Review: The Emperor by RuNyx

The Emperor by RuNyx

Series: Dark Verse #3

Publication date: January 6th, 2021

Pages: 443

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

What happens when a legacy of ruin mates with a realm of blood?

Heir to the notorious Tenebrae Outfit, Dante Maroni has been trained since birth. A silent rebel in the shadows, he has learned to hide his ruthlessness under his charm, his brutality under his suits, and his love for one woman under his silence. Infiltrating the Syndicate responsible for the missing children, Dante discovers information that shatters his reality and forces him to trigger a lethal game.

Daughter of the Maroni housekeeper, Amara has loved Dante for longer than she's known it. Abducted and tortured at the young age of fifteen, she loses herself, her life, and her home as she knows it. Years after, unknowingly protected, she's found some semblance of normalcy when her world collapses again, forcing her to join the game.

Mysteries are unraveled. Secrets are discovered. And their young love is transformed, replaced by a deep intimacy, power, and survival.

The reluctant king and inevitable queen play.

An empire of death is born.

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Review:

Amara and Dante have watched each other from afar for years. Amara knew she was in love with Dante from a very young age but Dante had some catching up to do. It was only when Amara saw something she shouldn't have and started to distance herself from Dante that he realized just how much he had come to enjoy Amara's attention. Then she was taken from him. She was held captive and tortured for three days but remained loyal to him despite her captors continuous interrogation. She was rescued but her mind and body were broken. Dante was determined to see her healed and whole once more and somewhere along the way he started to love her too. But there were forces against the union that were out of both of their control. Amara was sent away to complete her schooling with the express decree that she was not to be around Dante again. And so started a hidden love affair that spanned almost a decade. As the two navigated the world together but also apart they had to pretend they had zero connection in the public eye for both of their own safety. But as the mysteries surrounding some missing children and the all powerful Syndicate start to come to a head players on the chessboard start moving and the queen starts to show how far she would go to protect her king. 

I didn't know if I wanted to continue with the series after Tristan and his girl's story wrapped. I knew that the next installment would be about Amara and Dante and I didn't know if I really cared to watch them finally get together after watching them actively avoid each other like the plague on a normal basis. I am so glad I kept reading because the secrecy and depth to their relationship was not something I expected to see. I absolutely loved it. Those two were couple goals through and through. The way Dante worshipped Amara calling her the "beat of his heart" was so beautiful. He would be frustrated with her sometimes but for the most part he was always there to lift her up whenever she felt like she was about to fall. He built her up again after her traumatic experience over the span of years and never, not once, ever doubted her or let her doubt him. It was such a gorgeously healthy relationship even if it was hidden from the public eye mostly.

The Syndicate underlying story has so many twists and turns that I have no idea what is going to happen next with it. I thought it had mostly been resolved after the second book so the rest were just going to be mostly the stories of supporting characters finding romance but there is more to the story in every book. Runyx gives us just a little tidbit of the overall mystery before ending the book and leaving their reader in a state of, "well, now I need to know what is going on! Who is that? What role are they in the Syndicate? Are they bad or good? What happened to all the children?!" It is the best way to connect the stories of the series without the mystery becoming stale. 

The only fault I find with the book is that instead of it continuing on where Tristan's second book left off it went all the way back to the beginning and started from there. In this book it worked really well because Amara and Dante did have a long history and it did shed some light on situations in Tristan's books from the perspective of other characters, but it made the story feel kinda linear. And from the appearance of Alpha with a lady at Dante and Amara's wedding and the next book being Alpha's I suspect this will be a trend in the books. I will still read the series because it's a stellar series, but that was the only fault I could find in the entire book.

This series overall is a great read and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a love for organized crime romance with alpha badasses and their strong queens.

Review: Loving Lana by A.B. Marie

Loving Lana by A.B. Marie

Publication date: June 15th, 2021

Pages: 427

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

My name is Lana White. When I was four years old, my mother dragged me to Wallen's Creek. A small, nowhere town in California... Where there is no creek. Hell, my high school only had three hundred kids max... Far away from LA where I grew up. I was told that my father didn't want me. That we were stuck, trapped. I start to build a life for myself, I was going to become a lawyer... And then my neglectful, strung out mother moves us across the country to get married to some psycho that found her online dating site... and now we're fucked.

Loving Lana is a 126k word stand-alone novel. This is a reverse harem, meaning the main character has more than three love interests and doesn't have to choose. Why choose, anyway?

This book is intended for readers over the age of 18. There may be triggers for sensitive readers, including, strong language, mature adult content and situations, trauma, and pregnancy.

Also included: taboo relationships - stepbrother, professor, childhood best friend, and stepbrother's best friends in the harem.

Available at:

Review:

Lana White went from riches to rages overnight when she was four years old. In the middle of the night her mother whisked her away to an unknown town far from home. She was told her father had abandoned them and Lana accepted that as it wasn't like the man was beating down their door looking for her. Her mother was an addict who treated her like garbage. She hated Lana and wished to make her life miserable at every turn. She was ready to turn 18 and head off to college so she could start her life for herself. But everything gets twisted and turned on its head when Lana's mother meets a man on a dating site and decides to move her and her daughter to where he lived. Lana was skeptical and creeped out by her soon-to-be new stepfather. So much so that she willingly accepted a place at the college penthouse where her new stepbrother lived with his best friends. Once she got there she realized one person living there was a friend from her past and the others were his beautiful roommates that she couldn't help but eye fuck at ever turn. But there is definitely something wrong with her arrangement. Her stepfather seems a little too intrigued by her. Her mother seems a little worse off than she was before. And someone is after Lana. Can she unravel the mystery of what is happening with her new family while sharks seem to be circling and her protectors become the men she thought wanted nothing to do with her?

