I first met Ker Dukey back when I first met K Webster, reading their serial killer series, Pretty Little Dolls. BTW, go fucking read that series, because it’s fanfuckingtastic. Anyway, Lost Boy isn’t part of that series, but it does involve a serial killer. And it’s intense and so good.
We start with Willis’s wife meeting him in jail. Willis is a serial killer and she wants to confront him and he wants to see her. She leaves him telling him that he’s never going to see the boy she’s pregnant with.
Flash forward several years and Willis manages to escape from prison during a transport. He wants his boy.
Jack and his mother have become good friends with Liz and her mother. The kids are 7 and best friends. They are inseparable and they love to play Marco Polo. One day, a car rushes into the driveway and their mothers grab the kids and tell them to hide. Jack and Liz hide under the bed and listen to the atrocities that are happening. All of a sudden, Jack is pulled out from under the bed and away from her. She waits and waits and waits until the cops pull her out.
Many years later, Liz is all grown up and living on her own. She’s in college and living with a good friend. She’s taking psychology, working, and trying to be as “normal” as possible. It doesn’t always work. And it only gets worse as all of a sudden women whose lives touch hers start to die. She’s convinced that Willis has come back and is going to get her.
The book is told exclusively from Liz’s POV. And I think that makes it so much more intense. We don’t see anything from anyone else’s POV, and I think that makes the story that much more intense. I think that at times reality only has a passing relationship to anything in this book, but it can be difficult to tell if or when that happens.
I spent a lot of time while I was reading this with my heart in my throat. I didn’t know what was going to happen next and things that I would happen didn’t happen, or even worse, happened in a completely differrent way, if that makes sense. It makes sense to me at least, and it’s my brain that has to make any kind of sense out of anything.
Anyhow, I like Liz. She really does try to make some sense out of the madness that is her life and she really tries to use some of the trauma to help her out later in her life. I think that she is really strong, even as she’s vulnerable and fragile at the same time. It’s a very careful line that Ker had to walk, and I think that she really did well. And it’s totally fantastic.
OK, that’s all for this one. No spoilers because pretty much anything is going to be a spoiler, so you are just going to have to go read it. Really, read it.
When Willis Langford, the infamous serial killer, dubbed The Hollywell slayer, enters Lizzy West’s life, he leaves blood and pain in his wake. Kidnapping his son, her best friend Jack, and killing those who try to stop him.
After witnessing unimaginable evil, the echoes of that day haunt Lizzy into adulthood.
Fifteen-year on, Willis is still at large. When new murders begin to happen with the signatures of the infamous Hollywell slayer, Lizzy’s life turns upside down.
With death stalking her, Lizzy isn’t prepared for a ruggedly handsome mystery man to enter her world, shaking up her already turbulent life. Their connection is palpable, the intensity mind-blowing, the familiarity terrifying.
Lizzy’s world is about to turn on its axis. She will need to question everything she thought she knew.
Ker Dukey is an International bestselling author based in the United Kingdom.
Genres include:
Dark Romance, Psychological Thriller, New Adult Romance, Romantic Suspense, and Erotic Romance. Ker, is an international bestselling author, with over thirty titles published. Her titles have held multiple #1 bestseller banners and have had rights sold to numerous countries.
In addition to being an author, Ker is an annoying wife and a mother of three children + one dog (who thinks he’s human.) She has a passion for reading and binge-watching crime documentaries.
Find her on social media, where she loves interacting with her readers.
May is the one who introduced me to Lucy, and am I ever glad! Liars is the second book in a co-written series by these ladies called Licking Thicket. And yes, there is every single double entendre that you can possibly think of. And more. I highly recommend reading the first one, Fakers, even though the books don’t have to be read in order. But it’s just funny as fuck, especially since it concerns a festival with Lickin’ in the name.
Parrish has decided that he’s going to run his uncle’s new restaurant in Licking Thicket. He needs to get out of Memphis, and Licking Thicket is just what the doctor ordered. He is predictable, steady, dependable, and you can set your watch by him. Parrish always goes to work, and he works very hard. Even if he doesn’t necessarily need to be there. He’ss very dedicated. One day, he’s in the court house when he runs into a gorgeous man who is struggling with a young baby girl, who then pukes all over the guy. Parrish helps him out, and kinda tells him off in the bathroom too, and then finds out that the guy is there for a custody battle.
