It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week.  It's a great post to organise yourself. It's an opportunity to visit and comment, and er... add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog   and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. And here we are!

It's been a busy Easter here in Southern Norway. With school holidays, parents visiting from the UK and a belated fiftieth birthday party for me, so I've been juggling my reading with three deadlines this past week:

MILLION DOLLAR COWBOY by Lori Wilde

FORBIDDEN KISSES by Annie Rains

HOW TO BANG A BILLIONAIRE by Alexis Hall

THEPLAYBOY BACHELOR by Rachel Van Dyken

But today, I'm reading Ain't He Precious? (Sex and Sweet Tea #1) by Juliette Poe just for me:

Welcome to Whynot, North Carolina, population 3,872. It has one stoplight, one bar, and the one-and-only Trixie Mancinkus.
Eleven years ago, Trixie graduated Harvard Law, turned down a job offer from one of the most prestigious law firms in Boston, and headed home to Whynot to open her own firm. Not only did she leave behind the big city, but she also left her boyfriend of three years. And just so we’re clear… that would be me.
So what am I doing in Whynot at this very moment? It seems Trixie needs help with a legal case and for some insane reason, she called on me for assistance. I’ve been in town for five minutes, and I’m every bit as out of place as I feel. Trixie is all sweet, southern curves to my tailored suits and high-priced haircuts. It’s a culture clash of north versus south and about the only thing we have in common is our physical attraction to each other.
But I have a new motto since coming to Whynot: When life hands you lemons, all you need is a little sex and sweet tea to make things better.

I'm currently at the 68% mark on this novella, although I thought it was a full length novel when I began reading it! So far I'm really enjoying it, but in the beginning I wondered WTH as I turned pages. Once I got into the storyline it's turning into an incredibly fun read. The problem for me was the cultural 'shock' of Whynot...reacting to the local crazy folk in the same way as Ry, the hero. Once you get used to the small town quirks, it's hilarious and I'm already wondering where the author will go with the next novella (Stubborn As A Mule) in this Sex and Sweet Tea Series.

Next on the reading list for April are: A CHARMED LITTLE LIE by Sharla Lovelace, LOVE ON TAP by Meg Benjamin and ACES WILD by Emmy Curtis.

Want to know what others are reading today?  Head over to Book Date to find out.

Release Day Spotlight & Review: How To Bang A Billionaire by Alexis Hall

Title: HOW TO BANG A BILLIONAIRE

Author: Alexis Hall

Series: Arden St. Ives, #1

On Sale: April 16, 2017

Publisher: Forever Yours

eBook: $4.99 USD

The first book in an all-new m/m romance trilogy by RITA Award-winning author Alexis Hall!

Rules are made to be broken . . .

If England had yearbooks, I'd probably be "Arden St. Ives: Man Least Likely to Set the World on Fire." So far, I haven't. I've no idea what I'm doing at Oxford, no idea what I'm going to do next and, until a week ago, I had no idea who Caspian Hart was. Turns out, he's brilliant, beautiful . . . oh yeah, and a billionaire.

It's impossible not to be captivated by someone like that. But Caspian Hart makes his own rules. And he has a lot of them. About when I can be with him. What I can do with him. And when he'll be through with me.

I'm good at doing what I'm told in the bedroom. The rest of the time, not so much. And now that Caspian's shown me glimpses of the man behind the billionaire I know it's him I want. Not his wealth, not his status. Him. Except that might be the one thing he doesn't have the power to give me.

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If I’d been hoping to win another smile, I was disappointed because all I got in response was, “Turn around.”

It was a phrase that had come my way often enough and I was pretty fond of it. But the way he said it, oh God the way he said it, turned my insides to honey. Not bossy or rough but implacable.

A command.

If he did it in a voice like that—all steel and velvet and the promise of his approval—I would have done anything he told me.

No matter how slutty or degrading.

Actually.

Strike that.

Especially if it was slutty or degrading.

I turned around, trying to shut down the porno in my brain. We were in a public place, and I was fully dressed (in several layers of formal wear as it happened), but it felt vulnerable. Giving this man, this stranger, my back. My trust.

His arm came around me from behind. And the heat of it, the pressure. The tightening muscles of his forearm made me a bit delirious. I leaned back and his body was right there, all hard planes and angular curves for me to nestle into. I tilted my hips, wriggling my arse until I was tucked in against him, pinned and protected at the same time, at once safe and overwhelmed.

