“Inked in Lies has just nudged its way onto my top readers of 2020 list. This emotional rollercoaster is beautiful, steamy, and utterly breathtaking! Darling has brought her A-game, and delivered a story that packs a whole punch and so much more!”
-- Dani René, USA Today Bestselling Author
Inked in Lies, an all consuming friends to lovers romance from Wall Street Journal bestselling author Giana Darling,
is available now!
Rating: 4 Stars
Told in the first person. Alternating persons.
Told in the first person. Alternating persons.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book for review from Social Butterfly PR and the author. I was not compensated nor was I required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am posting this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising".
Blurb:
He moved in next door.
Handsome as sin, older in a way that meant forbidden.
He had tattoos on his hands and wickedness tucked in his grin.
I was a goner as a girl to a man they called Casanova for a reason.
He would never love me, at least not the way I needed him to.
I tried to move on.
But I couldn’t turn my back on him or The Fallen MC.
So when they needed me most, I offered the only thing of value I could use to help them.
My body.
And when helping them meant putting my life on the line, Nova had to decide just how much he was willing to do to get me out alive.
Handsome as sin, older in a way that meant forbidden.
He had tattoos on his hands and wickedness tucked in his grin.
I was a goner as a girl to a man they called Casanova for a reason.
He would never love me, at least not the way I needed him to.
I tried to move on.
But I couldn’t turn my back on him or The Fallen MC.
So when they needed me most, I offered the only thing of value I could use to help them.
My body.
And when helping them meant putting my life on the line, Nova had to decide just how much he was willing to do to get me out alive.
Download your copy today!
Add INKED IN LIES to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2MGWpG1
My Thoughts:
Lila had a tough childhood. Her story takes a little longer since she seems to be the youngest. I didn’t mind because of how this book began and I wanted to make sure that she found her happy place. Nova is a man who goes out of his way to protect people. He has a heart that’s in the right place. He has friends that have his back. The more I meet these friends the more I want to get to know them.
This is a story that may be longer than some but you’ll find that it’s worth it. We have a lot of emotion that shows itself and some of it may require a tissue – or two. There’s no trigger warning but depending on your life experience you might feel something. We also have a slight age gap. Growing up the way these two did, you don’t really notice it. The only way you will see any differences may be listening to what they tell us.
We have a book where you’re going to at some point want to get comfortable. Our characters are going to pull you in. It might be because you like to read about MC’s. It might be because we have characters that have had to deal with a lot of pain. Maybe it’s watching them rise above what life seems to have dealt them. For some it may take a while but there may come a time where you find that moment where you want to know how things are going to turn out. It certainly left me wanting to see more of the Fallen Men.
Excerpt:
It was a heady fuckin’ thing, bein’ someone’s sunshine, their rain, their entire ecosystem.
But it was dangerous too.
’Cause I would raze that all to the ground with one wrong move, one of my stupid mistakes.
And it would be gone, laid to waste forever.
This was better, rippin’ out the weeds of romanticism I’d been so stupid to sow in her heart. The other stuff, with time, would survive.
We’d always be family, and eventually, we’d get back to our friendship.
Two years hadn’t ruined us, what was a few more in an effort to heal her heart and give her the chance to win someone better?
I sat on the edge of the bed, dressed, boots tied, hands in my hair ’cause I couldn’t shake this feelin’ I was bein’ a fuckin’ dumbass for endin’ it even though I knew it was right.
“Sneaking out?” she whispered.
I looked over my shoulder at her, the sheet clingin’ to the curve of her hip, the flowers I’d inked on her back vivid against her dark skin and the white covers. My fingers twitched to trace them.
“Nothin’ about this is easy, Li,” I admitted. “I feel like I’m hurtin’ you if I do, hurtin’ you if I don’t. I’m just tryin’ to find the best option here. You might not believe it, but I’m tryin’ to do what’s best for you.”
She blinked up at me, those wide, long lashed eyes that had stared up at me for years, so trustin’ and lovin’ were now shuttered, guarded against me.
My heart rattled against the cage of my ribs, strugglin’ to get out.
To get to her.
“I know you think you aren’t good enough. I know you’ve always had that kernel of doubt about yourself because you were different, and growing up, people told you that made you bad. I know Meredith solidified that for you. But I want you to think it about it like this,” she took a deep breath, and I braced for her words. “You saying your not worthy enough? It’s like me saying the same just because Ignacio is my father, and I have his blood. I choose every day to be better than what he gave me, Nova, even though he’ll always be a part of me. You could make the choice to be better than what you think you are, for me, if you wanted.”
She had a way of sayin’ someone’s name like that. The same way she said the names of flower varieties, as if each word itself was a novel, and she was tryin’ to convey a summary of the entire thing in one word.
I’d memorized the way she said Nova, as if it was the great novel ever written. As if it was a sacred text she’d studied, runnin’ her hands over the pages until they went cotton smooth with use and lovin’.
I wanted to be that for her, to try for her, to love her better every day, but how selfish would it be to keep her in this life of mine?
Lou and Z had been separated for months by prison, Cressida had lost her King.
Wouldn’t I just be condemning Li to a similar fate somewhere down the line?
“You know, Nova, I’ve loved you all my life. Since the day I first saw you across the street stepping out of that minivan, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” She laughed softly, and I thought I’d never heard a laugh so full of grief and mourning. “But for a pretty boy, you have an ugly heart.”