Diesel is at a loss. His sister died and left him as the guardian of her beautiful baby girl. He knows less than nothing about babies, but he knows that he loves this precious baby girl. He has to go to court because the rich family who adopted his sister are trying to take custody, and he isn’t going to let that happen. But, he’s not rich. He owns a salvage yard, and he found his attorney on the back of a bathroom door. So far, though, the judge appears to be on his side. But Diesel’s attorney tells him that there are a lot of things that would help him win his case, including being in a steady relationship. Up comes Parrish with an apology casserole and Diesel introduces him as his fiance.
This is really ridiculously funny. There are all kinds of jokes, double entendres, funny situations, and even a really bad first date with lots of talk about fishing. There are also fake fiances, apology baby baskets, and well-meaning friends. And chickens. Lots and lots of chickens.
Both of these guys have hard spots in their history that make it hard for them to want to help or trust someone, but they aren’t broken by those things, just a little bent around the edges. They are both truly loving, caring men who want to help others and to make sure that a beautiful little girl stays with the people who love her most and who are going to be able to care for her the best.
I really liked watching Diesel and Parrish’s relationship grow and watching them grow beyond their damage and into new people together. Their relationship turns them into someone who is better. Not that they were ever bad to begin with.
And I adore all the people of Licking Thicket and how they are all up in everyone’s business. The whole town really is a family, I think. A huge, very dysfunctional family.
Miss Sarabeth is about the most awesome person ever, and I’m pretty sure she’s a tricksy hobbitses too.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
A chain of lies spoken by trusted parents, stolen possibilities from a lover, the wrongful conviction of a stranger, and betrayal by the greatest ally. Pain corrupts their minds, twists their souls, and schemes a plan for death. Their victims will face karma, delivered as retribution.
And nothing will stop them…
“Thirty,” Remi blurted.
“Thirty what? It’s going to take more than a measly thirty bucks to get you out of this, Remington.”
“Thirty seconds,” Remi pushed anxiously. She needed more time.
“Fourteen. No more. No less.”
Remi mumbled to herself. Maybe this was just a sick joke that would reveal itself after the fourteen seconds were up.
“Ready, little rabbit?” Zachary’s voice was low and threatening. Danger.
When the voices begin to speak, Jade Royal sits down in her lab to write the tale. The story unfolds with each keystroke as she listens to her instincts bring the words to life. For as long as she can remember, Jade has always expressed her creative nature artistically, especially by writing. She refers to herself as “Slave to the Pen” because it’s difficult for her to resist the call to write.
Jade resides in Cincinnati, Ohio where she was born and raised. She has many siblings and is very family oriented. She spends Sunday evenings eating dinner with them keeping the bond between family nice and strong.
As an international bestselling author, Jade hopes to pull in her readers to experience a community of stories that they can relate to on various levels. The emotional roller coaster that is bestowed will hopefully make her readers stalk her words and provide literate entertainment.
For more information on Jade Royal, follow her on her website and social media avenues.
There’s nothing hotter than a tall, gruff, bewildered, tattooed mountain of a man cuddling a sweet, orphaned baby, so you can tell yourself that you’ll resist him…
But that’s a lie.
And when that man asks you to do him a favor and pretend to be his very temporary, very fake fiance to help him get custody of that adorable baby, you can pretend you know better than to say yes…
But that’s a lie, too.
And when you actually get to know your kind, strong, pullet-loving prince of a fiance, and all his crazy, lovable, meddling neighbors, you can tell yourself you’re not really falling for Diesel Church and the town of Licking Thicket…
A bloodcurdling wail echoed through
the little stairwell, and I froze for a second, then rushed headlong down the
steps two at a time, skidding to a halt halfway down the staircase when I found
the source of the sound—a wriggling baby in a fuzzy pink sweater who was
literally crying herself purple, possibly because the giant, tattooed mountain
of a man holding her was growling down at her with a ferocious scowl on his
face.
I gripped my folder tightly and opened
my mouth to protest even though the guy was twice my size, when the baby’s
cries quieted for half a second and I caught that the man wasn’t growling. He
was… singing?
“Something… sunshine. Only sunshine.
You make me happy. Something gray? Christ.” He heaved a frustrated sigh.
“Marigold, you’ve got to stop now. You’ve made your point. Be reasonable, baby
girl.”
Oh. Oh, good gravy. That changed
everything.
I caught my breath and stared. The man
looked like he’d been torn off the stage at a rock concert, transported to
Nowhere, Tennessee, and stuffed into the outfit I once wore to a middle school
dance. There was no other explanation for a guy with overlong brown-blond hair,
graceful black inked scrolls emerging from the collar of his wrinkled, blue
button-down shirt, shiny Dockers that clung to his tree-trunk thighs, and black
steel-toed boots to have appeared in this stairwell. I sure as heck hadn’t seen
any other guys in this neck of the woods who were so unapologetically
themselves.
