Killing June (Saved by Sin #1) by May B. Bridges-Review and Guest Post
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date July 4, 2017
SEDUCED BY PAIN
At night I’m June, dominating with the whip, even as I crave the hot, searing blow of the cane, myself. I loathe this side of who I am, but I can’t deny it or escape it. And as my clients cry out for me, begging for mercy, I can’t help but want June dead.
By day, I’m Alex Ryan, the good, successful Southern woman everyone thinks I am. I’ve compartmentalized my life to make it bearable, and to get what I want most: revenge. I can have a future with June dead, as soon as I confront the man that terrorized my past.
SAVED BY SIN
Cade Brannon is the local gun for hire, part of the seedy underworld of Dallas, but he may also be my savior. I want his help and he wants me. But Cade refuses to play by my rules and is forcing his way into every one of those compartments that I want to lock away. Now the parts of my life I’ve fought so hard to keep separate are bleeding together and it’s tearing me apart.
I just want to go back to being Alex Ryan. But at what cost am I willing to kill June?
••••••••••••••
REVIEW
5 out of 5 for this reader folks!
Dark, deep, roller coaster emotion riding, naughty, angst filling … just a few words to describe this book. I LOVED IT! 🙂 This is the kind of book that sits with you long after you finish the last sentence. Gave me shivers. I will say, if you are not a fan of the dark romance, BDSM genre then skip this read. It could also be triggers for some who have personal issues with this kind of story. If you are okay with it all, then by all means jump in, full on, you will be taken for one amazing ride!
Killing June by May B. Bridges is the first book of her “Saved By Sin” series. How appropriate is “Saved By Sin”! Brilliant really. As I mentioned above, it’s a dark romance with BDSM elements, hot and very steamy, descriptive with a good dash of suspense. Not for a light afternoon over tea kind of read, but for a glass of red wine and a dark chocolate eclair. DECADENT!
Alexandria “Alex” is also known as “June” by a few chosen people. By day, she is Alex. A well put together lady who seems to have it all together. By night she is June, a highly complex, dark, tortured soul who indulges in BDSM lifestyle that she is NOT happy with. Events in her life have placed her on this unwanted path that she detests so much, but secretly craves. These events have been responsible for her being deceived and manipulated and now she wants answers and revenge.
Cade is the perfect man for Alex AND June. He is what June craves but what Alex needs. He is a healthy balance. He is dominant, self assured, caring, protective and loving but can bark and bite when the circumstance arises. Once he discovers Alex/Junes secrets, he is all in to heal and win this woman who fulfills all he needs in his own life. Alex/June want to fight him off however, but Cade is having none of it.
These two are very much a give and take couple, and May got the balance absolutely spot on. I loved the twists and turns, the suspense of the story and I found my heart racing a time or two when I really had no clue where we were going. BDSM can be a very tough genre to write as in truth, BDSM is not just physical. There is such an overwhelming emotional side to a BDSM relationship and convincing the reader that a couple will make it can be a hard task to accomplish. May you accomplished this perfectly. I am an emotional reader, and you pulled my heart strings as I flipped through the pages. I feel like a blabbering fool going on about it and not getting my words right here, but that is proof that you did your job as an awesome author in this genre. THANK YOU!
I never give storyline away on my reviews, you will have to take the ride alone. Just know you are in for an intense story, some incredible steamy scenes, a couple you can’t help but love, and a suspense where by the end you’ll be thinking “Oh freaking YES!”
So looking forward to more from this author! LOVED!
HAPPY READING! 🙂
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Rachel T.
Some Like it Hot! Navigating Romance.
I remember the first time I read a sex scene in a book. Wow, I was seriously unprepared. Being used to YA fantasy and a softer kind of romance, I wasn’t expecting it, at all. I was sure the scene would fade to black any moment. There I was, sitting at my daughter’s gymnastics practice, hordes of other parents around, and all of a sudden, I’m reading about penetration and hard coc… ‘Oh Jesus, did she just stay that?’ I snapped the book shut, face turning red, certain every other parent in the room somehow knew I was reading a dirty book in the presence of their precious children. The book was quickly shoved in my bag, not to make a reappearance at gymnastics. It was a surprise, to say the least. And though I enjoyed my first erotic romance read thoroughly, I’d have appreciated knowing what I was in for when I chose that as my casual daytime reader.
Romance, erotic romance, erotica, it can get confusing. So how is one to know what they’re in for when they pick up a romance book? And is the book you’re picking up a romance at all? Let’s see if we can’t sort it out.
