Beneath the Surface by Joya Fields

She’s fighting to stay independent — he’s determined to protect her no matter what... 

Brooke Richards survived the earthquake that took her parents and most of her leg, but she needs time to regroup. A trip to Florida for a state-of-the-art prosthesis and to visit her best friend Linda seems ideal.

But the trip turns traumatic when Brooke witnesses Linda’s boat disintegrating in a fiery explosion.

Police Officer Garrett Ciavello believes the blast was intentionally set to hide something Linda found on a dive. When Brooke offers her expertise in underwater archaeology, Garrett accepts her help with the investigation. But since his fiancée’s death years ago, Garrett has become overprotective, and as they are drawn to each other, Garrett realizes he will risk anything to keep Brooke safe.

Brooke is fiercely independent. Garrett is fiercely protective. Will they heal each other’s wounds and find a killer... before it’s too late? 

 Grace's Review:

I'm a huge fan of those crime drama shows like CSI: Miami and Bones. This story was sort of like a mash up of those shows with romance! Beneath the Surface is a gripping romance-suspense novel that has an explosive beginning...literally!

When underwater archeologist Brooke Richards witnesses her friends' boat blow up, she unknowingly becomes a target of a killer. Detective Garrett Ciavello's search for his missing niece leads him to a metal box found on the ocean floor by Brooke's friends prior to the explosion. Together, Brooke and Garrett must rely on each other's expertise to retrieve the box and find answers.

I absolutely enjoyed this story! It kept me engaged and guessing, and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough! When all was revealed, and I found out the reasons for the crime(s), my jaw dropped! I did not think it was going to head in that direction at all. All I'm going to say is beware of deranged lunatic!

Brooke and Garrett had undeniable attraction towards one another, even when they tried to resist their feelings and concentrate only on the investigation. Since Brooke lost part of her leg in an earthquake, being independent has been a huge priority for her. This doesn't go well with Garrett's strong protective nature. Although they had to work through issues, it was obvious they cared so much for each other. Her disability was not even an issue for Garrett. One of my favorite parts is when Garrett tries to get Brooke to ride on his Harley. She's hesitant because of her prosthesis, but he ends up coaxing her on the bike anyway. Very cute! I got a little sad when I reached the last chapter. I wasn't ready to leave these two. Thank God for the sweet epilogue!
This is how I see Brooke and Garrett

Beneath the Surface is the second story that I have read from Joya Fields. Her novella, Love Delivered, is one of my favorites! Both stories showcase writing that is passionate with just enough spice all wrapped up like a small-hometown welcome hug. Her stories make you feel like you're coming home to something familiar. Even with all the mystery and suspense of Beneath the Surface, she manages to pull that comfortable hometown awareness for her readers. The scene at the family pizza place made me feel like I was part of the crowd. I'll take one of Mama Ciavello's specialties please!

Excerpt:

For the first time since the accident, she forgot about her leg. Forgot about all she’d lost and focused on the way he made her feel.

She knew she needed to stop him. She should find a way to resist the temptation to be with him. But for a few minutes, she could enjoy the taste of him, the feel of him, couldn’t she?

He dropped his hands to her waist and softened the kiss before trailing his warm lips down her neck. A weak cry slipped from her mouth. “Garrett,” she whispered.

She should stop this now before it got any more intense.

He lifted her chin and forced her to meet his brown eyes, smoky with desire. Heat spiraled to her middle and she caught a faint whiff of his sawdust scent.

“I…I can walk you back to your own room before I head to mine.” His voice broke as he whispered.

She swallowed hard. She couldn’t do this right now with him. Too many obstacles stood in their way. But as she looked in his somber eyes, she realized none of those complications were bigger than her need for Garrett.

“Let’s go to your room,” she said, her voice shaking. She moved her hands inside his shirt and ran them over his tight abs and chest. Heat soared through her body at the feel of him. “Together…”

Knight (The Unfinished Heroes #1) By Kristen Ashley

Anya Gage has learned that to get anything good in life, you have to work for it. She has no expectations, no dreams.

Then she finds herself at a party where she doesn’t want to be and she meets Knight.

Knight Sebring knows who he is, what he wants and what he likes. And he gets it. But he never expected something as sweet as Anya Gage to wander into his bedroom during a party he did not expect to be having to borrow his phone.

