They tried to break me. But now I’m back, and stronger than ever. I will discover the secrets hiding at Black Lake Prep and expose them to the light. Even if I have to destroy all the Diamonds to do it. I have no idea who to trust, even as I’m surrounded by adoring eyes and mischievous smiles. Asher, Jayden, Kai, Lucas — any of them could be planning to betray me. Maybe even all of them. So I have to pretend, make myself one of them until the real truth comes out. I’ll play along, wear a mask to hide the darkness inside, maybe even have a little fun. I will never forget what they did to me. But it takes a Diamond, to break one.
*****
GORGEOUS NASTY LUXE is a high-school reverse-harem bully romance intended for mature audiences. It is the first book in a planned trilogy. May contain material that is triggering to some, including explicit language and sexual scenes.
Lillian Sable writes romances of all kinds with high heat and Alpha heroes. She is a former office-worker who spent more time fantasizing and daydreaming than doing her actual job. She started writing her fantasies down and turned her dreams into reality.
Lily is back and with a vengeance as well. At the end of Book #1 Lily was pushed in front of a bus but unlike the girls who have been targeted before her, Lily managed to survive and with the help of Connor's money and the best plastic surgeon out there, she has come back beautiful and stunning. Lily is also armed with a plan to break down the Diamonds and those who targeted her and bullied her in her first year. The main female being Chloe who is the Queen Bee of Diamonds but Lily will do everything in her power to make sure this year she will be voted out of the Diamonds and if she is lucky she will earn her spot in the Diamonds. The boys are also in Lily's court as they are fascinated with her, that is all of them except Asher - her new Stepdad's grandson. However Lily will find out some damaging information surrounding Asher's birth which means he isn't who he claims to be. I have to admit I wasn't 100% keen on Lily's complete personality change but I do see where she was coming from wanting revenge on those who bullied her. The book ends though with Blackmail as Lily and her harem of guys are filmed having sex in the hot tub. Who is blackmailing them and what does the blackmailer want and also what lengths are the Diamond Boys willing to go to keep the tape buried? Overall I enjoyed parts of this book but still felt like there was something missing and also when the secrets were revealed there was no wow moment - it was like a big build-up and a little fizz action. Gorgeous Nasty Luxe ends on a cliffhanger and at this stage, there is no Book #3 available on Amazon or Goodreads.
- the insatiable bit is incredibly tasteless and obviously offensive - i mean.... really? - the whole body image thing is just a big no - it was quite repetitive with certain phrases - the hand reading scene and the kai dramatic apology scene were SO CUTE more of that please - the whole charlie thing makes me kind of mad so far but it’s only book 2 so hopefully it gets better in book 3 - actually the way lily just talks and thinks about girls is just... wow... like idk if you knew this lily but you’re a girl too? - that jump from one person to lily... what... that was so instant. couldn’t it have been dragged out until at least the end of the book? - sable really wrote a make out scene between a 17 year old girl and her former older teacher.... - just why - it was interesting enough to keep me reading (mostly because i made it this far), but listen... the amount of food comments and body comments etc etc that are made in this book left me disgusted and very uncomfortable - so if you struggle with eating disorders, body dysmorphia, or anything of the like i urge you to keep far far away from this book - it’s also not very original by any means. there are more than several scenes that i’ve read in other reverse harem (like exact scenes) - hopefully in the last book we finally get to see lily actually take revenge on more than just one person too...
Lily is stronger which is great. Asher is the most interesting to me and my favorite. The story line was good, but I had to fight off wanting to nap several times. The inner dialogue seemed too drawn out way too often. I ultimately ended up skimming several times without missing anything important. I almost DNF for that reason alone, but because the story line is good enough to make me want to know who is behind what, I'll keep reading.
Another book with SERIOUS timeline issues. And the editing is even worse. The beginning of the chapter Jayden is upset that Lily is going for lunch with Lukas, and then near the end of the chapter he has no idea? That’s a pretty big error.
I do not like how Lily has completely changed herself into this disconnected and cold person. I love the idea of revenge, but seriously... all the surgeries in the world won’t change your personality, let alone in TWO MONTHS. And on that two months kick, I’m sorry, you don’t recover and completely change your mind and body into this unbreakable machine in that timeframe. Especially when you’re hit by a bus. Mentally alone will take years of recovery (I know from personal experience, I have a close friend who was in a bus accident) even if it didn’t take years.. it would sure take longer than 2 months.
I’m at 34% and really not wanting to continue already. I might just to get some answers, but I don’t even think those are worth it!