Romance is a broad genre. That’s probably why it has so many sub-genres. If you’re searching Amazon for a romance book, you’ll have over 25 categories to browse. If Barnes and Noble is more your style, you can search over 40 romance categories. That’s a whole lot of books! And seeing that some of those categories are as opposite as night and day, romance runs the gamut of topics, themes, and plot lines.
So if there are so many sub-genres, so many ways to write these books, what makes them all romance? To be a romance, a book needs two things: A central love story, and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending—Also known as a happily ever after or happy for now. No, I didn’t come up with those from my own writerly genius. I stole them from Romance Writers of America. Pretty basic, right? Once you have a story with a conflict and climax that focuses on developing a romantic relationship, and a happy ending, pretty much anything goes. It’s all of the other elements and subplots that define your sub-genre.
The jump from romance to erotic romance is an easy one. It’s romance because we have our two central elements in place. It’s erotic because we’ve taken the sex from PG 13 to NC-17. The sex almost never fades to black, and authors tend to be less coy in their descriptions of the body.
Erotic romance is almost as wide of a descriptions as romance itself. These novels can be anything from cowboy romance, historical, supernatural, contemporary, to suspense. Erotic romance spans the full range of romance sub-genres, with spiritual romance possibly being the only exception. Many book sellers don’t even list erotic romance as a romance sub-genre at all. That very well could be because there are erotic novels in every sub-genre romance.
If you like your romance with a lot of heat, I’m sure you can find one that lights your fire. If you’re an easy blusher, you might want to think that through before bring these books with you to the kid’s practices. Public or private, erotic romance are some of my favorite reads
You might think erotica is simply the next progression. Isn’t it just erotic romance on another level? Or even simply another word for erotic romance? Actually, no. The two have some big differences and aren’t technically interchangeable. In fact, an erotica story may not even be a romance at all. It doesn’t have to deal with love or relationships, and might not have a happy ending. To put it plainly, these are stories about sex. They focus on the act of sex, and not always as a byproduct of a romantic relationship.
When I was younger porn came in movies, not clips. I know, that makes me ancient. The point is, these movies always had a plot line. A group of girls would be home, bored, and hungry. They’d start talking about all of the sex acts they hadn’t tried while waiting for the pizza they ordered. The pizza guy would show up, one thing would lead to another, and suddenly you have an orgy. The plot line was never important. It was the catalyst to get these people in a room together so sex could be the focus. Without sex you really had no story. Erotica can be similar in many ways. If you pull out the sex acts, you usually don’t have enough content left for a book.
In theory, you could write an erotica about almost anything. As I’m writing this, I’m watching my boyfriend play the new Friday the 13th video game. It’s gruesome and not my thing at all, but we could turn it into an erotic novel. If Jason had graphic, hot sex with the camp counselors before killing them, and we focused the story more on his sex drive and a bit less on the hacking and slashing, we’d have an erotic horror novel. Not one I’d be reading, but a novel that fit the bill, nonetheless.
Erotica novels can be fun and exciting reads. Many of my favorite erotica writers find a way to inject a bit of humor. And what is better than a book with hot sex and a good laugh? But know that when you are searching for an erotica title, all bets are off and you could end up with anything from something resembling a romance, to bored girls and a pizza guy, to Jason in a hockey mask getting busy before hacking off some heads. Anything is possible as long as sex is the star.
It’s possible that the misconception that erotica and erotica romance are one in the same comes from book sellers. As we mentioned above, a lot of them don’t list erotic romance as a genre. That leaves authors and publishers with a few options to let readers know that their book is erotic in nature. An obvious one is to list it under erotica. So before you jump up and down, yelling that you’ve found some of your favorite erotic romances listed as erotica, yep, I know.
Truth is, if it’s a book you love, a book that sweeps you away from reality for a few hours, then it doesn’t matter how a seller labels it. Trying to sort through it all is only to help you find the book of your dreams a little bit faster. For all of their differences and similarities, the greatest thing romance, erotic romance, and erotica have in common is how diverse they are. With books from one end of the spectrum to the other, whether you want something sweet and light, a love story that’s dark and steamy, or a book about a good roll in the sheets, one of these three genres are sure to have what you need.
Happy reading!
May B. Bridges
I write dark, gritty contemporary romance. I am a Southerner in the Northwest by way of Colorado. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for updates, bookish and writing thoughts, and general life shenanigans.
