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PASSION ON PARK AVENUE (THE CENTRAL PARK PACT #1) by LAUREN LAYNE

June 4, 2019

 

ABOUT THE BOOK:

 

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Stiletto and Oxford series, the first in a sizzling new series following the unlikely friendship of three Upper East Side women as they struggle to achieve their dreams and find true love and happiness in the city that never sleeps.

For as long as she can remember, Bronx-born Naomi Powell has had one goal: to prove her worth among the Upper East Side elite—the same people for which her mom worked as a housekeeper. Now, as the strongminded, sassy CEO of one of the biggest jewelry empires in the country, Naomi finally has exactly what she wants—but it’s going to take more than just the right address to make Manhattan’s upper class stop treating her like an outsider.

The worst offender is her new neighbor, Oliver Cunningham—the grown son of the very family Naomi’s mother used to work for. Oliver used to torment Naomi when they were children, and as a ridiculously attractive adult, he’s tormenting her in entirely different ways. Now they find themselves engaged in a battle-of-wills that will either consume or destroy them…

Filled with charm and heart and plenty of sex and snark, this entertaining series will hook you from the very first page.

 

MY REVIEW:

 

Passion on Park Avenue is the first book in the Central Park Pact series by Lauren Layne. The story has a fun, flirty, ‘Sex and the City’ vibe to it; it centers around three New York City women who meet when they learn they had each been in a relationship with a now-deceased man. These three – Naomi, Claire and Audrey – are all smart and beautiful and vow to become friends instead of letting the cheating playboy come between them.

‘Passion on Park Avenue’ features Naomi Powell who is the founder of a billion dollar company. One of the things I loved most about this light and sexy novel is that the author is intimately familiar with New York City. I loved the metropolitan setting! (One of my pet peeves is when an author tries to set a story in a place they know nothing about and have done no research.) Naomi grew up in extreme poverty when her mother was fired from her housekeeping job by a wealthy Park Avenue matron, because Naomi’s mother was having an affair with her husband. Naomi and her mother, who lived in the apartment, were kicked out and bounced around from various places. As a child, Naomi was best friends with Oliver, the son, who lied when confronted about his father’s affair and Naomi never got over the betrayal.

So when the chance to live in the very same Park Avenue building comes up, Naomi takes it, even though can live anywhere she wants. But what she wants is revenge on Oliver for the long-ago betrayal.

This book has a lot of heart and soul which elevates it above many contemporary romances. Oliver was a very well-rounded character. He was not the complete jerk that Naomi remembers. He is now bearing the burden for caring for his ailing father and he truly does not recall Naomi. All he knows is that she is really getting under his skin!

”Naomi Powell had brought him back to life, made him realize that he hadn’t died with his mom, or with his father’s diagnosis; he’d just been living that way.”

This was a relatively low-angst story which is perfect if you need to escape for a few hours into a well-written, frothy romance. The enemies-to-lovers trope is very well done by Ms. Layne. The love scenes fade to black so this is not an explicit romance, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I also enjoyed the subplot about Naomi getting her own reality television series which I hope will be explored in more detail in the future books.

“Naomi’s face tilted to his, and for a moment Oliver’s breath caught with an unfamiliar sensation. Want, yes. Desire, sure. But this moment was different. Fuller somehow, as though this woman belonged to him not just for right now, not just for a night, but for always…”

This was my first book my Lauren Layne and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a light, adult romantic comedy. The cover for the second book in the series, ‘Love on Lexington Avenue’, has already been released and it is beautiful! I am very much looking forward to reading Audrey and Claire’s stories.

(ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

Categories : 4 Stars, Adult, Contemporary Romance, Reviews, Romantic Comedy Tagged : Central Park Pact, Lauren Layne, Passion on Park Avenue

Sale Blitz & Excerpt: THE TROUBLE WITH LOVE by LAUREN LAYNE

September 6, 2015

THE TROUBLE WITH LOVE
Sex, Love & Stiletto’s #4
Lauren Layne
Loveswept 
 
 
 
As Lauren Layne’s salacious Sex, Love
& Stiletto series returns, a jaded columnist discovers a steamy way to get
over an old flame: falling for him all over again.
As
Stiletto magazine’s authority on all things breakup-and-heartache, Emma
Sinclair writes from personal experience. Five years ago, Emma was Charlotte,
North Carolina’s darling debutante and a blushing bride-to-be. Now she’s the
ice queen of the Manhattan dating scene. Emma left her sultry Southern drawl
behind, but not even her closest friends know that with it she left her heart.
Now Emma’s latest article forces her to face her demons—namely, the devilishly
sexy guy who ditched her at the altar.
After
giving up everything for a pro-soccer career, Alex Cassidy watches his dreams
crumble as a knee injury sidelines him for good. Now he’s hanging up his cleats
and giving journalism a shot. It’s just a coincidence that he happens to pick a
job in the same field, and the same city, as his former fiancée . . . right?
But when Emma moves in next door, it’s no accident. It’s research. And Alex
can’t help wondering what might have been. Unlike the innocent girl he
remembers, this Emma is chic, sophisticated, and assertive—and she wants
absolutely nothing to do with him. The trouble is, Alex has never wanted her
more.

unnamed-50

“Explain?” Julie said.

Emma sighed. “The apartment above me had some sort of water disaster. My entire apartment looks like the set of Titanic, minus the nubile Leo.”

Julie eyed Emma’s wet hair. “So, is your hair wet from, like, dirty pipe water?”

“No,” Emma said, taking a last sip of Julie’s coffee and handing the cup back as she located her badge. “Fortunately, I’d showered before the pipe burst and I managed to dodge the worst of the spray. Unfortunately, drying my hair wasn’t an option.”
“Right. That whole electrocution thing,” Julie said as they swiped their badges and headed to the elevators.

“Um, yeah, I couldn’t have gotten electrocuted even if I wanted to,” Emma said, punching the Up button. “The power went out.”

Julie’s brown eyes bugged out. “Seriously? Flooded and you have no power? Is everything ruined?”

“Of course not. I still have this lovely dress,” Emma said, pulling the hem of her dress out to the side, curtsy style. She pretended not to notice the way the two girls who had been gossiping happily as they crossed the elevator lobby immediately quieted when they spotted her.

The dress would have been a distraction all by itself. The drippy wet bun was also atypical for a swanky office building in which sophisticated and polished was the unofficial dress code for women.

But a lack of makeup made everything worse. Much worse.

Not that Emma was really a glam type of girl, but she had a distinct disadvantage of having very fair eyelashes, despite her medium brown hair. And her eyes’ shape made it worse. They were both large and tilted upward in a semi-distinctive manner. Bambi eyes, her mother had always called them.

But without eyeliner and mascara, she was more Lord of the Rings’ Gollum than adorable baby deer.

“You know, it’s a good dress, if a bit out of place for work,” Julie mused, as they followed the two gossiping girls and a middle-aged man yapping into his phone onto the elevator. “Sexy. A little slutty even. Go you!”

“That’s great, Jules. Slutty was just what I was going for on a random Wednesday morning at the office.”

“Well then, you should have called me. We’re the same size–ish. I could have lent you something.”

“I’ll be taking you up on that tomorrow,” Emma said as Julie hit the button for the twelfth floor. “Everything I have will need to be dry-cleaned at best, burned at worst. But this morning, I couldn’t make it from Upper East over to Upper West in the middle of traffic and still make it to the office in time.”

The elevator doors had just started to close when a male hand stuck between them, activating their sensors so that the doors reopened.

Great. Really freaking fantastic.

A lesser woman would have groaned in dismay at the sight of the man in front of her.

Emma merely straightened her shoulders, ignoring Julie’s softly uttered “Oh, dear.”