Gorgeous, Nasty, Luxe is the second book in Blood and Diamonds series. Ugh, where did everything go wrong? This series had promise for what it was, a light story about a prestigious school for the privileged that has more secrets than Dan Brown's books, but unfortunately the FMC Lily was ruined on the second book and I simply could not stand her. I barely made it through the end, pushing only because I wanted to see more of the male characters. I didn't think they had enough chance to shine, because in the first book we see them kind of ignoring Lily for the most part, and this one is basically an 101 book of "how to ruin your main character in 10 chapters or less", so the guys never really got a fair chance to show their personalities.
Lily was just so unlikable that everything else about the book felt wrong, which kind of made me sad because I liked the first one. Here, Lily goes from a somewhat normal, interesting girl that doesn't let anyone put her down and is wrongfully targeted by the school's queen bee, to an unlikable brat that only thinks about getting revenge and changes her whole personality to achieve that, even going as far as counting calories and saying stupid shit like "I think 3 meals a day is too much and I'm going to pretend to eat all my meals so I don't gain weight and can finally have all the attention to myself". Now, I get she is a stupid teenager, but my god, it was a complete 180° of her character that it left me utterly disappointed. The ending was perhaps the only saving grace for finally getting the guys on the same page as the FMC for once due to a higher unknown force that threatens all of them.
Overall, I'm so disappointed with the FMC that the rest of the story got lost and became uninteresting altogether. I'm probably only going to read book #3 out of sheer hope that things will get better and Lily will go back to being a fun main character, but I'm not holding my breath at this point.
What a weird and farfetched story. Things pick up 2 months after Lily's been hit by a but. She's had extensive plastic surgery that apparently made her stunning and lots of physical therapy. Now while I can ignore unrealistic shit for the sake of entertainment, come on. Nobody recovers from being wrecked by a bus in two months. Nobody turns into a champion diver in 2 months. It's absurd. Lily's personality completely changed too. At first I was like 'yaas, queen' cause I'm all about her getting revenge after being a doormat in the first book. Then I realized Lily's new personality was unlikable. The constant inner dialogue about girls hating each other and the starving herself and calorie counted steered into the eating disorder territory. Also the pill addiction was a bit much. Lily's unrecognizable and not in a good way.
But despite some grammatical errors, the writing was compelling enough to keep me reading. We got to learn more about the guys and developed more connection. The mystery behind who attacked Lily and why Asher's girlfriends are being targeted was interesting but the bone head move at the end pissed me off. Who starts hitting drinks hard when they're on serious painkillers? It seems like whenever authors need a heroine to do something stupid they make them get drunk. Ultimately, I won't read the final book.
There are several problems with this book. First is the body image problem. Now that the main heroine has lost 10 pounds, had plastic surgery to look better and spent tons of money on her image, she is finally worth noticing by guys. There are constant remainders for reader, that to be beautiful, a girl needs to be skinny, half starve herself and constantly work on her looks. Personality is inconsequential, jutting bones are the goal. It is constantly reminded through heroines thoughts and guys comments and reactions. Second problem is the whole social hierarchy. If in the beginning heroine fought against it, now her thoughts is about fitting in and lowering morals. Author sends quite clear message that going against established system is unacceptable, you have to bend yourself to other people opinions to be accepted. Third problem is the slow decline of the plot in the realm of unbelievable.
While the book reads easily, I can't give higher rating due to mentioned messages author sends her readers. Especially, if target audience is teenagers and young adults who may take these messages to follow.
This story continues with a change of the FMC approach to what has happened to her. I expected a lot more romance and the coming together do the harem but was so disappointed. This is supposed to be a RH romance but did not see much of it. I hope the final book doesn’t let me down.
This has a really good storyline.Finally! A victim turns savage. If there weren't so many mistakes and errors, like missing letters, flipped words, missing words, and so on, I would have given this a full five stars.
Love how much she has change and how so don’t take no crap from anyone.. And she stands up for her self.. she has become this powerhouse.. and she ain’t going back to how she was. And I am like yes girl you go girl.. Get your men #whychoose
What a twist of events, this is some next to awesome book, I mean wow I didn't see that coming, just no words for it except wow, so many questions left on the revelations that came out
I definitely did not enjoy this one as much as the first. No spice(0.5 of a scene). A kiss here and there. She became obsessed with calories and is starting to act the the people she didn’t want to be… once again not really that big of a climax.
Holy crap!! That was some ending! Okay so there was lots I loved about this book and a few things I didn't like. The fact that she got hit by a bus, then comes back as if shes a totally different person was just a bit much. I get that she wants revenge but its like she's literally not even the same person from book 1. A lot of body image talk so if that's something you don't like then you probably wouldn't like the book just based on that alone. She also became a pro diver overnight which is also a bit over the top....but it was intense, I couldn't put it down. Asher would have to be my favourite boy. The scene at the end omg I can't even begin!
