerged with a new identity, but not a new nature. If Caleb is to get close enough to strike, he must become the very thing he abhors and kidnap a beautiful girl to train her to be all that he once was.

Eighteen-year-old Olivia Ruiz has just woken up in a strange place. Blindfolded and bound, there is only a calm male voice to welcome her. His name is Caleb, though he demands to be called Master. Olivia is young, beautiful, naive and willful to a fault. She has a dark sensuality that cannot be hidden or denied, though she tries to accomplish both. Although she is frightened by the strong, sadistic, and arrogant man who holds her prisoner, what keeps Olivia awake in the dark is her unwelcome attraction to him.

WARNING: This book contains very disturbing situations, dubious consent, strong language, and graphic violence.

Review:
When you have read as many books as I have you start to wonder what else is out there besides the traditional contemporary love story or Fifty Shades of Grey-esk BDSM novels. So I decided to delve into the depths of Amazon's Unlimited ebooks collection and see what I could find. This was one of those books that gave me pause and intrigued me to the point of adding it to my device.

Caleb is free of his horrendous upbringing now, but the anger and resentment that was placed in his heart has festered enough to warrant action. The man responsible for his torturous childhood is back and ripe for the picking. He just needs the bait essential to get himself close enough to strike. Despite the fact that he is hard-pressed to become the thing he despises the most he still gets an unwanted thrill from stalking his prey. He is slowly becoming the monster he is hunting, but the demand to keep going is too strong. The thirst for revenge is too great. He has to do what he has to do and that drive leads to the kidnap of Olivia from her school bus stop.

Olivia is the a-typical doe-eyed virgin who knows nothing about pleasure or pain nor how close the line between the two feelings is. Olivia does her best to rage against Caleb at every turn. He wants to break her and make her his submissive slave to do whatever he wishes; she will not break out of stubborn pride. However somewhere along the way Olivia's disgust over Caleb and his iron fist turns to desire and want. Olivia, while terrified of Caleb, also finds herself wanting to be closer to him and she suspects Caleb of also having to tamp down his growing protectiveness over Olivia. Will Caleb and Olivia's relationship grow beyond master and slave or will Olivia remain the pawn in Caleb's game of revenge?

I wanted to hate this book. I wanted to jump into it out of morbid curiosity and shut it 10 pages in saying, "nope". But for some very odd reason that makes me question my own sanity, I really enjoyed the read. Watching the characters struggle between what they have to do to survive and what they want to do for their own happiness made little troubles in my own reality a little less pressing.I loved that Olivia didn't just roll over and take everything Caleb threw at her even though she was extremely inexperienced and innocent. Caleb was the perfect amount of evil that left a shred of hope that he could be redeemed.

This book is fairly dark but not to the extent you would imagine. The darkest part is the taboo of Olivia being kidnapped to be trained for sexual slavery, but it wasn't a book that would make you cringe in its depravity.

Captive in the Dark toed the line of a very hard subject in today's society and romanticized it in a surprisingly believable way that made me devour the book in a single sitting.

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