thebritishbibliophile's reviews
1164 reviews

I've had the pleasure of reading books 1 & 2 from 'The Thorntons' series prior to reading 'If I Can't Have You', now I have the even bigger pleasure of continuing the series with Abby & Mark, having won this wonderful read from one of Iris' giveaways in her private readers Facebook group, Iris Morland's Mermaids. Thank you Iris for the signed paperback!

If you have or haven't read any of the books in this series, you might or might not know what they are about. Please continue reading ahead if you aren't afraid of spoilers! Here we go. The Thorntons series follows the children of Dave & Lisa Thornton. They are; Caleb, Seth, Lizzie, Jubilee, Harrison and Mark. 'If I Can't Have You' is where Mark & Abby's story begins!

Mark and Abby have known each other for a short while, but their paths cross one night when Abby is on shift at the hospital as a nurse. Mark had been thrown off his horse, Samson, resulting in a broken arm. Prior to his spell in the hospital, he'd overheard Abby tell her mother that she and he were an item, not that Abby knew he knew this. So, he propositions her. He needs someone to look after him and his home while he's laid up and unable to work, in return for his mouth staying shut and not telling anyone that her lie to placate her mother was anything other than the 'truth'. With Abby reluctantly agreeing, she moves into his house under the agreement that when his arm is fully healed and the cast off, she would not need to live with him anymore. From this moment on, neither of their lives would ever be the same again. Both for the better and worse.

Being already familiar with Iris and her work, I wasn't surprised to find that I was unable to put this read down as each page went by. Only so much can physically happen in a cowboy romance as it does in real life, without a read turning to the more paranormal/fantasy-based realm, where anything could happen. Iris though, she managed to keep this read far from boring or mundane. Full of hilarity, drama and stubborn-headed cowboys, you'll find this read just has hard to put down as I did.

Settle down for one of the best reads from one of the sweetest authors around, weather you're continuing on from book 2, or reading this as your first Iris Morland read, it'll be one hell of a ride! Can't wait to get 'Dream A Little Dream Of Me', Lizzie & Trent's story!

'Entice Me', the second book of three in the 'Austin Singles' series, is a wholesome treat for fans of Kelly Elliott and cowboy romance fans alike. 'Entice Me' follows Nate Barrett & Kaelynn Dotson through a thrilling, comedic, drama-filled journey on their personal road of discovery, trust issues and plenty of wanting and yearning past personal barriers, holding one another back from what they truly desire. If you were a massive fan of book one in this series like I was, then strap yourself in for this review. *Warning* - Spoilers ahead.

Kaelynn and Nash meet in a very cute and super realistic way, literally running into one another. These moments where things can happen to you in real life as what happen to the characters, always make me feel more connected to the overall story, as it's not just a situation written purely to get the two main characters to meet that simply won't happen in the real world. This is what first attracted me to read more of Kelly's books, the core element and similarity to real life always draws me back to read more.

The two of course, form an instant connection in which neither of them can explain or ignore, something is just there that excites and scares them at the same time. This in turn adds the very familiar and favourable 'will they, won't they?' that we all can't seem to get enough of. From the very moment Kaelynn and Nash meet, we're already figuring out ways in our heads as to the direction their story is going to take, until our eyes catch up with the actual story written out before us.

Throughout the book, you will discover there are many themes and sub-plots which will make up the main meat of the story. One main core theme that sticks out for both characters is trust. Worked into the story in different ways, trust is one thing in which will keep our two main characters from getting fully involved with one another until they both comes to terms with, solve and work past their trust issues holding them back. For Nash, being burned by an ex to the point of swearing off women, holds him back from fully trusting Kaelynn, especially when his gut is telling him that she's holding something back from him. Something big. For Kaelynn, as soon as people learn that she's an heiress to not just millions but billions of dollars, she's seen and treated differently. Hence her trust issues in people really seeing her for her, and not for her family's wealth.

After sharing a passionate night together, finally, after several things getting in their way, the morning after does not bring bedded bliss as expected. Instead and much to Kaelynn's shock horror, she discovers what Nash had decided to do as a result of his personal curiosity and insecurity. He ran a background check on her, being handed the results prior to their night together. Waking up (alone) to find this on the bedroom floor was NOT what Kaelynn was expecting. Not knowing that Nash had told his friend Blake to get Blake's brother to cancel the background check, Kaelynn books it out of there hurt and torn over what she thinks is a betrayal of trust and honesty.

Thanks to Blake's error in not telling his brother to cancel the search before the point of no return, it seems at this stage that this is the end of Kaelynn and Nash. That is however, until Nash decides to fly out to where he sneakily found out she'd run to, hell bent on setting the record straight. Or is he? He thinks he'd going there to do just that, when it's obvious to the parties in the know of his plan, hat he's actually going to Kaelynn's side to fix things because deep down, he loves her and wants her back. Hilarity ensues as when it appears the dust has been settled between the two, he now has to contend with Kaelynn's brother and his girlfriend, sister, and two 'crafty' ladies.

