The Saucy Wenches Book Club

In the corner house of an empty street, there is a boy inside a box. In that boy, there lives a secret, one so dark, it’s sealed with locks. 
Nearly ten years have passed since the night I was captured. Tricked and betrayed, I suffered the hours of brutal torment with death’s cold whisper across my skin. And when the nameless faces that haunted my nightmares took everything and everyone I loved, I feared I’d never be free of the darkness. But that's the thing about fear. Over time, it breeds anger, and when anger fills the box, vengeance bleeds out. 
It's been almost a decade since I escaped their hell, staying in the shadows, hiding my demons, and God help them now that I've tasted retribution and crave more of it. Blood is the price for pain, and I vow to take everything and everyone they love. I’m no longer a frightened boy, but the intrepid vigilante, a ruthless executioner, who will stop at nothing to punish the depraved few that stole my life and walked free. 
The plan …

Sometimes a book grabs hold of you, changes your heart, and never lets your mind go completely, even years after you read it the first time. There are several series that have done that in the past decade or so, but only one stand-alone novel has done that for me--The Paper Swan by Leylah Attar.

I first told you about The Paper Swan immediately after I read it in the summer of 2015, in my review here. In that review I didn't really tell you anything, except that I loved the book, that Ms. Attar's creative choice to switch POVs was a masterstroke, that life is all about points-of-view, that I didn't want to tell you more because I wanted you to experience the book for yourself, and that this book was still walking around with me, days after I finished it. Well, now it's been two-and-a-half years since I first read this book, I've since read it at least four more times including just a few weeks ago, it's still walking around with me, still breaking my heart and p…

I felt like all the bits that held me together were slowly coming unglued, falling off, piece by piece. I was disappearing, disintegrating like the rocks that get eaten by the sea.

The Paper Swan
~~Leylah Attar

Some had been smart and some had been funny, and others still had given him big eyes while being both. And he loved women. He loved the filthy temptresses and the newly, earnestly horny, and the women who fucked for money. Rachel wasn't special because they were less... She was special because they were all fucking amazing, and she still felt like more.There was no one trait, no logical reason. Nothing he could point to and say, This, this makes her better than those other women.No defining moment where his honest lust for everything she represented had slipped over the line into this gnawing, obsessive hunger he couldn't escape.She was a work of art. Jared saw the paint and the canvas and a few pleasant shapes. Ace felt the earth move. 
BEYOND JEALOUSY(BEYOND #4) by Kit Rocha.

The other day I happened to be going through my old Kindle, deleting stuff and checking out books I had bought because I am a sucker for sexy covers. I had bought SO many books purely based on hot people on the cover it was kind of funny. I came across a bundle I had bought a while ago, the first three Beyond books and thought "well, why not?" 

I had attempted reading the first book last year, but my mood was way off, and I just never got into it. Timing matters. This time around, I made my way through the first 4 books in less than a week, even though I was barely home! So what better thing to Fangirl over this week than the wonderfully gritty, uncompromisingly sexy, intense, sometimes dark, always intriguing Beyond series! (I will keep spoilers to the minimum! But there will be quotes from the books.)

Click through to read more!

We were both quiet in the aftermath, at a loss because it was at once beautiful and scary--beautiful because when we were together, we were whole and complete, and scary because we knew there was no turning back. We were too fat gone to take any of it back.

The Paper Swan
~~Leylah Attar

Because when we love, we carry it on the inside, and we can turn on its light even in our darkest moments. The deeper we love, the brighter it shines.

The Paper Swan
~~Leylah Attar

Six was swaying too, crushed between Noelle and one of the newer girls -- Ace's apprentice, Emma. It made a hell of a picture, Noelle sweet and soft and Six with her stark, hard edges and Emma a mixture of pretty and punk, covered in ink.   They looked like they came from different worlds, but they laughed like they were family. And when Six twisted around to meet his eyes, the slow smile that curved her lips was drunk on a feeling he recognized all too well.   Belonging.  Kit Rocha's Beyond Pain (Beyond #3) 

Damian grabbed my hands and pinned them behind my back. His lips found mine and he latched on with a hunger that left me breathless. He was an ocean of want and need. All the raging, submerged currents that he'd kept at bay unleashed themselves on me. I tried to keep afloat, clutching at him, but I didn't stand a chance. My hurt, my anger, my tears were tossed aside by something deeper, something vast and true and powerful and endless.