And if that weren’t enough to pierce
my heart, the kidlet in his arms was gorgeous, despite her tears and wiggling.
She had a head full of dark curls, way more than should have been possible for
a baby her age, which I’d peg at somewhere around nine months—somewhere past
the shriveled-potato stage of early infancy but not nearly at the terrifying
walking age.
The baby wailed again, and the giant
looked genuinely panicked. He held her flat across his outstretched forearms,
like he was carrying a box of pizza or helping her learn the backstroke, and he
bent his knees in a kind of next-level Oompa Loompa jig in time to his
stammered singing. A pink-and-white striped tote bag sat on the floor next to
the wall.
“Work with me, Marigold, okay? You’re
not hungry, ’cause you just drank ten gallons of formula. You’re not stinky…”
He lifted the kid gingerly. “Not stinky,” he confirmed in a deep, raspy voice
that did things to me. “Are you having an existential crisis? Is that a thing
kids do? Do you need alone time? Are your lips chapped? Do you hate my
cologne?”
The baby fussed harder, flailing her
tiny feet. The man groaned, and I belatedly noticed one of those pacifier
stuffed animal things lying on the floor by the giant’s boot.
I scurried down the stairs and picked
it up. “I think she might be looking for this,” I said, holding it aloft. It
was a gray-and-white polka-dotted chicken with a green sucker on the end.
The guy shut his eyes and shook his
head. “Ah, shit.”
His eyes popped open in shock as he
realized what he’d said, and he looked from me to the kid guiltily. “Fuck, forget
I said that,” he muttered.
After enjoying creative writing as a child, Lucy didn’t write her first novel until she was over 40 years old. Her debut novel, Borrowing Blue, was published in the autumn of 2016. Lucy has an English Literature degree from Vanderbilt University, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the years and years of staying up all night reading tantalizing novels on her own. She has three children, plays tennis, and hates folding laundry. While her husband is no shmoopy romance hero, he is very good at math, cooks a mean lasagne, has gorgeous eyes, looks hot in his business clothes, and makes her laugh every single day.
Lucy hopes you enjoy sexy heroes as much as she does. Happy reading!
May is an M/M author who lives in Boston. She spends her days raising three incredibly sarcastic children, finding inventive ways to drive her husband crazy, planning beach vacations, avoiding the gym, reading M/M romance, and occasionally writing it. She also writes MF romance as Maisy Archer.
I am down to read anything K writes, and I’m a huge fan of fairy tale retellings, so, a K Webster Cinderella retelling? Yes please, especially since I knew that she was going to do something interesting with it. And she did. I’m pretty sure that she went into this deciding that she was going to drive her fans 10000% nuts, because that’s what she did.
Ash Elliot has a problem. She’s stuck living with her dad and his new wife. And oh, the Terror Triplets, her 3 evil step-brothers. Her step-mother got her a job working at a cleaning service, at the most prestigious business possible. But Ash, being a young woman, doesn’t really want to do the job, but she wants to be able to go to college, and this is how she’s going to be able to do it, unless her step-mother pays for it, but then that woman will have a hold on Ash forever.
Winston Constantine is very particular. VERY. PARTICULAR. I would call him a perfectionist, but I don’t think that even scratches the surface of how much of a perfectionist he is. He has to have everything in a very particular way, from how the employees in his office greet him to how clean the office is. So the day he walks into his office and finds a cherry Starburst wrapper on his floor, he gets a little… miffed. Winston decides that he’s going to fire everyone at the cleaning company, then he finds out the woman who left it was Ash. And he makes plans. Devious plans. Really, really devious plans.
Ash is interesting. I liked her a lot. She has goals and she’s willing to do a lot to meet her goals. I think that she was willing to do a lot even before she met Winston, but meeting him opened that up quite a bit. I think that she is brave, even if she doesn’t quite realise it yet. I also think that she is very smart and very determined. I like her a lot, and I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do in the future.
Winston isn’t as bad as he’d like to like to think he is. I mean, he’s not a good guy, definitely not, but he’s not as bad as he thinks he is, at least when it comes to Ash. He is probably much harder when it isn’t about Ash, but we haven’t seen him have to play a lot of hardball. Well, scratch that, we have, but I have a feeling that there is going to be more coming and we’ll definitely see more of him playing hardball.
This is the first part of a duet, and the second part, Prince Charming, is coming. Soon, I hope.
