Today we have a new Measha stone Russian mob story. It’s the 3rd book in her Innocent Bride series. Ravaged Innocence is the story of Avery and Luka. This one does happen at the same time as other books, but other than a brief mention, it isn’t really an issue. You can totally read it as a standalone if that’s what you want.
So, Avery is a college student trying to get a degree to become a medical assistant. She’s also working 3 jobs because she has to pay for school, food, and rent somehow. (BTDT, got the ratty t-shirt) One night, when she’s working at the ratty dive bar, some Russian mobsters walk in. One of them, Luka, takes Avery back into the kitchen to stay safe. Only Avery isn’t all that sure that she’s safe with him. The very next thing that Luka knows, Avery is dashing out the door and into the back of a passing yellow cab. Avery thinks that she is well away, at least until Luka comes pounding on her door and makes his way inside.
Luka is in town from Moscow to do a job. When that job takes him to a dive bar, he meets Avery, and it’s possessiveness at first sight. He finds out where Avery lives, and plans to go to her house to discuss with her why running away wasn’t a good thing. Which he does, with the palm of his hand swiftly applied to her hind end.
I love how fiesty Avery is. She doesn’t go down without a fight. She works really hard at not letting Luka get away with not telling her everything. Of course it doesn’t always work, but she tries. I really like that strong, rebellious, and fiesty streak in her.
I mostly like Luka. I think that he’s a little high handed, but that’s how characters in this kind of book tend to be, so overall, it’s expected.
Merry Kinkmas! Today we have an anthology written by 17 authors that take place in several different worlds, and involve 17 different kink clubs. We have established groupings, new couples, Doms and Dommes, Littles and subbies, and good, clean, kinky, dirty fun. Christmas at the Club includes stories from Alta Hensley, Jennifer Bene, Samantha Cole, Pepper North, and Linzi Basset. As with any anthology that is this long, and it is long, I’m only going to mention a few. If you want to see what I thought about all the stories, you can check out my GR review.
Jennifer Bene A Not So Silent Night
This one includes the Infamous trio of Emma, Chase, and Jaxon. Chase doms Emma, and Jax doms them both. They weren’t the first MMf trio I read, but they are still my favorite. the Infamous trio is the basis of the entire Black Light series. Generally, they are written by Livia Grant, but Jennifer wrote this one, mostly because Livia has another story in here. Anyway, I was really glad to see these guys because they are always so hot. On top of being hot, we also get the real life issues of trying to be parents, trying to spend time with in laws, and trying to be the kinky fuckers that you are. I really loved the juxtaposition.
Livia Grant A Kinky Crossover
This is Livia’s story. It takes place in her Punishment Pit world, which appears to be in the same world as Black Light, as Jax has called Lukas to ask if they can come to Lukas’ Christmas party. Because of that phone call, we get to see another little bit of the trio, as well as getting to see Lukas and Tiffany. I love Tiffany’s spunk and the fact that she hasn’t lost that in the year of being married to Lukas. She also has some of my favorite lines in the entire anthology, including her answer to why she’s being punished. She tells the person asking that she’s pretty sure that the reason that she’s getting punished this time is because she married Lukas. Her entire thought stream about her clit at this point is fucking hilarious too.
Alta Hensley Villains and Champagne
This takes place in Alta’s Top Shelf series. Harley is my absolute favorite of all the Domes in that world. In fact, I need to go reread his book sometime in the very near future. I was just so happy to see him again. In this one, there’s going to be a party at the club. Harley just wants to go home to see his sub, Marlowe. Except Marlowe has just walked into the club. She really wants to go to the party. I love all the machinations that go into this story.
Maren Smith Keeping Kaylee
This takes place in Maren’s Castle world. Kaylee is the primary female character in the story, but it really involves all the Ladies of the Castle. They all have plans, because they all feel some kind of way right now. But Kaylee is the driving force. I have to admit that I really felt for Kaylee. It’s easy to end up feeling like you are the last priority on everyone’s list. It’s a really hurtful, sad, and lonely place. I don’t blame her for her plan to get Marshall to pay more attention to her.