I tried to breathe and an excited little moan happened instead.

Caspian tugged me in tighter still. No humiliatingly inappropriate noises from him. But his heart was thudding hard and fast against my spine. He pulled the bow tie out of my hand and straightened my collar. A finger touched me lightly under the chin and I tipped my head back against his shoulder, exposing my throat. That was when I heard him growl. Softly enough I almost missed it, but there it was. This sound of deep, primitive pleasure that shivered all the way down my back and headed off in a few other directions as well.

As he leaned over me, his breath grazed the top of my ear and that insubstantial caress felt so ridiculously intimate it made my knees go weak. Like I was supposed to be on them. At his feet. His other arm came around me as he did whatever you have to do to make a bow tie happen. He didn’t fumble at it the way Nik had. His movements were swift and assured. And, just for a moment, I felt a brush of warmth across my pulse point, like a touch that wasn’t.

I only noticed he was done when he gave me a little push. Too busy swooning into his neck and shoving my bum into his crotch like the wanton hussy I was. I turned, stumbling a little, discovering too late I was basically jelly, and just about managed not to end up on the ground again.

“Um, thanks.” I lifted a hand instinctively, wanting to feel the shape of the knot, but then stopped. I’d only wreck it.

He just nodded, his eyes slipping away from me again. I wished he’d stop doing that. Was my face that boring? But his color was up, his breath a little unsteady. And, y’know, there’d been movement back there. When I’d been doing my thing. So maybe he was just…embarrassed?

“That’s some good tying,” I heard myself say. “Is it practice or natural talent?”

With his finals looming in the not so distant future, Oxford student Arden St. Ives has no idea what to do with his life once he graduates. After volunteering for a charity event, he crosses paths with Caspian Hart, a former student who is now a self-made billionaire. Their attraction is mutual when they meet-up and Caspian offers Arden an opportunity he can't refuse, not knowing where it will lead for either man.

When an Oxford student calls Caspian Hart to ask for a donation for his Alma mater, he's captivated by the voice on the end of the phone so much, he takes up the cheeky students offer to attend a fund-raiser at St. Sebastian's Hall. He's instantly attracted to Arden St. Ives, yet he knows their time together will only be short. However, the bubbly, fun student makes it clear he wants his body and soul. It's something Caspian can't agree.

Arden-likeable, needy, camp and fun. He's naive in believing he can be what Caspian wants, not knowing what that means. He constantly pushes the more restraint Caspian but doesn't understand why he can't get this gorgeous man to offer more of himself. Enigmatic Caspian Hart doesn't understand why what he offers in way of a relationship isn't sufficient. He's emotionally closed off for a reason and doesn't want to expose Arden to a part of his persona he struggles with.

Many have made comparisons to Fifty Shades Of Grey series, but as I've never read those novels I can only convey my thoughts about How To Bang a Billionaire. The title didn't really sell this book to me, but after reading about Arden, who narrates this story and Caspian, it is very apt and tongue in cheek!!

I thoroughly enjoyed the author's writing style, it's witty and entertaining and he conveys the protagonist's emotions perfectly. When I began reading this novel, I wasn't aware this was the beginning of a series, but as I'm invested in Caspian and Arden, I'm looking forward to discovering what Alexis Hall has planned for them next.

***arc generously received courtesy of Forever Yours Publishing via NetGalley***

THE ARDEN ST. IVES SERIES

HOW TO BANG A BILLIONAIRE, #1

HOW TO BLOW IT WITH A BILLIONAIRE, #2

Alexis Hall was born in the early 1980s and still thinks the twenty-first century is the future. To this day, he feels cheated that he lived through a fin de siècle but inexplicably failed to drink a single glass of absinthe, dance with a single courtesan, or stay in a single garret.

He did the Oxbridge thing sometime in the 2000s and failed to learn anything of substance. He has had many jobs, including ice cream maker, fortune-teller, lab technician, and professional gambler. He was fired from most of them.

He can neither cook nor sing, but he can handle a seventeenth-century smallsword, punts from the proper end, and knows how to hot-wire a car.

He lives in southeast England, with no cats and no children, and fully intends to keep it that way.

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