Need more of The Chateau before its release date on June 5th? Look not further for an fun sexy excerpt as Kingsley falls down the rabbit hole.

Only a few days left.

Prepare yourselves Original Sinners fans...but first read this excerpt.

An exclusive excerpt from The Chateau: An Erotic Thriller, on sale this June from 8th Circle Press...

The ropes around his wrists were long enough Polly didn’t have to untie him. Kingsley simply rolled onto his stomach and moved back into place, the ropes twisting into a knot. The pressure on his wrists was comfortable, but tight enough to feel like a pair of strong hands. Strong hands on his wrists, Kingsley lying prone, someone about to take him…

Just like high school.

“I see you smiling,” Polly said as she moved off the bed to do whatever it was she needed to do.

“Just remembering,” he said. “It’s funny. I don’t usually smile when I remember…”

“What?”

“Anything,”

Polly kissed the back of his shoulder. “I’ll give you a memory to make you smile.”

Kingsley let out a breath of pleasure as Polly laid her hand flat on the small of his back and caressed him there.

“This is my favorite part,” she said.

“Back rubs?”

“No, silly boy. Backs are my favorite part. Boy backs. My favorite body part,” she said. “Right here.” With her fingertips she lightly scored the center of his back where his tailbone met his spine. “Maybe that’s why I love doing this so much. The view of you is divine…”

With a compliment like that, how could Kingsley object to anything she wanted to do with his body? Polly whispered instructions in his ear. He did as told, and he did it with pleasure. He pulled his knees up under him and spread them. Polly worked the plug out of him carefully.

She positioned herself behind him and started to slowly…slowly…slowly enter him. Too slowly.

Polly told him to lay flat, to stretch out his legs—however was most comfortable for him. He was under the strictest of orders to tell her the second he felt a moment’s pain. But there was no pain, no discomfort. Fullness, yes. Not pain. Not like he’d known once.

“You like this, don’t you?” Polly said as she kissed and licked the back of his neck. “Being taken? Penetrated? Used?”

“Very much.”

“Say it then,” she said.

“Say what?”

“Say you like penetration. You said you aren’t shy, so say it. Or are you shy?”

He opened his mouth, laughed softly. “You make me feel shy. It’s an accomplishment.”

“Kingsley…” Polly said as she nibbled on his earlobe. “Say it or I’ll stop fucking you…” Her voice was teasing, but the order was an order. It had to be obeyed.

“I like being penetrated,” he said. “There. Happy?”

“So very happy. If I keep doing this,” she said and thrust into him, “will you come?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I would bet my life on it.”

“You’ve come from penetration alone before?”

“I have.”

“High school?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Summary

As the Jack-of-All-Wicked-Trades for a secretive French military intelligence agency, Kingsley Boissonneault has done it all—spied, lied, and killed under orders. But his latest assignment is quite out of the ordinary. His commanding officer's nephew has disappeared inside a sex cult, and Kingsley has been tasked with bringing him home to safety.

The cult’s holy book is Story of O, the infamous French novel of extreme sado-masochism. Their château is a looking-glass world where women reign and men are their willing slaves. Or are they willing? It’s Kingsley’s mission to find out.

Once inside the château, however, Kingsley quickly falls under the erotic spell cast by the enigmatic Madame, a woman of wisdom, power, and beauty. She offers Kingsley the one thing he’s always wanted. But the price? Giving up forever the only person he’s ever loved.

About Tiffany Reisz

Tiffany Reisz is the USA Today bestselling author of the Original Sinners series for Mira Books and Mills & Boon, including the RT Book Reviews Best Erotic Romance 2012 winner The Siren and the LAMBDA Literary Award-winning The King. Her novel The Saint won the Romance Writers of America RITA® for best Erotic Romance in 2015.

Over my years of reading I know very well that I have come jaded in some aspects. Love and relationship goals is definitely one of them. Another? Travel. Not only do most of the time I wish that I could be transported to another world, but sometimes the sort of wanderlust while reading hits a little closer to home. From new books to old, some of the settings of novels and memoirs continue to make travel something on my must-list, just as these books should be on your must-read list.

Scotland

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.
   Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

The first time I heard sweet Jamie Fraser's written out accent in the Scottish dialect, I was taken. Taken, both by him and the idea of traveling to Scotland. The landscape in the history there seems to be just the place to visit with wide eyes and a camera ready for all the photos. Maybe I could even find a few stones to take me back in time as well?

