HIGH STAKES is the second instalment in Nana Malone’s contemporary, adult KINGS AND RIVALS, dark, erotic, crime family romance series focusing on twenty year old, fashion designer Morgan Crispin Becker, and billionaire businessman Lance Lakewood DeLuc. HIGH STAKES should not be read as a stand alone as it picks up after the events of book one DEEP POCKETS, and is set in the author’s KINGS OF THE BOARDROOM world.
Told from dual first person perspectives (Lance and Morgan) HIGH STAKES picks up after the events and cliff hanger of book one DEEP POCKETS. Lance Lakewood has loved Morgan Becker for as long as he can remember but a betrayal cost him the only woman he would ever loved. Determined to make amends Lance finds himself become guardian and protector of our story line heroine when his past demands everything and more. Threats to Morgan’s life finds Lance on the defensive, only to realize that love may never be enough.
The world building follows the revelations of secrets that threaten Lance’s relationship with Morgan, and his friendships with her sister Gwen. Ten years of lies finds Lance on the precipice of losing everyone including the only woman he has every loved.
The relationship between Lance and Morgan is acrimonious at best but threats against Morgan forces our couple into a marriage of convenience, a marriage meant to protect our heroine from harm. The $ex scenes are erotic, provocative and intense.
Once again, there is a large ensemble cast of colorful, familiar and determined secondary and supporting characters including Morgan’s sister Gwen and her husband Atticus (Kings of the Boardroom): fixer Silas McGill, Atticus’ brother Micah: Lance’s brother Hector, and their father Charles; fashion promoter Adele Beekman,and Morgan’s assistant Amber. The requisite evil has many faces.
HIGH STAKES is a story of secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, power and control, forgiveness and love. The character driven premise is dark, dramatic and intense; the romance is impassioned and seductive; the characters are desperate, dangerous, resolute and struggling. HIGH STAKES ends on a cliff hanger-you have been warned.
copy supplied for review