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The Kiss Quotient
RECOMMENDED: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang is $1.99! This is a Kindle Daily Deal. I’m jealous of those who get to read this for the first time. We had a wonderful guest squee of this and it was my favorite read of 2018:
I truly loved this book. Loved. It made me feel like a champagne bubble – all fizzy and light. When I think of all the magical feelings romance gives its readers, I will forever think of this book.
A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there’s not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.
Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases–a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.
It doesn’t help that Stella has Asperger’s and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice–with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan–from foreplay to more-than-missionary position…
Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he’s making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic…
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A Memory Called Empire
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine is $2.99! Another Kindle Daily Deal! It’s the first book in a new sci-fi series and we had Arkady on the podcast. The episode focuses on narratology and I found it fascination. Did you listen to this episode? The book has impressive 4.1-star rating on Goodreads.
Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn’t an accident–or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan’s unceasing expansion–all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret–one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life–or rescue it from annihilation.
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Too Wild to Tame
Too Wild to Tame by Tessa Bailey is $2.99! This is the second book in the Romancing the Clarksons series. This romance features a political consultant hero and a senator’s daughter. Readers loved the grumpy, serious hero, but wanted more of the angst that was in the first book. I also totally get it if you want to steer clear of politics in romance right now.
Sometimes you just can’t resist playing with fire…
By day, Aaron Clarkson suits up, shakes hands, and acts the perfect gentleman. But at night, behind bedroom doors, the tie comes off and the real Aaron comes out to play. Mixing business with pleasure got him fired, so Aaron knows that if he wants to work for the country’s most powerful senator, he’ll have to keep his eye on the prize. That’s easier said than done when he meets the senator’s daughter, who’s wild, gorgeous, and 100 percent trouble.
Grace Pendleton is the black sheep of her conservative family. Yet while Aaron’s presence reminds her of a past she’d rather forget, something in his eyes keeps drawing her in. Maybe it’s the way his voice turns her molten. Or maybe it’s because deep down inside, the ultra-smooth, polished Aaron Clarkson might be more than even Grace can handle…
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King’s Captive
RECOMMENDED: King’s Captive by Amber Bardan is $1.99 at Amazon! If you’re looking for a mindfuck of a romance novel, this comes highly recommended by Elyse. She gave this romance an A:
If you like darker romance or like me love a good psychological thriller, King’s Captive is so much your catnip. If you prefer your hero to be squeaky clean, then maybe steer clear.
For three years, I’ve belonged to Julius King.
Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell.
Because I’m not here as a guest. Not even close. I’m a prisoner. I’m his.
Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous.
There are parts of me he wants that I can’t give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too.
Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can’t let him have any piece of my heart. I won’t. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways.
I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.
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KING’S CAPTIVE is one of my all-time favorite romances (although, as you note, it is quite dark and the hero is not exactly heroic at times). I love that you really don’t know what’s going on or how the hero & heroine are actually connected to each other for most of the book. I’ve read a number of other Bardan books (a couple of which also have unexpected twists) and they’ve been good, but KING’S CAPTIVE is her ne plus ultra.
The blurbs for darker, twistier romances always seem to imply a heavy-duty submission-by-heroine dynamic. I want to read more twisty psychological romance, but submission-by-heroine narratives sort of have the opposite of their intended effect on me. Does anyone know of something dark and twisty with a different kind of dynamic, or that at least ends with a very different dynamic? It would work for me if it started with her submission but then changed so that she was no longer submissive by the end, but that’s not something one can glean from a blurb.
King’s Captive was a mind f*** for me…was not ready for the twist and I loved it! Definitely dark though, so YMMV.
If you don’t have Kiss Quotient, snag it! It’s adorable!
@Star: I’ve found that M/M lets me read the dark stuff and the BDSM stuff without me getting all mad about “why’s it always the woman who has to learn to submit?”
There were some nice elements in The Kiss Quotient (I loved Michael’s family, for starters), but I was ultimately disappointed. There were so many things that taxed my credulity, plus I think Michael too often went over the line re consent. If someone sets boundaries, don’t ignore them because you think it’s for their own good. In the end, I didn’t think it was a viable relationship.
@Star: I agree with @Teev that m/m is probably the way to go if you’re looking for dark but don’t like the “male=dom, female=sub” dynamic of a lot of dark m/f romance. I will say, as someone who reads quite a lot of dark romance (and doesn’t have a problem with the gendered dynamics of it), that mafia/mob/crime romances can get very dark without actually going into D/s or bdsm territory—although there’s often abduction/captivity/revenge and other dark goings-on.
I remember Elyse’s critique! It made me wild to read King’s Captive. But because of the critique, I had guessed what the twist was before even starting the book, so my reading experience was a bit of a let-down. I kept wanting to give the heroine a good dressing down and couldn’t see why the hero was so hung up on her.
King’s Captive is the reason I’m careful reading SBTB critiwues now. I go for the first few paragraphs and if I’m positive I want that book, sometimes I stop (I’m the kind of personne who can’t resist those spoiler boxes…)
@Star: can I suggest ‘Untouchable’ by Sam Mariano? The heroine was poised and took her time to think things through. There’s no BDSM play. BUT, check it out first, the CW is long — I stumbled on it after coming across the ‘bully romance’ moniker and searching out what it was. There’s a loooong Goodread list of titles for that trope, but I got turned off when most positive reviews were just strings of !!!!!!!!!!!! and gifs. The 4-5-stars reviews for Untouchable on the other hand were coherent and made it look interesting; one reviewer said that like other Mariano titles, the h/h were sure as heck dysfunctionals, but they fit together. Having read it, I 100% agree with that reviewer.
~Snatching up The Kiss Quotient Tks!~
The Kiss Quotient taught me that it’s not always a good idea to be too specific in describing a scene.
At one point, the heroine was driving east on El Camino Real, and I was jerked out of the story because, as anyone who’s lived on the San Francisco peninsula could tell you, that street that runs north/south, not east/west. (It was the first road between San Francisco in the north down to San Jose in the south.)
I actually stopped reading, put down the book and looked on a map to confirm that yes, in the particular city she was in, the road momentarily takes an easterly bend.
Anything that takes a reader out of the story enough to make them put the book down is not a good thing. That piece of overly specific description was not necessary to the story, didn’t add anything, and distracted me. So I’ve learned not to be too descriptive in my stories.
Who said romance novels aren’t educational? 😉
@ Star, Charlotte Stein writes some good books where the woman is the dominant one. I particularly like her series of short stories in Captivated.
@Star: SMEXY had a guest post from Joey Hill today about how readers react differently to Doms versus Dommes. It makes very interesting reading (lots of food for thought):
https://smexybooks.com/2020/07/guest-post-dom-vs-domme-why-the-double-standard-by-joey-w-hill.html
@Star Try Deep Desires by Charlotte Stein. It’s dark, erotic and unusual, which I’ve come to appreciate.