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~**~ ARC Review: Crown of Lies (Crown of Lies Duet #1) by Pepper Winters ~**~






***5 ‘All the things left unsaid’ Stars***


This book...I... just don’t know where to even start.
I can’t say too much because of needing to keep things non-spoilery, but the NEED to vent is so strong that the words that want to come out are so jumbled up in my head that I’m not sure that they won’t come out as verbal vomit, but I think if I continue to try and get them to behave I’ll just make it worse, so here it goes nothing…


This book frustrated the hell out of me. I spent a good portion of the time growling at the characters and their actions and yet I couldn’t put it down. I was utterly fascinated by their actions, reactions and inactions. I was seriously the proverbial kid in the candy store (though my adult self would say bookstore nowadays). But as tends to happen, I became INVESTED in them. I needed to know what they would do next and just how they’d complicated things further, and lemme tell you they ever! And then THAT ending came and even though I knew this was a duet and that a cliffhanger was coming...THAT one wasn’t not what I was expecting.


Elle is a workaholic of epic proportions, but it’s not as if she had a choice. Groomed from a young age to be heiress to the throne, she has known no other life and stayed the course (for the most part) while secretly yearning for more. Despite my frustration at times with Elle, I ended up really liking her. She’s an interesting mix of submissive and dominate and both sides of her nature have a way of coming out to play at the same time. And though she may appear untouchable and distant, the heart that lays underneath that facade is huge and genuine and guides her every move.


Penn is an enigma. He’s an uber sexy alpha male who steamrolls over almost everyone in his path and has arrogance and stubborn determination in spades and just when you want to gut him with a spoon he gives you a brief glimpse of a compassionate heart and sends you into a tailspin wondering just who the hell is the real Penn Everett. I had a love/hate/panty melting need my B.O.B relationship with Penn throughout the entire book. He was infuriating in his arrogance, and smexy as hell (sue me, I love me a dominate male) and yet that knowing, that gut feeling that there was so much more going on kept me from truly hating him as did the very few glimpses of a heart he keeps well hidden.


Their “romance” is all kinds of crazy and yet sexy as hell. They are so antagonistic towards each other, yet neither can stay away for long and you can see them getting under each other’s skins as the lies about who they are and what they want fly around them.


While this book had the logical side of my brain growling out “Why can’t you just be honest?!?! Why?!” “Dear lord how f*cking blind can you be?” “Really? You really did that to….” I couldn’t put it down. Not many, if any, of the questions that fill this story were answered and so I have my own theories floating around in my head. So with need to know out if my theories are indeed correct combined with that very unexpected cliffhanger ending, I need to have Throne of Truth in my greedy little hands as soon as possible!


~ Copy provided by the author ~



“I met the man I wanted. But then he vanished and a new man claimed me instead. My father approved, my colleagues congratulated, and behind closed doors, I was bedded by a master.”


Noelle Charlston lived a fairy-tale life: a doting father, a powerful job, and a future blessed with financial security.


However, two meetings with two men changed her happy existence forever. First, she met the man who made her heart sing. Second, she met the man who made her blood quiver.


Noelle’s freedom was no longer hers. It belonged to the stranger her father believed was the perfect match. The stranger who pulled his lies over everyone he touched.


Including her.


The lies he spins, the truth he hides, the mystery he webs—it’s all enough to slowly erode the woman she’d been and turn her into something else.


Until her past collides with her present.


And it’s her turn to lie.


To everyone…including herself.


Book Summary
Genre: Erotic Romance/Suspense/New Adult
Release Date: January 31st, 2017
Series: Crown of Lies Duet #1






Pepper Winters wears many roles. Some of them include writer, reader, sometimes wife. She loves dark, taboo stories that twist with your head. The more tortured the hero, the better, and she constantly thinks up ways to break and fix her characters. Oh, and sex… her books have sex.
She loves to travel and has an amazing, fabulous hubby who puts up with her love affair with her book boyfriends.



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