Knight tries to leave Anya to the life she deserves of white picket fences and a man who watches football on Sundays – good, normal and clean. But when Anya comes to his nightclub and finds herself in a situation, he knows someone has to look after her, he can’t fight it anymore and he decides that man will be him.

Knight teaches Anya that, just as with the bad, in life you should also expect the good. And he teaches her this by giving it to her.

But Knight has a dark past and just as he desires Anya for exactly who she is, he fears when she finds out exactly the man he has become and always intends to be, she’ll leave him for good, normal and clean.

Holly's Review:

Kristen Ashley has totally done it again! Knight is the most amazing hero anti hero I have ever read! He is just a real guy with flaws and issues, oh except he is freaking gorgeous, rich and oh so intense! This story sucked me in just like every other KA story but I loved the addition of erotica and light BDSM in this one.

Knight and Anya we absolutely delicious together and I especially love how her love for him made is so she could just hang the fuck on whenever she learned something about her man that maybe skirted the edges of social acceptability. The sex was intense and fabulous, now I am never one to judge what two consenting adults do in the throes of sexual bliss, so even though some people have mentioned having problems with the fact that Knight wanted Anya to call him Daddy, I am not one of those people! I say do what makes you feel good baby! And having said that, after listening to the amazing dirty talk coming out of Knight’s incredible mouth I would call him any damn thing he wanted me to!

I have to thank my dear friend Dhes for heavily pimping this book, loved it babe! I hate that I have to wait for the next in this series because, well, I am not really a patient person - But, wait I will because the Unfinished Hero’s Series is going to be amazing if this debut is anything to go by!!

My Knight:

 

S.E.R's Welcomes Sylvia Day!! Author Spot and Giveaway!

I recently read my first Sylvia Day book, and it was Bared to You.  Let me tell you, it was absolutely DELICIOUS!!  5 of the 6 of us ladies here at S.E.R's have read this scrumptious treat and we all loved it! In fact it received 5 out of 5 stars from all of us. 

As I stated in my review, it wouldn't be my last.  I went right into Seven Years to Sin, and it was FANTASTIC!  It's a historical romance, that is beautifully written, and had everything I love, lovable characters, a great story, and very steamy hot. 

So, we were all pretty stoked when Sylvia Day agreed to stop in and share with us, and you.  She has also put together a very generous giveaway for you all. I'll admit I'm kinda jealous.

                               Please welcome Sylvia Day! - Rhonda

Sylvia Day: http://www.sylviaday.com/

 I’ll be honest. I’m the worst person to ask about my books. I can’t describe them or really do them justice. After all, it took me 100K + words to tell the story in the first place. :)

I’m also terrible at answering the question, “Where do you come up with your ideas?” I never have a clue. What usually happens is that a scene will pop into my head and I’ll end up writing a whole book around that one snippet. I couldn’t tell you where the scene snippet came from (although I can tell you where I was at the time it came to me--usually in the shower or while driving!). I’m always envious of authors who have fabulous stories about their inspiration and the birth of their stories.

All that said, I can tell you where BARED TO YOU started, because it began with another book of mine, SEVEN YEARS TO SIN.

SEVEN YEARS TO SIN is a Regency-set historical that tells the love story of two abuse survivors. Jessica is the survivor of child abuse so vicious she bears physical scars and is deaf in one ear. Alistair was emotionally abused and turned to prostitution as a way to survive and establish value for himself. For numerous reasons, I wasn’t able to delve into the aftereffects of abuse as deeply as I would’ve liked, so I continued to think about Alistair and Jessica after I turned the manuscript in to the publisher. For months afterwards, all through the end of 2010 and early 2011, I thought about how I’d expand upon the story if I could. I realized the historical time period had limitations I didn’t want to work within, so in my mind’s eye I transplanted Jessica and Alistair to modern-day New York.

Eagle-eyed readers of both books may notice that Gideon and Eva look remarkably like Alistair and Jessica. That’s because at the time I started BARED TO YOU, it was still Alistair and Jessica I was thinking of. Some things translated over--Gideon is a self-made wealthy man, just like Alistair; Eva is affluent and attends balls/galas, because Jessica was a peeress in her time; Eva and Jessica are both twenty-four. However, Gideon is twenty-eight while Alistair was twenty-two, because there’s no way Eva would’ve looked twice at a twenty-two year old man! There are other correlations that built the framework of BARED TO YOU, but you get the idea.