I like Winston’s brother, and I hope that he can help Ash.
OK, that’s all for this one! Go check it out! Happy reading!!
From USA Today bestselling author K Webster comes a brand new forbidden romance that’s going to leave you speechless. Money can buy anything. And anyone. As the head of the Constantine family, I’m used to people bowing to my will. Cruel, rigid, unyielding–I’m all those things. When I discover the one woman who doesn’t wither under my gaze, but instead smiles right back at me, I’m intrigued. Ash Elliott needs cash, and I make her trade in crudeness and degradation for it. I crave her tears, her moans, her submission. I pay for each one. And every time, she comes back for more. When she challenges me with an offer of her own, I have to decide if I’m willing to give her far more than cold hard cash. But love can have deadly consequences when it comes from a Constantine. At the stroke of midnight, that choice may be lost for both of us.
Download today on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Apple, Google Play!
I want to sit behind a desk and crunch numbers. Talk shop. Plan expansions. My dad is an economic analyst, which is what I want to be too. I’d always imagined us going into business together and heading up our own firm.
Cleaning won’t get me there.
I suppose playing nice with Manda the Maneater is my only resort at this point.
For the next hour, I rush through all the offices that don’t need much more than the trash cans emptied, and then make it to the CEO’s office. One day, I’ll have an office like Winston Constantine, but I won’t be some old fuddy duddy. I’ll be a boss babe with style. My employees will love me, because I imagine I’ll be cool as hell. Rather than hire a boring interior designer like whatever robot chose the furniture and décor for Halcyon, I’ll do it all myself.
I’m once again daydreaming of my future that seems more and more murky these days as I fumble through my email on my phone to find the code to get into Big Man’s office. Of all the offices, this one is the coldest and most boring. As though whoever Winston Constantine is, he doesn’t do any sort of work, but instead gazes out the windows all day.
Finally, I locate the code and punch it in.
It’s like twelve numbers long, and I fail a few times before it grants me entry. With a sigh of frustration, I push the door open and drag my rolling cart in after me into the dark office. I hit the light switch with my elbow and leave my cart in front of the door to prop it open. I fidget with the dumb uniform skirt I have to wear and wonder if anyone would notice if I wore jeans instead.
I grab the duster and make a beeline over to the painting on the wall. It’s the best part of the office besides the cool desk that moves up and down and the windows overlooking the most picturesque parts of New York City. I touch the bottom of the frame to check for dust. As I imagined it to be, there’s not a speck.
I’m just moving to the bookshelves when I hear a creak.
“You’re supposed to clean it, not pretend,” a deep, furious voice growls, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me.
“What the fuck, man?” I snap, whirling around, dropping my duster in the process. “You can’t just sneak up…” I trail off as I drink in the man sitting in the desk chair.
Holy shit.
Was he here the whole time?
Fucking creepy!
But there’s nothing creepy about his looks. He’s not a fuddy duddy either, if this is Winston Constantine. He’s fine as hell.
Older. Dressed to the nines in a three-piece navy suit that looks custom-tailored and expensive. A handsome, villainous smirk on his face. His dark blond hair is shorter on the sides and longer on top, styled perfectly, making it look as though he came from a photoshoot at Gucci or something. Just enough scruff to give him an edge despite his otherwise clean-cut appearance. It’s his eyes that are mesmerizing.
Dark blue. Intense. Penetrating.
For some reason, it makes me think about my ex-boyfriend, Tate. The exact opposite of this man. Soft and sweet and gullible. Tate and I were a high school thing, but the moment we graduated a couple of weeks ago, we amicably broke it off knowing we were headed in different directions. This guy looks anything but soft, sweet, or gullible.
He looks scary.
Scary hot.
But still scary.
I clear my throat. “Sorry. I’ll just empty your trash and be out of your way.”
“No,” he rumbles, his voice dripping in a menacing tone. “I’ve been waiting for you. It’s time we chat, little girl.”
Meet K Webster
K Webster is a USA Today Bestselling author. Her titles have claimed many bestseller tags in numerous categories, are translated in multiple languages, and have been adapted into audiobooks. She lives in “”Tornado Alley”” with her husband, two children, and her baby dog named Blue. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and researching aliens.
You can easily find K Webster on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Goodreads!
Can’t find a certain book? Maybe it’s too hot for Amazon! Don’t worry because titles like Bad Bad Bad, This is War, Baby, The Wild, and Hale can all be found for sale on K’s website in both ebook and paperback format.
