Such Dark Things by Courtney Evan Tate…Release Day Blitz & Review

Title:  SUCH DARK THINGS
Author:  Courtney Evan Tate (Courtney Cole)
Genre:  Psychological Thriller
Publisher:  Mira (Harper Collins)
Release Date:  March 20, 2018

Amazon:  http://amzn.to/2BuQy29

B&N: http://bit.ly/2Ffmmee

Google Play:  http://bit.ly/2D107mv

Apple:  https://apple.co/2Fg8I6M

Kobo:  http://bit.ly/2oR1D5z

 

Mark to Read on Goodreads:

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Summary: 
 

I thought I knew him. He thought he knew me. We were both wrong…

Dr. Corinne Cabot is living the American dream. She’s a successful ER physician in Chicago who’s married to a handsome husband. Together they live in a charming house in the suburbs. But appearances can be deceiving—and what no one can see is Corinne’s dark past. Troubling gaps in her memory mean she recalls little about a haunting event in her life years ago that changed everything.

She remembers only being in the house the night two people were found murdered. Her father was there, too. Now her father is in prison; she hasn’t been in contact in years. Repressing that terrifying memory has caused Corinne moments of paranoia and panic. Sometimes she thinks she sees things that aren’t there, hears words that haven’t been spoken. Or have they? She fears she may be losing her mind, unable to determine what’s real and what’s not.

So when she senses her husband’s growing distance, she thinks she’s imagining things. She writes her suspicions off to fatigue, overwork, anything to explain what she can’t accept—that her life really isn’t what it seems.

When I heard that Courtney Cole was writing a psychological thriller, I was all in. The I read the blurb, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one.

Such Dark Things is a twisted thriller with a bit of romance added in. There are some situations that appear in this book that those who read Courtney Cole’s other books may not be able to handle in this book. It’s why she chose to publish this under a pen name. So please keep that in mind if you decide to read this.

This book hooked me from the start. It’s told from two POVs – Jude and Corrine’s. They are a married couple; he’s a psychologist and she’s an ER doctor. And it’s from the both the past and present with the past leading up to the present.

Seventeen years ago on Halloween, Corrine witnessed her father kill two people but she remembers nothing about that night except standing next to the two dead bodies. Her father is serving time in prison for the murders and she’s been fighting demons from that night ever since.

Corrine is very dedicated to her job and spends alot of her time there. It also helps her from focusing on her nightmares that comes around this time of year. As Corrine is struggling to get a hold of her nightmares, she feels her husband is pulling away from her. Jude knows that Halloween is a very difficult time of the year for Corrine so he always gives her extra space to work through it. But he finds himself seeking out the attention of a younger woman. She gives him the attention that he’s missing from Corrine. And once he makes that first mistake, she makes it impossible for him to stop.

Courtney throws a lot of twists and turns into this story. I really enjoyed watching how everything played out. Every single character is unique and plays a significant role. Jude’s brother Michel, Corrine’s sister Jackie and best friend Lucy are all intricate in Jude and Corrine’s life.

Such Dark Things was riveting and captivating. While I did figure out a thing or two, I was still surprised by a few shocks that Courtney threw in and had my jaw dropping. I am really hoping that Courtney continues to write in this genre because she wrote one hell of an spellbinding read.

 

 

 

