Title: Black Rules
Author:  Charlotte Byrd
Publisher/Year:  Byrd Books 10/12/18
Length:  164 Pages
Series: Black Edge #2

Overview

We don’t belong together. 

I should have never seen him again after our first night together. But I crave him. 

I’m addicted to him. He is my dark pleasure. 

Mr. Black is Aiden. Aiden is Mr. Black. Two sides of the same person. 

Aiden is kind and sweet. Mr. Black is demanding and rule-oriented.

When he invites me back to his yacht, I can’t say no. 

Another auction. Another bid. 

I’m supposed to be his. But then everything goes wrong….

My Thoughts

We continue on this weird little merry go round with our characters here – getting teased about a world that we know nothing about and yet wanting to know more. Ellie and Aiden seem to have something that could be real, but there really are a few obstacles in their way. When Aiden invites Ellie and Caroline to another Yacht party – even more questions arise

We start off this second book with Ellie uncertain as to why she’s been invited again and Caroline looking to take full advantage of what she missed out on. Lucky for her, her regrets are short lived since she gets to have a redo.

We know that things can’t go the same way this time around – that would make for a dull and boring story. So what we get at this second party is an interesting situation. Ellie isn’t trying to impress anyone so again she’s in jeans and a shirt. Caroline knows the cocktail hour protocol so she’s looking her best and mingling. She meets everyone and makes an impression and at the same time, Ellie runs into a guy named Blake who made some unnecessary comments to her at the first party. If you remember, he told her that she doesn’t belong there, yet tried to outbid Aiden for a night with her.

Well….he’s just a premonition of what’s to come and we know it can’t be good. We move from the cocktail hour to the pre-auction set up. Caroline and Ellie realize quickly that things aren’t the same as last time. Ellie is the only girl who’s been there before, everyone else is new. The girls are all asked to wear lingerie v. whatever they are comfortable in (remember Ellie wore her dress, while others went full nude). The other strange piece is that instead of seeing the entire audience, there’s a row of mirrors keeping them separate so no one knows who’s bidding on them and that adds for tension. Ellie wasn’t going to participate but she’s told that Aiden really wants her to, so she goes against her gut and does it.

What happens next is very different than the first time around. Ellie raises a bit of money from the auction, not at all like last time, but quickly realizes that it’s not Aiden who’s bid but Blake. the Auctioneer – Lizbeth was uncomfortable starting the auction since Aiden apparently wasn’t there and now we know what happened as a result.

The trajectory of the story is a bad/sad one from here. We know that Blake doesn’t have Ellie’s best interest at heart and Ellie wants nothing to do with him. She only came to the party to be with Aiden and when it’s someone else, she wants out. Blake won’t let that happen, and in turn, Ellie has to fight for her freedom, and Blake gets injured from both Ellie And Aiden who finally comes to her rescue.

There are repercussions to all this of course and we quickly see the impact that it has for Aiden. Blake was the first investor of Aiden’s company and because of this feud, he’s taken his money out and the money of all his friends. Owl is failing, and Aiden doesn’t know how to fix things. Ellie can’t help and that makes the dynamic even harder. We really want some calm time for them to find out what they could be to each other – we know that they’ve both admitted to stronger feelings, but if they aren’t given the chance to cultivate it, then we’ll never know right?

Add to that – Caroline met a decent guy she things from the auction and we watch that relationship evolve- hoping for the best but not really knowing what will happen. We do’t know anything about Taylor so we don’t know if he’s got honest motivations.

There’s also Tom – Ellie’s friend who she used to have a crush on, but who’s also engaged to their boss. They had a falling out if you remember in the first book, and things come to a head even more in this second book. Tom invites Ellie, Caroline and Aiden to his fiance’s family’s house for an engagement party and we really don’t know how this is going to end up.

Aside from all the sexy steamy things that we read about from time to time in here, there’s also the similar undertone from the Tangled series that i see here – a budding writer/author who goes it alone. learns the ropes to self-publishing and tries to make it into something great. I think that it’s lovely that our author Charlotte Byrd is trying to give all of those aspirating authors out there the knowledge and tools to do it themselves and I hope for Ellie that it pans out. On that note, i’m off to book three since i’m really interested in seeing what happens to Owl and what that means for Ellie and Aiden. Enjoy!