Promo/Review for the new boxed set release of THE SEX DEMON TRILOGY by Jaye Shields

THE SEX DEMON TRILOGY

Confessions of a Sex Demon – Claiming of a Sex Demon

 Addictions of a Sex Demon

by Jaye Shields

Available now in one boxed set!

Tap Into Your Inner Sex Demon...

Sex demons need constant climax to survive. Orgies and promiscuous sex tend to be an everyday thing, but finding love is not. Dive into The Sex Demon Trilogy and meet three sex demons who find love in the least likely of places. With these tales of love come danger, heartbreak, and hot, hot sex like only a sex demon can do it.

Content Warning: strong language, light BDSM scenes, girl-on-girl action, and all kinds of sex demon mayhem.

CONFESSIONS OF A SEX DEMON:

Sex Demon Zahra Aniron is a closet romantic. Too bad she spends her time having hot kinky sex with paying strangers. But the sex demon has to work with what she’s got to save her sister from her debt to wizard thugs. Then again, there could be worse things than getting paid for pleasure since a sex demon needs climax to survive.

As a blacksmith, Lennox Aegros puts his fury to good use pounding steel into swords. His real cause for moving into a new town isn’t to sell weaponry, it’s for revenge. When he finds the succubus he’s been searching for, her beauty means he can mix business with pleasure. But the joke’s on Lennox, because as he succeeds in torturing his victim, he realizes that Zahra’s slow demise means the breaking of a heart he never realized he had.

The first story in the trilogy, CONFESSIONS OF A SEX DEMON, is a sexy, steamy, on the edge of BDSM, erotic romance that will leave you craving more from this talented author. Zahra is a succubus. This means that she needs sexual release in order to keep up her strength, or she will die. There’s no better profession for a young beautiful succubus who desperately need funds to pay off a debt incurred by her drug addicted adopted sister, Sephina, than prostitution. From the first page, we are drawn into the world Zahra inhabits. It's not easy, it's not glamorous, and it's certainly not safe. Then just when she thinks her station in life can sink no lower, she's kidnapped and tortured without a single notion of why. Lennox is a man set on revenge. His wife cheated on him with a male succubus who happens to be Zahra's brother, Reza. When Lennox arrives in the village of Sprecia, he's immediately drawn to the beautiful sex demon, Zahra, and plots his revenge on Reza by torturing and possibly killing his sister. The last thing Lennox expects is to fall in love with the beautiful sex demon.

I highly recommend CONFESSIONS OF A SEX DEMON by Jaye Shields if you are even the slightest bit a fan of paranormal romance. This isn't just your normal vamp/werewolf/witch paranormal either - this is much more and will have you hooked from the first steamy scene which, by the way, is exactly where the story begins.

CLAIMING OF A SEX DEMON:

It's not easy for a sex demon to find a wife, and it's even harder when the perfect woman is already taken.

Emmerie Winter has only been married a few months, but depression has made her a fragile stranger in the arms of her husband. She knows she should love him, but she doesn't, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't convince her heart otherwise.

When a sex demon with a boyish grin and a sinful body arrives in town, Emmerie's world is turned upside down. His intense passion for life sends her depression into hiding, but her feelings for the sinful male could get her in deep trouble.

A sex demon needs climax to survive, but that's never been a problem for Reza Aniron as women seem to be unable to resist his charms…all except for one, a timid, blonde angel who treats him with complete indifference. But in her eyes he can see a fire that's just waiting to be released. And he always did love a challenge.

*** Content Warning: strong language, extramarital relations, and graphic erotic situations.

CLAIMING OF A SEX DEMON by Jaye Shields is actually the prelude to CONFESSIONS OF A SEX DEMON. You will get more in the way of backstory when you read CLAIMING OF A SEX DEMON. This sort of prequel is slightly less paranormal and erotic than CONFESSIONS, but its erotic romance that takes romance to a new height. Yes, a sex demon comes to town and destroys a relationship, but somehow it seems right. Emmerie needs passion in her life, even though she cares deeply for Lennox, and Reza is definitely the man to give it to her - and boy, does he! Reza is the sexiest sex demon you will ever meet even as Emmerie is a meek little thing who doesn’t care much for sex - until she meets Reza. At first, she seems undeserving of such an impassioned man but soon her sexual side begins to awaken, and it’s obvious that she and Reza are truly meant for each other.