I started writing. (Or re-writing, as the case may be.) But a funny thing happened as the story unfolded. It took on a life of its own--it took on Eva’s life. She’s such a vibrant woman that she quickly assumed control of the storytelling. I’d begun the story in my usual third-person point of view, but I kept slipping into Eva’s voice. (Or Eva’s voice slipped into me!) I had to stop writing and reevaluate. What was happening?
It became clear that Alistair and Jessica’s story was complete the way it was. They were in love and happily married, and had absolutely no desire to have their story hijacked by a doppelganger couple. Besides, the new story I was writing was darker and completely its own.

So while BARED TO YOU’s genesis was in SEVEN YEARS TO SIN, they aren’t the same story at all nor do they have the same characters. Gideon and Eva are far more deeply damaged. Their pasts were brutal and their love for each other is totally unique to them.

Bared to you Review 

Sylvia Day has put together a very generous giveaway. 

She has included for two lucky winners:

1. A signed copy of Seven Years to sin, and to this winner S.E.R.'s will throw in a ebook copy of Bared to You (Kindle or Nook)

2. An ebook copy (Nook or Kindle) of Seven Years to Sin

and a Romantic Times tote with multi-author promo swag, and some books. 

*Please note: By entering the Rafflecoptor, you must be willing to give us your mailing address if you are selected as the winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Seven Years to Sin by Sylvia Day

The longer the resistance...

Seven years ago, on the eve of her wedding, proper Lady Jessica Sheffield witnessed a licentious scene no innocent young miss could imagine. Shocked, yet strangely titillated, she'd held her silence regarding scandalous Alistair Caulfield, and walked down the aisle as expected. But through years of serene, unremarkable marriage, Caulfield's image remained burned into her imagination, fueling very illicit dreams. . .

...the sweeter the reward

Alistair ran far from the temptation of the prim debutante with the fire of passion in her eyes—all the way to the West Indies. As a successful merchant, he has little in common with the rakehell youth she knew. But when newly widowed Jessica steps aboard his ship for a transatlantic passage, seven years' worth of denied pleasures are held in check by nothing more than a few layers of silk—and the certainty that surrender will consume them both. . .

Rhonda's Review:

 Alistair Caulfield has harbored a love for Lady Jessica Sheffield for many years,  but many factors made that love unattainable.  He being younger, and the 4th son of a duke and duchess,  there was no role for him.  Alistair is quite a free spirit,  making his own way in the world at a young age and building his own fortune by whatever means necessary.

On the eve of Jessica’s wedding, she is walking her dog for the evening and comes across Alistair engaged in a lecherous act with a married woman.

“The horror she should have felt at finding a man engaged in sexual congress was markedly absent.  Because it was Caulfield, and he fascinated her.  It was a terrible sort of captivation with which she viewed him-a mixture of envy for his freedom and horror at the ease with which he disregarded public opinion.” 

 
Being free wasn’t afforded to Jessica as her father had her already paired with Benedict Sinclair, Viscount and future Earl immediately upon her presentation as a debutante.  Having spent her life under her fathers thumb and having propriety beaten into her, Jessica was just happy to be away from that situation.  Happens that her marriage was a good one, but fate had other plans for Jessica.

“Other men coveted the mystery of her, but Alistair had seen behind the veil, and that was the woman he lusted for.  Forever beyond his reach in reality, but a fixture in his mind.  She was burned into his memory by the raging hungers and impressions of youth, and the years hadn’t lessened the vivid recollection one wit.”

After six years of marriage to Benedict,  she is widowed.  Benedict left her everything including the property in Jamaica.  Almost a year into her bereavement  of her husband, Jessica decides she needs to get away from society for a while and decides to travel to Jamaica to tend to the property there.  Just so happens that Alistair has now made his return to London, and has arranged with Jessica’s brother in law to escort and assist Jessica on her trip. Jessica doesn’t know of Alistair’s return or of his plans to accompany her on the ship for the next six weeks, alone with only the two of them and the crewmen.

“He wanted her to see him as the man he was now-cultured and learned.  Polished.  His presentation was meant to be the first salvo in what was intended to be a slow careful seduction.”