It was him.

 
Grab Now for ONLY $0.99
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Lauren Layne is the USA Today Bestselling author of contemporary romance.Prior to becoming an author, Lauren worked in e-commerce and web-marketing. In 2011, she and her husband moved from Seattle to New York City, where Lauren decided to pursue a full-time writing career. It took six months to get her first book deal (despite ardent assurances to her husband that it would only take three). Since then, Lauren’s gone on to publish ten books, including the bestselling Stiletto series, with several more on the way in 2015.

Lauren currently lives in Chicago with her husband and spoiled Pomeranian. When not writing, you’ll find her at happy hour, running at a doggedly slow pace, or trying to straighten her naturally curly hair.

 

 Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
 
 
Start the Stiletto Series from the Beginning
 
AFTER THE KISS
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LOVE THE ONE YOU’RE WITH
KINDLE | NOOK | IBOOKS | KOBO
JUST ONE NIGHT
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Stiletto Spin Off:
IRRESISTIBLY YOURS
OXFORD Series #1
Coming October 6th
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Categories : Book Blitz, Contemporary Romance Tagged : Excerpt, Lauren Layne, Sale, The Trouble With Love

RELEASE WEEK BLITZ + EXCERPT + GIVEAWAY: FRISK ME (NEW YORK’S FINEST) by LAUREN LAYNE

July 27, 2015

Frisk-Me-Release-Week-Blitz

Layne_Frisk Me_MM

About FRISK ME:

After a photograph of Luc Moretti saving a tourist hits social media, he instantly becomes New York’s most famous and beloved cop. When a major network decides to run a special on the “American Hero,” Luc’s boss gives him no choice but to cooperate in the name of good exposure for the department. Luc doesn’t mind the celebrity status-what he does mind is the gorgeous brunette journalist who’s been assigned to follow his every move. Especially since she also happens to be the same knockout that rejected him rather publicly the week before.

Ava Sims is a woman who gets what she wants. And what she wants is to be CBC’s lead anchor-but to get there, she’ll need to nail the fluff piece on the playboy cop. Luc Moretti is everything Ava knows to stay away from: a stubborn charmer with a hero-complex. But the more Ava gets to know Luc and his oddball family, the more she realizes that beneath the swagger and the blue uniform is a complex man who makes her heart beat too fast. Soon, Ava’s doing the unthinkable, and falling for the best of New York’s finest …

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Ce7CW8
B&N: http://bit.ly/1Iwgtn8
iTunes: http://apple.co/1ISpNxr

Excerpt:

She grinned as she caught the full impact of Luc Moretti in uniform. “It is you. Oh my gosh, can I get a picture with you? My uncle’s a cop, and he says you’ve done wonders to restore the department’s prestige.”

“Um,” Luc looked pained, and Ava was surprised to feel a surge of sympathy. She still had her suspicions that he secretly relished the attention, but it was clear he embarrassed at the moment.

It was exactly the moment she needed to shake off the sexual tension.

Ava reached forward and plucked the cute brunette’s phone out of her hand. “Here, I’ll take it.”

“Thanks,” the girl said, her eyes never leaving Luc’s profile as he turned with a grimace towards the camera.

“Okay, I’ll count to three,” Ava said pointedly to the girl whose hand rested on Luc’s abs as she moved in close, apparently oblivious to the camera and Ava.

But the girl knew what she was doing. As Ava got to three, the girl turned her head towards the camera with a well-timed hair flip, and the result was a picture-perfect moment between a stoic cop and adorable groupie.

Ava handed the phone back to the girl, who took it back reluctantly, likely because the motion meant letting go of Luc.

“So, Officer …” The girl’s eyelashes fluttered. As in actually fluttered.

Ava stuck her tongue in her cheek to hide her smirk. This should be good.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I’m on duty,” he says, gesturing down at his gun.

The girl all but salivated and pressed on. “Oh I know. I was thinking whenever you got off. Or another day, if that would be better.”