I highly recommend this one to anyone who wants some thrill with their romance, some naughty rather than nice, and a little bit of that somethin' somethin' that you're looking for in a steamy quick read.

ADDICTIONS OF A SEX DEMON:

Sephina is about to trade one addiction for another—and his name is Axel.

Sephina Antara has gotten into a lot of trouble as a sex demon with a drug addiction. Moving to a new village was supposed to help her get clean. But when she relapses, it comes with a side of hot dragon man.

Axel Stavros may be a drug dealer, but he's also the town healer. Half-human, half-dragon, his blood can cure just about anything, but it has some erotic side effects for its user, as the new beauty in town is about to find out…

Content Warning: graphic language, hot foreplay, and even hotter sex, including light bondage and some girl-on-girl action.  

The third story in the trilogy, ADDICTIONS OF A SEX DEMON, takes us further into the unusual realm in which we are journeying when we meet the sexiest half-man half-dragon you could ever imagine – Axel Stavros. He’ll have you fanning yourself and begging for more. Sephina is a succubus or sex demon with pink hair and a great need. She needs regular sexual climax to stay healthy and with her addiction to ground fae wing, she needs a lot. Meeting Axel, a Quetzelam in heat, is her salvation since he’s in need of even more sex than she can ever want. It’s a win-win situation for both and a thrill for us, even when things get dangerous.

Jaye Shields never ceases to amaze me at how much action, story line, and hot, steamy sex she manages to fit into a novella. In ADDICTIONS OF A SEX DEMON, she does no less. Not only does she continue to create a world that is both unusual yet recognizable, she gives us a deeper insight into the world of the Quetzelam as well as their unusual needs, and fears. Axel is sexy, hot stuff, and in more ways than one, yet intriguing and very easy to fall in love with, just as Sephina does.

THE SEX DEMON TRILOGY:

None of these stories will disappoint, in fact, read together they will leave you in much need of cooling off but smiling in satisfaction. I highly recommend THE SEX DEMON TRILOGY by Jaye Shields to anyone who loves paranormal romance but is looking for something different from the usual PNR read, and to anyone who loves romance at its best whether it’s paranormal, contemporary, or historical – THE SEX DEMON TRILOGY satisfies.

And for a limited time only...this boxed set is only 99¢! Holy Erotic!
Happy Reading Everyone!

About the Author:

Jaye Shields holds a degree in Anthropology from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in archaeology. Her previous claims to fame include being a bass player for a grunge band called the Hymens, being mistaken for Britney Spears while in Tokyo, and commercial model. She insists the commercial still counts even though her lines were cut.

​

Born and raised in Seattle, she now lives in the realm of fog, skyscrapers, and redwood trees. Happy to call the SF Bay Area home, she spends her time writing sensual paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Thanks to her grandmother, she's been reading romance novels since she was ten years old. Jaye sprinkles her love of history, mythology, and the occult into flaming hot reads.

Facebook | Twitter | Website | Pinterest | Goodreads

THE SEX DEMON TRILOGY by Jaye Shields, Beachwalk Press, available now in print and ebook formats at Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, ebook version is currently only 99¢ - only for a limited time though.

***click on links above or cover below for purchasing information, remember even pennies per sale using my links help keep this blog alive. Thank You.

   

Unwrapping a Review of DIRTY THOUGHTS, a Mechanics of Love novel by Megan Erickson

A while back, I did a cover reveal as part of an Avon Impulse tour for DIRTY THOUGHTS, book 1 in the Mechanics of Love series by Megan Erickson and shared an excerpt as well. After reading the excerpt myself, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to read this book. The heat between Cal and Jenna simply poured off the page and I was hooked. Oh boy, was I glad I decided to read this one.

***purchased for my own personal reading but sharing my honest and unscripted review with you.

Blurb for DIRTY THOUGHTS:

Some things are sexier the second time around.

