I know you. One night, you suddenly grew bored of your million-dollar mansion and privileged life, so you ventured into the dangerous streets, calling it “research” but really hunting for thrills.
You fell for a bar waitress because you thought she was ‘into’ you. She’s beautiful, dangerous, and low enough to satisfy your curiosity without becoming a hassle when you move on to the next one.
I get it—people like you see everything in the world as a playground, including me.
Unfortunately, I’m that bar waitress.
Shawn
I know you. You don’t believe in love, so you’d rather be my mistress than admit your feelings for me match mine for you.
You trust nothing but money, and I’ve never cared. I use my wealth to keep our connection pure, making you think it’s all a transaction, just so I can see that satisfied smile on your face.
You doubt me and don’t know how far I’d go for you. Honestly, I wasn’t sure at first either —until my fated mate showed up.
Then I realized just how far I’d go. I’d give up my life for you. That’s how deeply I love you.
Gertty Rudraw is an indie romance author who has taken the genre by storm with her popular series. She writes both contemporary and paranormal page-turning romances . Readers consume faster than she can produce. And you will be pretty happy about that!
She lives with her husband and two awesome sons in Sedona, enjoying plenty of farm animals, and devotes her life to writing stories. If you are looking for romantic books with alpha heroes who have to contend with sassy heroines then you might just love Gertty’s novels.
There are nearly no transition when Aly and Shawn reunite, there's no conflict with her family and society afterwards, and to top it off, there's a kidnapping and multiple rape scenes that are really played down. So yeah, not a good read. The first half was better with all the emotions and conflicts but then it seems another writer took over the end to just get to the HEA.
Voto 3,5 / Polvere d'arte - per RFS . Fenici eccoci qui con un nuovo romance fantasy sui lupi, anche se onestamente di lupi c’è ben poco, un semplice accenno su una semi trasformazione e sul legame che unisce coloro che sono compagni predestinati. Personalmente ho avuto più la sensazione di leggere un libro distopico ambientato in un futuro non molto lontano.
Il protagonista è Shawn, 29 anni figlio dell’alfa che vive nella città alta, residenza di élite per coloro che sono ricchi da infinite generazioni, ma dotato di un animo buono e nobile che, per fortuna, non ha nulla a che vedere con i pessimi genitori che si ritrova.
Il suo desiderio è quello di “salvare” la zona centrale della città in cui imperversano scorribande, malviventi e dove vive la gente povera che a stento riesce ad arrivare a fine mese. E vuole farlo investendo e cercando di aiutare economicamente i quartieri degradati ma è fortemente ostacolato dal padre. Durante un sopralluogo in quella zona finisce in un bar dove incontra Arlene, una ragazza dagli occhi verdi e i capelli corvini che non passa di certo inosservata, ma che porta sulle spalle il peso di un passato difficile che si ripercuote anche sul presente dato che deve occuparsi della sorella, da tempo in lista d’attesa per una operazione. Shawn tornerà in quel buco di locale tante volte solo per incontrarla e poterle parlare, perché le piace, sente qualcosa per lei, un sentimento molto diverso da ciò che in passato ha provato per le altre, pur non comprendendo bene cosa sia. Arlene da parte sua non capisce come uno come Shawn abbia potuto invaghirsi di lei quando ha uno stuolo di modelle disposte a fare carte false per uscire con lui.
Per poter stare di più a stretto contatto e prendersi in giro per quello che provano, stringono un accordo: diventeranno amanti e lui pagherà per i suoi servigi, ma il limite tra sesso e amore è sottile e in breve tempo si innamoreranno perdutamente.
I giorni scorrono tra tante chiacchiere, condivisioni e scene di sesso ben descritte e non sempre delicate. Ma quando tutto sembra essere rose e fiori per poi avviarsi a un livello più importante Shawn incontra la sua compagna predestinata; il cuore desidera Arlene ma il suo essere lupo vuole colei che le ha assegnato il destino. Riusciranno a stare insieme o lui sceglierà la sua predestinata? Ma soprattutto riusciranno a superare le difficoltà e a ricominciare, mettendo da parte tutto e ripartendo dai loro sentimenti o le cose torneranno come prima?