I know that my review of this book is going to be harsh but I will try to offer some good points first. The mystery was interesting. There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen which made it a little hard to figure out who all were the baddies and who were just casualties of the plot, but I never had the plot pegged down until towards the end because it was so vague a lot of the time. 

Unfortunately that is all the good I can offer. As there were so many things wrong with his book. The formatting for one. The amount of run on sentences in this book should have its own drinking game. You'd be smashed by chapter two. I have never seen the word 'and' so many times. "She walked to the living room and looked out the window and saw a pretty flower and admired its beauty." Just an example not an actual quote.

The pacing of the book was all over the place. One minute it was moving like a jack rabbit and the next like a turtle. It would be scrambling to keep track of what all is going on and then dulled to tears by a bunch of nothing happening. I swear towards the end when they were hiding it was months and months of just... nothing. No moves forward. No steps back. Just stagnant nothingness. 

And finally, the romances. Usually in reverse harems there is a set of boys that the girl gets with and that is it. It was like the author got her with those boys and then said, 'well, I need new sex scenes and I don't want to repeat any with the same boy so, TWO new boys!' They were just thrown into the mix all willy-nilly. No really building to Lana's connection with them just, well they're part of the harem now. I loathed everything about their harem. It just was not organized by any means and in a normal setting someone would start to feel neglected. I just hated it.

The only reason I am not giving this book one star is because while the ending was predictable there were a few twists and turns I didn't see coming. But even so... I would not recommend this book to anyone until it has gone through a proper editor and revamped a bit.

Book Blitz with Excerpt + Teasers + Giveaway: The Backup Princess by Kate O'Keeffe @XpressoTours @kateokeeffe4 @XpressoTours

The Backup Princess by Kate O' Keeffe

Series: Royally Kissed #1

Publication date: April 4th, 2024

Synopsis:

When a Texas gal punches a prince instead of curtsying, you know this isn't your grandmother's fairy tale.

Taking the bull by the horns is child's play compared to ruling Malvaeux. Yet here I am, a Texas girl turned princess, swapping tacos for a tiara.

Then I meet Europe's most eligible bachelor, the irritatingly handsome Prince Alexander, and accidentally deck him instead of curtsying.

Oops.

I'd feel bad if he wasn't such a self-satisfied jerk.

Now, I'm racing against a royal clock that ticks with the urgency of a preening peacock, trying not to let down my newfound country or my own wild heart. Alexander? He's a walking contradiction, with a smirk that heats my blood and eyes that tell tales of a depth I didn't expect.

Decisions aren't exactly my rodeo, but this time, my choice could cost me my new crown--or lead to a love story that rewrites my happily ever after.

Will this Texas girl rise to the royal challenge, or is this one fairytale destined to end with the slipper never found?

The Princess Diaries meets The Hating Game in this dizzyingly romantic modern royal romcom for grown-ups, where an American girl's unexpected ascent to royalty collides with a fiery romance with a hot neighboring prince. The Backup Princess is a closed-door romance with all the sizzle but without the spice, and a guaranteed happily ever after. It's Book 1 in the brand new series, Royally Kissed.

Available at:

Excerpt

My mind wanders to the top of the hill, where Alex took me on the motorcycle. We opened up to one another, and I feel so much closer to him now.

So much so I almost acted on my feelings for him and kissed him. Almost.

Let's just say it was a good thing Vlad interrupted us, or I don't know what would have happened.

Okay, that's a lie. I know exactly what would have happened. Alex would have kissed me and I would have kissed him right back, all those pent-up feelings I've been carrying around for him since the day we met would have come bursting out in an explosion of want.

I sigh.

So not a good idea for a whole host of reasons, least of all the fact that he has this reputation that suggests he goes around kissing women in picturesque spots all the time.

The problem is I've grown to know something about myself when it comes to Prince Alexander of Ledonia. And it's a doozy.

I don't want to be simply the next girl in his long line.

I want to be the girl.

I know. It's crazy. I've gone from despising the man to realizing I got him wrong to now fantasizing about wanting to be with him. Not just kiss him.

Be.

With.

Him.

I want to be the one he ends up with, the one who means the most to him. The one he's with for the rest of his life. And I want him to be the one who means the most to me.

I blow out a breath.

This is not the way I saw this playing out, but here I am. I'm falling for him, this strong, loyal, loving man who is nothing like I expected.

I'm in deep. Way too deep.

USA TODAY Bestselling Author KATE O'KEEFFE writes exactly what she loves to read: laugh-out-loud romantic comedies with swoon-worthy heroes and gorgeous feel-good happily ever afters. She lives and loves in beautiful Hawke's Bay, New Zealand with her family and two scruffy dogs. When she's not penning her latest story, Kate can be found hiking up hills (slowly), traveling to different countries, and eating chocolate. A lot of it.

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