CLAIM ME (Stark Trilogy #2) by J. Kenner-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date April 23, 2013

For Damien, our obsession is a game. For me, it is fiercely, blindingly, real.

Damien Stark’s need is palpable—his need for pleasure, his need for control, his need for me. Beautiful and brilliant yet tortured at his core, he is in every way my match.

I have agreed to be his alone, and now I want him to be fully mine. I want us to possess each other beyond the sweetest edge of our ecstasy, into the deepest desires of our souls. To let the fire that burns between us consume us both.

But there are dark places within Damien that not even our wildest passion can touch. I yearn to know his secrets, yearn for him to surrender to me as I have surrendered to him. But our troubled pasts will either bind us close . . . or shatter us completely.

Release Me is an erotic romance intended for mature audiences

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REVIEW: Claim Me is the second storyline in J.Kenner’s erotic romance Stark Trilogy focusing on billionaire Damien Stark and his obsession and need for Nikki Fairchild. In the previous storyline, Damien had offered Nikki one million dollars to pose for an erotic portrait that was to be kept in the privacy of his home, but Damien’s need and passion for the beautiful but scarred woman turns his private and public world upside down. Where once he offered Nikki one week of exclusivity he now wants a lifetime of promises that neither one may be able to keep. And when the art world is turned on its head with innuendo and rumors, Nikki and Damien will become the center of controversy and tabloid fodder filled with lies, deceit, murder and revenge.

Throughout Claim Me, we follow as the relationship between Damien and Nikki fast approaches a need so strong that Damien fears that without his Nikki he is less than worthy. But there are secrets from each of their pasts that threaten the relationship. Nikki accepts that Damien needs time but time is not necessarily on their side. When the walls begin to crumble, Damien will reveal that there is much more to his life than acquisitions and mergers. The pain and anguish from his childhood continue to haunt him and will become the focus of an international investigation that could spell the ruin of Stark Industries and the end to Nikki and Damien.

J. Kenner brings together a storyline in the similar stylings of E.L.James, Sylvia Day and Lisa Renee Jones. The bad boy billionaire with a secret life of family problems and abuse; and a heroine who is scarred both inside and out will again be familiar to fans of this genre. We are pulled into a fairy tale of the rich and famous only to discover that being rich and famous comes with more heartache and sorrow than anyone could ever have imagined. A beautiful mask does not necessary hide a broken heart and proves that no one is safe from the ugliness of abuse and greed. Everyone deals with pain in a different way.

Plenty of background information into Nikki and Damien’s lives is revealed as they are both forced to confront the demons from the past. Sometimes it is better to say goodbye than to allow family to bring you down. But it may be too late for Damien when his father sets into motion a blackmail scheme that will force a face to face confrontation between father and son, open up a decades old investigation and necessitate a last minute confession that takes Nikki by surprise.

J. Kenner has written a sensual story of love and hate, betrayal and trust, revenge and greed. Claim Me will pull the reader into a storyline of dark family secrets, vengeful parents and open our eyes to the truth about what goes on behind the scenes when a successful child becomes a parent’s key to fame and fortune. It is a story of love between two people so badly damaged that no matter what you are rooting for them to stay together-forever.

“You are my blood.”

“Without you, I’m nothing but a shell.”

Copy supplied by Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy