Wednesday 24 February 2016

Blog Tour, Excerpt, Review & Giveaway ~ The Ground Rules Undone (Rule Breakers #3) by Roya Carmen


GROUND2 blog

Book Description:



The Ground Rules were impossible to follow. It was hard not to become completely consumed by the beautiful and enigmatic Weston Hanson. The heart of a romantic was not fit for this kind of exchange. So, when it ended, I was shattered, but it was all for the better…or so we thought.

The Ground Rules were rewritten, and then bent. We lied to ourselves. We told ourselves we could handle this. Not a single one of us realized just how big this was...just how devastating it could become.

And now, there are no Rules.

Lust… infatuation…blinds you. It can tear everything apart. But sometimes, life needs to be completely torn apart before it can be mended – not just cracked at the edges, but utterly shattered, before you can truly see the mess you’ve become.

I love them both, but I can’t have them both. While one pulls me in, the other pushes me away. And when both eventually open their hearts, I must make the hardest decision of my life.

And now there are no Rules. We are Undone.


Buy Links:


Ground Rules (Book One)


Ground Rules Rewritten (Book Two)





Excerpt:

Gabe buries his empty bottle of beer in the sand. And he studies me. His gaze lingers on me for what seems like an eternity. “Where have you been this weekend, Ella?”
I look up at him, not able to say a word.
“You seem distracted…distant. Are you not having a good time?”
I smile at him. “I am. It’s been the best trip.”
“It’s been great,” he agrees, looking up at the dark sky. And then he turns to me with a playful smile. “But I think it’s been missing a little something.”
I can’t help but smile. I know exactly what he’s saying.
He sits up and pulls off his fleece throw. “You think you have room on that chair of yours?”
I smile at him. “I don’t know…you’re a pretty big guy.”
He laughs. “I think you can make room,” he says with a wicked smile. “I think you want to make room.”
“Oh do I, now?”
He bites his lip. “Oh, you do,” he says as he stands and joins me under the purple blanket. The warmth of his body against mine feels amazing. I hadn’t realized how cold I was.
“Much better,” he says, his eyes glued to mine.
“Much better.”
Suddenly I find myself speechless. It’s so wonderful being close to him like this again. I try to forget about everything else. I just want to enjoy being next to him. He shoots me a playful grin – the kind of smile that says it all. Unsuspecting, he’s so carefree, so happy and it absolutely tears me apart. Maybe just tonight, I can pretend it’s just us two, like it used to be. I can let go of everything else and give him the fun wife he’s known forever. I don’t need to drag him down with me just yet.
I want him to kiss me. We haven’t kissed in ages. We haven’t touched each other in forever. I crave him, and I’m sure he craves me just as much.
He leans in and presses his mouth against mine. His kiss is soft and warm, and perfect. I trail my finger along the rough scruff on his face. I relish the feel of his tongue on mine. This is the kind of kiss which is really hard to stop. I get lost in it and savor it a little longer.
And when the sensation of his kiss travels to my sex, I finally manage to pull away. “You…better be careful…kissing me like that,” I warn him, the words caught between ragged breaths. “That kind of kiss usually leads places.”
His smile is playful. “That’s exactly the point.”
I smile a nervous grin. “We can’t…here…they can see us. Everyone can see us.”
“It’s pitch dark,” he whispers against my ear. “No one can see.”
The feel of his warm hand on the inside of my thigh is very distracting. “I don’t think…” I can’t really see us having sex here and now. Because I know the way I feel. Despite the crushing guilt, my body desperately wants him, craves his familiar touch. I’d lose control – I just know it. And people might definitely see that.


Our Review:

Reviewed by Donna ~ 4 stars
***ARC received for an honest review***



“When you break the rules repeatedly, so brazenly, you can’t very well expect there to be no repercussions.”


It takes a lot for me to get angry at a character, to the point where I begin to loathe them and only two authors have managed to evoke that reaction from me…well make it three, because Roya Carmen has just well and truly added herself to that list. Roya Carmen certainly delivered with heart crushing, angsty, anger provoking words. But this emotion is testament to Roya Carmen's incredible talent as a writer because to evoke that kind of emotion out of me is nigh on impossible. While this did not go the way I wanted, I appreciate that it is the authors story to tell, but that is not what made me angry in the slightest...after all, my guy usually loses so I am used to it. But for me it was the treatment of the man left behind that had left my heart shattered. But once again that is testament to her power and talent as an author, I had become so involved with these characters that their actions and feelings were the basis for my reactions. Anger and hate, anger and hate, anger and hate were the two most emotions that overpowered me while reading this book coupled with a huge dose of empathy and sympathy.


“Because I love you, Mirella. Because I can’t live without you.”


If I am honest, the change in Mirella in this book really pissed me off. Her blasé attitude and total disregard for people’s feelings and well-being really shocked me and had my heart stopping at times. She had totally switched herself off from the situation she found herself in and had become incredibly self-centred and lacked compassion.  Her reaction to one event in this book totally baffled me and only made that hate I already had brewing for her fester. I would have been happy if she had been left as an old aged, lonely woman with only her cats for company. Still, there is always one winner and one loser and I fear that there were no winners in this book at all.


“And I thought our marriage was strong enough to survive anything…”


The blatant disregard for the losing party in this book felt like lead sitting deep within my stomach. I hated the way this character’s demeanour was totally changed and how what he wanted and what he strived to achieve was treated like flicking off a piece of lint off your clothing. The man was dismissed like an irritating mosquito and this HURT A LOT!!! How one’s feelings can go from hot to cold so mercurially belittled everything that we had been led to believe before.


“You don’t know how I longed to hear those words. I know I’ll always love you, until the day I die.”


This series has been addictive from the start and I was always dreading the ending because you always knew that one man had to lose. One man would be destroyed. Reading this book was like the inevitable car crash as you are hurtling down the motorway on the wrong side of the road. I was permanently bracing myself throughout while Roya Carmen took a sledge hammer to my heart. Each devastating blow harder and deeper the more I read. While I was reading I was pouring my heart out to a buddy reader and venting my frustrations as I went. The kindle was thrown across the room, I was steaming and by the end all I wanted was a slow and miserable death for Mirella, the selfish cow.


“Because I certainly don’t deserve anyone’s consolation.”


Mirella, Gabe, Weston and Bridget have certainly left their mark on my poor emotionally spent self and while I feel a lot of people will be happy by the ending and most probably surprised I have to give kudos to Roya Carmen for delivering the story that she wanted to write. While one event towards the end was better for the person involved I did feel that this was a bit “convenient” and to me a bit unnecessary and for me just took away from what would have been a more believable ending.


“He didn’t hurt me, Mirella…he humiliated me.”



But congratulations to Roya Carmen for bringing to the reader something out of the box, a story that I had not read before and one delivered with such intensity that I was 100% emotionally invested. A series that I have read with my heart in my mouth and with a gut wrenching foreboding of doom and gloom. A situation where no good could ever come out of it, a situation that could only ever cause confusion and pain. No matter how set in stone the Ground Rules were, we all know that rules were made to be broken.


About the Author:

Mom, writer, book junkie, doodle addict and hopeless romantic. I have been writing for over ten years, finding my passion for romance in 2008. When I'm not spending time with my family, I enjoy reading, painting, and writing - there is nothing I enjoy more than sitting down at my laptop and making up my own stories - and if those stories should include beautiful men, a little romance, and a few steamy scenes, all the better!

I write contemporary and erotic romance under the pen name Roya Carmen.

Author Links:



Giveaway:


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