Review: Making Scandal by Kiru Taye #NewRelease #Romance #Giveaway

Making Scandal by +Kiru Taye, Author 

The Essien Trilogy, Book 2

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Multicultural

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BLURB

Sassy, successful Faith Brown has earned her place in the boardroom through hard work and sheer ambition. Making family is not on her agenda when there are businesses to develop and competitors to outdo. So when a casual affair with smooth and irresistible tycoon Mark Essien leads to an unplanned pregnancy, she’s determined not to make the mistakes her mother made by living with a man just for the sake of her child.

For Mark, personal matters have no place in the boardroom. Spotting the perfect opportunity, he ruthlessly launches a takeover bid for Faith’s Investment Brokerage firm. Finding out he’ll soon be a father, he knows he can’t let the indomitable and sexy Faith go through with her plans of single parenthood. All gloves are off. He’ll seduce her by any tactic necessary if it means his child doesn’t suffer the same stigma he did as a child.

With the media dogging their affairs in the boardroom and the bedroom, they find that making family is harder than making scandal.

BUY LINKS

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes and Noble / Smashwords

My review

Making Scandal has got to be one of the best books I’ve read by Kiru Taye. I say this with a lot of enthusiasm because I’ve read most of her other books and enjoyed them all.

I find this novel to be balanced with drama, heat, miscommunication, emotional stress and lots of stubbornness.

Faith is a wonderful heroine whom I could relate to. A fiercely independent woman who has plowed her way through the business world with her own skill and determination. Needing no man to take care of her or ‘tie her to the kitchen sink,’ she is brought up short when she meets Mark Essien.

Rich, powerful, handsome and alpha incarnate. My goodness Ms. Taye can write hot male characters that you’ll want to pluck off the page and into your life.

I have nothing but praise for this story and I can’t wait for the last Essien’s novel to come out. If it supersedes this one then I’ll have to get a new rating system.

I give Making Scandal five out of five swivel chair chocolate bars.

TEASER

EXCERPT

Faith's cheeks heated and she half-laughed, half-coughed in a self-conscious manner. Her body still tingled as if it finally woke up from a long sleep. A really long sleep.

"Of course, I wasn’t expecting that finally getting you to loosen up will get me so out of control I was going to explode within seconds like a teenager."

How could he say that or even expect her to believe it? In the past year, he hadn’t exactly been lonely. Unlike her. He shouldn’t pretend this was more than it was. Sex. Lust. That’s all they had.

She rolled over, trying to cover herself up in a semblance of decency. The thought of him with other women had her heart clenching tightly.

"If I believe that, I’ll believe anything." She pulled herself up and away from him. "You forget that your pictures have been splashed over the papers with different women hanging on your arms this past year."

The mattress depressed as he sat on the edge. Tendrils of his heat curled around her. Breathing saturated her lungs with his spice. Need bubbled in her veins. She closed her eyes, hating the tightness in her chest.

Remember, this is just sex. It doesn’t matter how many women he’s been with this past year.

Bullshit. Her hands clenched into fists, tightening on the seams of her clothes.

"Yes, I’ve attended events with women all because you refuse to be seen publicly with me. I would rather have had you as my escort on those occasions."

Fingers, steel bands, wrapped around her ankles and tugged. Eyes flying open, she gulped in air and slid down the bed on her back until her legs straddled his hips. One by one, he removed her shoes and massaged her bare feet. His fingers worked blissful magic. She purred, to her dismay.

"But I haven’t had sex with another woman since I met you at that conference in Jo’burg."

CONNECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

You can reach Kiru via her blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest

Follow her blog for latest news and giveaways: http://kirutayewrites.blogspot.com

Read book excerpts and free short stories on her website: http://www.kirutaye.com

Link to her Amazon author page

GIVEAWAY

Kiru is running a contest during the book tour. She is giving away a $20 Gift card, one Making Scandal T-Shirt, one Essien Trilogy cap and a signed copy of A Valentine Challenge. For your chance to win, complete the rafflecopter entries. This contest is open internationally to eligible entrants over 18 years or as applicable in their country of residence.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

CATCH UP ON THE OTHER ESSIEN TRILOGY BOOK
Keeping Secrets is 99cents /77pence for a limited time only

Have you ever loved someone and didn’t even know it?

That’s the dilemma facing Felix Essien when he wakes from a coma to find he is married to the most beautiful and sensual woman he’s ever known. He cannot remember her or their wedding. He who had sworn never to get married or to give his heart to another. Yet he feels an intense bond with her that he intends to explore fully.

Ebony can’t believe her good fortune when her paper husband wakes not remembering the temporary marriage arrangement with no intimacies he’d proposed but is now the adoring husband she’s always dreamt of. She plans to make the most of the passion blossoming between them. However would he still feel that way when he regains his memory and realises she’s been keeping secrets and their marriage is not what he thinks it is.