Paris, France

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all...including a serious girlfriend.
But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

Oh how I love this book. I reread it quite often and it may get another reread very soon. After reading this book I seriously looked into schools and colleges based in the same area of Paris in hopes that I could live my Anna and the French Kiss love story. Alas...

Provence, France

Picnic in Provence by Elizabeth Bard

Ten years ago, New Yorker Elizabeth Bard followed a handsome Frenchman up a spiral staircase to a love nest in the heart of Paris. Now, with a baby on the way, Elizabeth takes another leap of faith with her husband when they move to Provence and open an artisanal ice cream shop. Filled with enticing recipes such as stuffed zucchini flowers, fig tart, and honey-and-thyme ice cream, PICNIC IN PROVENCE is the story of everything that happens after the happily ever after. With wit, humor, and a scoop of wild strawberry sorbet, Bard reminds us that life-in and out of the kitchen-is a rendezvous with the unexpected.

I read this as one of my first books at college and it only made me not want to be there in freshman orientation even more. The first book is Lunch in Paris, but this second installment of Elizabeth Bard's life was even more fantastic than the last with descriptions of Provence, even in the winters, that made my heart pitter pat with hope that I may one day see the lavender fields and the gelato and the markets...everything that makes the south of France this magical place her family decided to escape to.

Now. I am going to Provence. One travel inspiration down, so many to go.

St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

The golden skies, the translucent twilight, the white nights, all hold the promise of youth, of love, of eternal renewal. The war has not yet touched this city of fallen grandeur, or the lives of two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha Metanova, who share a single room in a cramped apartment with their brother and parents. Their world is turned upside down when Hitler's armies attack Russia and begin their unstoppable blitz to Leningrad.
   Yet there is light in the darkness. Tatiana meets Alexander, a brave young officer in the Red Army. Strong and self-confident, yet guarding a mysterious and troubled past, he is drawn to Tatiana—and she to him. Starvation, desperation, and fear soon grip their city during the terrible winter of the merciless German siege. Tatiana and Alexander's impossible love threatens to tear the Metanova family apart and expose the dangerous secret Alexander so carefully protects—a secret as devastating as the war itself—as the lovers are swept up in the brutal tides that will change the world and their lives forever.

Russia was never on my radar. Until now. Though this is a work of fiction, man do I want to see where this story and actual historical event I did not know of at the time took place. This book is beautifully devastating.

Everywhere...
But specifically Australia and South America

The Good Girls Guide to Getting Lost by Rachael Friedman

Rachel Friedman has always been the consummate good girl who does well in school and plays it safe, so the college grad surprises no one more than herself when, on a whim (and in an effort to escape impending life decisions), she buys a ticket to Ireland, a place she has never visited, in. There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure.
   As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realized she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.

I read this one about two years ago I think when I was in a Twitter travel book club. I absolutely loved it as we follow Rachael through her years of travel that take her to two continents that I have never thought of as being on my must-visit list. Now I must along with the rest of the world I may not have thought I was meant to go to previously. This book made me want to back up a single backpack and go.





There are so many places in the world I want to travel as I finally begin my journey of maybe seeing them all. Tis the dream.

Is there any of you that have had travel plans specifically based on a love of a book or two?

These characters are very few which feel like coming home to when I open the pages. The characters of the Night Court are a few of them.

"Feyre, Rhys, and their close-knit circle of friends are still busy rebuilding the Night Court and the vastly-changed world beyond. But Winter Solstice is finally near, and with it, a hard-earned reprieve.   

Yet even the festive atmosphere can't keep the shadows of the past from looming. As Feyre navigates her first Winter Solstice as High Lady, she finds that those dearest to her have more wounds than she anticipated--scars that will have far-reaching impact on the future of their Court."

The entire novella is bound and covered just like the others within the series, which I loved. Plus, it made it extra easy to find on the Target shelf when me and two others took a last minute trip to there and Dunkin' Donuts. Something different about this book however I realized right away was that it is told from multiple POVs.

Going in, I did expect this. Of course, I really thought that from the announcement of ACOFAS that it was going to be dual POVs between Feyre and Ryhsand. It would be our one last send off to how cute the couple has become now that all the drama has left them in the plot. A plot that with not only Rhysand and Feyre telling the story, but many more third point of views, we didn't really get to even though somehow a whole lot happens.

