Tragic Beauty by Iris Ann Hunter is the First book in the "Beauty & The Darkness " series.
Shayne McAllister is a rich and powerful man who has always wanted Ava.  When her father got sick and fell into hard times, Ava came to him.  Ava was just sixteen years old when she made a deal with Shayne for his 'help'.  Now 5 years later her father has past and its time to 'pay' Shayne back.  But he agrees to give her a three day grace period at her father cemetery.   Ava knows there is no getting out of her deal with him but as a young women who hasn't had any boyfriends because Shayne would do them harm she wants one night before she has to go to him.  
On that one night head out of town the car she barrow breaks down leaving her stranded on a rainy dark road.  But then a strange car pulls up and offers to help her.  Ava has never seen him before but she finds him really handsome.  We learn that his name is Gavin and he takes care of getting her car fix and takes her to his home.  Ava ends up getting her one night but when she walks away it ends up making Gavin know that he wants more than just one night.
This is a very dark romance with some hard scenes that some might find very upsetting but it is very well written and that makes is hard to put down.   This does end with a soft type cliffhanger to set you up for the next installment into their lives.

Hey there! I hope everyone had a fantastic start into 2018!

I always like to take the first days of January to look back and recap what I read in the past year – which books did I love, which ones did I like ok and which ones did upset or disappoint me. So here we go – quick and dirty!

Books I loved

There were a lot of books which I really liked in 2017, so I wrecked my brain to distil the three absolute best of the best for you:
My favourite book must have been The Letters of Herman Melville – interesting, well written and as an highlight I recommend reading the letters he addressed to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Another one of my favourites was A True Novel by Minae Mizumura which I binge read in 11 days despite the sheer amount of nearly 900 pages. And last, but definitely not least was the mother of all dystopian novels We by Evgenij Zamjatin.

Books I was disappointed in

Luckily, in this category there were not that many books to choose from. The biggest letdown and as I can remember also the most exhausting one to read must have been The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which is sad, because I expected so much more from this classic. What the Hell did I just read was no favourite of mine neither, although this did not come as a surprise, because David Wong’s books are gradually declining in quality. And since I mentioned We as one of the best books, I have to admit that 1984 wasn’t really a good one, despite its status as the dystopian novel par excellence.

And some honourable mentions

Сердешна Оксана as the first (and so far only) book I read in Ukrainian, So long a letter as a fascinating account of the life of African women and both books written by Oscar Zeta Acosta (The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and The Revolt of the Cockrach People), because Acosta proves that even lawyers can be amazing writers and fight for what is right.

…and this time we are talking revolution!

The Buffalo – or Zeta as he now calls himself – continues on his journey to figure out, who he is and what he is destined to do when he discovers his inner Cockroach.
Cutting back on drugs (pot doesn’t count) at least temporarily, he somehow stumbles right into the middle of the Chicano civil rights movement and soon becomes the spokesman and lawyer for everyone else involved. Although he is absolutely overwhelmed as well as overextended and hates the law like no lawyer before of after him, he holds his head up high and viciously goes right for the establishment’s throat.

The best parts of the book are in fact the many scenes at court. You get to experience the Buffalo in all his glory and in full action as the incredible lawyer he was, trampling down judges and jury alike, which results in him, the attorney, getting thrown into jail on a regular basis. He must have been a pain in the arse indeed! A disrespectful lawyer by day and a Molotov cocktail throwing, pipe bomb preparing radical beast by night – no wonder, he had so many enemies…

If this man didn’t go down in law history books, I don’t know what we write them for.

No other lawyer has ever cross-examined a hundred judges. There is no precedent, nobody to show me how to do the job. So, as is my custom, I decide to go right for the throat of those dirty old men who sit over us in judgement. If they won’t give us back our lands, at least we’ll have a drop of their blood for our trouble.
I’m billed as the only revolutionary lawyer this side of the Florida Gulf. And it’s true: I’m the only one who actually hates the law. The rest are just jiving. I’d rather spit in a judge’s eye than stick a pig in the heart.

The Brown Buffalo is back – sobered up and acting as the proud lawyer of the cockroaches.