Will Nash and Kaelynn survive an unexpected snowstorm that throws them together, alone, throwing a power outage for good measure? Or will the blizzard freeze all chances of them making amends in order to move forward? There's only one way to find out.

If you're looking for a love-filled, wholesome, comedic, drama-dripping, cowboy-loving story that will keep you from being able to end reading at even the end of a chapter or beginning of a new one, 'Entice Me' is the perfect book for you or for anyone looking for a read that will leave you wanting for more, more, more.

Book 3, 'Adore Me', comes out June 27th 2019, keep your eyes peeled and your finger on the 'pre-order' button for the final standalone book in this darling series! I know I will.

‘Hard Truths’ is the first book in the ‘Kiss Her Goodbye’ series by Rebecca Royce. Firstly, I’d like to thank Rebecca’s assistant Michelle for sending me a copy of this book, via the Royce Pack, for me to review. Please read on for the review and pleased be warned if you haven’t read this book or the series so far, my review WILL contain spoilers. Stop reading at this point if you don’t wish to know what happens. Thank you!

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We meet the protagonist, Everly, who at first seems like your average teenage girl, set to complete her college education in the near future. Only, everything about her, or rather, everything that surrounds her, is everything but average or normal. After a less than satisfactory night between the sheets, she wakes up to start the day without making the same mistake again. However, her day soon takes a turn for the unexpected, as when she opens her fridge to grab a drink, all goes to black.
Waking up in a mysterious, dark and different place than her college dormitory, Everly meets five men simply known as ‘K’, ‘T’, ‘D’, ‘W’ and ‘J’ . Five men in which she knows she won’t remember easily, thus coming up with amusing and inventive ways of remembering who’s who. As she becomes somewhat familiar with the new environment she plans to make her escape from, the men one by one reveal to her that they need her. Or rather, they need and plan to use her as a bargaining chip to lure her father in to get what they want from him. The only thing she has been forbidden to do while at the house, owned by one of the men, is enter the basement. Very ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with resemblance to not being allowed to enter the castle’s west wing.

Confessing to Everly that the five of them know more about her than she ever would imagine, this ultimately kick-starts her plan for survival. Not primarily of her own life singularly, but against the five mysterious men and her brewing, conflicting feelings for them as her sleeping sexual seductress within her slowly awakens with the realisation that while each of them in their own right terrify her, they’re also sinfully and irritatingly attractive. Not like most kidnappers at all, according to her.

Revealing to her that she is in fact in a house in Vermont, not her native Baton Rouge in Louisiana, Everly is also in for several more surprises which start to rock the very roots, images and memories she’d held foremost in her memory for as long as she remember. Talking with her father via one of her captor’s phones, he confirms that he had her mother killed when she ran off with a motorbike MC. Though Everly once held hatred in her heart for her mother doing so, she now has another conflicting thought running through her head. Did her father really kill her, or did he hire someone to kill her. Not that it matters to her. The fact is, someone killed her only mother and who she thought her father was, was not the man he’s slowly being revealed to her to be at all. After the phone call ends, ‘W’ reveals to her that twenty-two years ago, he became involved with a group calling themselves ‘The Alliance’, a group that he and the four other “letters” were not currently a part of, but soon planned to be via their confidential plan, with the use of Everly’s father, as the tool and key to get them back into the group in order to run it in the manor that they believe to be the correct one. A plan that was set to place in a year’s time. Only, it’s not a year that this would take place. Instead, it happens a lot sooner than Everly or the “letters” expected.

Looking like she would be there for quite some time, Everly sets herself the task of looking for something to do around the house, as normally she’d be studying in college were she not kidnapped and held prisoner or sorts, with these five men. Due to a stroke of luck before being given her first task, Everly learns the name of one of the letters, thanks to one of the servants speaking ASL just like she’s able to. ‘T’ stands for Trace. One “letter” down, five to go. It’s not long before the ball starts rolling, snowballing and revealing what each man’s letter means in terms of their real name, as at an altercation down by the lake behind the house, ‘D’ reveals his name to Everly to be ‘Derrick’, and ‘W’ following shortly, revealing his name to be ‘Warden’. Now very quickly, she knew three out of the five “letters”. Three down, two to go.

The revelations however, do not stop there. Once forbidden at ‘J’s order not to go into the basement, Derrick decides to forego all the rules and take Everly down to show her the “real” world. This unsurprisingly, reveals another “letter” when taking her down there, with ‘K’s name being revealed as ‘Kade’. Four down, one to go. Seeing the real horror of what world the five men live in and run, Everly is spooked and under her own decision, heads back to her room with the intention of trying to forget. Only, her plans are cut short with the arrival of Trace at her door a short while later, telling her to pack as he’s taking her somewhere for a few days. Everly knows this is against what was first told to her upon her arrival when waking up, but when she sees the opportunity to plan her escape from her kidnappers, she jumps at the chance to go with Derrick and see where things take her. Or rather, them. As after waking up from being ‘drugged’ on the helicopter ride out of the property, Everly admits that she “might” want to have sex with Trace. Her inner sexual desires piquing now that she’s one-on-one with one of the men, rather than in a dominantly powerful group. Question is, would they stop with just Trace?