Luc’s smile never wavered, but Ava was surprised to see that the polite grin seemed almost pasted on his face, as though he’d rather be anywhere else. Which didn’t make sense. The guy was gorgeous.

“Actually, I’m sort of seeing someone.”

He was?

Luc’s announcement caused more of a tug than it should, but when she looked at him more closely, she noticed the way he wouldn’t meet the girl’s eye.

Officer Moretti was lying. And from the guilty look on his face, he didn’t lie easily.

Ava all but shook her head. As far as excuses went, it was merely okay. Not a good enough explanation for a girl who looked like a lingerie model and had confidence radiating off her in waves. Girls like this one would I’m seeing someone as more as a challenge than a rejection.

“Lucky lady,” the brunette said, wiggling closer to Luc. “But look, it doesn’t work out between you two, I can give you my–”

“Hear that sweetie? At least someone thinks you’re a lucky lady.”

It took Ava several seconds to realize that Luc was talking to her.

Oh no. No freaking way …

But he merely grinned, reaching out a hand and pulled her closer. She opened her mouth to tell him off, but there was something in his gaze — desperation, maybe?–that had her hesitating. Ava let herself be pulled to his side, even sliding her arm around his waist, but the pinch she delivered to his side said he’d pay for the lie later. At least she tried to pinch. The man had like zero body fat.

The way their bodies pressed together caused a shiver of awareness over Ava. A shiver she ignored.

At least until he slid his hand over the small of her back, down over her waist until his fingers splayed over her hip as though they belonged there. And damn it, it felt like they did belong there.

Like she belonged here. With him.

Oh, this was so not good.

“Oh my god,” the girl said, her hand flattening against her chest. To her credit, she looked genuinely dismayed. “I’m so sorry. When I saw you guys standing here I thought you arguing–”

“We were,” Ava said.

“Foreplay,” Luc interrupted huskily, as his gaze raked down Ava’s body. “It really revs her motors.”

“Revs my motors?” Ava asked, pushing against him in annoyance. Because annoyance was safer than arousal. “Are you kidding me right now with the woman-as-car metaphors.”

“You like it,” he said, looping his arm casually around her neck while giving the girl a boyish grin.

“You know what else I’d like?” Ava hissed. “If you took your police baton, or whatever it’s called, and shoved it up you–”
His mouth was on her before she could finish the sentence.

It was a quick kiss.

Just a hard stamp of shut-the-hell-up. There was no tongue, just the press of his mouth against hers, lingering only slight, but the kiss rocked Ava all the same.

Luc, on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected, and as soon as his mouth left hers, his eyes sought his admirer who was already walking away.

With a look of relief, he released Ava, who was still feeling a little unready from the feel of his lips on hers, however meaningless and quick it had been.

“What the hell was that?” she asked to his retreating back since he was already walking away.

He stopped and turned back. “What was that.”

He turned around, but didn’t stop moving as he walked backwards. “That, Sims, was a test.”

She started after him. “Yeah? What did it prove?”

“That I like your mouth a hell of a lot better when it’s not yapping. Now you coming, or what?”

Ava glared at his retreating back.

Yup, it was official. America’s Hero was a total ass.

But the man could kiss.

About Lauren Layne:

A long-time romance reader, Lauren Layne thinks the only thing better than reading about happy endings is writing them. She now pursues a full-time career in Happily Ever After, a job she’s naturally suited for after marrying her high school sweetheart. A bit of a nomad, Lauren’s lived everywhere from Orange County to Manhattan, and currently lives in the Seattle-area. Her hobbies include coffee by day, wine by night, and lots of writing in between. She’s also a total website nerd and insists you check out
laurenlayne.com!
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/_LaurenLayne
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/LaurenLayneAuthor

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Categories : Contemporary Romance, Giveaway, Release Blitz Tagged : Excerpt, Frisk Me, Lauren Layne

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