Cal Payton has gruff and grumbly down to an art...all the better for keeping people away. And it usually works. Until Jenna MacMillan---his biggest mistake---walks into Payton and Sons mechanic shop all grown up, looking like sunshine, and inspiring more than a few dirty thoughts.

Jenna was sure she was long over the boy she'd once loved with reckless abandon, but one look at the steel-eyed Cal Payton has her falling apart all over again. Ten years may have passed, but the pull is stronger than ever... and this Cal is all man.

Cal may have no intention of letting Jenna in, but she's always been his light, and it's getting harder to stay all alone in the dark. When a surprise from the past changes everything, Cal and Jenna must decide if their connection should be left alone or if it's exactly what they need for the future of their dreams.

~*~           ~*~           ~*~           ~*~            ~*~ 

Cal Payton is grumpy even on a good day. His life wasn’t going anything like he hoped once upon a time. When he graduated high school, he had hopes of opening a motorcycle repair shop and marrying his beautiful girlfriend but that all came to sudden stop when he punched her obnoxious brother. When her family threatened charges, the girl he loved broke things off with him and left town. His father, a bitter and angry man in his own right, refuses to allow bikes to be worked on his car repair garage and Cal feels his choices are running out. It might be time to step away from the family he’s always felt responsible for, and create his own life.

Jenna MacMillan had stayed away from the town she’d grown up in, where her family ruled supreme, and the only boy to ever truly claim her heart still lived. She’s returned to Tory to use her public relation skills to help bring her family’s business back from the brink of destruction her brother had managed to cause and now home was home again but was it possible for things to work the way they should have, perhaps even better, the second time around?

Megan Erickson has conjured the most realistic, intriguing, and eclectic group of characters in DIRTY THOUGHTS, and I loved them all…well, except for Dylan…or Dill Pickle, as Delilah refers to him, which still makes me laugh. The easy way between the characters, the natural dialogue, and the way their feelings come through make the folks of Tory into friends and family. Cal recognizes that he’s allowing the bitterness of the last ten years and the sense of having lost his childhood because of his parents’ selfishness and having to be father and brother to his two siblings wear on him and he fears becoming exactly like his old man. Having the woman he never stopped loving, the woman who could brighten his day with just a smile, come back into his life was a start especially after she told him the truth of the past. He tries to stay away from her though because he doesn't want to go down that road again...doesn't want to get hurt again. He tries to keep to his isolated place away from everyone so he can have peace of heart, mind, and soul but Jenna isn’t that easy to ignore. Especially when a new brother, a half-brother, a teenage brother from his mother’s second marriage that he never even knew existed shows up on his doorstep, needing him. She takes him and Asher under her wing, and together they become the family the young man needs. But the most amazing thing is watching Cal open his heart to both of them.

Watching these characters change and grow, fall in love, create love and acceptance, and worry and fret as only a family can, makes the Paytons my new favorites. Other than stumbling over editing errors sprinkled throughout the writing, there was nothing at all wrong with this story. It flowed with ease, steamed up my glasses with the passion between Cal and Jenna, kept me hooked page after page, and made me smile when I needed to and my heart ache when Cal felt the world closing in on him. He’s a real man and Jenna is his perfect match. I can’t wait to read Brent’s story next. Yes, I’m a bit behind because DIRTY TALK is already out but it's waiting on my reader. I'm coming, Brent!

If you love a good small town, second chance at love romance, if you love strong realistic characters full of life and faults, DIRTY THOUGHTS by Megan Erickson is for you. I highly recommend you read this one. Jenna is not just Cal’s Sunshine - I think she’s everyone’s Sunshine.

Happy Reading Everyone!

DIRTY THOUGHTS, a Mechanics of Love novel by Megan Erickson, Avon Impulse, available now in print and ebook formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobobooks.

***click on links above or cover below for purchasing information, remember even pennies per sale using my links help keep this blog alive. Thank You.

