Take Down (Billionaire’s Club: New Orleans #3) by Mallery Malone-review, interview and giveaway

Take Down
Billionaire’s Club: New Orleans #3
by Mallery Malone
Genre: adult, contemporary, erotic, romance
Release Date:September 2, 2014

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date September 2, 2014

Powerful. Dominant, Unforgettable. He commands submission at all costs.

Cage fighter, Gabriel Devereaux, a man of barely leashed power, is known as the Bayou Beast.

There is one woman he will do anything , pay any amount to possess.

Karina Armistead, has come a long way from the innocent girl Gabriel used to know. An internationally known singer, she can have anything she wants. But everything tells her that getting involved with the Bayou Beast may leave her wrecked beyond repair.

Little does Karina Armistead know, but Gabriel has decided that she will be his.

He will destroy anything or anyone who stands in his way.

•••••••

REVIEW:  TAKE DOWN is the third instalment in Mallery Malone’s adult, contemporary, Billionaire’s Club : New Orleans erotic romance series focusing on three friends from New Orleans. Billionaires and MMA fighters-Sebastian, Raphael and Gabriel-collectively own DJD Holdings and these are their stories.

TAKE DOWN is a second chance storyline that focuses on the rebuilding of a relationship between former friends and lovers Gabriel Devereux and the woman he loves Karina Armistead. Ten years has past since they last saw one another but in the ensuing time each has made a name for themselves. Karina is the darling of pop music and Gabriel is a world champion cage fighter who spends a good deal of his energy in illegal fights. When a chance presents itself, Gabriel is the first in line to offer up his hand to Karina knowing that the truth about what happened years before could very well destroy any chance of a permanent reconciliation.

The relationship between Gabriel and Karina is one of sensuality and pure love. Karina never knew the reason Gabriel walked away ten years earlier and hearing the truth has all but destroyed her heart. Gabriel suffered at the hands of someone else, and Karina blames herself for the destruction of their relationship.

The secondary characters include the previous storyline fighters Raphael and Sebastian as well as their lovers and friends. We will be introduced to Karina’s body guards who are very protective of their charge; and Karina’s brother, and father whose relationship with Karina is born out of rage, anger and hatred.

TAKE DOWN is a very quick read where two people are given a second chance at love. This is a story of lost love, broken hearts and revenge. Mallery Malone pulls the reader into a passionate storyline where hatred all but destroys the heart; and controversy seems to follow our leading couple wherever they go. Take Down is an intense look at one man’s revenge in the hopes of destroying the only man Katrina has ever loved.

My only complaint is the book blurb which describes Gabriel as a man who commands submission at all costs. That particular comment does not seem to apply to this storyline. There is no BDSM, no demands to submit from anyone in his life. Gabriel is a man possessed by the need to reclaim the woman he lost years before not a man who demands submission in order to love or be loved.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley.

Review by Sandy

TRC: Hi Mallery and welcome to The Reading Cafe. Congratulations on the release of your latest novel-TAKE DOWN (Billionaire’s Club: New Orleans #3)

We would like to start with some background information. Would you please tell us something about yourself?

Follow Mallery: Website / Goodreads/ Twitter / Facebook

Mallery: I’m a lifelong reader of everything. Stories were always my best friends. I started writing for fun in elementary school, for extra credit in high school and to keep myself sane as a young adult! I’ve been a published author since 2000, but started writing under Mallery Malone in 2008.I live north of Atlanta, GA with my husband, our guitar collection, two attack poodles and a cannibal fish.

TRC: Who or what influenced your career in writing?

Mallery: I can’t point to one particular thing that influenced my writing. I think we writers are an amalgam of what we’ve experienced and what we’ve read. While I started reading romances with Johanna Lindey books, the first books I bought myself were fantasy and science fiction. So I’ve been influenced by Madeline L’Engle, Ursula K LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey, Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Roger Zelazny. My greatest influence in my writing was an elementary school English teacher named Mrs. Flinchum. I’d turned in a short story for extra credit and she encouraged me to keep at it–even had me speak to one of her classes about creative writing. I’m forever grateful to my teachers!

TRC: When not writing, what do you do to relax?

Mallery: I relax by spending way too much time playing Candy Crush and Farm Heroes! Seriously though, I love to read, shop for jewelry and watch anime.

TRC: TAKE DOWN is the third installment in your Billionaire’s Club: New Orleans series focusing on three friends who grew up on the mean streets of New Orleans to one day own and operate a billionaire dollar business. Would you please tell us something about the series and the premise of the book?

Mallery: My fantastic editor, Monique Patterson, came up with the Billionaire’s Club series concepts. Billionaire MMA fighters in New Orleans? I was so on board! Wile that was the outward common theme for the stories, I wanted their to be an emotional connection too, and that was that they’d all come through Hard Knocks, Armand Duparte’s gym, at the same time, and bonded around their love and respect for the man who had basically saved each of them. Each one went on to achieve success in their respective disciplines, but each one also had “the one who got away” the woman who knew them before the fame and fortune, the one person who knew all their faults and failures and loved them anyway.

