Review: The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward

Title: The Bourbon Kings

Author: J.R. Ward

Release Date: July  28, 2015

SYNOPSIS:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Black Dagger Brotherhood delivers the first novel in an enthralling new series set amid the shifting dynamics of a Southern family defined by wealth and privilege—and compromised by secrets, deceit, and scandal....

For generations, the Bradford family has worn the mantle of kings of the bourbon capital of the world. Their sustained wealth has afforded them prestige and privilege—as well as a hard-won division of class on their sprawling estate, Easterly. Upstairs, a dynasty that by all appearances plays by the rules of good fortune and good taste. Downstairs, the staff who work tirelessly to maintain the impeccable Bradford facade. And never the twain shall meet.

For Lizzie King, Easterly’s head gardener, crossing that divide nearly ruined her life. Falling in love with Tulane, the prodigal son of the bourbon dynasty, was nothing that she intended or wanted—and their bitter breakup only served to prove her instincts were right. Now, after two years of staying away, Tulane is finally coming home again, and he is bringing the past with him. No one will be left unmarked: not Tulane’s beautiful and ruthless wife; not his older brother, whose bitterness and bad blood know no bounds; and especially not the ironfisted Bradford patriarch, a man with few morals, fewer scruples, and many, many terrible secrets.

As family tensions—professional and intimately private—ignite, Easterly and all its inhabitants are thrown into the grips of an irrevocable transformation, and only the cunning will survive.

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My Review

This book consumed me from the very first page. 

It was suspenseful and riveting. You didn't know what was going to happen next so you couldn't sit it down. I couldn't wait to see what was about to unravel! Once it did start to unravel it didn't stop. It was one skeleton after the other being unveiled. 

This books has it all! Family, Money, Love, Lust, Lies and most of Betrayal. 

The book follows The Bradford family they are The Bourbon Kings of Kentucky. To say the least they are a very Wealthy, Southern family. 

Four kids, Edward being the eldest, then Lane, Maxwell and then Gin.

Edward story was absolutely heartbreaking especially when we find out what he really went though and I am sure that we didn't even get the half of it in this book. Hopefully more of his past to come.  

Lane was the main character in this book. His and Lizzie's (Who's also the grounds head gardener.) whirlwind romance and along with all the drama of past mistakes and the familys lives and business. 

“You’re the love of my life, whether you’re with me or not.”

Maxwell we didn't see him at all in this book. I can't wait to finally be introduced to him. 

Gin, the only sister sibling and I guess you could even call her the "blacksheep". Her story was intriguing. Her relationship with Samuel T is.... WILD. They have always loved one another yet never actually been together for stupid reasons.

This book is something like a soap operas with all the drama that makes one and it's told in each characters point of view so it's all the more intriguing I say.

If you want a story packed with Drama, mystery and suspense, then you found it with this book. J.R. Ward blew me away with the story. 

I LOVED it and never wanted it to end. Sadly it did and too soon. I can't wait for the next installment in this series! 

Oooh!! New series from JR Ward that has already been optioned for TV/film as well!

Quotes:

“There is no fight – I’m yours. If you want, here and now. Or later. A week, a month, years from now.” 

“I’ve never stopped wanting you, Lizzie. Thinking about you. Wishing you were with me. Hell, I feel like I’ve been in a relationship with a ghost … I see you in my dreams every night – you’re so real that I can touch you, feel you, be with you.”

“You’ve got to stop.”

“I can’t. Lizzie…I can’t.” 

“I can’t change what happened and I know there’s no going back…all I ask is that you don’t fall for appearances, okay? You’ve had ten years around this family, but I’ve been with them and the people who surround them all my life. That’s why you’re the one I want. You’re real. You’re not capable of being what they are and that’s a very, very good thing.”

About the Author

J.R. Ward is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. She lives in the South her family.

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Elude by Rachel Van Dyken

It's LIVE!! 

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♥READ THE SERIES♥

Book .5 – Enchant

Book 1 – Elite

Book 1.5 – Enforce

Book 2 – Elect

Book 3 – Entice

Book 4 – Elicit

Book 5 – Ember

Book 6 – Elude

The sixth book in the internationally bestselling Eagle Elite Series.

*Interconnected Stand Alone*

Twenty-Four hours before we were to be married--I offered to shoot her.

Ten hours before our wedding--I made a mockery of her dying wish.

Five hours before we were going to say our vows--I promised I'd never love her.

One hour before I said I do--I vowed I'd never shed a tear over her death.

But the minute we were pronounced man and wife--I knew.

I'd only use my gun to protect her.

I'd give my life for hers.

I'd cry.

And I would, most definitely, lose my heart, to a dying girl---a girl who by all accounts should have never been mine in the first place.

I always believed the mafia would be my end game--where I'd lose my heart, while it claimed my soul. I could have never imagined. It would be my redemption.

Or the beginning of something beautiful.

The beginning of her.

The end of us.

Excerpt

She tried to kick me. I pulled her leg tighter. “Hey now, let me do my job.” 

“But it tickles.”

“Good.” I kissed the inside of her ankle. “Shh… you’re going to wake up the animals.”

“What?” Andi squealed. “They’re stuffed! 

“Shh, they’ll hear you!” My lips met the inside of her knee.

The covers bunched up in her hands as her head thrust back. “You’re the devil. That really, really tickles.”

“Andi, Andi, Andi…” I licked the inside of her thigh. “…you taste so soft.”

“Mmm…” Her body arched.

My mouth inched higher.

Every muscle tensed.

“Shh…” I blew across her skin. “Enjoy this. I know I am.”

“Sergio,” she panted, “hurry up before I kill you.”

“Please, I hid all the knives.” My mouth licked at her core.

A yelp and then, “You’re evil.”

“I’m your husband.” I sucked until she squirmed. “Your fault.”

No more words, just panting and cursing.

Andi fisted my hair into her hands and tugged my head up then slammed her mouth against mine.

I rolled onto my back as she straddled me. “You were going too slow.”

“Oh?” I choked out a laugh then stopped when she slowly lowered herself onto my body, inch by aggravating inch. 

“Who’s laughing now?”

I lifted her up, then slowly down. “Not me.”

She gasped. “Me either.” 

“Faster.” 

I tsked. “Slower.”

“Damn you, Sergio!” 

“Let me enjoy this.” I rolled my hips. 

She cursed again, her nails making permanent marks on my chest as she pushed against me, her way of trying to go faster.

“You feel amazing.” Her eyes closed.

I moved faster. She kept my same tempo and then threw her head back, her hair flying across her shoulders, whipping my hands where they were placed against her skin, causing such an erotic sensation and vision I had to grit my teeth to keep from finishing.

“Let go,” I said through clenched teeth. 

“If I let go…” She blinked open her eyes.

And I knew the truth; it was just another moment passed, another second closer to the end, which is why she wanted fast. Because she wouldn’t have to think. With a growl, I pulled out and tossed her onto her stomach and covered her with my body, with my warmth, my strength. I gripped her hands and slowly inched into her then moved.

Seconds went by.

 Minutes.

Hours?

Who knew? 

It was a moment that didn’t need definition, that just was — perfection as I felt her body tense then ease under mine, as I followed and experienced such completion at our joining that I knew I could follow her into heaven and know—

—I’d done good.

I’d done good by her.

By me.

And I’d accomplished what I’d been set on Earth to do. 

Love Andi.

Trailer

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About Rachel Van Dyken

Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she’s not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.

She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband and their snoring Boxer, Sir Winston Churchill. She loves to hear from readers! You can follow her writing journey at www.rachelvandykenauthor.com

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Gold (All that Glitters #2) by K.A. Line

Diamonds is on SALE for $.99 for a limited time!

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The prey becomes the predator.

Love. That cursed four-letter word no longer belongs in Bryna’s vocabulary. The only four-letter word she knows now is gold.

…and fuck.

She’s well acquainted with that one. And that’s exactly what she plans to do. She’s no longer the golden girl, and when she meets a businessman who promises everything she could ever want from the arrangement, she intends to get her money’s worth.

Follow the conclusion to Bryna’s gold digging story in this scandalizing, duplicitous second book to the USA Today bestselling author K.A. Linde’s All That Glitters series.

Excerpt

As she worked on the dessert, they talked about football and their undefeated season.

“I wished I were playing,” he admitted. “I’m still on the team, but it’s different, being on the sidelines.”

“But you said you could play.”

“I could,” he agreed. “But I wouldn’t do that to my parents. They were freaked out when I hurt my knee. At first, the doctors didn’t know if I would walk. It was not a good time in my life. I recovered remarkably well, but I don’t want to go back into something I’m good at if it could kill me. I’m still young and smart. I can do something else.”

“Coach? Is that the dream job?”

“Of course. That’s the goal even though so few people make it to the top. Coach thinks I have the right eye for it. That’s why he agreed to train me after I busted my knee,” he told her. “What about you? What’s the dream job?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I always assumed I’d marry into money.”

“You’re not serious,” he said in disbelief. “You’re smart and in college. You have to have some dreams, right?”

She stuffed another bite of the banana split into her mouth to keep from answering right away. Her dreams had always been so muddled by everyone else’s expectations of her. She didn’t know how much of what she wanted was from herself or her parents.

“Sometimes, I think film,” she said. She had never said that out loud. “When I was younger, I used to watch clips and piece them together for my dad…when he was around.”

“Cool. So, are you a film major?”

“Um…no. I’m undecided. I don’t think my father would take me seriously if I told him I was in film even though he was in film here.”

“Why not?” Eric asked.

“I’ve never really shown interest in it. Plus, I don’t want to seem like I’m riding his coattails.”

“If you like it, you like it. You have to decide to do it and not give a fuck about what anyone else thinks. I thought you were already pretty good at that.”

Bryna crinkled her nose and shoved another bite of the banana split into her mouth. She was almost finished, but the more she sat around and talked with Eric, the more she thought it might be nice to hang out with him over break. She hadn’t envisioned this being a bet that she would want to lose, but if she didn’t finish the banana split he won…which meant she could hang out with him again. She had been bored out of her mind, and he was actually pretty good company—when he wasn’t acting like a douchey hostile football player.

She got down to her last bite and just stared at it. “Maybe I will change my major then and see how film suits me.”

“Killer. That sounds like a great idea. At least, once you’ve tried it, you’ll know if it’s for you.” Eric then looked at her bowl. “I can’t believe you only have one bite left. I never would have guessed you could finish that whole thing.”

She smiled and then pushed the bowl over to him with the one remaining bite in it. “I didn’t finish.”

“It’s only one bite.”

“I lost. This was fun. Let’s hang out again.”

About K.A. Linde

USA Today bestselling author K.A. Linde has written the Avoiding series and the Record series as well as the new adult novels Following Me and Take Me for Granted. She grew up as a military brat traveling the United States and Australia. While studying political science and philosophy at the University of Georgia, she founded the Georgia Dance Team, which she still coaches. Post-graduation, she served as the campus campaign director for the 2012 presidential campaign at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An avid traveler, reader, and bargain hunter, K.A. lives in Athens, Georgia, with her fiancé and two puppies, Riker and Lucy.

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Manwhore +1 by Katy Evans

New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author Katy Evans

Order Manwhore+ +1

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Playlist

Grand Piano by Nicki Minaj 

Out of Mind by Trove Lo

Thousand Miles by Tove Lo

Surrender by Cash Cash

Do I want to know by Arctic Monkeys

Being Again by Purity Ring

Talking Body by Trove Lo

Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay

Sugar by Maroon 5

I Lived by OneRepublic

Gold Dust by Galantis

Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran 

My Heart Is open by Maroon 5 and Grew Stefani

PEACE by O.A.R.

 Review

PREFECTION!

If you didn't think you could fall more in love with Malcolm Saint after the first book, you are dead wrong. Prepared to be ROCKED! Katy Evans made this story so completely captivating. 

I DEVOURED this book in 2 hours. I couldn't have sat it down even if I wanted to. I was in complete and utter bliss. 
I finished the book and just held it to my chest. Hugging it. Holding on to it for dear life because I didn't want it to end.
In this book we get to see the REAL Malcolm Saint, the one he tries to keep hidden and hot damn. He is even HOTTER!! SWOON!! 
It was everything I had hoped for and more. Real, raw, and intense full of emotions that will have you sweating bullets one minute and the sighing happily the next.  
The feels this book gives me are indescribable. Complete freaking mess of all over the place emotions. 
The story wraps you up with all the romance. lust and sex so you never want to leave. 
I will never get enough of Malcolm Saint. I NEED him for myself!



Quotes
“And I realize that love is as ever-changing as a sky or as an ocean: always there, but not always sunny or clear or calm.”

“He’s a cyclone and I walked straight into the eye of it when I agreed to write that expose.”

Falling hadn’t been in the plans. Falling for a guy had never ever been in my life plane. 

I have a hole in me, So huge and empty, every pleasure in my life feels like nothing without him.

“But you didn’t teach me how to survive the storm that is you.”

“He’s standing there, beautiful beyond the imagination. He oozes power and class, sophistication. He oozes testosterone and every woman inside has noticed him-even the ones here with other men,” 

“A love inside me, so very trapped there he might never get to know how much, how very much I’ve come to love him.” 

“So determined, are you, to get me under your command?” I tease. He looks at me. He looks at me so deeply, I haven’t felt this seen in a while. “You have no idea.” 

“Well….I lose” I whisper “What do you lose?” I lost my mind and my heart, my muse, and, I think, my soul to you.” 