It was a kiss that had sneaked in through an open window, a kiss that lay folded in a paper giraffe, in the silences between, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, in the pits of mini mangoes and here, now, at last, it was set free. And the rightness of it, the feeling of longing and belonging, made me want to hold on to it forever. I wanted Damian to keep kissing me, keep kissing, keep kissing, until every other kiss had been erased, until this was the only kiss. 

The Paper Swan
~~Leylah Attar

If you close your eyes and think about someone you love, what comes back is not a precise list of hair color, eye color, or the things that go on their driver's license. Rather, it's the bits and pieces that seep through your consciousness, the things about them that you never realized you were storing away.

The Paper Swan
~~Leylah Attar

There were no shades to black. Black was absolute, impenetrable. Black absorbed all the colors. If you fell into black, it swallowed you whole. Yet here was a different kind of black. It was black ice and burning coal. It was well-water and desert night. It was dark tempest and glassy calm. It was Black battling Black, opposite and polar, and yet still...all black.

The Paper Swan
~~Leylah Attar

Do you know what it's like to have the world turn its back on you, to turn a blind eye to your existence, like you never even mattered? Do you know what it's like to scream until your throat is raw only to realize everyone tuned you out long ago and nobody heard a single word?

Because I do. I know.

Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)
J.M. Darhower

He leans down, and I've got about a three second warning, long enough to inhale sharply, before he kisses me. His lips are the softest things about him, warm and gentle, like a slice of heaven wrapped in hell, so worth battling the flames to feel his fire. 

Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)
J.M. Darhower

American Prince, the highly-anticipated follow up to American Queen by Sierra Simone is coming March 7th!! American Prince by Sierra Simone Publication Date: March 7th, 2017 Genre: Contemporary Romance Cover Designer: Hang Le I’ve been many things. I’ve been a son and a stepbrother. An Army captain and a Vice President. But only with Him am I a prince. His little prince. Only with Maxen and Greer does my world make sense, only between them can I find peace from the demons that haunt me. But men like me aren’t made to be happy. We don’t deserve it. And I should have known a love as sharp as ours could cut both ways. My name is Embry Moore and I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States…for now. This is the story of an American Prince. Excerpt:Ash opens his eyes and gives me a sleepy smile. It’s such an unfamiliar look on him, both the openness of it and the happiness, and I stare into his face, drinking it in like a man dying of thirst. After Carpathia, after Mor…

"Save your act for other people. The lies and the show--I don't want it. I want you. Fucked up and crazy, I want you."

Burn Down the Night
~~M. O'Keefe

I hated that she saw beneath the mask, beneath the bones and flesh, and yanked at my soul like a beam of sunlight fighting its way through murky waters of a swamp.

That warmth called to me, as she lay sprawled out on my bed--a fucking prayer trapped in a mind full of debauchery. 

Backfire
~~Keri Lake 

“The last woman I kissed was dead, her picture hung above my mantle. A reminder of the fucking monster I’d become. I’m more than she could handle. I fuck like I fight, dirty, ruthless and without a single ounce of mercy.”

Playing with Monsters, Amelia Hutchins

Ricochet was one of my favorite reads of 2015, so when I found out this seemingly stand-alone book was getting not one, but two sequels, those babies went to the top of my TBR. I started stalking Keri Lake's Facebook feed, and as soon as I saw the sign-ups for Backfire ARCs and the blog tour I jumped all over that.

It's been a few weeks since it released, and it's getting rave reviews, for good reason. Come with me through the jump and I'll tell you why you need to add Backfire to your summer reading list.

Spoiler free, of course.

We've all got darkness inside. It's what brings it to the surface that separates the psychopaths from everyone else. 

Ricochet
~~Keri Lake

It amazed me, the way some things could still stand after so many years of abuse. What one person saw as decayed, beaten, and destroyed over time, I saw as strength, a mast that could still support an entire structure while slowly rotting away at its foundation.

Backfire
~~Keri Lake