“Lila,” I started, but my voice was wrong, strangulated by the cobra of emotion twined around my throat, squeezin’ the life outta me. “Don’t say that. Not you. I’d fuckin’ rip out my own heart to see you safe, to see one fuckin’ smile on your face.”
She was so fuckin’ lovely in her despair, tragic in a romantic way like Juliet before her Romeo. Of course, even my Flower Child made heartbreak look pretty.
“That’s just it. You could make me smile every day for the rest of my life so easily. All I’ve ever wanted was your love.”
“I love you,” I said instantly, but the words fell flat and heavy when they should have soared, hollow and cheap as a children’s toy dropped to the floor.
“Not enough,” she declared with a sad kind of triumph as if I’d put her outta her misery in some horrific way.
As if she’d just been waitin’ for me to disappoint her all along.
“Not enough,” she repeated softly. “Not enough to even try.”
I watched her with my heart in my goddamn throat as she got up, naked and glorious as a nymph crossin’ my path, and went to the bathroom. Before she closed the door, she turned to me and said, “I hope you’re gone when I come back. And you should know, this time? I’m not waiting for you.”
But it was dangerous too.
’Cause I would raze that all to the ground with one wrong move, one of my stupid mistakes.
And it would be gone, laid to waste forever.
This was better, rippin’ out the weeds of romanticism I’d been so stupid to sow in her heart. The other stuff, with time, would survive.
We’d always be family, and eventually, we’d get back to our friendship.
Two years hadn’t ruined us, what was a few more in an effort to heal her heart and give her the chance to win someone better?
I sat on the edge of the bed, dressed, boots tied, hands in my hair ’cause I couldn’t shake this feelin’ I was bein’ a fuckin’ dumbass for endin’ it even though I knew it was right.
“Sneaking out?” she whispered.
I looked over my shoulder at her, the sheet clingin’ to the curve of her hip, the flowers I’d inked on her back vivid against her dark skin and the white covers. My fingers twitched to trace them.
“Nothin’ about this is easy, Li,” I admitted. “I feel like I’m hurtin’ you if I do, hurtin’ you if I don’t. I’m just tryin’ to find the best option here. You might not believe it, but I’m tryin’ to do what’s best for you.”
She blinked up at me, those wide, long lashed eyes that had stared up at me for years, so trustin’ and lovin’ were now shuttered, guarded against me.
My heart rattled against the cage of my ribs, strugglin’ to get out.
To get to her.
“I know you think you aren’t good enough. I know you’ve always had that kernel of doubt about yourself because you were different, and growing up, people told you that made you bad. I know Meredith solidified that for you. But I want you to think it about it like this,” she took a deep breath, and I braced for her words. “You saying your not worthy enough? It’s like me saying the same just because Ignacio is my father, and I have his blood. I choose every day to be better than what he gave me, Nova, even though he’ll always be a part of me. You could make the choice to be better than what you think you are, for me, if you wanted.”
She had a way of sayin’ someone’s name like that. The same way she said the names of flower varieties, as if each word itself was a novel, and she was tryin’ to convey a summary of the entire thing in one word.
I’d memorized the way she said Nova, as if it was the great novel ever written. As if it was a sacred text she’d studied, runnin’ her hands over the pages until they went cotton smooth with use and lovin’.
I wanted to be that for her, to try for her, to love her better every day, but how selfish would it be to keep her in this life of mine?
Lou and Z had been separated for months by prison, Cressida had lost her King.
Wouldn’t I just be condemning Li to a similar fate somewhere down the line?
“You know, Nova, I’ve loved you all my life. Since the day I first saw you across the street stepping out of that minivan, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” She laughed softly, and I thought I’d never heard a laugh so full of grief and mourning. “But for a pretty boy, you have an ugly heart.”
“Lila,” I started, but my voice was wrong, strangulated by the cobra of emotion twined around my throat, squeezin’ the life outta me. “Don’t say that. Not you. I’d fuckin’ rip out my own heart to see you safe, to see one fuckin’ smile on your face.”
She was so fuckin’ lovely in her despair, tragic in a romantic way like Juliet before her Romeo. Of course, even my Flower Child made heartbreak look pretty.
“That’s just it. You could make me smile every day for the rest of my life so easily. All I’ve ever wanted was your love.”
“I love you,” I said instantly, but the words fell flat and heavy when they should have soared, hollow and cheap as a children’s toy dropped to the floor.
“Not enough,” she declared with a sad kind of triumph as if I’d put her outta her misery in some horrific way.
As if she’d just been waitin’ for me to disappoint her all along.
“Not enough,” she repeated softly. “Not enough to even try.”
I watched her with my heart in my goddamn throat as she got up, naked and glorious as a nymph crossin’ my path, and went to the bathroom. Before she closed the door, she turned to me and said, “I hope you’re gone when I come back. And you should know, this time? I’m not waiting for you.”
About Giana:
Giana Darling is a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Top 40 Amazon bestselling Canadian romance author who specializes in the taboo and angsty side of love and romance. She currently lives in beautiful British Columbia where she spends time riding on the back of her man’s bike, baking pies, and reading snuggled up with her cat Persephone.
Connect with Giana:
Website: gianadarling.com
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2tKhTKO
Reader Group: http://bit.ly/2CFNVsK
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2J5Evtq
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2E5LPRW
Bookbub: http://bit.ly/2lI2UNn
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2eNG8Bp
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2uXVF84
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/b0qnPr
Hosted By:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave your comments below.