   

Cover Reveal for Nina Mason's Royal Pains series - New Covers & A New Book: THE DEVIL'S MASQUERADE

Today we are revealing the new covers for Nina Mason's Royal Pains, an erotic series set in Scotland and England during the Restoration period (the latter half of the 17th century, for those who don't know). Ms. Mason decided to put new, sexier covers on the series to celebrate the launch of book three, THE DEVIL'S MASQUERADE. All three new covers, the blurbs for the books, and the buy links follow:

Royal Pains, Book One

DEVIL IN DUKE'S CLOTHING

Innocence lost. Paradise found.

Maggie York, a convent-raised foundling, knows the Duke of Dunwoody’s sexual tastes are a shade or two darker than most, but marries him anyway—partly because she has no other prospects and partly because, try as she might, she can’t seem to stop fantasizing about her dashing rake of a guardian.

Robert Armstrong, the duke, is a Roman Catholic whose extreme devotions as a child warped his desires as a man. He’s also a slave to the times in which he lives--and to his king. Everything he is, everything he holds dear, depends on staying in Charles II’s good graces. Unfortunately, Maggie isn't the bride the king selected for him. Now, to make amends, the duke must either whore his wife or be reduced to a penniless and unprotected commoner at a time when Catholics are persona non grata in Great Britain.

Buy it now!

Royal Pains, Book Two

THE DUKE'S BEDEVILED BRIDE

The tawdry tale of the Duke and Duchess of Dunwoody continues…

Maggie Armstrong, the long-lost illegitimate daughter of the heir presumptive to the throne, is bedeviled by her husband's limited definition of fidelity. After observing him in a ménage à trois at the court of King Charles II, she is determined to bring him around to her way of thinking—

by any means necessary.

Robert doesn’t mind being punished for his transgressions. Rather, he enjoys being whipped, especially by his beloved bride. Unfortunately, her heart might not belong to him alone. His younger brother, who he’d sent abroad to clear the way for himself, is coming home sooner than expected, and Maggie’s feelings for Hugh may not be as dead as her husband had hoped.

Both duke and duchess soon learn, to their peril, Hugh Armstrong is not the honorable man they’d been led to believe. Insanely jealous of his brother’s situation, Hugh will stop at nothing to strip Robert of all he holds dear—including his life.

But the real danger for Robert and Maggie is not the villainous Marquess, but the growing friction betwixt Catholics and Protestants in Restoration Era Great Britain.

Can their love survive the trials that await them?

Buy it now!

Royal Pains, Book Three

THE DEVIL'S MASQUERADE

Beware the devil in disguise...

The year is now 1685 and Maggie's father has just been crowned King of Great Britain, but that doesn't mean trouble is over for the Duke and Duchess of Dunwoody. Rather than cool the flames of hatred between Papists and Protestants, the coronation of a Catholic monarch has only added accelerant to the already raging blaze. Two-faced devils lurk in every corner of the royal court, as do diseases with the power to kill and maim. When Robert falls prey to the smallpox virus, it looks as though Maggie will lose the two people most precious to her--her beloved husband and their only child--the son she bore three months before after five years of heartbreaking miscarriages and stillbirths. The one person in London who can help save her son demands a steep price in exchange her services.

Will Maggie trade Robert's hard-won fidelity to save her only child...or offer the apothecary an even more scandalous alternative?

Preorder now! 
Releasing on October 6, 2015

Disclaimer: Royal Pains, intended for readers 18 years and older, features flagellation, bondage, group sex, and other highly erotic situations.

Unwrapping a Review of DRAGONS WILL FALL by Susannah Scott with #excerpt

Most of you know who have been reading my reviews for the past four years that I am a huge fan of the unusual—paranormal, fantasy, and scifi—well, this is one of the reasons I am a fan of author Susannah Scott. She conjures the most incredible dragons. DRAGONS WILL FALL, book one in the Kingdom Come series—releasing September 14, 2015—shows just how amazing she can write dragons. I am so happy she asked me to read and review for her. Huzzah Susannah!

***eARC provided by author in exchange for an honest and unscripted review

Blurb for DRAGONS WILL FALL:

From Award of Excellence finalist and Angie Award winner, Susannah Scott, comes a new, ancient world series full of exiled magicians, imperiled dragon-shifters, and steamy romance.

