Knockout

Knockout by Sarah MacLean is $1.99! Not sure if this is a leftover KDD. This is the third book in the Hell’s Belles series. For those who read the series, what did you think about this one and the series as a whole?
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The Trouble with Inventing a Viscount by Vivienne Lorret is $1.99! This is book two in The Liar’s Club historical romance series. Book three is out this summer.
Honoria Hartley enjoys flirting far too much to consider marrying. And besides, she’s been betrothed since birth to the long-lost Viscount Vandemere. But no one has actually ever met the viscount and, without an heir, the title will soon become extinct. So she’s willing to do anything to keep her viscount alive, even if she has to invent him herself.
Oscar Flint is a first-rate gambler. Estranged from his father’s side of the family his entire life, he grew up beneath the tutelage of a legendary con artist. There isn’t anyone who could pull the wool over his eyes. Not until he crosses paths with Honoria. Losing to her puts him in a bind… Until he remembers her story about a lost heir to a viscountcy. An heir that no one has ever met. Not yet, anyway.
When Oscar arrives on Honoria’s doorstep, claiming to be Vandemere, she is thrown for a loop. This rogue is not her viscount. The only problem is, he’s quite convincing, and when he kisses her, the line between the lie and the truth becomes hazy in all the steam they create. Honoria refuses to gamble with her heart. But Oscar has never played by the rules and he’s determined to win, no matter the cost.
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RECOMMENDED: Mine to Take by Jackie Ashenden is 99c! In tomorrow’s RT Rewind, Sarah and I discuss how Ashenden’s books felt like a precursor to today’s dark romance. Elyse read this and really enjoyed it. She gave the book an A-:
I immensely enjoyed the start of this series and am looking forward to the rest of the books. If you like sexy biker gang president CEO heroes who are bossy in the bedroom–and let’s be honest, who doesn’t?–then consider picking up Mine to Take.
First in a brand new series featuring the members of the Nine Circles Club—friends bound together by power, secrets, need…and the love they will find and stop at nothing to keep.
Passion always comes at a price.
Gabriel Woolf is unstoppable. A ruthless businessman, he has perfected the art of revenge. Ever since his mother’s death, Gabriel has harbored only one wish: To take down the man who ruined their lives. But all bets are off when he meets his father’s step-daughter, Honor St. James. Beautiful and innocent, she is everything Gabriel never knew he wanted—and now there’s no turning back…
Is her desire worth the risk?
Honor wasn’t born yesterday. She knows that Gabriel is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, willing to cross any line to get what he wants…herself included. But Gabriel’s passion for Honor—in spite of her connection to the man he hates the most—cannot be denied…and the feeling is utterly mutual. Can Gabriel be trusted? The only thing she knows for sure is how he makes her feel. And she can’t keep herself from coming back to him, over and over again…
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We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Heiress

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins is $1.99! We mentioned this mystery in January 2024’s Hide Your Wallet. I know Elyse is a big fan of Hawkins’ mysteries. Did you read this one?
When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate—along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish—pass to her adopted son, Camden.
But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.
Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.
Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.
But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.
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MINE TO TAKE is vintage, pre-HP Ashenden. I’ve always loved Jackie Ashenden’s angsty-sexy style (her TAKING HIM, from 2014, is one of my all-time favorite comfort rereads). One of the things she manages to do so well is leave some family issues unresolved (her books are little with absent, abusive, distant, or dead parents), acknowledging that falling in love doesn’t magically erase a lifetime of dysfunctional parenting. She did tone down the heat level somewhat when she started writing for Harlequin Presents (not by much though—Ashenden’s is still the only HP I’ve read with the word “cock” in it), but her older stuff is a primo balance of smoking-hot sexy-times and heart-rending angst. So, so good.
KNOCKOUT was okay—I can’t seem to quit Sarah MacLean even though I don’t really like her books? I have read 17 of them? And liked maybe three? It continues to baffle me. In any case, the book dragged and I would characterize the second half of the book as “blah blah blah police corruption blah blah blah danger sex blah blah blah denouement.” But I will still read the next one because we finally are going to meet Duchess’s husband.
$.99:
– His Brutal Heart (West Coast Mobsters Book 2) by Leighton Greene
– The Rebel (Spade Hotel Series Book 2) by Marni Mann
– Faking It With the Race Driver: Faking It Series by Jenny Redford
Free:
– One Night with a Millionaire (Daring Divorcees Book 1) by Shannyn Schroeder
– Off the Hook: A Small Town Single Dad Romance (Never Harbor Book 1) by Julie Olivia
– The Break Series (Phoebe & Madsen, The Love Story) by Andrea Johnston
Desert Island Duke and several of her German and Italian translations by Kate Bateman are half off at Smashwords
Tara Eldana’s Kinklink titles are free or discounted at Smashwords
I’m constantly leery of books where characters’ “passion cannot be denied” or they “can’t help going back” when a relationship is clearly not wise on its face. I want to tell them to adult-up and control themselves already.
Just once I want to read a romance blurb about a sexy alpha billionaire whatever whose name is, like, Ernest Cleeves.
Knockout continues the trend of the Hell’s Belles series getting sillier and less realistic with each installment. I’ve been a fan of Sarah Maclean’s previous series and read almost everything she’s written, but the Hell’s Belles series is almost a different genre than her previous historical romances. If you’re looking for a lighthearted, historically flavored romance, you may still enjoy them, but be warned that there is frequent use of the following:
– Characters casually commit serious felonies and get away with them by being cute
– No consequences for actions, i.e. being “ruined” just means you don’t have to have a chaperone any more but doesn’t come with any social consequences or loss of opportunity
– The heroes being repeatedly sidelines out of the story, even at the climax, so that the Power of Female Friendship can save the day (I mean, I’m all about female friendship, but one of the reason I read romance is because I also like strong, capable men)
– For Knockout specifically: a heroine with so little self-awareness it seems like a diagnosable condition. Blowing up government buildings isn’t just entertainment and pretty sparkles. She doesn’t seem to understand real-world consequences, and I didn’t feel like this was addressed sufficiently.