Golden Angel A Sassy Christmas
This one takes place in Golden’s Stronghold world. We get to see Adam and Angel struggling to keep their kinky marriage kinky or even sexy after being parents for a year. Now, if you have been a mother, you totally get Angel in this story. I’m not dissing Adam, because parents are going to get him too, and he is doing the best he can, and he does pretty good. But for me, it’s all about Angel and how she feels. I remember feeling that same way when my now very adult son was a baby. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t ready to jump back into sex at 6 weeks, and I hated being touched for a long while. I nursed a very clingy baby, for a year. I almost never had any time when people weren’t touching me, so I totally felt Angel in this one.
There are a lot of other really good stories in here. The nice thing about an anthology is that there is a little something for everyone. Some of the stories are pretty short, but some of them are longer. If you want something that you can read in a few minutes before bed, you can find one with no problem.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading.
This is the 3rd book in Measha’s Mafia Bride series. Captivated by Him is Jakub’s story. We’ve seen his older brother and his sister, and now it’s his turn.
The book starts 5 years ago. Nicole and her friends are sneaking into a bar run by Jakub. I say sneaking, because they are all underage, and they have fake IDs. They get in the door just fine, which is probably more down to the fact that they are pretty young women and less about the fact that their IDs are great, but when Nicole tries to buy a drink, she gets busted. And not just busted by the bartender, but Jakub too. And Jakub has plans for little Miss Nicole. Mostly related to her naked butt and his hands. So, he ends up at her apartment, spanks her silly, and then fucks her silly. He tells her that she will see him again. We are left with her thinking that this can only happen once.
Flash forward 5 years. We find out that Nicole and Jakub had a wonderful month, but then she disappeared from Chicago. Now, she’s come back. It turns out that her father dragged her to New York with him. He’s dead now and she’s on the run from the man she was with in New York. He’s a member of a Polish mafia family, and he’s been busted, and for some reason, he’s sure that Nicole is the one who grassed him out. She, of course, knows that snitches get stitches, and didn’t say a damn thing. But, Chicago is home, and she feels safer there.
She’s working at a night club, assisting the manager and keeping things organized. Nicole didn’t realize that it was one that Jakub and his family owned. But when they see each other face to face for the first time in 5 years, things get explosive. Nicole’s crazy ex happens to be in town, searching for her, and Jakub just wants to keep her safe, which means that she has to be a member of his family. That means that she has to be his wife. So, whether she wants to or not, they are getting married.
I think that Nicole is really smart. She’s also very independent. She’s had to be, which means that it’s hard for to accept anything that Jakub wants to do for her, because she feels like she needs to go out and do everything on her own. She fights hard against Jakub because of that. I mean, I don’t blame her, because Jakub is kind of a dick sometimes. Generally he isn’t too bad, but he is a little much at times.
Jakub has all kinds of feelings, mostly because he feels like he’s left out of the family business. He is the second brother, and his older brother is the crown prince. Jakub is just left with the dregs. I think that he feels left out a lot of the time, and I totally understand that. I get feeling like he’s being ignore or left out of the important stuff. But now he has Nicole, and he’s planning on never letting her go, whatever she happens to think. And he feels like she’s more important than just about everything.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
It’s a new day and we get a new Mafia bride from Measha. Kept by Him is the second in her series of Mafia Brides books. It is connected to the first book, but could be read as a standalone, if you really want to.
Lena’s father is the head of a Polish Mafia group. Her older brother married a woman and they did something to a Russian Mafia family. Len had absolutely nothing to do with it, and she has stayed out of the whole business. But, that doesn’t matter all that much when it comes to Mafia families. One day, when she’s out with her friends, she starts to get a headache and feel a little off. So, she heads out to her car so that she can visit her brother, but before that can happen, some guys grab her, and the next thing she knows, she’s woken up in a small room and it’s not good. She’s been taken by a different family, and they are holding her in the area where they store the women they traffic.
Micah was the second son in his family until his brother died. Now he’s the heir. He finds out that his father has taken Lena and he has to figure out how to handle this situation. When Lena’s brother and father come the next day, Micah’s proposal is that he marry Lena, and then everything will be equal. The peace can be restored in between their families. And Micah is fine with that, but his father? Well…
I like Lena. I feel really sorry for her too. She is angry about everything, and she really has every right to be. She’s totally a pawn in this situation, no choice in anything that is going on with her. I think that she knew what the reality of her world was, and she expected it to happen, but she was hoping that some things wouldn’t happen the way that they did. And I think that she was really hoping that her family would get her out of what’s going on now. It’s one thing to have an arranged marriage, it’s something else to be given as spoils of war, and that’s basically what happened here.