An outcast magician with lousy control…

Kas is a half-light with the “gift” of invisibility and healing, but her sometimes deadly magic makes her distrusted by her own people. In an effort to prove her worth and save her people from execution, she infiltrates an enemy castle on a spy mission, but is kidnapped by a powerful intruder. When her only friend is taken hostage as well, Kas has no choice but to embrace her volatile magic and turn to her captor for help.

A dragon-shifter king with an island in revolt...

Cullen is the most powerful dragon of his generation, but strength and cunning won’t stop the mysterious scourge killing his kinsmen. After he steals Kas away to heal them, he’s incensed to find her magic is uncontrollable. Despite her unpredictable powers and non-existent fighting skills, he soon becomes convinced she holds the key to saving the dying dragon race. He’s willing to do anything to gain her cooperation. Even if it means breaking all taboos and seducing the crafty little magician.

With a kingdom of enemies after them both, Kas and Cullen must learn to trust each other before their kingdoms are rendered extinct.

**Due to “open-door” sexual content and dastardly-dude-comeuppance, this book is recommended for mature readers.

My Review:

Kasima McClellan is a half-light who watched her family killed for not surrendering her to a murderous king who wished to wipe out all things magical. Her gift is one of invisibility, once she uses well as a spy in the human world. In an attempt to discover the identity of the spy infiltrating the Half-Light camp, she accidentally kills the king and is taken prisoner by a strange man who seems to be able to see her while she is invisible. She soon discovers, he’s much more than he seems and it was his sense of sight that gave her away to gorgeous and dangerous, Cullen Armati but instead, it was his sense of smell because he’s a dragon.

Cullen wants desperately to find someone to cure his dying dragons. Having already lost too many to this strange sickness, his last hope is a Half-Light healer and without knowing it, he’s caught in the human king’s chambers. She does her best to distract him, trick him, and escape him but when he learns the truth of who she is, he’s quick to transform into his black dragon and steal her away to the island of dragons—Islador. It’s there that Kas learns much about the world in which she’d been living and about those she called friends, and enemies. She also discovers new friends, and love.

DRAGONS WILL FALL by Susannah Scott is an amazing adventure and exploration into a fantasy world filled with half human/magicians, half dragon/magicians, rogue dragons, dangerous and manipulative magicians, and humans who are afraid of all of them while trying to survive and figure out who to trust and not to trust. Kas is unable to trust anyone except her closest friends, and she soon discovers that’s not always possible either. She’s not even sure about trusting herself. Her self-confidence is such that it inhibits her abilities and it isn’t until the dragons build upon that confidence that she discovers her true talents. While on Islador, Kas faces unwarranted hatred, attempts on her life, and danger at every turn but she also learns to trust, in herself, in Cullen, and in new friends. Life might not be easy for a Half-Light but with good friends and love as her support, anything is possible, even falling in love with a dragon.

I highly recommend DRAGONS WILL FALL, book one in the Kingdom Come series by Susannah Scott to anyone who loves a fabulous and different world, action and danger, and if you love dragons, you will thrill in the way Susannah takes us into the dragons' world. I can’t wait for Muriel and Hank’s story…yes, she gives a preview at the end of DRAGONS WILL FALL. Trouble is brewing in WATERS WILL RAGE. XO

Excerpt:

Armati dragged her to the library door, kicked the guard aside, and pulled her into the hallway. No other guards seemed to be coming. If she let him drag her from the castle, she would be lost. Her best chance at escape was now, when he dealt with the humans. Kas turned herself to invisible and wrenched away, but his grip didn't waver.

At the top of the stairs, he paused and spoke directly into her ear. “Behave.”

Behave?

She fought in earnest, kicking and hitting at him all the way down, but only managed to bang her heels on the risers. Armati pulled her past the hearth room to the kitchen. Behind them, a bell rang a single repeated clang, signaling that the castle was under attack.

“Leave, now,” he said as they entered the kitchen. The servants looked at him slack-jawed and fled out the door.

Kas released her hold on her cells, and the hum of transformation zipped along her nerves, allowing her body to become wholly visible. “Let me go,” she said. “Or I'll start screaming and bring the guards.”

