SET THE PACE (The Detroit Love Duet #1) by Kim Karr-Review and Book Tour
SET THE PACE
Detroit Love Duet #1
by Kim Karr
Release Date: February 17, 2016
Genre: adult, contemporary, erotic, romantic suspense
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date February 17, 2016
Every city needs a hero, but Detroit’s white knight just might be a villain.
A rough childhood branded Jasper Storm trouble. A bad boy. Not worth a damn. His love of cars was the only thing that could battle his delinquency. With the need for speed in his blood, he overcame his wayward ways. Mostly. All grown up, the broken city of Detroit hails him their shining star. And the man behind a new cutting-edge automobile is ready to turn this bankrupt town around.
Everything he does in life is fast. He talks fast, f*cks fast, and drives fast. But when one reckless turn brings him face-to-face with the childhood he has tried very hard to forget, he finds himself on the edge of wondering if he shouldn’t slow down.
Charlotte Lane was the tomboy who lived next door. She was his best friend. He was her protector. Then tragedy struck and she disappeared, forever—or so he thought.
Jasper has many reasons to hate Charlotte and keep his distance, but she’s infiltrating his every thought and he can’t stay away. Back in town with an agenda of her own, she should push him aside. Make him turn around. Walk away herself. Yet she can’t.
With the past lurking between them, they proceed with caution. That is until one sex-filled night leads to murder. When Detroit’s biggest ally suddenly becomes suspect number one, will Charlotte—the girl Jasper once kept safe—be the one to save him?
•••••••
REVIEW: SET THE PACE is the first installment in Kim Karr’s contemporary, adult The Detroit Love Duet erotic, romantic suspense series focusing on automotive designer/ businessman Jasper Storm, and journalist Charlotte Lane.
Told from alternating first person points of view (Jasper and Charlotte) SET THE PACE is a story line twenty years in the making reverting between the past and the present Jasper and Charlotte were childhood best friends but an explosion at an automotive plant left over four hundred people dead including Jasper’s father, and Charlotte’s dad the number one suspect when all fingers pointed at the man in charge. Fast forward twenty years, and Charlotte has been assigned the unenviable position as one of the journalists at the Detroit reveal of the new ‘Storm’ automobile, and finds herself facing a very angry, confused and unforgiving Jasper Storm. What ensues is a rekindling of friendship-a friends to lovers trope-that now finds Jasper’s life spiraling out of control, and our heroine facing the fight of her life.
The relationship between Jasper and Charlotte is acrimonious at best as Jasper refuses to accept Charlotte’s appearance as anything but trouble. He believes Charlotte is looking to destroy his career, and when all clues point to Jasper in a grizzly murder of another journalist, Jasper believes that Charlotte will stop at nothing to destroy his life. Overcoming the past, and the betrayal that has destroyed both of their souls, jasper and Charlotte take several trepidatious steps towards a happily ever after but Jasper’s reputation as a ‘manwhore’ places our hero in a less than flattering light. The $ex scenes are intimate, erotic and seductive.
Detroit is the backdrop to SET THE PACE. We are up close and personal with a city dying from a multitude of sins including greed, unemployment, poverty, lawlessness and addiction. Growing up less than sixty miles from Detroit, our family would witness the carnage, of a once powerful city, on the nightly news. Many of the landscape is familiar and heartbreaking.
There are several secondary and supporting players including Jasper’s business partners: Will Fleming, Jake Crown and Drew Kates; Detroit Mayor Alex Harper and his father, parts supply dealer Hank Harper. We are also introduced to Charlotte’s co-workers Eve Hepburn, and her boss Cole Reynolds.
SET THE PACE is a story of suspense, intrigue and mystery. There are a number of potential allies and foes who all have an agenda with Jasper or Charlotte. The requisite evil has yet to be revealed but the build up of possible enemies with vendettas against one or both of our leading characters is continuing to climb. From family to friends; acquaintances to childhood neighbors; everyone is suspect and no one is free from the fall out of that fateful night twenty years before.
SET THE PACE focuses on the past and the present; betrayal, revenge, secrets and lies. The premise is exciting with a number of twists and turns; the characters are colorful, charismatic and not without some questionable choices; the romance is a rekindling of what should always have been. Kim Karr blends the fragility of human nature into a story line what will captivate and fascinate until the very end….oh, forgot…..SET THE PACE ends on a cliff hanger so you have been warned.
Copy supplied by the author
Reviewed by Sandy
Charlotte Lane
Buzz. Buzz.
Startled, I jump and quickly place the frame back in its place.
Buzz. Buzz.