Excerpt

Prologue-
My skin is sticky with blood.
My waistband is wet with it, and I can taste it on my lips. It’s splattered on my face, and it tastes like metal that has been rotting in the sun and rain for a hundred years. The night makes me shiver, the cool breeze rustling my hair, and for a split second, I’m back there in that house, standing in that blood. My bare toes feel the warmth of the liquid turn cool as the minutes tick past.
Goose bumps raise on my neck, and a knot that I can’t swallow is lodged in my throat. My feet are frozen frozen frozen on the ground, and I can’t move.
Their eyes are open and lifeless, although they stare at me.
They see me.
Yet they see nothing.
I can’t breathe.
My lips are ice, just like theirs.
My heart is pounding and racing and stuttering, and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
“Corinne. You’re safe here. Corinne.”
And just like that, I’m not there.
I’m here.
“There was blood all over me.” My words are stilted and fragile, like glass.
I stare at my hand, and even though it’s clean now, I see it as it was seventeen years ago, covered in the blood of two souls…souls that were living and that aren’t anymore. It’s hard to wrap my mind around. First they were breathing, and then they weren’t. It happened in a split second. I inhale shakily.
“Think about that moment,” the doctor instructs. “Who can you see?”
I think on that. “Melanie is next to me on the floor. Her head is bleeding into a pool. There is so much blood that it looks black.” I close my eyes, because it had been the first time I’d seen blood like that, and it terrified me. “Joe is on the bed. His blood is splattered all over the wall. Both of them have their eyes open.”
Staring at me.
The emotions welling up in me are like a wave, swelling, swelling, swelling…until I can’t handle it anymore. The horror and the guilt and the pain are just too much.
“I can’t do this,” I blurt out. “I’m done for the day.”
Dr. Phillips looks at me, and he’s calm and detached.
“Corinne, why are you here?”
I pause. What a stupid question. “You know why I’m here.”
I hate it when they treat me with such condescension.
“Humor me,” he tells me. “Why are you here?”
I grit my teeth and look away.
He waits.
“You’re saying that I tried to hurt myself. But I wouldn’t do that.”
I look at him now, and he’s so fucking emotionless. I look down at my left wrist, at the bandage covering up the stiches.
“I wouldn’t,” I insist again. “I’m a fucking physician. I wouldn’t have cut my wrist horizontally. If I really wanted to hurt myself, I would’ve known to cut vertically along the vein.”
I finger the gauze. Beneath it, the cut throbs, evidence of something I don’t remember doing.
“I’m not crazy,” I add. And I don’t know if I’m trying to convince Dr. Phillips, or myself.
“You’re not crazy.” He nods. “But you’ve experienced a mental break. You’re here because you need to deal with the causal underlying issue so that it won’t happen again. Right?”
He’s a fucking asshole.
I stare at the wall. At the whiteness, at the sterility.
“You need some plants in here,” I tell him, avoiding the question. “Greenery puts patients at ease. All this blankness…it’s maddening.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says wryly. “Corinne…”
I interrupt. “Dr. Cabot,” I tell him. “I’ve earned it.”
“Dr. Cabot,” he corrects himself. “You’re right. You’ve earned it. You worked a long time to finish medical school and your residency. You’re a top ER physician. You have a life envied by everyone around you. You’ve got to take care of yourself, so you can protect this life you’ve built.”
I close my eyes. Behind my eyelids, it’s dark and safe. It’s black and warm.
“Protect it from what?” I whisper.
“You tell me,” he answers. “You’ve got something inside of you that is triggered now, something that creates panic and a fight-or-flight response. We know what your father did so long ago. What we don’t know is why…or what damage it has caused in you, damage that seems to be affecting you now.”
“I don’t know either,” I say helplessly, my eyes opening to the white walls again. “I can’t remember. I never could. You know that.”
“I know.” Dr. Phillips nods again, and he tries to be so fucking comforting. “You have a history of dissociative behavior. You blocked out what your father did so long ago, and it stands to reason that your brain has developed that as a defense mechanism. It’s doing it again now. If we don’t get to the bottom of why your memories are being triggered now, after all of these years…you’ll never have peace. Do we agree on that?”
Reluctantly, I nod.
“So we have to start at the beginning. You have to stay here and focus.”
Anger flares in me, red and hot, and I stare him down. He doesn’t blink and neither do I.
“Focus?” I ask him, and my words are sharp and I wish they would cut him. “You think it’s as simple as sitting down and focusing? How dare you sit there and tell me what to do, when you have no idea what it’s like?”
I stand up to leave, but the psychiatrist’s next sentence holds me in my place, freezing me.
“Corinne, you promised Jude you’d try.”
Jude.
My beautiful, understanding Jude.
I swallow hard. I did promise. And I have to follow through, even though the pain it causes me is immeasurable. I owe it to him. I’ll do it for him. Not for this psychiatrist, but for Jude.
My body folds back into the seat, and I finger the medical bracelet circling my right wrist. Corinne Elizabeth Cabot, Female. It’s me, condensed into one stark sentence, yet I’m a stranger to myself right now. That’s why I’m here. I don’t know myself or my thoughts. My memories are foreign, blocked, nightmarish, out of control.
“Fine.” There’s nothing else I can say.
Dr. Phillips is quietly triumphant. “Let’s begin again. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.”
I do, drawing the cool air in a rush over my teeth, expanding my lungs and holding it, before I let it slowly exhale. I do it again, then again.
“Think back to that night, Dr. Cabot. Stand in that room. Tell me where your father is.”
I envision it, I see it in my mind like it was yesterday. My father in his bloody steel-toed boots. “He’s on the porch, waiting for the police to come.”
“He left you alone in the house with two dead bodies?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t try to run?”
“No.”
“Okay. What did you do then?” my doctor asks me calmly, unfazed by the ugliness of my story.
“I was stunned. I think I was in shock. My hand was bleeding.”
Dr. Phillips looks at my hand, because I’m stroking the scar now, an unconscious nervous tic that I often do when I’m anxious. “What happened to your hand?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Is there a lot that you don’t remember from that night?”
“Yes. You know that.”
“Yes, I do,” he acknowledges. “So you’re standing in the middle of a bloody crime scene because your father left you alone. What did you do then, Corinne?”
“I looked out the window,” I tell him. “I was frozen. I couldn’t move. My feet felt like concrete and I was afraid if I moved, my heart would explode. So I took deep breaths. I watched the trick-or-treaters walking by. I looked at the blood on my shoe. I looked at the jack-o’-lanterns that were lit on porches, and the ghosts hanging in the trees. There was a full moon. There was light on my shoulders.”
“Anything else?”
“I stared at the street sign on the corner. All Hallows Lane.”
“That’s ironic,” the doctor points out needlessly.
“Yes.”
“How long did you stand there?” His question is quiet.
“Until they came and took me away.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Courtney Cole

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author

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Release Day Blitz…The Director by Lily White

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Everybody wants to be an actress, right?

The lights, the camera, the action? The fame, the money, the beauty and esteem. It’s all part of the package.

Unless, of course, you’re part of HIS films.