TRC: Who were the inspirations behind Sebastian, Gabriel and Raphael? Which model or actor best represent your ideal image for each character?

Mallery: Believe it or not, I didn’t have any particular models in mind for these guys! Hhm, maybe I need to go do a Google image search for hot cage fighters!

Click HERE for our review of KNOCK OUT (book 1)
Click HERE for our review of POWER PLAY (book 2)

TRC: What was the deciding factor behind the setting of New Orleans?

Mallery: I enjoy visiting New Orleans. The culture, the history, the food–it appeals to me on every level. Using the city as a backdrop for a contemporary series really appealed to me, and gave me an excuse to visit and eat my way through the city!

TRC: What do you believe is the appeal of the MMA/fighter storyline to romance readers?

Mallery: Readers love alpha heroes. Outside of military or paranormal themes, you can’t get any more alpha than men who get all sweaty and bloody duking it out in the octagon. There’s something primal about fighters that appeals to women on that base, instinctual level, the one that looks for the male who will provide, defend and pass on good genes. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they’re hot, smart, and soft-hearted for the right woman!

TRC: TAKE DOWN is the final installment in this particular series. What do you have planned for 2015? New series? Spin Off?

Mallery: I would be really interested in doing a full length story that spins off this series,perhaps a female MMA fighter. It would also be interesting to delve into Armand’s story and why he felt the need to rescue these Lost Boys. I’m working on several proposal right now both contemporary and paranormal. Hopefully one of those will find a home!

TRC: What challenges or difficulties (research, logistics, background) did you encounter writing this particular series?

Mallery: My husband and I watch MMA fights (he’s a huge Joe Rogan fan, but don’t tell him I told you that) and I have a neighbor who fights locally. So I had resources I could pump for information. In the end, with the stories being novella length romances, I knew I couldn’t provide the necessary detail for the sport that I wanted to include and still make the relationships realistic. So I chose to focus on the romances instead.

TRC: When writing a storyline, do the characters direct the writing or do you direct the characters?

Mallery: My characters are always in the driver’s seat, damn them! I think they’re going one way, then one of them will say something or have a stray thought, and down the rabbit hole we go! With Sebastian, I knew he’d had a tough childhood, but I didn’t know he was the spitting image of his abusive father until he told me in the story. I knew Raphael was a playboy, the Crescent City Casanova, but the why–because his parents loved each other so much they neglected him–surprised me. I knew Gabriel was dark because of the people who did him wrong, but Karina’s relationship with her father and what her father did to them both was a shocker to me. I love it when my characters exceed my concept of them, especially when it works.

TRC: The mark of a good writer is to pull the reader into the storyline so that they experience the emotions along with the characters. What do you believe a writer must do to make this happen? Where do you believe writers fail in this endeavor?

Mallery: For me, I think you have to feel it in order to show it. I have to feel what these characters feel. I think when you empathize with the characters you can convey that to readers, you can make it real. If you don’t get a visceral reaction from reading a passage of your story, you can’t expect the readers to. If you can be happy while writing a gut-wrenching scene, I don’t think that scene will resonate the way you want it to.

TRC: What three things would you like to accomplish in the next five years?

Mallery: Retire from my day job, support myself solely with my fiction writing, and hire a maid service to clean my house!

TRC: What is something that few, if any people, know about you?

Mallery: That I played the viola in high school. I still have it and always say I’m going to break it out one day.

TRC: On what are you currently working?

Mallery: My alter ego is working on a three book full length sexy contemporary series. Hopefully we can get those done so Mallery can get back to writing!

LIGHTNING ROUND

Favorite TV Show: Sleepy Hollow

Last Movie You Saw: Guardians of the Galaxy

Favorite Musical Group: Metallica, 30 Seconds to Mars

Dark or Milk Chocolate: Yes please!

Secret Celebrity Crush: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Last Vacation Destination; San Antonio for RWA. Strictly vacation was
Chichen Itza during the December 21, 2012 solstice.

Do you have any pets? Two standard poodles who think they’re lap dogs and would take over the world if they had thumbs!

Pet Peeve: People who stop in the middle of a busy walkway, oblivious to others around them.

TRC: Thank you Mallery for taking the time to answer our questions. Congratulation on the success of the Billionaire’s Club: New Orleans series. We wish you all the best in your writing career.

Mallery: Thank you!

Mallery is graciously offering to gift (via Amazon) the Billionaire’s Club: New Orleans Series Vol 1-3 ebook trilogy (or $10 GC equivalent) to ONE (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.

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8. Giveaway runs from September 14-19, 2014