BUY LINKS

Amazon US | Amazon UK | All Romance | Smashwords | Barnes and Noble

Review: Seduced by Pain by Karpov Kinrade

The Constantine portion of Prah and Constantine Reviews turned me onto book one of Rose’s Story  (Read my review here).  I was hooked by book one and went on to buy the full boxed set of the series from Amazon.com.

The Blurb

Their passion will destroy them.
Only true love can save them.

"Hope is a fragile thing, yet strangely enduring. It hides in the crevices of pain, burrowing deep until unseen, for fear that sorrow, in its rage, will devour hope's desperate hold on the heart. 

It can live there for years, silent and waiting. Or, it can be slaughtered with a word— mankind's most powerful weapon.

They say that universes are created with words.

And with words, they are destroyed.

Just as mine has been."

In the sequel to Seduced by Innocence, Derek and Rose face even greater threats to their love. As Derek fights to protect his family's source of power, Rose struggles to control her own.

My Review

As promised, Book two continued where one left off with a new major player. This individual made me think about the balance of good and evil and how most things or people aren’t one or the other, it’s all about the circumstances we find ourselves in. He actually had me rooting for him for a short while, but then I remembered myself.

I enjoyed the second book as much as I did the first. There were some scenes (sexual in nature) which surprised me. I’ll admit that there were times when I feared that my eyes would get stuck in my head from the excessive eye-rolling due to the drama of the novel which endeared it to me.

I’m looking forward to reading part three I have a feeling there’ll be a spectacular ending.

I give Seduced by Pain four out of five chocolate bars.

The Wolf on the Run by Jorja Lovett #NewRelease #Bookblast

I'm very happy to  be spotlighting book two in the The Wild Irish Wolves series. I read book one, The Wolf on the Hill, and loved it. See my review here. 

Short Blurb:

Alpha Rory is determined to protect his pack, including feisty Naomi. How can he get close when she's intent on facing her demons alone?

Long Blurb:

As a police officer and Alpha of the Olcan Hills' pack, being a protector is in Rory Blake's DNA.

When Naomi Duffy turned up heavily pregnant and alone, Rory's natural instinct was to look after her. However, her fierce need for independence over the years has ensured they've never been anything more than friends.

Naomi has spent too long trying to keep her daughter safe to jeopardise everything for a fling. But, when her past threatens to catch up with her, Rory is the only person she trusts with her life.

Thrown together, the couple finally succumb to their passion and it's all too easy to forget the danger lurking in the hills.

Do Rory and Naomi have a future together, or will secrets from the past tear them apart?

Excerpt:

Naomi came after Rory, pitting her stealthy grace against his sheer power. In his peripheral vision, he could see the wisps of her breath spiralling into the cold air as she forged ahead, determined to catch him. Rory snorted, sending his own white breath curling up into the atmosphere.

He led her over the hills, their claws making short work of carving up the cold, hard terrain. Naomi never lost ground. Even when he made a turn towards the woods on the boundary, she kept pace.

The chase awakened something deep inside him—that animal freedom with no responsibilities except the survival of himself and his pack. The spiky silhouettes of barren trees lined his path, like broad strokes of a black marker pen scratched against the silver sky.

He dodged in and out, never slowing, with Naomi always in pursuit. Occasionally, a pair of woodland eyes blinked at him from the darkness—a rabbit, a fox, observing their bizarre courtship.

Rory had no doubt the exhilaration of their illicit run would end in wild sex between him and Naomi. It was like a very enthusiastic bout of foreplay without actual touching.

They crunched through the leaf-littered forest floor until he tired of being the hunted. He looped back the way they came and stopped in a clearing. In all aspects of life he preferred to be the one doing the chasing, but at this moment in time he wanted nothing more than to be caught.

He shifted back into his naked, horny self. Naomi came to a skidding halt seconds later, scooting a bundle of leaves over his bare feet. “You can run, wolf lady, I'll give you that. Now can we go back to bed?”

She shifted back to stand beautifully naked before him. “Not until you say it.”

“Say what?” He was hard as hell and ready for round two.

“That I’m as good as you.” She gave him a flirty smile. One which said she was looking forward to the future rather than staring back at the past. The run had obviously done wonders for her too.

“That was probably a fluke. I don’t think you could keep up with me on a normal day. You know, one where you haven’t seduced me on top of a car boot and made me carry you home first.” The play fighting wasn’t limited to their animal personas. Not when it proved such a turn on. Human or wolf, the scent of Naomi’s arousal would always draw him to her.

“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time. But, if you’re tired, just say and we’ll call it a night.” She shrugged her shoulders, making her boobs jiggle enough to bring his erection to full strength once more.

He stepped forward and brushed her wild hair from her face. “I’ll never be too tired for you, Naomi. I’ll race you back. This time the winner stays on top.”

She grinned, eyes twinkling as bright as the stars. “You’re on.”

This was one race he intended to lose.

Available from Total-E-Bound 4th October

On general release from 1st November

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