His eyes swept from her toes to her face. “You'll scream?” An amused muscle twitched near his mouth. “I'm terrified.” He opened the cellar door and gave her a push downward.

She braced her arms wide on the open door, resisting by holding the doorframe.

Armati brought his face to her ear, and the scrape of his beard abraded the side of her chin. “Get in. Now.” The words puffed along her neck, sending chills down her back.

She rammed her right leg to his groin, but he caught her knee in a tight grip before she made contact. He smiled the slow, taunting smile from the library, and slowly lifted her leg past her waist. She jumped on her left foot to keep her balance.

Armati crowded her so she had to back step down the cellar stairs. He closed the door behind them and followed. Damp earth and stored onions filled her nostrils. Muted light from the kitchen permeated the wooden floorboards above their heads.

“They'll find you.” She composed her voice. “You'll never get away.”

He stalked toward her, and she forced herself not to cower. His eyes dropped to her brown tunic, pants, and boots. “Who are you?”

“I’m no one.”

“Not true,” he said with a sardonic twist of his lips. “You've got a wicked right knee.” He walked closer and she retreated until her back hit the cellar wall. “And magic, so you're either a full Magician or a Half-Light.”

“I am no one,” she repeated.

Without warning, he reached forward and pulled open her shirt.

“Hey!” Buttons scattered to the dirt.

Armati turned her so her chemise pressed to the musty wall. He yanked her woolen shirt off her shoulders and his hands lifted her under shirt from her back. His cursory inspection told her that he wasn't after seduction.

“What are you doing?”

He released her and she flipped around and tugged her clothes together. “You've no markings, and the Magicians aren't prone to leave the mountain. You're a Half-Light.” He gazed at her thoughtfully. “You know where the healer is.”

Kas shook her head. “No, I don't.”

“I can hear your heart beat and smell your emotions.” Armati leaned forward and inhaled deeply. “You're lying.”

She pressed her lips closed and crossed her arms over her ruined shirt. “I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.”

Overhead, boots stomped across the wood floor, sending dirt showering down. Armati stepped closer, crowding her against the wall. The heat of his body leached through the narrow space between them. “Is invisibility all you can do?”

She knew how to be quiet.

Armati held his hands up in mock surrender and stepped back a foot. “I need to talk to your leader.”

“What makes you think I'm not our leader?”

He dragged his gaze from her feet to her face, lingering briefly on her chest. A blush heated her cheeks and she pulled her arms tighter around her torso. “You can't lead people without good boots. Never know when you're going to need to stick one up an ass.”

About the Author:

Mrs. Scott is an Award of Excellence finalist and Angie Award winner for her dragon-filled romance stories. She lives with her family in Southern Missouri and loves connecting with readers through social media.

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Website | Goodreads

You’re also welcome to join her Must Love Dragons Street Team

Buy Links:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks

Also available: Scribd, Oyster, Tolino, and Page Foundry

Kingdom Come Series Info:

 Book 1: DRAGONS WILL FALL, (Kas and Cullen) September 2015

 Book 2: WATERS WILL RAGE, (Muriel and Hank), early 2016

 Book 3: KINGDOM COME, (Felix and Lettie), late 2016

If you can't wait for the next stories in this series, be sure and sign up for Susannah’s New Release Newsletter. Don't worry, she won't pester you with her favorite recipe; this email list is just for new releases and price deals.

   

Promo/Review Stop on the Virtual Book Tour for WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT by Tessa Dare with #excerpt + #giveaway

Welcome to my Promo/Review stop on the Virtual Book Tour for WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT, book 3 in the Castles Ever After series by Tessa Dare. Already a huge fan of Tessa Dare’s incomparable ability to conjure characters that we can’t help but fall in love with, I think she outdid herself with Logan and Maddie. This might be her best ever…yes, I’ve said that before, so imagine my surprise when she topped the last one. Stick around for a taste of this wonderful book, as well as a tour wide giveaway!

***purchased a copy for my own personal reading and am sharing my honest and unscripted review with you.

Blurb for WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT:

On the cusp of her first London season, Miss Madeline Gracechurch was shy, pretty and talented with a drawing pencil, but hopelessly awkward with gentlemen. She was certain to be a dismal failure on the London marriage mart. So Maddie did what generations of shy, awkward young ladies have done: she invented a sweetheart.