Ethan Cole was one of the best directors in the business until the day he disappeared. He was charismatic, gorgeous, intriguing and so brilliant that no other person could compare. People believed he’d simply quit. In truth, he’d gone underground.

I found him after being stolen from the streets. I was thrown into his new world, his fantasies, his decadent chaos, and I found myself fighting just to stay alive.

He seduced me while tormenting me.

Made me a star while keeping me hidden from the public’s eye.

He asked me one simple question before shoving me in front of the glittering lights and dark lens of his camera.

One question, requiring only one response:

Fuck or Die?

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Buy EXCLUSIVELY on Lily’s Website or Smashwords!

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Lily White is a dark writer who likes to dabble on the taboo side of eroticism. She is most known for her Masters Series (Her Master’s Courtesan and Her Master’s Teacher), Target This, Hard Roads, and Asylum. She’s co-authored Serial (a four part serial series). When she isn’t writing as Lily White you can find other books by her under M.S. Willis where she has penned the Control Series, the Estate Series, Because of Ellison (contemporary romance), and Standard Romance Story (Romance Comedy). Lily enjoys stretching her writing muscles by continuing to challenge herself with each book she publishes.

In addition to writing, Lily is an avid reader, gummy bear slayer, and a gold medalist in puppy naps.

 

Reasons Behind The Director:

(pulled from her post directly and with Lily’s permission)

 

I’ve received several messages today regarding The Director and my choice to write a book I knew I wouldn’t be able to sell on major retailers.

So in answer to those wondering, I wrote Director with two purposes in mind. First, was to give a gift to my readers who truly love pitch black dark books. Like them, I read many genres, and love books that push the boundaries. I see the dark not just for the horror contained within it, but also for the light that can be found if you read between the lines. These are survival stories, and to me, people who choose to survive despite dire circumstances are people I admire.

The Director is also my small rebellion against those who want to impose their opinions on what other people choose to read. Not every book is for every person, and I understand that, but I also don’t believe the opinions of some should dictate the choices of others. The refusal to list certain books by retailers is theirs to make. I take no issue with that, but it doesn’t mean books like The Director won’t be written and won’t be read. It just means we find a new way to do so, both author and reader.

I knew going into this project that The Director wouldn’t be a return of investment on my time in writing it, but it was never about the money.

It was about the point that authors won’t be silenced on what they choose to write, and readers won’t be silenced on what they choose to read.

We all make our voices heard in one way or another. I simply chose to make mine heard through my Dark Exclusives.

Link to this facebook post from Lily:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1969712779962910&id=100007726205466

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Cover Reveal…The Director by Lily White

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Title: The Director

Author: Lily White

Genre: Dark Romance, Dark Erotica, Psychological Thriller, Romantic Horror

Release Date: December 13, 2017

Cover Designer: Lily White

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The Director Cover social media sizeEverybody wants to be an actress, right?

The lights, the camera, the action? The fame, the money, the beauty and esteem. It’s all part of the package.

Unless, of course, you’re part of HIS films.

Ethan Cole was one of the best directors in the business until the day he disappeared. He was charismatic, gorgeous, intriguing and so brilliant that no other person could compare. People believed he’d simply quit. In truth, he’d gone underground.

I found him after being stolen from the streets. I was thrown into his new world,

his fantasies, his decadent chaos, and I found myself fighting just to stay alive.

He seduced me while tormenting me.

Made me a star while keeping me hidden from the public’s eye.

He asked me one simple question before shoving me in front of the glittering lights and dark lens of his camera.

One question, requiring only one response:

Fuck or Die?

add-to-goodreads-button

5

Lily White is a dark writer who likes to dabble on the taboo side of eroticism. She is most known for her Masters Series (Her Master’s Courtesan and Her Master’s Teacher), Target This, Hard Roads, and Asylum. She’s co-authored Serial (a four part serial series). When she isn’t writing as Lily White you can find other books by her under M.S. Willis where she has penned the Control Series, the Estate Series, Because of Ellison (contemporary romance), and Standard Romance Story (Romance Comedy). Lily enjoys stretching her writing muscles by continuing to challenge herself with each book she publishes.

In addition to writing, Lily is an avid reader, gummy bear slayer, and a gold medalist in puppy naps.

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Release Day Blitz…Gun Shy by Lili St. Germain

 

 

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A stand alone psychological thriller.

 



HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

In the middle of a fierce snowstorm in Gun Creek, Nevada, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Thomas disappears without a trace.

The second girl in nine years.

Identical cases. Identical conditions. Only last time, the girl was found. Dead, stuffed in a well beside the creek that feeds the town’s water supply.

The killer was never found.

As the small town mobilizes and searches for newly vanished Jennifer Thomas, one suspect comes to the fore. But did he do it? Or is there something else at play? Something nobody could have anticipated?

For Jennifer’s friend Cassie Carlino, the worst is yet to come. As she pins MISSING posters to store windows and joins the search, she begins to suspect that Jennifer’s disappearance might be much closer to her than she could have ever imagined.


Cassie
I am a girl with a darkness inside me.

Carefully placed. Cleverly concealed.

A darkness that could devour you.