I understand that the plot was the emotional journey moving forward and Feyre being able to find herself as high lady in a sense, but this novella did read like I could have read it as a holiday blog post a la SJ Maas. I would have enjoyed it just as much if not more. Less pressure is put on a reader's shoulders after all when they are reading free pleasure stories.

"But it had been a long, brutal winter that had brought me so deep into the woods that day nearly two years ago. A long, brutal winter that had made me desperate enough to kill a wolf, that had eventually led me here—to this life, this … happiness."

So yes, I had issues with the novella, but also loved it the way I feel I will always love Sarah's novels. These books are full of heart and strength that I feel bleed into me when I read them.

The light hearted moments really make this book though and made it go by quickly. The message I also love is the necessity of art and love to heal. I need some of that artistic muse that Feyre begins to be re-inspired by as the Winter Solstice approached.

Though this book may not have been action packed and "necessary," it was definitely a welcomed continuation of stories I have held dear to my heart ever since I first heard the name Rhysand. My heart with him always manages to give a flutter!

”To the stars who listen, Feyre. To the dreams that are answered, Rhys."

There simply will never be enough of the Night Court to read. I am excited to see what the rest of the continuations of the ACOTAR stories will have in store.

So you haven't read Tiffany Reisz yet? Well well, we must change this. Perhaps we will change it with the Kingsley Edge? If anyone could turn anyone into a fan he would be the one. Unless you already know to be a Soren fan- Don't worry, Kingsley is too. Or, you may be like me, who would gladly be converted to the Original Sinners religion by both.

But for now, Kingsley. King.

Kingsley Boissonneault Edge who finally has his very own French spy prequel, The Chateau coming out June 5th. I had no idea that I needed this beautiful novel until I read the magnificent thing. Feel free to read my review I already posted on it, or the first excerpt I shared with you all.

For now here, take a read of the magnificence yourself.

An exclusive excerpt from The Chateau: An Erotic Thriller, on sale this June from 8th Circle Press...

The dream always begins the same way. In the winter. In the woods.

Kingsley stands in snow surrounded by shadows. None of the shadows are his because he’s not really there. He leaves no footprints as he walks. He does not see his steaming breath as he breathes. He is a ghost in this white forest, but he is not the only ghost here.

Before him stands a door.

It’s an arched wooden door alone in the woods. It belongs to an old chapel, but there is no church here, no chapel, no house. Only a door. Kingsley can walk around the door, but nothing will happen. Nothing will happen at all until he steps through it. The iron latch is cold enough to bite his bare fingers, but he doesn’t feel this either. He lifts it and passes through the door, because that is where the boy in white waits for him.

The moon is full and high, and the snow is bright, and he can see the young man so clearly it’s almost as if it were daytime, almost as if it weren’t a dream at all.

The boy in the clearing is beautiful, his hair so blond it looks almost white. His hair is white and his clothes are white, not snow white but a purer white, a baptismal white.

Kingsley speaks a word—either the boy’s name or “sir.” When he wakes he can never remember what word he says.

The boy, luminous in his pure white clothing, stands next to a table made of rough stone and on the stone table is a chess board made of ice.

Even though it is a dream, and no one has spoken but him, Kingsley knows he is supposed to sit and stay and play the game. It’s the rules. If he doesn’t play, he’ll wake up, and the last thing he wants is to wake up now, to wake up ever.

He sits opposite the young man with the white-blond hair. The chess board is between them. Everything is between them.

Kingsley moves his pawn.

“You’re not really here,” Kingsley says to the boy with the snowy hair and the silver eyes. The boy’s beauty renders the dream a nightmare because Kingsley knows when morning comes, the boy will be gone and nowhere does such beauty exist among his waking hours. Not anymore.

“How do you know?” the boy asks, moving his king.

“You look eighteen,” Kingsley says, moving another pawn. “You’re twenty-five now. I’m twenty-four.”

The boy moves his king again. “In your memory I’m eighteen.”

“That isn’t how you play,” Kingsley says. “You can’t move the king like that.”

“It’s my game,” the boy in white says. “I move my king however I want. Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember the way I moved my King anywhere and everywhere I wanted him to go?”

Even in the snow and the cold, Kingsley grows warm.

“I remember.”

Kingsley moves his bishop.

The boy in white moves his king again.

“I don’t know how to win this game,” Kingsley says. “How can I win if I don’t know the rules?”