Il romanzo non mi è dispiaciuto ma nemmeno mi ha fatto impazzire. Il Pov è alternato tra i due protagonisti, i caratteri son ben definiti, gli scambi di battute sono piacevoli e la lettura scorre velocemente. Un’altra cosa che mi è piaciuta poco è una scena di sesso che, per come era descritta, sembrava quasi una violenza; personalmente l’ho trovata del tutto inutile e fuori contesto. Un punto debole purtroppo è l’eccesso di refusi ed errori. Le cose belle di questo libro? La voglia di vivere di Arlene nonostante le mille rinunce, il cuore puro di Shawn che vuole aiutare il prossimo senza secondi fini e la perseveranza nel seguire il cuore sono da premio Oscar. E infine l’amore che trionfa dopo tanto, tantissimo, dolore, perché non si possono conoscere la gioia e la pace se prima non si è passati attraverso l’oblio e l’inferno.
Rape between main characters which is then accepted
I've read the series til now and enjoyed it... Until now. Unfortunately there is a section around 3/4 into this book where the male character takes the heroine by force, and describes it as such. Multiple mentions of it being without her consent. And then additionally mentions in her POV about her not giving consent ... But somehow it's entirely ignored. She berates her body for liking the rape even. The male eventually says he won't ever hurt her again and they live HEA. Really really poor from an author who should know far better.
When I started the book I was excited, but was very disappointed by the end. I wanted to read about wolf shifters and alpha males, but after the time jump, no more wolves, no alpha vibes, the story moved too quickly with plot holes and typos
Dude what the fuck?? This was like two different books cut down the middle and spliced together. First of all, it absolutely has to be said that there are REPEATED RAPES IN THIS BOOK THAT ARE UNACKNOWLEDGED!! I don’t mean body betrayal syndrome. I mean full-on rape:
“I thrust into Arlene again and again, harder each time as her screams of protest filled the room. Fuck, she felt even better than she had years ago. And it was even hotter watching her try to push me off her as I fucked her wet pussy. I gripped her hips. “I’m in charge here, not you.” “Shawn—” she gasped, completely burnt out from me pounding into her. I rammed into her and her gasp made me smile. I slipped out of her only to thrust back into her with a punishing strength. My hands gripped her waist as I rammed into her over and over again. Her breathing became ragged and I could tell she was close. “Do you want me to stop?” I asked suddenly, withdrawing from her. Even with her previous resistance, I knew that part of her wanted this too, which she proved when she said nothing. I smiled as I slammed back into her without warning. Her gasp filled me with pride while her legs trembled.”
“He had sex with me whenever and however he wanted, even without my consent. It irked me that I enjoyed it and had multiple orgasms every time.”
What. The. Fuck. Is happening. This part adds absolutely nothing to the story, it’s never discussed again, and it’s just horrifying. He also kidnaps her and her daughter, which she is fine with, and sends their daughter to stay with his parents, who are the reason they couldn’t be together in the first place because they were so against him being with her, without even telling her.
Oh, and also, this is the worse world-building I have ever seen. Apparently there are humans, hybrids, and werewolves, although we never are really told what any of the secondary characters are and there’s no sense of whether or not there is wolf/human conflict. The heroine is a hybrid, which is supposed to be a big plot point, but we are never told what the hell that means. She never transforms into a wolf (something even the hero only does once and it happens off-page), and the only mention that’s made of her wolfiness is that she has a strong sense of smell. So she’s a human with good smelling abilities?? Then why make her a werewolf at all! Make her a human so there’s more reason for them not to be together! Such lazy writing!
