Welcome to my Review/Excerpt stop on the Tasty
Virtual Book Tour for BLUE BLOODED, book 3 in the Benediction series by Shelly
Bell. This is my first experience with a Benediction book and I was not
disappointed, in fact, I am now hooked. I need to catch up. Stay tuned for an
excerpt after my thoughts, and a giveaway.
This one releases tomorrow! A must read!
***eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss in
exchange for an honest and unscripted review.
Blurb for BLUE BLOODED:
In the next sexy and suspenseful Benediction
novel, an investigative reporter and an ex-soldier witness a murder outside of
an exclusive sex club and while on the run, uncover a deadly conspiracy that
begins with mobsters and corrupt FBI agents... and ends on Capitol Hill.
A woman
who refuses to be tied down...
Investigative
reporter Rachel Dawson is always looking for her next big story. While working
on a feature about BDSM, she lands a one-night, no-holds-barred pass into the
exclusive sex club, Benediction. Rachel doesn't have a deviant bone in her
body—or so she thought—until the infuriating, ex-soldier Logan Bradford
convinces her to try rope bondage under his capable hands. But a steamy night
turns deadly when Rachel and Logan witness a gruesome murder.
A Dom
who's determined to bind her to him...
Framed for
a crime they didn't commit and hunted by corrupt FBI agents, they flee. As
Rachel and Logan search for evidence to clear their names, the attraction
they've been fighting ignites into fiery passion. Love is the last thing Rachel
wants, but night by night, as Logan binds her body, he unravels the knots
around her heart. And when they uncover a shocking political conspiracy, Rachel
will stop at nothing to reveal the truth…and it just might kill her.
My Review:
Wow, Wow, and WOW! I was hooked from page one
and had I the time, I have no doubt I would have read this in one sitting. BLUE
BLOODED by Shelly Bell is fast-paced, action-packed, sensual, sexy, and
downright excitement filled with every turn, twist, and white-knuckle page
turn. Shelly has packed in everything that could make a story grand, exciting,
sexually adventurous, romance driven, and character exceptional. I don’t know if
the first two books are this good but I surely plan to find out.
Rachel and Logan burn up the pages with the
sexual tension that exists between them from the start but as you start to see
the control shift and wobble between them, you feel the attraction grow and
become more. Logan is all about control but when he thinks he can no longer
maintain it, he surprises you. Rachel is also all about control but when she
gives it over to Logan, she realizes that there is more to control than who is
pushing the buttons. It’s about give and take, and control becomes more about allowing
someone to do what he, or she, needs to do rather than doing it for them.
BLUE BLOODED, book 3 in the Benediction series
by Shelly Bell is most definitely erotic romance. It takes you into the world
of BDSM, its light, its darkness, its smells, sounds, pain, and pleasure. However,
it doesn’t saturate the pages with it, but rather turns the sexual adventures
into yet another in-depth and living character in the story. Whereas it might
not be for everyone, I highly recommend it…you can always skip the erotic sex
scenes…for the story, the emotional relationships, the surrendering of one
strong dominating personality to another and vice versa. BLUE BLOODED is a
thrill ride, not only for the erotic sexual scenes but also for the imaginative
and terrifying plot line which could so easily happen in today’s world…truth
always is more strange, and more often, terrifying than fiction. I am
absolutely so eager to experience more of the world of Benediction.
Happy Reading Everyone!
Excerpt:
Puffing on his Cuban cigar, the Senator
reclined in his chair, a tumbler of scotch on the rocks in front of him. He
stared down the two men sitting on the other side of his desk, daring them to
repeat the words that had just been uttered.
Sweating profusely, FBI Agent Seymour
Fink tugged on his tie, his Adam’s apple bobbing above the buttoned collar of his
shirt.
For a moment, the Senator considered
retrieving his gun from his desk drawer and shooting the agent in the head, but
he couldn’t risk getting blood or splatters of brain matter on his tuxedo.
After all, he had an important dinner to attend in an hour and didn’t want to
disappoint his wife.
He downed the rest of his drink and then
shook the ice in the glass the way he’d like to shake the mobster who was
fucking with him. “Tell me what you’re going to do to fix the problem,” he said
calmly, unwilling to allow this minor bump in the road to waylay his plans.
There were only a few problems in the
world money couldn’t solve, and this was not one of them. His men were loyal to
him because he paid them to be loyal. They believed in his cause because he
paid them to believe in his cause. The whole goddamned US of A was manipulated
by money, making it possible for great men like him to become even wealthier.
But he was different because unlike most
men, he cared more for this country than he did money.
“Do, sir?” Using the sleeve of his suit
jacket, Agent Fink wiped the sweat from his brow, cigar smoke circling around
his head like a boa constrictor. “I’m not certain we should do—”
“You listen to me, you little prick.
There is nothing that will stand in my way.” The Senator hurled his tumbler
against the wall above the fireplace, shattering the glass into a million tiny
pieces. “Do you understand me? I’ve got your balls in a vise underneath my
blade, so let’s try this again. What are you going to do to fix the problem?”
These agents had been instrumental in
helping him to get the charges against Anthony Rinaldi dropped in exchange for
the mobster’s valuable foreign contacts. A few months ago, the FBI had arrested
Rinaldi for the extortion and kidnapping of Danielle Walker and, in the
process, had discovered the bodies of thirteen young women buried on his
property. But thanks to Agent Richard Evans and Fink, vital evidence had
disappeared from the FBI’s possession, helping the judge in the case, a man all
too easy to blackmail due to his expensive cocaine habit, to render his
decision in dropping the charges. In exchange, Rinaldi had brokered a deal with
a Congo mafia leader, and an item found exclusively in the Congo region was
about to arrive in the United States. Now that the ship had sailed and all the
components were successfully in place, Rinaldi’s usefulness had come to an end.
Seymour swallowed convulsively. “No one
was supposed to get hurt.”
“Don’t pull that bullshit now. You knew
when I approached you that lives would be lost for the greater good,” the
Senator said. He handed off his cigar and nodded to the other agent, a bruiser
of a man whom he’d chosen not only for his twenty years of service to this
country but for his lack of empathy. Agent Richard Evans understood the risks
involved in his job, the three bullets he’d taken in the chest a testament to
that fact.
Evans pinched the fat cigar between his
fingers and, in a flash, locked his partner’s head under his arm, pinning
Fink’s hands to the table and singeing the top of one with the foot of the
cigar. Fink screamed, his smaller body thrashing wildly as he fruitlessly tried
to escape from his partner and the pain he was inflicting.
The acrid scent of burnt flesh
overpowered the cigar’s sweet one, a smell he would forever more attribute to
power.
By the time Evans released him, Fink’s
skin had turned pasty white, his shirt completely drenched from his sweat. He
breathed heavily, nodding. “Consider the problem solved, sir. By this time
tomorrow night, Rinaldi will be dead.”
The Senator leaned back in his chair and
smiled.
God bless the USA.
About the Author:
A sucker for a happy ending, Shelly Bell writes sensual romance often with a bit of kink and action-filled erotic thrillers with high-emotional stakes for her alpha heroes and kick-ass heroines.
She began writing upon the insistence of her
husband who dragged her to the store and bought her a laptop. When she’s not
working her day job, taking care of her family, or writing, you’ll find her
reading the latest smutty romance.
She currently writes for Avon Red Impulse, Loose
Id, and Soul Mate Publishing.