One hand on a cold pane of glass, watching the snow fall outside. It’s pitch-black out here, far away from bright city lights. You can’t see a goddamned thing. You can only feel fingers digging into your hips, hot and insistent, a tug of hair, a smack of skin, and the snowflakes as they fall through the weak pool of light that the porch light illuminates below. And the pain. He’s not gentle when he uses me to satisfy his want.
I think he likes it like this, up on the bed, against the window, as if somebody might see. But nobody could ever possibly see. It’s too dark. No streetlights. No houses for a clear half-mile in every direction.

Just us, and the silence, and the darkness.

And the snowflakes, steady as they fall, through that yellow beam below.

You could never count them all. One blink and you’d miss some. One sharp stab of pain that drives your face into the mattress, and you’d miss plenty.

And that’s the point, I suppose. You keep counting. You watch the snow fall, and you count every snowflake your eyes can catch until it’s finally over.

* * *

The darkness wasn’t always there. I was bright and shiny once. There was no tarnish at my edges, no very bad thing that existed inside me. I had a mother, and a boyfriend, and a life. I was loved. I had plans and goals and aspirations.

One moment and they were all gone.

I know what you’ll think after you hear my story.
You’ll think I went mad when I saw Leo being burned alive, or when I gazed down at my comatose mother in the hospital after, as words like brain swelling and head-on collision drifted through the air, meant for me but headed somewhere beyond.

Or maybe, maybe, you’ll think it was during that first time, on the kitchen floor, a tangle of limbs, palm pressed against desperate lips, fingers squeezing wrists until it felt like they would snap.

And every time I’ll tell you, you are wrong. That, even as I cried in the aftermath of his sudden interest in me, I still was a girl without a black coal heart.

I can tell you the exact moment the darkness burrowed in to stay. I imagine it like some filthy worm, coming up from the earth, chewing a neat circle in my skin and wriggling in. Finding that hollow space beneath my heart, in my ribcage, and curling up. Sated. Satisfied. Warm. I feel it sometimes when I’m frightened, and my heart won’t slow down. It beats like crazy like a machine gun with the trigger locked on. I can’t breathe. My vision tunnels. In those moments, I imagine the worm, how happy it must be, how comfortable within my fragile chest.

It’s strange how you know something has happened, even if you can’t remember it.
When you wake up in your bed, and the sheets beneath you are wet, and you haven’t wet the bed since you were little, a three-year-old girl who started to cry because she’d slept through instead of getting up and going to the bathroom.
Eighteen years old, naked, and laying in a cold, wet spot, damp thighs and a bitter taste on your tongue. The taste of a medication you took once after your dad died and you started having nightmares that kept you awake. The bitter pill that your mother crushed into a glass of milk for you, the one that knocked you under and held you there in a chokehold, so that you could still see the nightmares in your sleep, but could no longer wake up from them. It was terrifying then, and it’s terrifying now. It’s in your mouth and in your nostrils and down the back of your throat and all you can remember is a low voice that says, Finish your milk, Cassandra.

You have been drugged.
Somebody has undressed you, tucked you into your bed, and they have used you. They have left something inside you.
A darkness. A coiled, buzzing midnight that becomes all you’ve ever known.
You don’t like it at first. It frightens you.
The darkness is where nightmares come to life.
But after time goes by, you start to feel differently.

You begin to realize that the darkness you’ve been given is not a burden, but a gift.



 

 

Lili writes dark, delicious romance full of love, lust and revenge. Her USA Today Bestselling Gypsy Brothers series focuses on a morally bankrupt biker gang and the young woman who seeks her vengeance upon them. The Cartel series is a trilogy that explores the beginnings of the club, published through HarperCollins.

Lili quit corporate life to focus on writing and so far is loving every minute of it. Her other loves in life include her gorgeous husband and beautiful daughter, excellent coffee, Tarantino movies and spending hours on Instagram.

She loves to read almost as much as she loves to write.
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Cover Reveal…Illusions of Evil by Lily White

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ILLUSIONS OF EVIL - BOOK INFO

Title: Illusions of Evil

Author: Lily White

Genre: Dark Erotica, Erotic Horror, Psychological Thriller

Release Date: October 18, 2017

Cover Designer: Lily White

Pre-Order: October 6, 2017

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21729984_2006775606218789_691327018_o CONFESS.

It’s what he said to me across his altar, what he demanded so that I would be pure.

In the moment he blessed me with his virtue, I was no longer the woman I’d once been.

I was Eve.

His light.

His salvation.

His bridge to Heaven’s gate.

I failed him because my faith was not strong enough.

He punished me for not giving in.

Resisting temptation is never easy.

Not when his hands, his teeth, his heat and hunger were the greatest of my sins.

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ADD TO GOODREADS_ Illusions of Evil

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ILLUSIONS OF EVIL - AUTHOR

Lily White Square LogoLily White is a dark writer who likes to dabble on the taboo side of eroticism. She is most known for her Masters Series (Her Master’s Courtesan and Her Master’s Teacher), Target This, Hard Roads, and Asylum. She’s co-authored Serial (a four part serial series). When she isn’t writing as Lily White you can find other books by her under M.S. Willis where she has penned the Control Series, the Estate Series, Because of Ellison (contemporary romance), and Standard Romance Story (Romance Comedy). Lily enjoys stretching her writing muscles by continuing to challenge herself with each book she publishes.

In addition to writing, Lily is an avid reader, gummy bear slayer, and a gold medalist in puppy naps.