I genuinely hope this author reads reviews, because this book is a catastrophe. They spend the first half of the book building a conflict—she’s low class, he’s high class, she lives in the slums, he wants to kill his father because he won’t spend a dollar to save the “downtown wolves,” etc. And then there’s a 5-yr time jump and when I say the earlier conflict just vanishes, I mean I t vanishes WITHOUT A TRACE. The parents are happy she is with their son, the father has completely transformed from an absolute MONSTER to a loving father and grandfather WITH NO EXPLANATION, the hero has magically solved all the class issues, she has no trouble assimilating back into the society she left—and then in like 4 pages they’re engaged and married the end. Just awful. Why would you go to the effort of creating a conflict you were just going to dismiss? The most mismatched book I have ever read, worthy of 1 star even without the gratuitous, horrifying rape scenes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is book four and the characters were good, but the reading of the story was a disjointed. There were odd scenes thrown in that were way outside of the shifter world. Then there were numerous mentions of the lead female character being a hybrid, but what was the other half in addition to being a wolf? Also introducing electric shock treatment as a dangerous method to break a fated mate bond. Why? I am a big fan of PNR with shifters and in most books all you have to do is verbally denounce the other mate and it hurts for a while and then they can move on. This did not fit with the narrative or the storyline, it felt out of place. Disappointed.
Love Rudraw's more modern take on shifter stories!
The book was good. The plot was different and held my interest. Nice more modern take on shifter romance stories. Definitely refreshing. Redraw has unique ideas. One downside was that I don't believe anyone over a third grade education proofread this book. Seems to have a lot of missing or misspelled words. Her stories are great though.
Did a different author write the second half?? It started off good but then the plot and characters got all weird. And rape isn’t sexy. Flipped through the pages after that but the story just did NOT make any sense. Really liked her first 2 books in the series so this was a huge disappointment
I kept having to go back to figure out several parts because the names would be wrong. Numerous grammatical errors making me wonder about the proofreading on all the books in this series.
This was AMAZING until about 75% in and then it all went haywire. Usually rejected fated mates books have the hero rejecting the heroine. In here we have the hero rejecting the OW for the heroine. A wonderful twist! And like a duffus, I didn't even clue into that until Shawn met his mate LOL
I loved watching them deny their feelings for each other. My problem happened in the last quarter of the book which was a time jump. When Shawn finally goes to find Arlene, five years later, he practically kidnaps her and their daughter and then he proceeds to have NON CONSENUAL SEX with her. For several days. And it's not like we as readers could have misinterpreted it because both Shawn and Arlene have internal conversations about it. But they don't discuss it between them. I'm sorry. Where is the love you felt for her? He went through dissolving a mate bond for her and he R A P E S her? More than once? No. Just no. That totally killed this for me.
This was, by far, the worst book of the series so far. There was no finesse, no relationship development, no true conflict, and no conflict resolution. Not only was all of that lacking, but there was also R/-\PE AND KIDNAPPING of the FMC by the MMC during their reunion?! What in the ACTUAL fuck?! The reunion of the characters could have been done in a beautiful and meaningful way. Instead, it was brutal, rushed, and made no sense. There was no story or details in the end, and it felt like I was missing 3/4 of what could have been there.
The plot could have been great, but the way it was written and played out was an absolute mess. Hugely disappointed.
In this werewolf society there were definitely classes. Purebred and hybrid. Being a hybrid was as socially unacceptable as having the plaque. They were scorned and thought inferior by the purebreds. When the future alpha comes to check on the status on the living conditions of the hybrid in his city,he is shocked by their poverty. The horrid lifestyle was beyond his comprehension. His fathers unwillingness to rectify the situation made him furious.
Absolutely was pulled in and really liked it. The he action was great and the push pull between the two was funny at times. I will definitely be reading more from this author.
I enjoyed majority of the book until the ending. Shawn took her back to his home by force or not if she said no. Have sex with her without her consent and she just decided she liked it.
It's not a bad book, it's just an ok read. There are a number of errors within it. This book isn't a typical wolf and partner/mate's story, it is very different indeed definitely regarding wolves and their pack.
I have multiple thoughts on this book. I liked the beginning of it. I thought it was really good, but I felt like it was rushed towards the ending and was missing parts and I didn’t really feel very werewolf Alpha faded mates towards the end.
This book is a really good read the pack mates and the pain they suffer leads to a happy ending..... Just hope the other books in this series are just as good