Flawless by Carrie Lofty is on sale for $1.99. This is a historical romance set partially in South Africa in the diamond industry. The series focuses on four siblings who inherit their father's business (diamonds, obviously), and this romance is a second chance story with an illegitmate heroine daughter and her estranged husband. This book has a 3.9-star average, and readers who enjoyed it really liked the heroine and the historical details of the setting. (Personally, I love the cover, except I keep getting distracted by the position of her legs.) Have you read this book?
A passion this seductive is more precious than diamonds…
Sir William Christie, ruthless tycoon and notorious ladies' man, is dead. Now his four grown children have gathered for the reading of his will. What lies in store for stepsiblings Vivienne, Alexander, and twins Gareth and Gwyneth? Stunning challenges that will test their fortitude across a royal empire…and lead them to the marvelously passionate adventures of their lives.
Lady Vivienne Bancroft fled England for New York, hoping to shed the confines of her arranged marriage to unrepentant rogue Miles Durham, Viscount Bancroft—though she never forgot the fiery desire he unleashed with his slightest touch. And when the gambling man arrives on her doorstep for a little sensual revenge for her desertion, he is met with Vivienne's dilemma: She must earn her father's inheritance by profitably running a diamond business worth millions in colonial South Africa.
Swept together in an exotic undertaking filled with heated passion and hungry temptation, will Vivienne and Miles discover that the marriage vows they once made are the greatest snare—or the most treasured reward?
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Once She Was Tempted by Anne Barton is $1.99. This is book two in her Honeycote series, and this romance has a 3.9-star average on GR. This story is the historical version of a celebrity posing for nude photographs early in her career. The heroine posed for two scandalous portraits and now that she's a debutante, the guardian of the man she's being encouraged to marry is convinced that she's a gold digger and uses one of the paintings as blackmail to get her away from his ward. And of course he's totally attracted to her because obviously.
A Portrait of a Lady
…or is it? The risqué painting owned by Benjamin Elliot, the earl of Foxburn, features a stunning beauty with sapphire eyes, golden hair, and creamy skin. Ben recognizes this particular English rose the instant he meets her—though she's wearing considerably more clothing. In person, the demure debutante is even more irresistible…
In desperate need of money for her sick mother, Daphne Honeycote had posed for two scandalous portraits. Now she must hide her secret to save the Honeycote family name. Ben's possession of one painting makes him an insufferable thorn in her side—and yet he may be her best chance at finding the canvas's companion.
As she becomes drawn to the dark-tempered earl, can Daphne risk laying bare the secrets of her heart?
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The Illicit Love of a Courtesan by Jane Lark is $1.99. This is historical fiction with heavy doses of romance that's based on a true story, and it has a 3.8-star average. Readers who liked it said it was emotional, heartwrenching, and very powerfully written. Have you read this book?
Trapped under the reign of a cruel keeper, Ellen Harding longs to be free. Under his oppression, her soul and conscience have died while her body lives on, fulfilling his dissolute desires. She is empty—a vessel—deaf to the voice of morality and blind to shame.
When her eyes are drawn to a beautiful man for no other reason than his looks, she imagines what it would be like to escape her chains for a night by giving her body to him.
But Edward Marlow is kind and gentle when he touches her, and her subconscious whispers, this man could be her salvation. Yet how can he help her when she has secrets which prevent her freedom?
Edward is restless, lonely, and a little angry with his lot in life—it is his only excuse for being drawn to another man’s mistress. The woman’s dark hair and pale eyes are striking, and he cannot take his gaze off her while she watches him over the top of a fan with an illicit intent in her eyes.
Once he’s known her, he cannot forget her, and once he’s seen the evidence of her supposed benefactor’s brutality, he wants to help her. But how can he when she will not run any more than she will speak of her past?
When a desperate Ellen finally relents and shocks Edward from his sleep, he doesn’t hesitate, he helps her flee. He just doesn’t know he’s running headlong into the secrets of her past.
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Top Pot Hand Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker is $1.99 digitally. Thank you to Donna Marie for the heads up on this one yesterday. She says:
Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts By Mark Klebeck, Michael Klebeck, and Jess Thomson. Which any Lauren Dane fan will tell you is apparently Mecca for the donut lover.. I stayed in a hotel next door and let me tell, the doughnuts, they are orgasmically good-especially after 6 hours of air/bus travel. She mentions Top Pot in a book, and I start salivating.
Among enthusiasts, Seattle's Top Pot Doughnuts reigns supreme.