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Bleed the Water Red by R.L. Griffin…Release Day Blitz & Review

Bleed the Water Red by R.L. Griffin

Release date: March 23, 2017

Blurb:

When Kate Tennison returns to the low country of South Carolina it’s with her tail tucked between her legs. She doesn’t want to be there and face the love of her life, who’s now married with a child. Distance has not broken the spell of fear that surrounds why she ran from her home in the first place.

Her story is a tragic one.

Mom in rehab.

Father dead.

Career annihilated.

When we run from something looking back over our shoulder, we miss the scars on the arms that now hold us.

Can the magic of the water heal her wounded heart or does something dangerous lurk underneath the perfect features of the new man she’s decided to take a chance on?

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lN6Riu

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2lrLcJT

Amazon CA: http://a.co/2DNy2aF

First off, let me tell you that I enjoy reading R.L.’s stories. Her book, Quiet Lies is one of my favorite books and my favorite by her. And I was so hoping that this book would rank right up there with it. But somewhere along the lines, things fell short for me.

Bleed The Water Red is not a bad book by any means. I know a lot will enjoy this book more than I. And I do hate that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. But let me explain myself.

The plot line was amazing. I love how we were given small snippets throughout the story and were able to piece together our own thoughts. What I didn’t like was how things felt disjointed at times. It’s hard to explain without giving away parts of the story, but things are left out it seems or overlooked. It makes the writing come across as scattered. And that’s what hurt the story and pace for me. I felt all over the place at times. And I do understand that part of a psychological thriller is to have pieces left out, but in this particular scenario, the pieces were obvious but at the same killed the vibe for me. I knew what would happen in the end because of this. And for me, that really sucked.

Like I said, this book is good. I love R.L. and her writing. However, her writing in this book was not what I have to come expect from her. I know that this story came to her fast and I get that you just need to get it out. However, as a beta reader, proofreader and editor, there are a lot of things that I personally would have changed/edited. I am in no way knocking any of the proofreaders or editors on this, there is nothing wrong in that aspect. But for me, certain things were not working and made it plainly obvious what the outcome was going to be.

The characters are very well written. I love their backgrounds and where they are from. The amazing friendship between Layla, Poppy and Austin is awesome – I love these three so much. I enjoyed learning about Layla’s past with Gent and how all that comes together in the end. This part of the story was beautiful and heart-wrenching to watch unfold. Layla has some growing struggles to deal with it and does come in to her own eventually. It’s a really good story with different avenues that all come together in the end.

With that being said, please give the book a chance. It’s a great story line. I loved how this is tied to Quiet Lies. If you have read it before, you will like the tie-in. If you haven’t, it won’t hurt the story at all. I gave this book 3.5 stars because my only gripe was the disjointedness that I felt and how I was able to figure the ending immediately but the overall story line was what kept me moving forward and not stopping.

Will I continue to read R.L.’s books – hell yes! She’s writes amazing stories. This one just want for me and that sometimes happens. But it won’t stop me from reading any of her books.

About R.L. Griffin

 

R.L. resides in the Atlanta area with some cool dudes: her husband, son and two crazy dogs.  She was born and raised in the South.  She attended Georgia Southern University and moved to Washington, D.C. to intern in the United States Senate during the impeachment trial.  Falling in love with the city, she went to law school at American University, Washington College of Law.  By A Thread is R.L.’s second book, but is the first in a series that got her back into writing after a ten year hiatus.  She writes anything from romantic suspense to psychological thriller to romantic comedy. One of the things that readers always say is they never know what kind of story they will get from R.L.

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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1254833.R_L_Griffin

Surprise Announcement from Lisa Renee Jones

SBPRBanner-PROVOCATIVE-BA

Provocative (White Lies Book One) by Lisa Renee Jones
Release Date: April 18th
Genre: Contemporary Romance

A Note from the author:

Hi everyone!

I am BEYOND excited to introduce my WHITE LIES DUET! This is a sexy, intense, psychological thriller, that is provocative in every way, thus why I named book one: PROVOCATIVE. And since this series takes me back to my indie roots, the pricing is lower than my New York titles, and the release dates are close together.

Here are the details on the series:

  • PROVOCATIVE, book one, will be out on April 18, 2017 and priced at $2.99 – includes the free novella REBECCA’S FORGOTTEN JOURNALS for those readers who purchase during release week or pre-order where pre-order is available.
  • SHAMELESS, book two, will be out on July 11, 2017 and priced at $3.99
  • BOTH books will be full-length!
  • I’m also giving away prizes on my blog every day in April to celebrate! Entry is super easy. Just comment! The link to my blog is HERE so be sure to subscribe!

And now, without further ado, the covers for the duet, blurb for book one, and CHAPTER ONE of PROVOCATIVE! I can’t wait for you to meet the dirty talking alpha, Nick “Tiger” Rogers. I hope you enjoy him as much as I enjoyed writing him!

Provocative Final Border

ABOUT THE BOOK

Book one in the sexy and intense new White Lies duet by Lisa Renee Jones!

There are those moments in life that are provocative in their very existences, that embed in our minds forever, and sometimes our very souls. They change us, mold us, maybe even save us. But some are darker, dangerous. If we allow them to, they control us. Seduce us. Quite possibly even destroy us.