It’s the call button from the lobby. I’m not sure what to do. I should probably ask Jasper if he is expecting anyone before I let whomever it is up.
The hallway he disappeared down is fairly long and at the end are two doors. Both are slightly ajar. I can hear the shower running and music playing. I try to place the song. Just as I go to knock, I pause, and then grin, it’s Led Zeppelin—the same music that used to blare from his garage when he was out there with his father.
Somehow in my absentminded quandary, my fingertips have nudged the door open just enough that I can see inside the bathroom. Perfectly. In my direct line of sight is a huge glass wall and he is just beyond it.
My pulse is beating so hard I can feel it pounding at all my pulse points. I should leave. I don’t need to bother Jasper. Whoever it is buzzing to come up can just come back later. Yet, I can’t move. Or maybe it’s more like I don’t want to move.
Steam hovers in the air but there’s not nearly enough to obscure anything. And there he is, naked in the water, head bent as it sluices over him. His eyes are closed. One hand is on the wall. The other slides slowly down his belly and lands between his thighs.
Oh, God.
Now I really can’t move. I’m frozen in place. His hand is on his cock. I swallow the noise my throat tries to make, but I’m sure I don’t do a good job of it. Thank you, Jesus, he doesn’t seem to notice. No, he definitely doesn’t notice because oh, my God, now he’s stroking himself. Slowly. Deliciously. Up, then down, and a twist of his palm around the head of his cock.
I shouldn’t be watching this, and yet I can’t look away. This is private. For him only, and yet I have to wonder if it’s because of me. Is it his attraction to me that made him step back just moments ago? Made him have to relieve the desire he was feeling? Then why did he say he wouldn’t kiss me again?
When he moves his wrist faster, I have to stifle my sudden harsh breath with my hand. My eyes are glued to his body and although I should leave, I can’t. I just can’t. Jasper, doing this to himself, is the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The only thing stopping me from reaching between my own legs is my perverted fascination with wanting to watch him come. Oh, and of course the terror of getting caught.
His mouth opens, water filling it and overflowing when he tips his face into the spray. I want so much to be in there with him, share the water, and feel that mouth on my body, but I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen. We seem to be dancing around the attraction we feel for each other. Like both of us are afraid to take that leap from a two-decade-old friendship to intimacy. Afraid perhaps of where it might lead, or maybe where it won’t.
I can’t be sure.
Then again, it could be that the ghosts that accompany us are just too strong to bear.
Soon he’s fucking into his fist with a deliberation that makes me weak at the knees, and I watch. I watch the way his muscles cord in his arms, the way his cock moves within the confines of his fist, the way his face contorts into pure pleasure.
Looking at Jasper, watching him about to come, it opens up something within me. The feeling is hard to describe and I can only think of one word that is fitting—primal.
His cock disappears inside his curled fingers and this stroke seems somehow more determined. Up, down, a twist around his crown, and then another twist. This time his head dips down, and then lowers still.
I press my thighs together to ward off the ache of arousal that is flooding me. I can’t hear him, but I wish I could. I know what he’s feeling, though, because I can see his mouth open and his face contort with satisfaction. He’s close. I can tell. And then soon enough, his taut belly strains, the muscles in his legs bunch, and then it happens—his desire jets out.
Never in my life have I wanted to make myself come like I do right in this moment. No, that’s not true. Never in my life have I wished for a man to take me the way I wish for Jasper to take me right now. Still, this is all kinds of wrong. I shouldn’t have watched him. I know this. Chiding myself, I lick salt from my upper lip and slowly, cautiously take a step back.
“Is there a show going on that I wasn’t invited to?”
That voice. I know that voice. The cynicism behind the tone.
Oh, God.
No. No. No.
Kim is a daydreamer. So much so that if daydreaming could be a hobby it would be her favorite. It’s how her stories are born and how they take root. An imagination that runs wild is something to be thankful for, and she is very thankful. 🙂
She grew up in New York and now lives in Florida with her husband and four kids. She’s always had a love for reading books and writing. Being an English major in college, she wanted to teach at the college level but that was not to be. She went on to receive an MBA and became a project manager until quitting to raise her family. Kim currently works part-time with her husband and with the rest of her time embraces one of her biggest passions–writing.
Kim wears a lot of hats! Writer, book-lover, wife, soccer-mom, taxi driver, and the all around go-to person of her family. However, she always finds time to read.
She likes to believe in soul mates, kindred spirits, true friends, and Happily-Ever-Afters. She loves to drink champagne, listen to music, and hopes to always stay young at heart.
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