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Black Tangled Heart (Play On #3) by Samantha Young-Review Tour

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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.

•••••••••

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

_________

HOLD ON
(Play On 2.5 / Big Sky 4.6)
by Samantha Young
Genre: adult, contemporary, erotic, romance

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / Chapters Indigo / Google Play

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…

•••••••••

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.

 

I stared dully at my painting. My creative mood had left the building, under the weight of the many questions going around and around in my head. Adrenaline made it hard for me to sit still. Cursing Jamie under my breath, I grabbed my laundry basket and headed toward the front door. Peering through the peephole, I double-checked his door was shut before I left my apartment. Glowering at his door as I passed, I hurried downstairs. How the hell had he maneuvered himself into my building? And why?
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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As Dust Dances (Play On #2) by Samantha Young-Review & Excerpt Tour

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AS DUST DANCES (Play On #2) by Samantha Young-Review & Excerpt Tour

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / B&N / KOBO / Chapters Indigo / Google Play

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 7, 2018

Once upon a time Skylar Finch was the lead singer of a hugely successful American pop-rock band. But fame made her miserable. When years of living a lie suddenly ended in tragedy, Skylar fell off the map.

Eighteen months later she’s sleeping in a tent in a cemetery in Glasgow, making just enough money to eat by busking on the streets. She manages to avoid recognition, but not the attention of one of Glasgow’s ambitious A&R executives.

Killian O’Dea works at Skyscraper Records, Scotland’s most successful record label. Raised by his uncle and owner of the label, Killian’s upbringing would have been devoid of affection entirely if it wasn’t for his loving sister. Killian is unflinchingly determined to bring the label more success than ever, and the young homeless woman who busks on Buchanan Street is going to help him do that. Her music speaks to him in a way he refuses to over-analyze. All he knows is that if it can touch his dark soul, it’ll set everyone else’s alight.

Skylar makes it clear that she doesn’t want to sign with him. But when she experiences the dangerous reality of a woman sleeping rough, Skylar has no one else but Killian to turn to. An undeniable connection forms between them. But Skylar doesn’t want the career Killian is trying to forge for her, and when her past comes back to haunt her Killian will be faced with a decision that could ruin him. He must either free Skylar from his selfish machinations and destroy everything he’s ever worked for, or lose a woman who has come to mean more to him than he ever thought possible…

•••••••••

REVIEW:  AS DUST DANCES is the second instalment in Samantha Young’s contemporary, adult PLAY ON erotic, romance series. This is twenty-four year old, American singer Skylar Finch, and thirty year old, Scottish record producer Killian O’Dea’s story line AS DUST DANCES can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty.

NOTE: Due to some of the story line content, there may be some triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from first person point of view (Skylar Finch) AS DUST DANCES follows the tumultuous journey of singing superstar Skylar Finch. Eighteen months earlier Skylar Finch fell off the face of the earth in the aftermath of a tragedy that all but destroyed her life. Fast forward to present day wherein our heroine has been living and busking on the streets of Glasgow, Scotland until the day a record producer recognizes Skylar for the talent she was. Enter record producer Killian O’Dea, and the man with whom Skylar would fall in love. What ensues is the slow building relationship between Skylar and Killian, and the potential fall-out as fame and the glare of the paparazzi begin to overwhelm our heroine, once again.

Killian O’Dea recognized Skylar the moment he heard her voice on the street but Skylar had been reported missing for close to two years, and her backstory and history were tragic and sad. Killian knew the woman hiding beneath the worn clothing and dirty hair was a flower waiting to bloom when cared for and loved. Skylar no longer needs the spotlight of fame and notoriety but her love the music is what propels her forward. Broken by tragedy, and the glare of the spotlight, strong-willed but stubborn Skylar ran from her past only to find herself battling her will to survive.

The relationship between Skylar and Killian begins as a business arrangement when Killian must come to terms of what happened and why. Skylar is but a shadow of her former self, having lived on the streets for several months, a life that proved harder as the weeks went by. As Skylar’s emotional and physical health began to improve so did her feelings for her ‘would-be’ rescuer, and happily ever after. The $ex scenes are intimate, seductive and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

We are introduced to Killian’s half-sister Autumn O’Dea, a woman who struggles to find her path in life; their uncle and record company owner James Byrne; Killian’s assistant Eva; as well as the members of Skylar’s former band-lead guitar Micah, drummer Brandon and bassist Austin. Autumn’s story line is next in HOLD ON.