The moment I walked into Sonoma’s Reid Winter Winery and Vineyard and made eye contact with Faith Winter for the first time was one of those moments. Provocative because I know at least one of her secrets, of which, I suspect she has many. Provocative because she believes I was a stranger to her when we met, but I am not. Provocative because I sought her out, with no intention of touching her. But now I have. Now I want her. Now I have to have her. But that changes nothing. It doesn’t change why I came for her.

Pre-Order PROVOCATIVE Today!

Special $2.99 pre-order price – will increase after release!

Amazon alert: http://bit.ly/ProvocativeAmazonAlert

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iBooks: http://bit.ly/ProvocativeiBooks

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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34602810-provocative

Read Chapter One Now:

pro·voc·a·tive

adjective

  1. causing annoyance, anger, or another strong reaction, especially deliberately.
  2. arousing sexual desire or interest, especially deliberately.

Chapter One

There are those moments in life that are provocative in their very existences, that embed in our minds forever, and sometimes our very souls. They change us, mold us, maybe even save us. But some are darker, dangerous. If we allow them to, they control us. Seduce us. Quite possibly even destroy us.

The moment I stepped into the mansion that is the centerpiece of the Reid Winter Vineyards and Winery wasn’t one of those moments. Nor were any of the moments I spent weaving through a crowd of suits and dresses cluttering the circle that is the grand foyer of the 1800’s mansion, fancy tiles etched with vines beneath my feet. Nor the ones spent declining three different waiters offering me glasses of various wines from one of the most established vineyards in Sonoma, meant to entice me to buy their bottles and donate money to the charity hosting the gathering. Not even the instant that I spotted the stunning blonde in a snug black dress that hugged her many lush curves proved to be one of those moments, but I would call it a damn interesting one. The moment I decided the blonde silk of her long hair belonged in my hands and on my stomach was also a damn interesting one. And not because she’s fuckable. There are plenty of fuckable women in my life, a number of whom understand that I enjoy demands for pleasure, which I will definitely provide, and nothing more. This woman is too prim and proper to ever agree to such an arrangement, and yet, knowing this, as she and her heart-shaped backside disappear into the congestion of bodies, I find myself pursuing her, looking for more than an interesting moment. I want that provocative one.

I follow her path formed by huddles of two, three, or more people, left and right, to clear a portion of the crowd, scanning to find my beauty standing several feet away, her back to me, with two men in blue suits in front of her. And while they might appear to blend with the rest of the suits in the room, they hold themselves like the parasites I meet too often in the courtroom, those who most often call themselves my opposing counsel. My blonde beauty folds her arms in front of her chest, her spine stiff, and if I read her right–and I read most people right–I am certain that she’s found trouble. But lucky for her, trouble doesn’t like me near as much as I like it.

Closing the space between me and them, I near their little triangle just in time to hear her say, “Are we really doing this here and now?”

“Yes, Ms. Winter,” one of the men replies. “We are.”

“Actually,” I say, stepping to Ms. Winter’s side, her floral scent almost as sweet as the challenge of conquering her opponents that are now mine, “we are not doing this here or now.”

All attention shifts to me, Ms. Winter giving me a sharp stare that I feel rather than see, my focus remaining on the men I want to leave, not the woman I want to make come. “And you would be who?” the suit directly in front of me demands.

I size him up as barely out of his twenty-something diapers, without experience, the glint in his eye telling me he doesn’t realize that flaw, which makes him about as smooth as a six-dollar glass of wine everyone in this place would spit the fuck out. A point driven home by the fact that he’s wearing a three hundred-dollar Italian silk tie, and a hundred-dollar suit, no doubt hoping the tie makes the suit look expensive, and him important. He’s wrong.

“I said, who are you?” he repeats when I apparently haven’t replied quickly enough, his impatience becoming my virtue as my role as cat in this game of cat and mouse is too easily established.

Unwilling to waste words on a predictable, expected question that I’d never ask, I simply reach into the pocket of my three-thousand-dollar light gray suit, which I earned by beating opponents with ten times his experience and negotiation skills, and finger the unimportant prick my card.

He snaps it from my hand, gives it a look that confirms my name and the firm I started a decade ago now, after daring to leave behind a certain partnership in a high-powered firm. “Nick Rogers?” he asks. “Is there another name on the card?” I ask, because, I’m also a fearless smartass every chance I get.

He stares at me for several beats, seeming to calculate his words, before asking, “How many Mr. Rogers sweater jokes do you get?”

I arch a brow at the misguided joke that only serves to poke the Tiger. Suit Number Two, who I age closer to my thirty-six years, pales visibly, then snatches the card from the other man’s hand, giving it a quick inspection before his gaze then jerks to mine. “The Nick Rogers?”

“I don’t remember my mother putting the word ‘the’ in front of my name,” I reply dryly, but then again, I think, she didn’t ask my father, to change my last name either. She just hated him that much.

“Tiger,” he says, and it’s not a question, but rather a statement of “oh shit” fact.

“That’s right,” I say, enjoying the fruits of my labor that created the nickname, not one given to me by my friends.

“Who, or what, the fuck is Tiger all about?” Suit Number One asks.