Now, doughnut aficionados everywhere can enjoy these tasty treats at home. Committed bakers, casual home cooks, and sweet-toothed fans will eat up these 50 tried-and-true recipes from classic Old-Fashioneds to the signature Pink Feather Boa and become experts themselves after learning the secrets of doughnut-making tools, terms, and techniques (no, you don't need a deep fryer).
And the selections of toppings and glazes, from chocolate to lavender? That's just icing on the doughnut.
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Is the lady in the first cover at the ob/gyn? Is that the way diamond heiresses get their pap smears?
Maybe she’s post-coital and putting her feet against the headboard because her temps have just risen and she’s determined this’ll be the month..? (Wait, do romance heroines ever have fertility angst?)
I’m not sure I could enjoy this one, having read a bit about the history of the diamond industry in South Africa. It would be a bit like reading about an heiress in the sugarcane industry in the 1800s.
I have read “Flawless” and I liked it quite a bit. I may have to grab this, since it’s just a bout the last paperback I bought before my conversion to the Kindle world, and an e-copy would be nice. Cover is pretty neat to look at, but doesn’t have much to do with the heroine, who has an inferiority complex to begin with (being illegitimate and found in destitution and adopted into the family of her father and his new wife) and now has to deal with a will that requires she get a shaky diamond mine on it’s financial feet in a limited time frame, all while hanging out with her irresponsible, estranged husband. With so much on her plate, she doesn’t have a lot of time to be sumptuous. But the maturing of the characters and second chance story line is well done, and the reader learns about the diamond mining business in a nice natural way, since the h and H are learning the business as they go. (I found the side point of whether there is a successful avenue to pursue mining industrial diamonds to be very engrossing, but I’m a geek, what can I say.). The near-failed marriage, angsty relationship and sexual tension keep the interest up and the pages turning.
BTW, the late Dad had multiple business interests and a tricky will, so the other sibling’s books do not deal with diamonds.
I loved Flawless—maybe it’s in part because I don’t know much about the diamond industry overall or about South Africa, but I really enjoyed the different setting, plus this is a second-chance story, which I also loved. It was great to have the hero and heroine finding how the other has changed and finding a way to work together in a place that was incredibly different for them also.
And tealadytoo said all that so much more eloquently, so yes, what she said!
Once She Was Tempted is still showing 7.99 on my Nook. 🙁
I loved the first book in this series.
Annnndddd then I clicked the link and it was 1.99. WTF? I did a search on the shopping tab of my Nook reader and I swear it was showing 7.99. Glad I double checked.
I’m another fan of Flawless. What the cover and the description are leaving out is that once the hero gets to the mining town he immediately realizes that he should carry a whip at all times. And so he does and it is awesome. He goes from useless drunk aristo to Indiana Jones but good at business. From the author who brought us the story of the blind alchemist and Will Scarlett (yep). I think she’s great.
Romance, shomance. Just gimme the doughnuts!!
I tried to give Flawless, a chance, but two things stopped me:
1. Beyonce would get stuck in my head every time I thought of the title, and
2. the hero thinks, when he witnesses the brutality of Africans’ everyday existence under colonial rule that it’s not sportsmanlike or British to treat people this way. Come on, buddy. There’s practically nothing more British than the brutalization, subjugation, and economic exploitation of colonized people.
Nuha – given that Flawless takes place in the early 1880s, I can hardly fault Miles for lacking a post-colonial perspective. It’s actually more jarring for me when characters in historicals have 21st centuries beliefs and values; it rings false.
Like tealadytoo and other commenters here, I really liked Flawless. I wish Lofty would continue the Christie series. There were supposed to be books for all four siblings but only two have been published and none since 2012.
I was hoping the “Flawless” sale signaled the imminent release of another Christies book, but perhaps that is overly optimistic.
I tried The Illicit Love of a Courtesan after reading this post. I got about 1/3 of the way through and had to read Courtney Milan’s Unraveled as a chaser so I could try to shoot the rest of Illicit, but that just made it worse (that book was Amaze!). At 56% (I miss page numbers. Like, a lot), when the heroine lets her son get dragged off by yet another villain, and I’d waded through so, many, damn, commas that I was almost, dizzy, I had to tap out. The plot driving secrets, the almost weird love-at-first-site, the fact that I’m told this woman has endured years of physical, mental, and emotional abuse at the same time I’m asked to believe she’s all hot and bothered for the hero with no emotional attachments AT ALL…it drove me nuts and then finally pissed me off. I wanted to throw the book, but I’m reading it on my Kindle. So I came here instead.
Loved the cover of the Kindle edition though…very pretty. I really wanted to like this book, and not only because I can’t a buy another book for the rest of the month.
And…I apologize in advance, I just realized this might not be the place to post this kind of rant?