The unattainable becomes attainable as the courtship of Jessica Tarley begins.  These two alone on a ship together have no distractions from each other, and Alistair couldn’t have planned this better.  I loved watching these two turn their lust into love, and tear down each others protective walls.  Each sharing the most emotional parts of their past with one another.  Not only knowing each other carnally, but getting a good look into the true make up of each other.

“She’d started this journey as a widow, certain she would be alone for the rest of her life.  She ended with a lover, a man to whom she’d bared her body and soul, revealing memories of a past she had previously shared only with Hester.”

There is also a heartbreaking secondary story going on that involves Jessica’s sister, Hester. Growing up, Jessica tried to protect Hester from their fathers’ rages, only for her to end up married to a man with those same rages. Michael who has loved her since their youth wants desperately to protect her, is in difficult position. He would love nothing more than to save her but all he can do is extend his friendship and try to be there for Hester as best he can.  I certainly wouldn’t mind a continuation of her story.  I loved Michael and Hester, and hated Regmont!

I loved this story so much!
Sylvia Day is versatile in her writing, and once again I have experienced her beautiful writing and characterization.  This is story of two people falling in love, and I truly fell in love with this cast of characters and their story.  Alistair is that strong, dominant, and sexy man that I love so, but yet he’s not afraid to show his love for all the world to see.  I really liked Jessica, she is stronger than she believes, smart and very perceptive.  In the face of propriety she embraces herself, and the hellrake she has fallen in love with.  

“Seven years.  It felt as if her attraction to him had been simmering the whole of that time, waiting for his touch to free it.” 

*All quotes are taken from the novel Seven Years to Sin by Sylvia Day
  

About That Night– (FBI-Attorney #3) Julie James

HE’S PLAYING GAMES

Though Rylann Pierce tried to fight the sparks she felt for billionaire heir Kyle Rhodes the night they met, their sizzling chemistry was undeniable. But after being stood up on their first date, Rylann never expected to see him again. So when she finds herself face to face with Kyle in a courthouse nine years later, she’s stunned. More troubling to the beautiful Assistant U.S. Attorney is that she’s still wildly attracted to him.

BUT SHE’S MAKING THE RULES

Just released from prison, Kyle Rhodes isn’t thrilled to be the star witness in a high-profile criminal case — but when Rylann comes knocking at his door, he finds she may be the one lawyer he can’t say no to. Still as gorgeous and sharp-tongued as ever, she lays down the law: she doesn’t mix business with pleasure. But Kyle won’t give up on something he wants — and what he wants is the one woman he’s never forgotten...

Sam's Review:

First things first – I love Julie James. She must be one of the only authors that never let unnecessary miscommunications get into the romance. There is never the ‘Impending doom’ feeling that is almost always felt within a novel and it’s just so gosh darn nice.

Rylann Pierce aka Prosecutric Pierce and Kyle Rhondes aka Dimples, shared one very special kiss some nine years ago. After Kyle walked Rylann home, sparks flew and with a promise of a date the following eve, fireworks were in the air.

But when Kyle fails to show the next night, Rylann decides that this billionaire heir isn’t worth her time or fit into her quite ridiculous 6 year plan of become a Assistant US Attorney.

Nine years later and the two come face to face again in the court room. Kyle has become the world renowned ‘Twitter Terrorist’ and has just been released from Jail. Instantly the attraction is felt and everything from that night nine years ago comes rushing back.

We get to read about Kyle in past books and you almost get the impression of a spoilt rich kid who simply hacked into twitter because his girl cheated on him. I was clearly mistaken. This man takes responsibility for his own life and what he going to make of it now he is out of the slammer. He dealt with the consequences of his ‘terrorism’ and manned up.  Oh and did I mention he is a Sawyer look a like (LOST) – smug dimples, big blue eyes, shampoo commercial hair –PERFECT – and wow! Didn’t see the sexy dirty talk coming at me either, but it’s there people and its scrummy.

Rylann was a nice Heroine. She didn’t take his shit and met him head on. She was so determined in her career and new exactly how many steps it was going to take to reach it.  It was slightly annoying that it took longer than I would have liked to make her realise that she needed to pop Kyle into her 12 year plans, but finally when the woman did get the sense knocked into her – the book was set on fire.

This book was well rounded and had everything I loved in a book. These light hearted contemporary romances always go down a treat and with an author like Julie James doing the writing I know I can never go wrong.

We see allot of past characters and get little snippets of them all.  I can’t wait to see who our sexy lead roles will be for the next books.