Monday, June 30, 2014

THE SAINT by TIFFANY REISZ - WHITE YEARS # 1 - BLOG TOUR - REVIEW - EROTIC CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE - HARLEQUIN




Titles: The Saint by Tiffany Reisz

Release date: June 24th



About The Saint by Tiffany Reisz:

Before she became Manhattan's most famous dominatrix, Nora Sutherlin was merely a girl called Eleanor…

Rebellious, green-eyed Eleanor never met a rule she didn't want to break. She's sick of her mother's zealotry and the confines of Catholic school, and declares she'll never go to church again. But her first glimpse of beautiful, magnetic Father Marcus Stearns—Søren to her and only her—and his lust-worthy Italian motorcycle is an epiphany. Eleanor is consumed—yet even she knows being in love with a priest can't be right.

But when one desperate mistake nearly costs Eleanor everything, it is Søren who steps in to save her. When she vows to repay him with complete obedience, a whole world opens before her as he reveals to her his deepest secrets that will change everything.

Danger can be managed—pain, welcomed. Everything is about to begin.

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By: Tiffany Reisz
Published By: Harlequin
Released : Available Now
Details: Kindle, 448 Pages

RATING: 5 WELL WRITTEN, FORBIDDEN STARS!

Blurb: Goodreads

In the beginning, there was him.

Gutsy, green-eyed Eleanor never met a rule she didn't want to break. She's sick of her mother's zealotry and the confines of Catholic school, and declares she'll never go to church again. But her first glimpse of beautiful, magnetic Father Søren Stearns and his lust-worthy Italian motorcycle is an epiphany. Suddenly, daily Mass seems like a reward, and her punishment is the ache she feels when they're apart. He is intelligent and insightful and he seems to know her intimately at her very core. Eleanor is consumed—and even she knows that can't be right.

But when one desperate mistake nearly costs Eleanor everything, it is Søren who steps in to save her. She vows to repay him with complete obedience…and a whole world opens before her as he reveals to her his deepest secrets.

Danger can be managed—pain, welcomed. Everything is about to begin.



BOOK REVIEW by Michelle:


This is my very first Tiffany Reisz book. I asked if I had to read the other four books in The Original Sinners series first, as this one is #5, but it is White Years # 1, so, that got me thinking.

Turns out I didn’t have to read the other four books first, but I will go back and read them shortly to catch me up.

I do understand that Nora’s character along with Soren and Kingsley are in The Original Sinners series of books I have not yet read.

Eleanor is fifteen, nearly sixteen and aging in The Saint. Soren starts off at twenty eight years of age.

I found this book to be written very well, the forbidden and lustful side came across incredibly well.

Eleanor is a temptation. She acts beyond her years. Her mother and father aren’t helping her case for being a normal, well adjusted teenager.

Elle put her foot on the accelerator and gunned it. Gravity introduced itself to her body, but she and her stomach ignored the pressure and didn’t back off. Her dad was a good driver. She was better. He handled a car like a NASCAR driver. All power and speed. She drove like a Formula One driver-- pure feminine finesse.


Soren sees something in Eleanor. 


“Thanks for talking to me tonight.”

“I enjoyed our conversation, Eleanor.”

She smiled at the phone. Usually she hated being called Eleanor. Why did it sound so right coming from him? Eleanor... sounded so classy the way he said it, so adult.

“Can I ask you a quick question?”

“Of course,” Soren answered, and she heard the sound of books dropping into boxes.

“Are you dangerous, too?”

She held her breath waiting for his answer.

“Yes.”




“You’re going to go through all this trouble for me, why?”

Soren looked back at her and gave her a smile that stripped her soul naked and put it on its knees.

“Because there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you, Eleanor. Nothing I wouldn’t do to help you and nothing I wouldn’t do to save you. Nothing.”




“I have suffered. My suffering has ended.”

“Did you find Jesus?”

“No, I found you.”



Eleanor wants Soren.


Visions flashed through her mind. A fluttering of white wings. A burning arrow. Stained glass under her feet. His hands on her face. His mouth on her mouth. His mouth on her breasts. His skin against her skin. His body inside her body. His heart in her heart in his hands...

Soren is a Jesuit priest.


“When I was fourteen, I decided to become a priest,” he said. “Once I made that decision, I felt peace in my heart for the first time in my life. And I didn’t know why or from where that peace came.