We have another release from Claire. This one is part of the Ceasefire universe. Sandman is not the continuation of the last book but takes place at the same time. It is also an extended version of a story that appeared in an anthology.
We have Morpheus, who is drunk pretty much out of his mind when he isn’t stoned. He remembers his family being killed, and the drugs are the only things that keep him from feeling pain. He just wants to be left alone with his drugs and his horror filled past, but of course, it’s not that easy. One night, a lost girl runs into his house. She doesn’t know who she is, where she is, or how she got there. She doesn’t even know where there is. But Morpheus feels some kind of way about her, even if he really doesn’t want to.
Robin is our lost girl. She’s a member of Gabriel’s team, taking over Mavi’s spot, not that she knows that right now. All she knows is that she has ended up on this island with a beautiful and troubled man. Well, she’s about to find out that it isn’t just one man. There are actually 3 men on the island, Morpheus, Illusions, and Nightmares. Nightmares stays locked in a dungeon, which Morpheus throws Robin into. And he lives up to his name, but there’s something about her that atttacts him to her, so Nightmares covers Robin in his blood and she isn’t scared of him anymore. Illusions does what his name says, but he creates an illusion that nearly kills Robin. She just has some problems with the guys at first. But Robin decides that they need to actually be a family, and she does what she can to bring the boys together, until all of a sudden, she’s just not there anymore.
The book takes place in different dimensions, just like any other Ceasefire book does. We get to see some of our old friends, including Thanatos, who is a cowboy in this world, which I think is awesome. I wonder if his horse is pale or has no name. I kind of see Thanatos like Sam Elliot in some Western. (yummmmm… Sam Elliot)
I love Robin. She has such a beautiful heart. She just has so much compassion and empathy for everyone, and she really wants to have people be the best them that they can be. You can see that in the way that she tries to bring Morpheus and his brothers together. With her there or when they are doing what she suggests, they work better, as a more cohesive unit. She also can talk to the dead, which is why she’s on Gabriel’s team. I do kind of feel sorry for her, since she can’t really get rid of the dead. I just really like her.
Now, Morpheus. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I read comics. One of the comics I read was Sandman by Neil Gaiman. If you haven’t read it, go do that. But that comic really formed my inner version of Morpheus when I read this book. Of course, that’s not how Claire described him, but I have 30+ years of seeing him as this character, so, you know, there you go. I really like Claire’s version of Morpheus. I felt bad for him too, because he was so torn apart inside. all he wanted was to forget and not to feel his pain again, not that it was going to actually happen. Then he has his brothers, Nightmares and Illusions, which he kind of hates and does what he can to keep them away from him, at least until Robin comes around. I think that he is actually pretty brave, at least when he starts doing things. I’m never going to think he wasn’t brave, but you don’t see it at first.
I can’t wait for the second installment of Cassandra’s story, so hopefully Claire won’t keep us waiting too long for that.
I worry about Cupid. I mean, really.
OK, that’s all on this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Sometimes goodbye is more than just a second chance.
Sometimes it becomes your entire future.
Excerpt->
I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and being stuck with a name like Whiskey was never easy, but none of that ever mattered much to me. Not until I met her. The kids used to call me white trash—WT for short, but I turned that nasty nickname into my fucking mantra after I joined the Air Force. My only regret was falling in with the wrong group of men. But, that’s how I met her and I wouldn’t trade what we had together for anything except maybe another chance.
He worked for my father and I was off-limits but no one told my heart that. He left me—left us on his last run to America and I know he’s not coming back. If he did, they would kill him—kill us both. I know what I have to do now but it won’t be easy. Whiskey deserves to know about his baby and I’ll be the one delivering the news to him—one way or another.
Sometimes goodbye is more than just a second chance. Sometimes it becomes your entire future.
Whiskey Tango is K.L. Ramsey’s second book in the Royal Bastards MC.
They say only the strong survive. Haunted by memories, my life lays in shards. Addiction has become my only comfort.
Then she turns my world upside down. A lost girl. Unraveling parts of me with those big blue eyes.
Now I’m fighting for my very existence against forces that thought me dead. Mayhem and manipulation are just the start when forgotten gods rise.
Contains triggers and for an 18+ audience only.
Welcome to Ceasefire, a dark twisted world of boundless love and bitter betrayal. A place where bonds are forged through blood, magic and mayhem. Demons, Assassins, Angels and fallen Gods are only the tip in a universe that isn’t always black and white.
* The first few chapters of this story was featured in the Tainted Tales Anthology but this book is the full complete Sandman story going beyond and not to be missed.
In Between the Pages 