The boy in white narrows his silver eyes at him. “You’ve already won.”

“I have?”

“To play is to win, if you’re playing with me. Isn’t that true?” the boy asks with an arrogant smile in his eyes.

Kingsley knows this is true though it galls him to admit it. He doesn’t care who wins the game as long as the game between them goes on forever. He moves another pawn and the boy in white captures it.

To be the pawn captured in that boy’s hand…

“How do you keep finding me?” Kingsley asks.

“You came to me,” the boy says. “I’m always here.”

“I lost you,” Kingsley says. “Seven years ago. I lost you.”

“No,” the boy says, smiling for the first time. His face is like Michelangelo’s David, passive and powerful and carved from pale marble. His eyes are granite and if Kingsley had a chisel he knows he could chip away at the boy’s chest until he uncovered an iron and copper wire heart beating inside a steel ribcage.

“No?”

“You lost you,” the boy says. The smile is gone and it has begun to snow again. When it snows, Kingsley knows the dream is almost over. All he wants to do is stay asleep a little longer. All he wants to do is stay asleep forever.

“How do I find you again?” Kingsley asks. “Please, tell me before I wake.”

“You don’t find me,” the boy says. “I find you.”

“Find me then.”

“When it’s time.”

“When will it be time?”

The boy in white moves his hands over the board and Kingsley looks down. The ice king lays on the board broken in two pieces.

“When?” Kingsley asks. He is a child again, asking a thousand questions in the quest for a single answer. The snow is falling harder now, heavy as rain and hot as tears. “Tell me when, please…”

The boy leans across the board as if to kiss him, but instead of a kiss, Kingsley is given an answer.

“When you find you.”

Between the kiss and the answer, Kingsley would have picked the kiss.

Summary

As the Jack-of-All-Wicked-Trades for a secretive French military intelligence agency, Kingsley Boissonneault has done it all—spied, lied, and killed under orders. But his latest assignment is quite out of the ordinary. His commanding officer's nephew has disappeared inside a sex cult, and Kingsley has been tasked with bringing him home to safety.

The cult’s holy book is Story of O, the infamous French novel of extreme sado-masochism. Their château is a looking-glass world where women reign and men are their willing slaves. Or are they willing? It’s Kingsley’s mission to find out.

Once inside the château, however, Kingsley quickly falls under the erotic spell cast by the enigmatic Madame, a woman of wisdom, power, and beauty. She offers Kingsley the one thing he’s always wanted. But the price? Giving up forever the only person he’s ever loved.

About Tiffany Reisz

To start the April season off, I read Winter of Artifice by Anais Nin which is a collection of three novellas including "Stella," "Winter of Artifice," and "The Voice." I got my copy at a used bookstore back in the fall and have been picking it up whenever I don't know what else to read. Finally, I have actually read it in its full entirety. I have been meaning to read more Anais Nin even though I still really enjoy her diaries so far more than the actual stories. May have to give each type of writing a reread.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion has been one of my big reads this past month. Mostly because it took me much longer than the usual book to finish even though that is not unusual for within the school year.

It was overall really good, the writing even more so. I can see why Joan Didion has become such a well-known writer. Her phrasing captures attention as she tells the story of the year after her husband died, going through love, loss, and most of all the ongoing of life.

For class, I was assigned the poetry book, The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown. I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would with it being assigned reading which for some reason always rubs me the wrong way.

Brown's poetry has such a strong sense of voice and place throughout as it describes the well researched State Colony hospital that she connects to possibly being a part of had been born in another time.

Blossoming in Provence by Kristin Espinasse was another book I ended up reading mostly for class though it was more welcomed since I have been trying to get into the France travel mood. It is in the form of blog posts in a sense with a glossary of french words she used in each chapter which was very helpful, as well as conversationally entertaining. Her blog is French Word a Day.

Hunger by Roxane Gay was my first books I took out of the school library that I haven't been using as well I should have been all year it appears. In case you didn't know, they have actually GOOD books at the library. Shocker, right?

I have never read anything by Roxane Gay even though I have been meaning to. This chronicles her life involving food and what drives her hunger both physical and creatively metaphorical. She is not one to hide harsh truths of her life which is sobering as well as amazing to read.


Currently I have started to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert that I got within my recent mindful book haul. Though it has not completely captured me yet, I am hoping to fall into the story soon.