“Shut up,” Suit Number Two grunts, refocusing on me to ask, “You’re representing Ms. Winter?”

“What I am,” I say, “is standing right here by her side, telling you that it’s in your best interests to leave.”

“Since when do you handle small-time foreclosures?” he demands, exposing the crux of Ms. Winter’s situation.

“I handle whatever the fuck I want to handle,” I say, my tone even, my lips curving as I add, “Including the process of having you both escorted off the property by security.”

“That,” Suit Number One dares to retort, “would garner Ms. Winter unwanted attention in the middle of a busy event. Not that Ms. Winter even has security to call.”

“Fortunately, I have a phone that dials 911 and the ability to call it without asking her.”

If she’s your client,” Suit Number One says, clearly inferring that she’s not, “you’re obligated to operate with her best interests in mind.”

“My decisions,” I reply, without missing a beat, and without claiming Ms. Winter as a client, “are always about winning. And I assure you that I can think of many ways to spin your story to the press that ensures I win, while also benefiting Ms. Winter.”

“This isn’t my story,” Suit Number One indicates.

“It will be when I’m finished with the press,” I assure him, amused at how easily I’ve led him down the path I want him to travel.

“This is a small community with little to talk about but her,” he says. “She doesn’t want her foreclosure to become the front page story.”

My lips quirk. “If you don’t know how easily I can get the wrong attention for you here, and the right attention for Ms. Winter, you’ll find out.”

“We’ll leave,” Suite Number Two interjects quickly, and just when I think that he’s smart enough to see the way trouble has turned from Ms. Winter to them, he looks at her and says, “We’ll be in touch,” with a not so subtle threat in his tone, before he elbows Suit Number One. “Let’s go.”

Suit Number One doesn’t move, visibly fuming, his face red, that white ring thickening around his lips. I arch a brow at Suit Number Two, who adds, “Now, Jordan.” Jordan, formerly known as Suit Number One, clenches his teeth and turns away, while Suit Two follows.

Ms. Winter faces me, and holy fuck, when her pale green eyes meet mine, any questions I have about this woman and the many I suspect she now has of me, are muted by an unexpected, potentially problematic, palpable electric charge between us. “Thank you,” she says, her voice soft, feminine, a rasp in its depths that hints at emotion not effortlessly contained. “Please enjoy anything you like tonight on the house,” she adds, the rasp gone now, her control returned. Until I take it, I think, but no sooner than I’ve had the thought, she is turning and walking away, the absence of further interaction coloring me both stunned and intrigued, two things that, for me, are ranked with about as much frequency as snow in Sonoma, which would be next to never.

Ms. Winter maneuvers into the crowd, out of my line of sight, and while I am not certain I’d label her a mouse at this point, or ever for that matter, considering what I know of her, I am most definitely on the prowl. I stride purposely forward, weaving through the crowd, seeking that next provocative moment, scanning for her left, right, in the clusters of mingling guests, until I clear the crowd.

Now standing in front of a wide, wooden stairwell, my gaze follows its path upward to a second level, but I still find no sign of Ms. Winter. A cool breeze whips through the air, and I turn to find the source is a high arched doorway, the recently opened glass doors to what I know to be the “Winter Gardens,” a focal point of the property, and a tourist draw for decades, settling back into place. Certain this represents her escape, I walk that direction, and press open the doors, stepping onto a patio that has a stone floor and concrete benches framed by rose bushes. No less than four winding paths greet me as destination choices, the hunt for this woman now a provocation of its own.

I’ve just decided to wait where I am for Ms. Winter’s return when the wind lifts, the floral scent of many varieties of flowers for which the garden is famous touching my nostrils, with one extra scent decidedly of the female variety.

Lips curving with the certainty that my prey will soon to be my prize, I follow the clue that guides my feet to the path on my right, a narrow, winding, lighted walkway, framed by neatly cut yellow flower bushes, which continues past a white wooden gazebo I have no intention of passing. Not when Ms. Winter stands inside it, her back to me, elbows resting on the wooden rail, her gaze casting across the silhouette of what would reveal itself to be a rolling mountainside in daybreak. The way I intend for her to reveal herself.

I close the distance between us, and the moment before I’m upon her, she faces me, hands on the railing behind her, her breasts thrust forward, every one of her lush curves tempting my eyes, my hands. My mouth. “Did those men know you?” she demands, clearly ready and waiting for this interaction. “Did you know them?”

“No and no.”

“And yet they knew the nickname Tiger.”

“My reputation precedes me.”

“I’ll take the bait,” she says. “What reputation?”

“They say I’ll rip my opponent’s throat out if given the chance.”

“Will you?” she asks, without so much as a blanch or blink.

“Yes,” I reply, a simple answer, for a simple question.

“Without any concern for who you hurt,” she states.

I arch a brow. “Is that a question?”

“Should it be?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not,” she says. “You didn’t get that nickname by being nice.”

“Nice guys don’t win.”

“Then I’m warned,” she says. “You aren’t a nice guy.”

“Is nice a quality you’re looking for in a man? Because as your evening counsel, Ms. Winter, I’ll advise you that nice is overrated.”

She stares at me for several beats before turning away to face the mountains again, elbows on the railing, in what I could see as a silent invitation to leave. I choose to see it as an invitation to join her. I claim the spot next to her, close, but not nearly as close as I will be soon. “You didn’t answer the question,” I point out.