A Scottish sweetheart. One who was handsome and honorable and devoted to her, but conveniently never around. Maddie poured her heart into writing the imaginary Captain MacKenzie letter after letter…and by pretending to be devastated when he was (not really) killed in battle, she managed to avoid the pressures of London society entirely.

Until years later, when this kilted Highland lover of her imaginings shows up in the flesh.  The real Captain Logan MacKenzie arrives on her doorstep—handsome as anything, but not entirely honorable. He’s wounded, jaded, in possession of her letters…and ready to make good on every promise Maddie never expected to keep.

My Review:

Since the blurb summarizes what happens in this must read historical romance already, I will skip doing a brief recap. I call WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT by Tessa Dare a must read because if you love romance, a wonderful, teary-eyed HEA ending, and all the fun, excitement, and teasing sexual tension that a good historical romance can give you then you’ve got it in this amazing story.

Tessa Dare introduces us to Maddie Gracechurch, an adorable epitome of a wallflower who was so indisposed to attend her first season that she invented an imaginary suitor. Imagine her surprise when he appeared at her door a decade later—every single gorgeous kilted inch of him. Logan is the hero who snatches your heart with charm, swagger, and a crushing childhood making you want to wrap your arms around him and hold him tight into the night, even while you wish to smack him upside the head during the day.

Maddie and Logan’s fellow characters are as equally endearing, as lively, and worthy of falling in love with as they are. Grant makes you wish you could heal his heartbreak even as he can’t remember it, and Aunt Thea, with her traveling apothecary and own tragic love story, is such a sweet, lovable creature that she even melts Logan’s closed off heart just a bit.

I highly, HIGHLY, recommend reading WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT by Tessa Dare, not because it’s written by one of the best historical romance writers of our time, but because this story is unique, exciting, and most certainly romantic. It will tickle your funny bone from the beginning with Maddie’s delightful letters, and continue to keep you chuckling through her fumbling misadventures with Logan. WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT is funny, endearing, and so wonderfully written that it will keep you smiling, even through tears, and leave you wishing it didn’t have to end but when it does, it’s with one of the sweetest happily-ever-afters—ever!

Excerpt from WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT:

Prologue

September 21, 1808

Dear Captain Logan MacKenzie,

There is but one consolation in writing this absurd letter. And that is that you, my dear delusion, do not exist to read it.

But I run ahead of myself. Introductions first.

I am Madeline Eloise Gracechurch. The greatest ninny to ever draw breath in England. This will come as a shock, I fear, but you fell deeply in love with me when we did not cross paths in Brighton. And now we are engaged.

Maddie could not remember the first time she’d held a drawing pencil. She only knew she could not recall a time she’d been without one.

In fact, she usually carried two or three. She kept them tucked in her apron pockets and speared in her upswept dark hair, and sometimes—when she needed all her limbs for climbing a tree or vaulting a fence rail—clenched in her teeth.

And she wore them down to nubs. She sketched songbirds when she was supposed to be minding her lessons, and she sketched church mice when she was meant to be at prayer. When she had time to ramble out of doors, anything in Nature was fair game—from the shoots of clover between her toes to any cloud that meandered overhead.

She loved to draw anything. Well, almost anything.

She hated drawing attention to herself.

And thus, at sixteen years old, she found herself staring down her first London season with approximately as much joy as one might anticipate a dose of purgative.

After many years as a widower, Papa had taken a new wife. One a mere eight years older than Maddie herself. Anne was cheerful, elegant, lively. Every- thing her new stepdaughter was not.

Oh, to be Cinderella in all her soot-smeared, rag-clad misery. Maddie would have been thrilled to have a wicked stepmother lock her in the tower while everyone else went to the ball. Instead, she was stuck with a very different sort of stepmother— one eager to dress her in silks, send her to dances, and thrust her into the arms of an unsuspecting prince.

Figuratively, of course.