Wow talk about sexy time in hot tub.. I can’t believe that they didn’t think it was strange to have the drink just there waiting for them.. God I love this series.. The mystery, the suspense and the drama is so good that it’s impossible for me to stop reading..
I don't know what happened. It seems like Lily was lobotomized and has a new personality now. I mean I get the whole revenge-thing that she has going on, because someone freaking pushed her in front of a bus but honestly her whole personality change is just weird. First of all, that she altered her appearance so much with plastic surgeons and pushes her body to the limit only to look "perfect" was really disturbing to me. She became this cynical, cold, calculating girl that doesn't give a shit about anyone and is somehow a master at reading body language and plotting the demise of everyone. I mean seriously? It feels to me that the Lily from the first book is not even existent anymore and got replaced by someone who isn't really likable in my opinion. I mean don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people who deserve revenge from her, but I still think she should stay true to herself and not becoming basically one of them.
I really hated the fact that she became addicted even though she knew that if she wouldn't push her body that much she hadn't needed to take that many pills. After that she became even more unlikable to me. Also that Asher knew that she was addicted and provided her with more pills and kept it a secret was just a big no for me.
The fact that she somewhat developed an eating disorder and constantly kept saying how she couldn't eat this and that meal and kept tracking her calories in her head was so disgusting to me. This is a really bad message for every girl that is reading this book and who is struggling with things like eating disorders or the image of "the perfect body" that is always present in social media.
Also I think it's super unrealistic that she somehow managed to be a pro at diving in this short amount of time. I mean, come on.
What also really bothered me throughout the book was that it for one didn't felt like a real RH because she constantly made out with Asher who treated her like shit, but didn't give the others a chance who were decent enough. Nevertheless, I also didn't feel any chemistry between Lily and any of the boys. I couldn't understand why Lucas, Kai and Jayden were so interested in her while never really having interacted with her in the first book. And suddenly they all wanted to date her despite the fact that she was cold to them and the lack of conversation. And there was Asher who was constantly a dick to her, but she still made out with him every chance she had. I mean I really love bully-romance but I don't think that this is it.
I don't get the whole Liam thing at all. Does she like him or not? Or does she only use him for her advantage?
The whole hand-reading scene was cringe as fuck and I was so annoyed by the amount of spelling and grammar mistakes who were present almost every fucking page. It is really not enjoyable to read a book where sometimes the sentences doesn't even make sense and it really does disturb the reading flow.
All in all, I kept reading 'til the end and also finished the last book, because I wanted to know how it ends and who was responsible for everything that Lily went through even though I disliked the series after the first book.
I almost DNF this book bc it seemed that Lily pretty much had a personality transplant in this instalment. She let her plot for revenge warp who she is as person and I didn’t really enjoy how cynical, cold and calculated she became; nor the fact that she was suddenly able to scrutinise and assess everybody around her like she’d been trained as a body language expert. It felt very forced and not consistent with the Lily we knew pre- bus crash.
Her many inner monologues dragged on and made me lose interest. This book reeked of the Mean Girls, and since the author already made reference to it in the first book it was a little embarrassing that the plot began to mimic the movie.
I carried on reading bc the book kept my attention enough to want to know what happens and how the story would progress. The book certainly redeemed itself towards the end and piqued my interest. I’m intrigued to know how the story concludes and I’d prefer to see the Lily from book one who’s learned her lesson but hasn’t suddenly turned into a perfect mastermind at revenge plots.
The unrealistic descriptions of how she trained to become a pro diver who looks like a supermodel and is a perfect student all while recovering from being hit by a FREAKING BUS detracted from my enjoyment of the story. The revenge plot would have been more realistic and believable if the author cut out the genius villain inner monologues. They were cringey as hell.
I will be reading the final book. The author has potential but I want to see Lily’s character more consistent with the person we met in book one.
All I can say is wow what cliffhanger this story just gets better and better. Lily and boys personalities are so complicated it just adds to drama. I just need to know how all mysteries will work out. Hopefully the next book will be out soon.
**Intense and intriguing This is amazing story with such a strong and resilient heroine. The storyline is addictive, I couldn’t put the book down. The boys are hot and dangerous. Lily can never figure out who are friends. Bring on the next book.
Lily is back and out with a vengeance! Her turnaround is crazy! I love when the heroine puts on her big girl pants and decides enough is enough. I can't wait to see what happens in the next installment!
Omfg this series just keeps you on the edge of your seat! I'm absolutely loving it! I didn't want this book to end though because now I've got to wait for the next one 😭 So worth the read 😍 ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️
Lily had gone through so much change. Surviving her accident and coming back stronger. I really couldn't stop reading. Can't wait to see how it all plays out in the final book.
I had been counting down the days til this book came out after flying through the first one. I cant wait for book two to see what the Phoenix has in store.