After meeting a client where Trace takes her, the two inevitably end up in bed together. Though, their happiness was not meant to last as when on the beach the following day, they’re ambushed by those they’re hiding from with surprisingly, ‘J’, now revealed to be Judson, coming to their rescue. This ambush pushes the men into making a decision none of them envisioned. Agreed by all five men, Everly is to be swapped around every two weeks between them, keeping her on a rotating pattern for her safety. That time is only to be cut short should their location be discovered.
Warden is the first to take Everly to Massachusetts, before they two inevitably sleep with one another. Their time is cut short of the agreed two weeks, with the ball rolling when two men ask a convenience store worker about the two of them, which forces Warden to hand Everly over to the next man. His plan is to take her to New Orleans where he’s sure Kade has fled to. He’s correct.

Everly enters Kade’s safe house which as it turns out to Everly’s surprise, is not so safe. As during her stint with Kade, she watches one of his rivals get taken out in a casino by a much familiar, and crazy, face that is Derrick. After venturing out onto Bourbon Street following this shocking incident, the two spend ‘quality time’ with one another before heading once more back to Kade’s place, where he falls ‘victim’ to being the third man to successfully be seduced by the alluring Everly.

Satisfied, Kade and Everly continue to live within the temporary normality the two of them have been forced into, including Everly being on the receiving end of a camera looking rather rough, while Kade tries to get her father to hurry up and do what they need him to do. Their cover is shortly blown when unannounced, Judson shows up, forcing them once more to move Everly along to the next man. Whoever that will be is unknown to Everly, who once more has to go with the unpredictable flow that is the world she was unconsciously kidnapped into.

Landing sometime not too far in the near future in Boston, and after sharing a meal together while watching a cooking show, Judson reveals to Everly that he won’t have sex with her like the three men before her, due to her lack of education into the way Judson likes to have sex. Namely and specifically, in the world of BDSM. Kinks and kinkiness. This surprises Everly, as she’s surprised at how he’s managed to hold out whereas the other three out of five didn’t, as Derrick hasn’t had his way with her. Not to mention that she’s extremely open to the idea of how Judson likes his sex, being an openly sexual creature herself. Though as is the running theme throughout the book with the men, her time is cut short with Judson when it’s revealed to her that her dad is done and that she’d be heading to New York.

Boarding a plane bound to New York with Judson, the two are surprised to see that Derrick is already on board. During the flight, it comes to light that the five men have been accepted back into The Alliance, and that they’ll be landing in Seattle, where Everly will be free to leave them, and not New York as previously planned. Taken to a house where she’s met with the remaining three men, Everly is given a choice. Stay with them, or go her own way and worry that nothing in her life might be true and untouched by the influence of The Alliance. Torn up by her choice, Everly flees their company to the room she’s been assigned. While in her room, she’s firstly joined by Constance where she’s warned to run as far away from the men as possible. She’s then later joined by Derrick, telling her to get the sleep as she’ll need it, hinting that something immanent, and mysterious, would soon be happening. If only she knew what that would be.

Once asleep in her cosy bed, Everly is woken suddenly by a man going by the name of Benjamin Gray and a man who he’s mentoring, both holding her down in her bed so she can’t move. He tells her that she’s now his by default in result of a trade that Judson had made for his place in The Alliance’s council and for his seat on it. There’s not much time for her to process or act upon this piece of news, as she’s knocked out with a cloth to the face, letting the darkness embrace her once more. Waking up God knows how much later, Everly finds herself in a small, dark basement, where she’s sure to see the near future for as long as she could see.

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‘Hard Truths’ is the perfect introduction into the ‘Kiss Her Goodbye’ Series, promising plenty of dark, mysterious and steamy moments. It’s hinted at the beginning from her first introductions of the five “letters”, whose names are slowly revealed, that she might be bedded by one or more of them, though it is unclear just how many until you actually read the book for yourself.

Many questions have been posed while I was reading through this and some remain a mystery, like who are the five men really if they have possibly lied to her and kept her in the dark while in their care, what price did her father pay for his part in this to be ‘done’, who this Benjamin Gray is besides his admittance to her as to who he was as he could’ve easily been lying to her, apparently like the five men, if Everly will ever get back to her normal life and escape this cycle of being passed around from one man to another, put in danger and kidnapped. Only time will tell and it might take a book or two as said by Rebecca Royce herself, to get there.

I felt myself enthralled by this read, as it’s not usually my go-to genre of book to read, not being able to put down my phone until I’d reach a stage where I’d be able to sleep and not NEED to know what happened next. If you’re looking for a read to please you, to entertain you, to keep you on your toes and guessing as to what’s going on, even when you think you’ve figured it out and are prepared to read a series to get the answer, then ‘Hard Truths’ is the book for you!