I think that Micah has some really interesting traits. I do think that he should’ve stood up to his father at the very beginning. Hell, even before the beginning of this book. I think that the old man’s brains were leaking out of his ear. He had some serious issues. I mean, serious issues. I think that Micah has a really good grip on the future and what it’s going to take to make the future happen the way that he wants it to.
OK, that’s all for this one. Nothing under the pic today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Mesha is back with a new book for us, Taken By Him. This isn’t part of her pet play books, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hot as hell, because it really is. Instead, this is all about the Polish Mafia.
When Kasia was 16, her twin sister Diana came up to her room crying. It turns out that their father wants Diana to sign a marriage contract. She’ll be marrying the scion of another family after she comes of age. Diana can’t handle dealing with all this, so Kasia pretends to be Diana and goes down to sign the paperwork.
Fast forward 6 years and Kasia is all alone. Her mother and twin sister have died and her father blames her, and punishes her regularly. She’s just about to graduate from college, and she’s going to be able to get away from her father and have her own life. Except that would be just way too easy. One night, on her way back in from a party, her father calls to her and tells her that she’s going to honor the contract in the place of her sister, and she’s going to marry Dominik. Which, as you can guess, really pisses Kasia. And not only is she going to have to marry Dominik, she’s leaving with him right now, so she has to go pack.
Dominik has plans. And part of those plans involve marrying Kasia. As part of their marriage contract, all of her dad’s businesses and territories are supposed to roll over to him through her. Dominink also wants to use Kasia to try and figure out what her dad is up to, befcause he knows thcausthe old man is behind the legal issues that caused his dad to go to Poland to avoid arrest. So, he’s going to marry the woman, but it’s not about to be all that easy.
I think that Dominik, while he might like to think of himself as some kind of monster and Kasia calls him a monster or an asshole, I think that he is actually a pretty good man. He does do some things, but you can be a good man who isn’t necessarily on the right side of the law. He cares for his family, he wants to take care of Kasia, even before they get married. Now, he does tell Kasia that he’ll punish her, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not a good man. It just means that he’s a kinky fuck. And that’s rarely a bad thing.
Kasia is very realistic about her life. She knows how her father feels about her and how he will treat her, so she’s learned to deal within those parameters. Even though she has that strong realistic side, she’s also a little naive about some things, like the fact that her father is ever going to let her go. I think that she wanted that to be true so much that she just believed it so hard. I think that she is pretty strong. She’s had to be in order to get through a lot of stuff. I’m really impressed by her.
Ugh. Kasia’s dad is the abolute worst.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
This is the 4th book in Measha’s Ever After series. Each of these books is roughly inspired by a fairy tale of some sort. I’m not 100% sure which one Hound is based on, but we have a Foxx as a main character, so you can figure it out yourself.
Keagan Foxx has an impressive skill set. She used that skill set to get into a catalog party at Ash Titon’s Annex, and managed to trick a man into taking her home, and she eventually stole $200K from him. The guy came to Ash and threatened to come after him to get the money back. Ash’s cousin, Jackson, was there to try to buy into the Annex, and when he sees the pic of the offending woman, he tells Ash that he’ll track her down.
Kegan had a very good reason to do what she did. Her foster mother, the only woman she’s ever seen as a mother, died a few years ago, and she’s trying to find out what happened, and she thinks that there may be a small, teeny, tiny chance that she didn’t die. The money Keagan stole went to try and fund her search. She’s moved on to the next mark on her list when Jackson finds her and takes her to his house.
Jackson has plans for Kegan. They had been friendly before, but no strings attached. Now, he plans on getting the money back from her and finding out what’s going on with her. And he doesn’t care what he has to do to meet his goal.
Kegan is smart and very talented, but I think that she is naive, at least to some extent. Yeah, she knows that she’s dealing with powerful men who have few, if any, scruples, but she still seems to think that certain things won’t affect her. I found that to be a really interesting POV on her point. I would’ve been much more cynical than her, and I don’t even have her experience in dealing with the type of men, or sharks more like, that she’s been swimming around with. I think that she’s done well, most of the time, but it only takes one slip, you know?
I think that Jackson is a really good man, especially considering the fact that his business skirts some legal lines. He really wants to make something of himself, and he wants to try to be family-ish with his cousins, which is difficult with family history, but they are making it work.
