Tag Archives: Dirty Little Secrets

Review: Restrained Under His Duty (Dirty Little Secrets #3) by Stacey Kennedy

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Title: Restrained Under His Duty
Author: Stacey Kennedy
Publisher/Year:  Random House 4/4/17
Length:  220 Pages
Series: Dirty Little Secrets #3

Overview

As the chief of security for a prominent senator, Ryder Blackwood is stunned when an anonymous source sends him a compromising photo of his boss’s twenty-five-year-old daughter getting down and dirty in an underground sex club. If it gets out, the media firestorm could ruin her father. More troubling for Ryder is how arousing he finds the whole situation. He’s known Hadley Winters since she was a kid. And now she’s the woman in all his most private fantasies.

Wild behavior helps Hadley get through those painful, lonely nights, but she’s been waiting a long time for a man like Ryder to protect her from herself. Ryder is raw. He’s real. And he makes her feel safe. Now that they’ve both become pawns in a blackmailer’s dangerous game, there’s more at stake than her father’s political career. As the intimate threats tear apart a tender new love, Hadley is forced to trust Ryder with her life—and her heart.

My Thoughts

So i’ll be honest, it’s been quite a bit of time since I was with this series, but I do vaguely remember what was going on with the four friends. They’re all successful and they all own sex clubs, but that’s only a part of who they are. They have these amazing identities and lives that fly above and beyond what they try to hide, and it’s what they’re trying to hide that often gets them into trouble.

In this story – we are focused on Ryder – he owns a security firm and he has been working for a Senator for longer than he can remember. He’s grown close to the man, as well as to his daughter, and the sparks fly between them but they both fight it since there’s complications in what that could mean.

Of course, when something comes out that has the power to compromise Hadley, and in turn harm her father, we see the protective nature of Ryder come out in full force and as a result, the sparks fly to a point where they combust and the world is turned on its side.

There’s a lot of deceit in this story. There’s someone who’s been selling false stories to the tabloids about the friends, and now Hadley has been brought into it. There’s someone who’s trying to get her father to step down from office and when that doesn’t happen, Hadley is blackmailed for it.

Murders are attempted, moles and false stories are planted to weed out whos behind everything, and what inevitably happens is that there’s an unhappy ending for several people. We don’t know who’s trustworthy and we have ideas on who’s not for sure. Will it all come to a head before or after any chance of romance has passed.

The conclusion here sets up a story for the final man of the quad, and we now know who’s behind some things but not yet why. The implications there are immense and I can’t wait to find out now how it resolves since i’ve discovered this series again. Enjoy!

Review: Tied to his Betrayal (Dirty Little Secrets #2) by Stacey Kennedy

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Title: Tied to his Betrayal
Author: Stacey Kennedy
Publisher/Year: Random House 11/15/16
Length:   248 Pages
Series:  Dirty Little Secrets #2

Overview

In a dazzling novel of passion and power from the bestselling author of Bound Beneath His Pain and the Club Sin series, a commanding man gives up his most prized possession to win back the one that got away.

Darius Bennett can’t live without supreme control. A self-made billionaire, he’s rich enough to get anything—and any woman—he wants, yet he’s still haunted by a broken relationship. Five years ago, Darius let Taylor Erikson go because he knew he could never give her what she truly wanted: his heart. But the moment Taylor walks back into his life, bruised and beaten, Darius blames himself. To make good on his betrayal, he vows to help her heal—in and out of the sheets.

Once upon a time, Darius was Taylor’s world. Now his fierce embrace is exactly what she needs to get back on her feet. But Taylor pays a heavy price for her sizzling nights with Darius. As the emotional ties become stronger than ever and the paparazzi hunt her down for their next juicy story, Taylor must face some hard truths. They can’t go back. And to move forward, the key to loving Darius isn’t about keeping his secrets—it’s about exposing them.

My Thoughts

I love this series almost as much as i love the original, and i think that where this one is going is a really great direction.  So you’ll have to remember from the first installment of this spinoff that Taylor is Allie’s best friend who lives in San Diego and who had a bit of a romance with her half brother about 5 years ago.  Well, the last scene in the first book was of Taylor showing up on the doorstep of Allie’s condo beaten up by her ex boyfriend.  So that’s where we pick up the story now.

Taylor has left her boyfriend who beat her up in a drunken rage and is now with Allie trying to put her life back together.  If that weren’t enough, ironically when she shows up on Allie’s doorstep, it’s the same nigh that Darius is there – her ex whom she still hasn’t gotten over.  Knowing that he’s a Dominant and that she’s been hurt, he’s going to go all caveman on the situation.

That’s where this story goes.  Darius not only still loves Taylor but feels that he not only has to protect her from everything around her but from him as well since he seems to think that he’s not worthy of anything emotional or good.  Taylor disagrees but there’s only so much that she’s able to do to convince him otherwise.  What she does eventually do is allow him to help her with a job since being tied to him through papparrazzi pics has now made things complicated and she’s able to get her feet back on sturdy ground.

There are a few supporting story lines in this 2nd book which makes it great.  there’s the issue of Taylor and Darius in the ‘will they won’t they’ type situation since we know that there’s insane chemistry between them.  It’s a fight that we watch for the entire book.

Then there’s the issue of her ex shawn who’s come to San Francisco to likely find her and we don’t know what he’s going to do.

Then there’s a problem with the tabloids.  Usually they print lies about Darius, Micah and all the others, but recently they’ve been actually publishing true facts about the guys and there’s really no way that they would have known that information unless someone’s feeding it to them.  So that’s another bit of the story that we’re trying to figure out.  who’s the mole and what’s the motivation.

There’s a lot that we don’t get resolved in this 2nd book and a lot that’s setting up for the next installment that we learn is about Ryder based on the last scene in this one.  We see him running in with information that he’s going to be the target of the next story that’s tied to one of the people that he’s doing security on.  And of course the nature of the story is quite damaging.

The one thing that i’m a bit intrigued by and a bit surprised by is that the original series by Ms Kennedy was very much so about the BDSM world and how involved those Masters were and while these leading men are part of the DC and own clubs, they actually aren’t really that into the lifestyle.  It’s just a facet of who they are.  It’s interesting to me because i actually assumed that they would be even more engrossed into it all and they’re not.  Although that’s the case, there’s absolutely not shortage of hot scenes in either book so far – and you can practically feel the heat and passion coming from the couples.

so i can’t wait to see what happens next, and sadly i’m all caught up on the series now so i have to wait until April.  So now….i’m on to find something else to read.  Have a great day all!