Black Tangled Heart (Play On #3) by Samantha Young-Review & Excerpt Tour
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date May 14, 2020
To my siblings, Jane was a friend. A pseudo-sister, the girl we grew up with.
To me? She was everything.
Our passion consumed us.
When our world fell apart, I thought our love would be the thing that held us together.
She was the love of my life. But she abandoned me when I needed her most.
And I’ll never forgive her.
For years I’ve been planning my revenge against the people who took everything from me.
Jane won’t be an exception. I’m coming for her.
She knows it.
She says she wants to help me serve my version of justice on the people who hurt me.
I’ll let her.
She probably thinks it will save her from me.
It won’t.
*This is a complete standalone. The Play On series are books connected by the theme of the arts industry, not by characters.
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REVIEW:BLACK TANGLED HEART is the third instalment in Samantha Young’s contemporary, new adult to adult romance story line focusing on artist Jane Doe and writer Jamie McKenna. BLACK TANGLED HEART can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Each of the instalments is a stand alone story.
Told from dual first person perspectives (Jane and Jamie) BLACK TANGLED HEART covers approximately seventeen years in the life of Jane Doe and Jamie McKenna. At thirteen years of age, Jane Doe, a product of the foster care system met Skye, Lorna and their brother Jamie McKenna, and immediately fell in love with the boy who would one day break her heart. With Lorna as her best friend, and Skye a ‘second’ mother in our heroine’s life, Jane found herself loved for the first time in her life but falling in love with Jamie McKenna forced Jane to pick sides in a family that was about to quickly implode. As Jane and Lorna’s friendship slowly deteriorated, Jane’s relationship with Jamie advanced to a more personal level but all was not well in the McKenna household, when tragedy would strike not once but twice in a short period of time. As Jane struggled to move on with her life, Jamie barely managed to survive only to enact a plan of vengeance against everyone he blamed for destroying his life, including our story line heroine.
The relationship between Jamie and Jane is one of immediate attraction but our couple were only thirteen and fifteen years old when they met. Years would pass wherein Jamie bided his time waiting for the woman with whom he would fall in love, a woman he would eventually grow to hate and distrust. Jane never stopped loving the man who had stolen her heart, a man she no longer recognized following years of separation, and too much time to consider what happened in the past. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
BLACK TANGLED HEART follows two relationships: Jane and Lorna, and Jamie and Jane’s. Lorna was Jane’s only true friend but their friendship came at a cost to everyone involved. The dysfunctional family dynamics of the McKenna household would reveal a dark secret that would destroy Jamie, and eventually his relationship with both Lorna and Jane. A heart breaking and emotional story BLACK TANGLED HEART is a passionate and dramatic look at life, love, betrayal and revenge. The romance is seductive and sensitive; the characters are real, startling, broken and lost.
Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Play On
As Dust Dances
Hold On (see review below)
Black Tangled Heart
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
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HOLD ON
(Play On 2.5 / Big Sky 4.6)
by Samantha Young
Genre: adult, contemporary, erotic, romance
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About the Book : Release Date March 12, 2019
Autumn O’Dea has always tried to see the best in people while her big brother, Killian, has always tried to protect her from the worst. While their lonely upbringing made Killian a cynic, it isn’t in Autumn’s nature to be anything but warm and open. However, after a series of relationship disasters and the unsettling realization that she’s drifting aimlessly through life, Autumn wonders if she’s left herself too vulnerable to the world. Deciding some distance from the security blanket of her brother and an unmotivated life in Glasgow is exactly what she needs to find herself, Autumn takes up her friend’s offer to stay at a ski resort in the snowy hills of Montana. Some guy-free alone time on Whitetail Mountain sounds just the thing to get to know herself better.
However, she wasn’t counting on colliding into sexy Grayson King on the slopes. Autumn has never met anyone like Gray. Confident, smart, with a wicked sense of humor, he makes the men she dated seem like boys. Her attraction to him immediately puts her on the defense because being open-hearted in the past has only gotten it broken. Yet it becomes increasingly difficult to resist a man who is not only determined to seduce her, but adamant about helping her find her purpose in life and embrace the person she is. Autumn knows she shouldn’t fall for Gray. It can only end badly. After all their lives are divided by an ocean and their inevitable separation is just another heart break away…
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REVIEW: HOLD ON is instalment 2.5 and novella in Samantha Young’s contemporary, adult PLAY ON erotic, romance series. This is Autumn O’ Dea, and ski instructor/ construction company owner Grayson King’s storyline. HOLD ON can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous instalments in the Play On series is revealed where necessary. Autumn is the sister of Killian O’Dea –AS DUST DANCES.
NOTE: HOLD ON is part of Kristen Proby’s BIG SKY crossover collection.