AS DUST DANCES is an emotional story of betrayal and loss; heartbreak and pain; falling in love and letting go of the past. The premise is sensational and inspiring; the characters are colorful and creative; the romance is inspiring and captivating. AS DUST DANCES follows one woman’s fall into obscurity, and one man’s struggle to bring her back to life.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

It was my turn to stare at him quizzically, but he didn’t acknowledge the look. He sipped his water and stared around the restaurant as if this weren’t awkward and weird. His nose had a slight bump in it, his cheekbones high, and his jaw chiseled and angular. Overall, he had a very hawklike profile, masculine, rugged, and intimidating. And at that moment I felt like prey, stupidly allowing myself to be caught.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he genuinely didn’t want anything sexual from me.
I stared at him unabashedly, wanting answers.
He remained steadfast, ignoring me, until the waitress he’d called out to returned with a plastic carrier bag. “Will this do?”
“Aye.” He took it from her. “Thanks.” When I returned to the main restaurant, I put the folded-up wet clothes beside me on the bench, my underwear tucked out of sight.
I couldn’t meet the stranger’s eyes as I reached for the Diet Coke I’d asked for, savoring the taste. On tour, I’d needed lots of energy so I’d eaten well and drank plenty of water. Soda was a treat at the best of times. But I hadn’t had a Diet Coke in months, and it tasted great.
“Excuse me,” my companion’s voice jolted my gaze upward and I saw him wave down a passing waitress. “Do you have a bag?”
“A bag?”
“Carrier bag, paper bag. A bag.”
“Um … let me check.”
He held it out, staring at me with those eyes that would’ve been much more suited to a Lothario, to someone who knew how to be charming. “For your clothes.”
Oh.
It was a kind gesture, also at odds with his demeanor, and my suspicion increased. I took the bag, however, sliding my wet clothes into it and out of sight. Exasperated, I said, “What the hell do you want?”
“Food first.”
“So I’ll be well fed, satisfied, and more amenable to whatever the hell it is you want from me?”
He looked at me now, really looked at me, and the corner of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. “Exactly.”
“A good villain doesn’t admit to his plan, you know.”
“I’m not a villain.”
“What are you?”
“Fo—”
“Food first. Yeah, yeah.”
And so we sat in silence until the food arrived, and the smell of my sea bass made my stomach grumble loudly. Years ago, it would’ve embarrassed me. Now I couldn’t give a shit. All I cared about was that fish.
I dug in, closing my eyes in joy as I ate.
When I opened them to scoop up buttery mashed potatoes, I felt his gaze on me.
The furrowed brow, the glimmer of concern in his eyes, made me stiffen. But just like that, his expression cleared, blank, and he went back to eating his burger as if I didn’t exist.
I savored every morsel of that meal, including the Chocolate Fudge Fixation I ordered for dessert.
My belly felt full and satisfied, and exhaustion began to force my eyelids to droop.
And I knew it was time to pay the piper. “So …” I pushed away my empty dessert plate and slumped back against the booth, my expression baleful. “What the hell do you want from me?”
His answer was to reach into his wallet, pull out a business card, and hand it over.
I stared down at it, disbelief flooding me.

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.

Samantha has been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award 2012 for Best Author and Best Romance for On Dublin Street, Best Romance 2014 for Before Jamaica Lane, and Best Romance 2015 for Hero. On Dublin Street, a #1 bestseller in Germany, was the Bronze Award Winner in the LeserPreis German Readers Choice Awards for Best Romance 2013, Before Jamaica Lane the Gold Medal Winner for the LeserPreis German Readers Choice Awards for Best Romance 2014 and Echoes of Scotland Street the Bronze Medal Winner for the LeserPreis German Readers Choice Awards for Best Romance 2015.

Samantha is currently published in 30 countries and is a #1 international bestselling author.

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