Book Review: Shadows and Lies by Eden Butler #Giveaway

Eden Butler is a new to me author who I first got a taste of with the prequel to this book, Swimming in Shadows, which appears in the Night Shift Anthology. As soon as I finished that short novella I absolutely knew that I needed to read the rest of this series.

Former Navy SEAL and previous cop Neil Ryan is on a mission to solve the mystery surrounding his mother's murder. But it seems like every turn he takes leads him to another dead end. Until he meets Alex Black. Again. Alex has been a thief and cheat since she was a kid, it was the only way for her to survive. What could a goody goody boy scout and a grifter have in common? More than they could have imagined and now Alex may be the only key to Ryan getting some answers.

So before this book even starts, Ms. Butler gives her readers a warning that there are less sexy times in this than in her previous books. Being that I am new to her writing that did not deter me and I must say that this made little difference to me because the story gripped me from start to finish. There is just so much going on and so many lies and mysteries to solve that your brain just does not get a rest. Add in a bucket load of sexual tension between Alex and Ryan and just... wow.
The book ends with a resolution to some of the smaller questions but the overall main mystery is still wide open and it has me dying for the next book. I can't wait to see how it plays out and to get more of sexy Ryan. Because yum. Especially when he throws a "darlin'" in there - that really gets my blood pumping, Ms. Butler has a new fan in me and I will definitely be checking out her other books.

Favorite Quotes

Alex's hair, the smell of her skin, the taste of her shoulder against my teeth, the struggle for control - it made me drunk and hard and all those things I had no business being.

Ryan had been a hustle I hadn't counted on losing. He;'s been the one great score that I didn't know I wanted.

Marianna's Rating:

**I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Excerpt

“I’ve never seen you cruel before. Didn’t know you had it in you, Boy Scout.” “You know, lady,” there was a hum in my voice I didn’t recognize. Alex had put it there with just the low dip of her gaze, “you got all these ideas that you know me. You don’t.” “Ditto.” Her eyes moved with the shake of my head, following the slow nod, the moment becoming something tactile, obvious as the heating air between our bodies that dampened our skin. Two looks, two held breaths and something had shifted. Hell, who was I kidding?  It had started, brewing, way back, the second I grabbed her arm, stopping her from taking that wallet. It simmered when she snuck onto my balcony asking for my help. Now it crackled—that attraction, the symmetry in the breath that mingled between her mouth and mine.  “Alex?” It was only her name falling from my mouth that moved her gaze off my lips, a small glance that was all the answer she’d give me. “I’m not a fucking Boy Scout.” There are times when you can’t think. Those are the clustered moments when the energy, the zing of the moment you’re in breaks apart any awareness you have. There is no logic in the swell of sensation or the liquid heat that drives one body closer to another. It’s the feel of warmth, the hope of touch that pulls you in no matter what your brain tries to make you understand about right and wrong, friend or foe. I wasn’t supposed to touch Alex Black. I wasn’t supposed to see her as anything but a mission. I was supposed to find her stalker and keep her safe.  But I had always done what was expected. Seems she had to, as well. The difference was that my expectations fell on the side of justice. Hers ran along the tracks of corruption. Both meant we survived however we could. I didn’t think about the case or what had brought her to me in the first place, and what kept her coming back to me. I reached for her because I knew that’s what we both wanted. I touched her because she let me and once I had her against my chest, felt the smooth brush of her fingers on my neck, sensation shattered judgment.  The last sound I heard before I kissed her was the strangle of laughter falling into a moan. Hers, not mine. Alex was a woman—beautiful, sensual, parts that went in and out just like they’re supposed to, but she did not kiss me like any other hesitant, docile woman I’d ever touched. She touched me like she was still hungry, like the meal we had just shared had not filled her. Like nothing would.

Title: Shadows and Lies
Author: Eden Butler
Series: Shadows #1
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/25021052-shadows-and-lies
Blurb:
One lie can change your life.

A web of lies can destroy it.

Neil Ryan was a good Navy SEAL. He was an even better detective, but when an unmarked envelope lands on his desk, long-buried secrets are resurrected and Ryan questions everything he thought he knew about justice, including who killed his mother.

Alex Black is a distraction Ryan doesn’t need—she’s loud, obnoxious and a common thief, but her eyes are haunting, her lips irresistible and Ryan happens to love her filthy mouth.

Alex is also the only one able to help Ryan find the leads he's missing. She's the only one who can lead him to the one person who has the answers he seeks, but following her could cost Ryan everything.

Secrets get told, lives get wrecked and in every shadow, the truth is hiding.

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About the Author

Eden Butler is an editor and writer of New Adult Romance and SciFi and Fantasy novels and the nine-times great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum. Her debut novel, a New Adult, Contemporary (no cliffie) Romance, “Chasing Serenity” launched in October 2013 and quickly became an Amazon bestseller.

When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden edits, reads and spends way too much time watching rugby, Doctor Who and New Orleans Saints football.

She is currently living under teenage rule alongside her husband in southeast Louisiana.

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