At best, Maddie was expected to fetch a third son with aspirations to the Church, or perhaps an insolvent baronet.

At worst . . .

Maddie didn’t do well in crowds. More to the point, she didn’t do anything in crowds. In any large gathering—be it a market, a theater, a ballroom— she had a tendency to freeze, almost literally. An arctic sense of terror took hold of her, and the crush of bodies rendered her solid and stupid as a block of ice.

The mere thought of a London season made her shudder.

And yet, she had no choice.

While Papa and Anne (she could not bring herself to address a twenty-four-year-old as Mama) enjoyed their honeymoon, Maddie was sent to a ladies’ rooming house in Brighton. The sea air and society were meant to coax her out of her shell before her season commenced.

It didn’t quite work that way.

Instead, Maddie spent most of those weeks with shells. Collecting them on the beach, sketching them in her notebook, and trying not to think about parties or balls or gentlemen.

On the morning she returned, Anne greeted her with a pointed question. “There now. Are you all ready to meet your special someone?”

That was when Maddie panicked. And lied. On the spur of the moment, she concocted an outrageous falsehood that would, for better and worse, determine the rest of her life.

“I’ve met him already.”

The look of astonishment on her stepmother’s face was immensely satisfying. But within seconds, Maddie realized how stupid she’d been. She ought to have known that her little statement wouldn’t put paid to the matter. Of course it only launched a hundred other questions.

When is he coming here?

Oh, er . . . He can’t. He wanted to, but he had to leave the country at once.

Whatever for?

Because he’s in the army. An officer.

What of his family? We at least should meet them.

But you can’t. He’s from too far away. All the way in Scotland. And also, they’re dead.

At least tell us his name.

MacKenzie. His name is Logan MacKenzie.

Logan MacKenzie. Suddenly her not-real suitor had a name. By the end of the afternoon, he had hair (brown), eyes (blue), a voice (deep, with a Highland burr), a rank (captain), and a personality (firm, but intelligent and kind).

And that evening, at her family’s urging, Maddie sat down to write him a letter.

. . . Right this moment, they think I am writing a letter to my secret kilted betrothed, and I am filling a page with nonsense instead, just praying no one looks over my shoulder. Worst of all, I shall have no choice but to post the thing when I’m done. It will end up in some military dead letter office. I hope. Or it will be read and passed around whole regiments for ridicule, which I would richly deserve.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now the clock is ticking, and when it strikes doom I will have to confess. I will firstly be compelled to explain that I lied about attracting a handsome Scottish officer while staying in Brighton. Then, when I do, I shall have no further excuse to avoid the actual rejection of countless English gentlemen come spring.

My dear imaginary Captain MacKenzie, you are not real and never will be. I, however, am a true and eternal fool.

Here, have a drawing of a snail.

October 5, 1808

Dear not-really-a-Captain MacKenzie,

On second thought, perhaps I won’t have to explain it this year. I might be able to stretch this for a whole season. I must admit, it’s rather convenient. And my family looks at me in a whole new light. I am now a woman who inspired at least one headlong tumble into everlasting love, and really—isn’t one enough?

Because, you see, you are mad for me. Utterly consumed with passion after just a few chance meetings and walks along the shore. You made me a great many promises. I was reluctant to accept them, knowing how our nascent love would be tested by distance and war. But you assured me that your heart is true, and I . . .

And I have read too many novels, I think.

November 10, 1808

Dear Captain MacWhimsy,

Is there anything more mortifying than bearing witness to one’s own father’s love affair? Ugh. We all knew he needed to remarry and produce an heir. To take a young, fertile wife made the most sense. I just didn’t expect him to enjoy it so much, or with so few nods to dignity. Curse this endless war and its effect of hampering proper months-long honeymoons. They disappear together every afternoon, and then I and the servants must all pretend to not know what they are doing. I shudder.

I know I should be happy to see them both happy, and I am. Rather. But until this heir-making project takes root, I think I shall be writing you fewer letters and taking a great many walks.

 

About the Author:

Tessa Dare is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of more than a dozen historical romances. A librarian by training and a book-lover at heart, Tessa lives in Southern California with her husband, their two children, and a big brown dog.

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