“You wrongly assume I am looking for a man, which I’m not,” she says, glancing over at me. “But if I was, then no. Nice would be on my list but it would not top my list, however, nowhere on that list would be the ability, and willingness, to rip out someone’s throat.”

“I can assure you, Ms. Winter, that a man with a bite is as underrated as a nice guy is overrated. And I not only know how, and when, to use mine, but if I so choose to biteyou, and I might, it’ll be all about pleasure, not pain.”

Her cheeks flush and she turns away. “My name is Faith.” She glances over at me again. “Should I call you Nick, Tiger, or just plain arrogant?”

“Anything but Mr. Rogers,” I say, enjoying our banter far more than I would have expected when I came here tonight looking for her.

She laughs now too, and it’s a delicate, sweet sound, but it’s awkward, as if it’s not only unexpected, but unwelcome, and an instant later she’s withdrawing, pushing off the railing, arms folding protectively in front of her body, before we’re rotating to face each other. “I need to go check on the visitors.” She attempts to move away.

I gently catch her arm, her gaze rocketing to mine, and in the process her hair flutters in a sudden breeze, a strand of blonde silk catching on the whiskers of my one-day stubble. She sucks in a breath, and when she would reach up to remedy the situation, I’m already there, catching the soft silk and stroking it behind her ear.

“Why are you touching me?” she asks, but she doesn’t pull away, that charge between us minutes ago now ten times more provocative with me touching her, thinking about all the places I might touch next.

“It’s considerably better than not touching you,” I say.

“My bad luck might bleed into you.”

“Bleed,” I repeat, that word reminding me once again of why I’m here, why I really want to fuck this woman. “That’s an extreme, and rather interesting choice of words.”

“Most bad luck is extreme, though not interesting to anyone but the Tigers of the world, creating it. You’re still touching me.”

“Everyone needs a Tiger in their corner. Maybe my good luck will bleed into you.”

“Does good luck bleed?” she asks.

“Many people will do anything for good luck, even bleed.”

“Yes,” she says, lowering her lashes, but not before I’ve seen the shadows in her eyes. “I suppose they would.”

“What would you do for good luck?”

Her lashes lift, her stare meeting mine again. “What have you done for good luck?”

“I came here tonight,” I say.

She narrows her eyes on me, as if some part of her senses, the far-reaching implications of my reply that she can’t possibly understand, and yet still, the inescapable heat between us radiates and burns. “You’re still touching me,” she points out, and this time there’s a hint of reprimand.

“Holding onto that luck,” I say.

“It feels like you’re holding onto mine.”

With that observation that hits too close to the truth, I have no interest in revealing just yet, I drag my hand slowly down hers, allowing my fingers to find hers before they fall away. Her lips, lush, tempting, impossibly perfect for someone I know to be imperfect, part with the loss of my touch, and yet there is a hint of relief in her eyes that tells me she both wants me and fears me.

A most provocative moment, indeed.

“Have a drink with me,” I say.

“No,” she replies, her tone absolute, and while I don’t like this decision, I appreciate a person who’s decisive.

“Why?”

“Good luck and bad luck don’t mix.”

“They might just create good luck.”

“Or bad,” she says. “I’m not in a place where I can take the risk for more bad luck.” She inclines her chin. “Enjoy the rest of your visit.” She pauses and adds, “Tiger.”

I don’t react, but for just a moment, I consider the way she used my nickname as an indicator that she knows who I am, and why I’m here. I quickly dismiss that idea. I’d have seen it in those pale green eyes, and I did not. But as she turns and walks away, and I watch her depart, tracking her steps as she disappears down the path, I wonder at her quick departure, and the fear I’d seen in her eyes. Was the root of that fear her guilt?

That idea should be enough to ice the fire in me that this woman has stirred, but it stokes it instead. Everything male in me wants to pursue her again, and not because I’m here for a reason that existed before I ever met her, when it should be that and nothing more. It is more. I’m aroused and I’m intrigued by this woman. She got to me when no one gets to me. Not a good place to be, considering I came here to prove she killed my father, and maybe even her own mother.

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Book two: SHAMELESS will be out on July 11th!

Pre-Order notification:http://bit.ly/2nocwgZ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34602828-shameless

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About the Author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed INSIDE OUT series. Suzanne Todd (producer of Alice in Wonderland) on the INSIDE OUT series: Lisa has created a beautiful, complicated, and sensual world that is filled with intrigue and suspense. Sara’s character is strong, flawed, complex, and sexy – a modern girl we all can identify with.

In addition to the success of Lisa’s INSIDE OUT series, Lisa has published many successful titles. The TALL, DARK AND DEADLY series and THE SECRET LIFE OF AMY BENSEN series, both spent several months on a combination of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling lists. Lisa is presently working on a dark, edgy new series, Dirty Money, for St. Martin’s Press.

Prior to publishing Lisa owned multi-state staffing agency that was recognized many times by The Austin Business Journal and also praised by the Dallas Women’s Magazine. In 1998 Lisa was listed as the #7 growing women owned business in Entrepreneur Magazine.

Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at www.lisareneejones.com and she is active on Twitter and Facebook daily.

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