“I’m guessing you still have your original parts.”

“Warranty included,” he said.



Nora is narrating her life to both us the reader, and Nico, the son of Kingsley.

She could already feel her resolve crumbling. Twenty-five years old, tall, deeply tanned, dark hair with the slightest wave to it that demanded a woman’s fingers run through it again and again, clear celadon eyes -- an inheritance from his Persian mother -- and a face that someone should sculpt so it would endure even after both of them turned to dust and ashes... How could she turn him away? How could anyone?


“You are dangerous,” Nico whispered against her lips. “You can make a man want things he can’t have.”


I was totally swept up in Tiffany’s tale of a young, wild, Eleanor. It was addictive, I had trouble turning away, and near the end I wanted to turn away.

I felt very much the voyeur.
In The Saint, I got to meet Soren, the Ducati riding, priest and watch how he handled the young Nora and we only touch on Soren’s darker side.

It’s there and it does get unleashed in this book.

Holy mother of pearl does it get unleashed.

Soren became, what I assume he is in The Original Sinners, series. 

Tiffany paints a picture when you are reading of a young girl who is very intelligent and confident around a man, much older than herself, who is also extremely intelligent. Soren is wiser, he has this brilliant way he conducts himself around her. 


“Your body is a temple, Eleanor. You should treat it like the pricelss and holy vessel it is. I learned one thing and one thing only from watching my father’s wife. If you’re going to redecorate, either learn how to do it properly, or hire a professional.”

It is a tension that is written very well.


“You’re not a normal priest, are you?”

He gave her a smile that hit her like a slap to the face and a kiss on the mouth all at once.

“My God, I hope not.”



There was a scene with a piano, I really felt what Tiffany was showing the reader here. A young girl who had just come from an office, doing things that should not be done in a church and the priest who vented his frustration out on the piano.


She stood just feet away from him and watched as he played. No, that wasn’t it. He didn’t play the piano. He enslaved it. His fingers moved with shocking speed and agility across the keys.


I’m not sure what the Soren is like in the first part of this series, but this Soren eased me into what is to come, I have no doubt about that.

This was quite the ride, once you are on it, it is hard to get off. 

Because I have only read this book, it felt like a definite tease, to want to know more about Soren and Kingsley in, The Siren, The Angel, The Prince, The Mistress, and the other characters that get touched on in this book.




Nora hints at things to come for me too. I haven’t met Nora the dominatrix, yet. I only got a glimpse of a more subdued, older Nora in The Saint.

I think I quite liked not knowing the older Nora and older Soren and Kinglsey...just yet.


“I’m trading you a King for a king,” Soren said, holding up her story.

Eleanor read the card.

Kinglsey Edge, Edge Enterprises, it read.



“He’s also dangerous, Little One, and I don’t use the word lightly.”


“There is something else you need to learn about Kingsley.”

“What?” She wrapped her arms around her legs, suddenly chilly.

“There is God, there is you and there is Kingsley. Those are my three nonnegotiables. You understand?”



I liked reading the early days, the White Years. It gave me a taste of things to come. What was once forbidden ,will become a highly dark and voyeuristic series for me.

I gotta say, I am a little nervous, but at the same time, Tiffany’s writing is very addictive.


“You have only seen him by day, and by day we see only light and shadow. But if you let him, the night would come. And then we would all see the darkness.”

“What’s the darkness like?”

“I will say only this -- when le pretre is in the right mood, he can make even the devil afraid to turn his back.”




Michelle







About The Author:


Tiffany Reisz



Tiffany Reisz is the author of the highly acclaimed series The Original Sinners. Her first novel, THE SIREN, won the RT Editor's Choice Award for Best Erotic Romance of 2012. Slightly shameless, Tiffany dropped out of a conservative Southern seminary in order to pursue a career as a writer. This move, while possibly putting her eternal salvation in peril, has worked out better than she anticipated. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her boyfriend, author Andrew Shaffer.


2 comments:

  1. Holy...you've definitely intrigued (and titillated) me with this one, Michelle! I've been meaning to read this series - I have the physical books sitting on my shelf. And now I'm in a real hurry to get started. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I'm glad you enjoyed your introduction to Ms. Reisz. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OO I titillated...nice :D I shall have to get a hold of the others :D

      Delete

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