Normally I would never advocate for any kind of fox hunt, but the one in here is pretty interesting.
That’s all for today! Go check it out! Happy reading!
Oh my beloveds, are you ready for the dark? I really hope so, because Simmer is dark, very dark, omfg what did I just read dark. This book is part of the Inferno world based on Yolanda Olson’s books. And yeah, dark.
We have Papa, Nicolette, Elijah, and Mark. They live in a homestead far away from everyone else. And they are all happy with that. At least, as long as Papa is happy. When Papa isn’t happy, well, then things go badly for everyone.
Papa wants to make sure that everyone is doing the things that they should, in the way that they should. He wants to make sure that Nicolette grows up to be a good woman, and that Elijah and Mark know how to be good men.
And really, that’s about all that I’m going to say about this because it is a really short read, and if I say too much about anything, then I might spoil it, and I don’t want to do that.
Do be aware that this is very dark, and it is very taboo. If you don’t like dark and taboo, you really should skip this one, because you won’t be happy. Read responsibly.
This definitely fits in with the rest of the Inferno world. If you aren’t wondering, at least a little bit, what you’ve read when you are done reading and if there might be a little something wrong with you because you liked it, then, well, I don’t know what to say. Because I do love these books, and I do wonder WTF I just read, and if there is something that is just a little bit wrong with me. I also want to know what’s going on in the author’s head.
OK, so I’m done with this one now. Go check it out!
Measha has published another one of her lovely pet books. This one isn’t part of the series that she has, it’s a complete standalone. The Mob Boss’ Pet has all the wonderfulness of pet play and humiliation play that we expect to see out of Measha.
So, we start with Stephania who is going to her favorite coffee shop. She’s an ER doc and she needs her caffeine fix to make it through her day. When she gets there, the guy at the register seems really nervous and is staring at the only other people in the place. Stephania doesn’t seem all that upset about that, but I would’ve thought it was sketchy af, but I’m paranoid, sooo… Anyway, she eventually looks down and sees blood. Remember, ER doc, she knows exactly what blood looks like. That’s when she gets dragged into the kitchen, where she found a dead man in a puddle of blood on the floor and another man laying on a table, bleeding with 2 holes in his chest. She’s ordered to handle the injured man and keep him from bleeding out or dying.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or more precisely his estate, we have Dominic. It’s his younger brother who was shot and his cousin who is dead. He rushes into his brother’s bedroom where he finds out that their other brother has locked the nice lady doctor in the basement. So, Dominic goes to get her and takes her into his brother’s room, so that she can continue to treat him. Stephania, of course, wants to be let go, but Dominic isn’t going to do that in any way, shape, or form. For one thing, his brother is hurt. For another, she knows too much now. When she does try to run away, he takes her into his room, strips her, and locks her into a cage.
I like Stephania. She’s strong and smart. She’s also stubborn af, which is both good and bad for her. It’s good because she really does need to have that tenacity at times. It’s bad because at other times, that stubbornness gets her into more problems than she would’ve been in otherwise. I can respect that, because I may or may not be stubborn myself. I think that she has a really caring heart and really wants to help people, especially Dominic.
Dominic. Hmmm… Well, I generally like him. With that said, he’s got his issues, like the fact that he has a brick wall 3 feet thick up around his heart. And I have to say that denial ain’t just a river in Egypt when it comes to certain things with Dominic. I think that he has a very good core, and he wants to make sure that his family are taken care of, and he love his family deeply, but he’s not ready to trust anyone, which makes him hard to deal with, I think. He’s bullheaded too, in a different way than Stephania is. I don’t think I can describe the difference, but it’s there.
Finding out who and what was behind it all was shocking, for damned sure.
OK, that’s all there is for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Measha and Alta teamed up and gave us a really perverted, perverse, kinky, debauched, deprived, and filthy story with Mafia Lullaby.
So, we start with Ariana. She works at a bakery, lives her quiet life, and just goes about her life. One night, after working late, she goes to check her ATM and it says that her account is empty, which WTF? She should have money there, so now she has to ride the bus, so she’s sitting at the bus stop, in the dark, at night. And there are two strange men who sitting there with her. At least, until they grab her, shove her in big black car, and inject her with something.
When she wakes up, she discovers that she’ being held in a place where she’s going to be trained as a little girl and sold off to a permanent Daddy.