Told from first person point of view (Autumn ) HOLD ON follows Glasgow resident Autumn O’Dea as she vacations, along with friends Catie and Kyle, in the Whitetail Mountains of Montana. Not much of a ski enthusiast, Autumn will take out ski instructor Grayson King, which will ‘snowball’ into a insta-love romance between two people from opposite sides of the ocean. What ensues is the rapidly building romance and love between Grayson and Autumn, and the potential fall-out as Autumn struggles with issues of trust, and battles with separation anxiety from Killian O’Dea, the brother she considers both parent and friend.
HOLD ON is a story of romance, love, letting go and moving forward. Autumn’s history with men is dark and miserable but meeting Grayson King stirs something in our story line heroine long thought buried and gone. Grayson King’s attraction to Autumn is immediate and intense, so much so that our hero is determined to claim Autumn as his own. The premise is fast paced, sweet, and engaging; the romance is passionate and intense; the characters are colorful and energetic. HOLD ON is the perfect addition to Samantha Young’s PLAY ON series.
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
NOTE: Excerpt intended for mature readers due to strong language and content.
To my gratitude, the laundry room was empty as I crashed around inside it. I hauled out my stash of detergent and softener from my allocated locker and started separating my whites. That rat bastard. My heart raced, sweat gathered under my arms, and it agitated me. An encounter with Jamie was the equivalent of fifteen shots of caffeine.
And I hated that he knew I was lying to Asher. Something he could easily hold over my head.
“You are a very angry laundry doer.”
Jamie’s deep, rich voice startled me. Trying to control my breathing, I glared over at him standing in the doorway. Arms and ankles crossed as he leaned casually against the jamb. He wore a T-shirt and jeans. Nothing had changed there.
He was still the sexiest man I’d ever seen.
God, I hate him.
“What the hell are you doing in this building?” I turned my back on him, marching over to the stacked washers and dryers.
“I had no idea you lived here,” he lied, his voice growing closer as he crossed the room toward me.
Attempting not to react physically, to not hunch my shoulders in tension, I stared unseeing at the machines. What was I in the middle of doing again?
“What a surprise to find out you’re my neighbor.”
I snorted in disbelief and turned around, shocked to find him already in my personal space. “Liar.” I dragged my gaze insolently down his body and back up. “Move away. And I mean that in more ways than one.”
“Oh, does my presence bother you?” His wicked smile caused somersaults in my belly.
“What are you doing here?” I ignored his proximity. Okay, I tried to ignore his proximity.
In answer, he stepped into me and I stumbled against the machines at my back. Jamie pressed the palms of his hands on the dryer, caging me in. My breath caught and held as his scent flooded me. That dark, earthy scent was enticing, and my body betrayed my emotions.
Feeling panic rise, I pushed at his chest, but he wouldn’t budge. “Jamie?”
Those ocean eyes wandered over my face, cold, calculating. “He doesn’t know who I am. You haven’t told him.”
I lowered my hands. Touching him was even more discombobulating. “No.”
He bent his head toward mine until our noses almost touched. I sucked in a breath. “I wonder why you’re keeping it from him?”
Determined not to let him see how much he affected me, I glared up at him. He’d only have to touch me, hold my hand, to realize I was trembling. His face was so familiar. His lips were lips I’d thought I’d kiss for the rest of my life. Why did the pain of it never dull? Why did it still feel like a shard of glass through my chest? “Did you leak those tapes of Foster Steadman to Asher’s mom?”
Something menacing flashed in his eyes before he banked it. “And if I did?”
“Are you being smart, Jamie?”
“Are you asking out of concern for me or for your billionaire boy toy?”
“Jamie.”
“Never mind. I don’t care.” The bastard dipped his nose to my throat, and I tensed against the stacked machines. He inhaled, his nose brushing my skin, and my fingers bit into the washer behind me. “You smell different,” he whispered, lifting his head to my ear. “Expensive perfume. You’ve come up in the world.”
I felt his breath caress my skin seconds before his teeth touched my earlobe. Gasping, I instinctively pushed my palms against his stomach as he bit down hard, causing a flush of heat between my legs.
With a dark chuckle, Jamie released my ear after one last nibble and whispered, “Is he the jealous type, Jane?”
Samantha Young is the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of adult contemporary romances, including the On Dublin Street series and Hero, as well as the New Adult duology Into the Deep and Out of the Shallows. Every Little Thing, the second book in her new Hart’s Boardwalk series, will be published by Berkley in March 2017. Before turning to contemporary fiction, she wrote several young adult paranormal and fantasy series, including the amazon bestselling Tale of Lunarmorte trilogy. Samantha’s debut YA contemporary novel The Impossible Vastness of Us was published by Harlequin TEEN in ebook & hardback June 2017. Play On is an adult contemporary romance and the first in a brand new series set in Scotland. Villain is a companion novella to the New York Times bestselling romance HERO.
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