“Saint says nothing for a long time. Then: “Do you miss me?” He rolls to his side and the fabric of his shirt is about to tear open under the flex of his muscles as he searches my face. He leans close to my ear and says, “Do you think of me sometimes when you don’t want to….do you need me….do you still feel me?” “I feel you everywhere.” He curls his hand around my throat, leaves it there, hot and enormous, pinning me down on the bed with gentle firmness. For minutes and minutes he starts there, with his forehead on my temple, his lips on my ear and his hand on my throat ow”ning me. “I can’t breathe when you’re near, but i can’t live without you.” I pant, quietly, and he squeezes his eyes shut, drops his head on mine, and we say nothing else. We lie here with his body leaning over mine, strong and hard, and me , panting in bed, weak and warm. We lie here as if we broke and there’s no more glue to put us together no matter how much I wish for it to…. but we also can’t pull apart, as if something else entirely different from glue keeps us together.

“I want to forget you, Rachel, but I know you’re right, you weren’t lying. At least not to me. You were lying to yourself. You told yourself you’d get tot he truth of me and all that time, you wouldn’t admit that you were falling in love with me.” 

“DIBS”

I used to thinks she’d need a man so compelling, her stories couldn’t live up to him; he’d make her reality so much more compelling than anything else.

“Say it,” he demands. “Does a piece of your soul belong to me?” 
“Yes,” I say. And somehow, that’s enough. Just one word.
He ducks his head too, in each of my lips, and now he’s the their, stealing a kiss from me.
“Dibs,” he whispers.

“M4 is you, Saint. You’re bidding on Edge? Why?”
“I’m not bidding on Edge. I’m bidding on you.” 

“Do you know what I’d do for you?” A huskiness enters his voice as he circles my chin with his thumb. “You’re the only heaven I will ever know, Rachel” he looks into my eyes “and if you were a hell. I’d sin my whole life just to stay with you.” 

“”I love you, Malcolm.” 
“Do yo really?”
“Yes, really.” 
“The first time I heard it, I couldn’t think of anything else. Even when all the shit came down, I’d think of anything else. Even when all the shit came down, I’d think of those three words. I’ve loved you for a while, Rachel. All the fortune I’ve amassed and I’d never wanted to lay it out there for someone the way I want to lay it out there for you.” 
“You wanted your world to go still, stand still with me. I may be thirsty, ambitious; Ill charge out there, but this… what we have. Let’s stand still here, you and me.” 

I never imaged that I could stand in the middle of the storm that is Malcolm Kyle Preston Logan Saint, and truly fell like my world is finally becoming still. 

“I’d do anything for you. Fuck over anyone to protect you. Do anything to keep you. Crush the world for you.”

“I love you, Rachel.” “I love you like nothing else in my life.”

“I am obsessed with you.” 
“I adore you,” 
“I am crazy about you.” 
“Let me own you, Rachel, and I’ll let you own me right back. You’re my lady now.”

“Tie the knot with me. Be safe with me. Reckless with me. Be who you are with me. Be my wife, Rachel-marry me.” “You once told me you wanted the world to stand still, you wanted a safe spot to stand still. I want to be that place for you.” His hands are almost swallowing my face, but it’s his star that swallows me whole. “Even if I’m spinning through life, the spot beside me will be the eye of the hurricane, and nothing there can be touched or harmed. I want you here with me, beside me.” 
“Have you wondered what a man in love looks like? As confident as ever, he kneels, ducks his head and kisses my naked hand. “This is what he looks like.”

About the Author

My Life in 8 Words: “Hectic, wonderful, complete; everything I ever wanted.”
Katy Evans grew up with books and book-boyfriends until she found a real sexy boyfriend to love. They married and are now hard at work on their own happily ever after. Katy loves her family and friends, and she also loves reading, walking, baking, and being consumed by her characters until she reaches “The End.” Which is, hopefully, only the beginning.

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Amber to Ashes by Gail McHugh

Have you ever started reading a book and just new right away that your world was about to be turned up side down? Well, It sure as hell is happening to me right now. I am complete bewitched by this books so far. 

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Prologue

I fell for the two loves of my life when I was nineteen. Yes, two. Plural. More than one.

Immoral? Maybe. I say undeniable. Uncontained. Some say I’m wrong to feel this way about two men. Most call me a whore, a skank, or the town slut.

I don’t care.

Simply put…they each took a piece of what I wanted to give. No one will ever understand the addiction they pulled me into, both men the needle to my next hit. My dizzying high. They were as opposite as fire and ice, yet I ached for them equally.

Needed them the same way.

One was my rock. My strength. My first real…obsession.

The other was my passion, my burn.

They owned my mind and all its thoughts, every pulse that thrummed through my body, and every inch of my shattered soul.

A crack of lightning in my dark sky, they were a raging storm I never saw coming, an unforeseen heartbreak on the edge of a dangerous cliff.

Little did I know that by the time I turned twenty, the death of one of them was going to steal them both away from my life.

His murderer?

Me…

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