Costello is her Daddy. He’s part of the Mafia family who developed a special drug called Lullaby that causes the people who take it to regress, so when they give it to the girls they have taken, the girls regress back to acting like a little girl who just wants to make her Daddy happy, and it lowers all their inhibitions. They take women who are isolated so that they can sell them. Ariana is the latest girl for him to train, and there’s just something about her. She has a fire that most girls there don’t seem to have, and there’s something that draws him to her. There may be some reasons that she seems to have that fire, but Costello isn’t sure.
I like Ariana. I think that she has a lot of strength. I think that she is very smart, and more importantly, she’s very canny. She scopes out the situation and figures out what she has to do in order to survive. I think that she is also a good actress. I don’t know if she’s always been good at acting or if it was one of those things that she learned how to do as a survival technique after she was stolen. One way or another, she managed to do it.
I liked Costello from the get-go, basically. He has a good heart. He’s not a good guy, I mean he is highly involved in human trafficking, but he’s not the absolute worst guy out there. He does at least make sure that he takes good care of his girls while he trains them, which is good, I guess. His girls are at least ready to go when their adoption day comes out.
I do hate Nanny Nancy. She’s a fucking bitch. She needs a house to fall on her.
OK, that’s all for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
So, there are a lot of authors who have gotten together and written hero retellings. Measha has taken on the Hercules myth in Finding His Strength. Some of her characters are directly named their mythological names, like Megara or Hera, others have their mythological names as part of the name, like Henrik Hercules. Then you get Jackson Olympus. He’s the Zeus figure, but doesn’t really carry the mythological name.
So, we start out with a murder. Henrik basically fucks a woman to death. Well, more accurately, he kills her at the end, but you know, whatever. Turns out that the woman is named Henrietta and she’s the niece of the Creon family, another member in the Network that Henrik’s father is the head of. Mr. Creon asked Henrik and his father to do something about some traitors, and it turns out that Henrietta was feeding into them, so she had to go. But, it wasn’t necessarily the best choice. It caused some issues, and it was decided that the best way to make sure that there was still peace in the Network was for Henrik to marry Megara, Creon’s only daughter. No one is 100% happy with this. Or, more like Megara and her cousins aren’t happy. Her parents are fine with it. Henrik’s father Jackson, and his step-mother, Hera, are fine with it. In fact, Jackson told him that if he got married and had an heir, he would legitimize Henrik, instead of Henrik remaining his bastard.
Megara just finished college with her culinary degree. Her father has always told her that she could do whatever she wanted. What she really wanted to do was to have her own restaurant. Not necessarily cook in it, but to own it, create the menu, all that kind of stuff. She interned with one of the most prestigious chefs in the town so that she’d be ready. But, that dream was suddenly smashed when it was announced that she was going to be marrying Henrik in two weeks. And oh yeah, not only that, but her cousins are now going to be opening the restaurants of her dreams. She’s now nothing but a pawn in the hands of the Network, and not even her own person.
Because of actions, her marriage suddenly gets moved up, and she’s dragged to Henrik’s house the day before, and kept there until the wedding can happen.
OK, first off, Hera can go choke on a dick. And not a pretty one either. She can just go choke on a giant diseased donkey dick. And then just keep choking. I think that Jackson can join her in chocking on a dick too. He wasn’t as terrible to Henrik as Hera was, but he obviously did nothing to protect him, and he used Henrik terribly. I almost prefer the outright abuse and hostility of Hera over how Jackson acted.
Henrik was all twisted up inside and had all kinds of issues. Mostly they were installed by his father and Hera. They kept telling him that he would get this great reward, if only he met X, Y, and Z. But then when he got there, they would move the goal posts on him. Doing that does one of two things. It makes you walk away altogether, or it makes you work even harder to gain the approval of that person. Guess which one it did to Henrik.
Megara. Hmmmm… I don’t know what to say about Megara. I like her, and I think that she’s good for Henrik. I think that she makes an alternative viewpoint available to Henrik. I think that sometimes she’s a little overshadowed by Henrik’s large personality. The thing is, I think that if she had a larger personality, there would’ve been too many clashes. I mean, it’s not like she was invisible or anything, she was just calmer, most of the time.
This was a great story. I would love to see more of this world.
Those damn rooms in the basement. Ugh.
OK, that’s all for today! Go check it out! Happy reading!
In Between the Pages 