Our Precious Mistresses & Masters – #Reviews #DarkRomance #EroticRomance @Apky11162

By A P von K’Ory (Guest Blogger)

We love them. We crave them. We’d do just about anything to win them for ourselves. That might even include getting in the arena and fighting to the death to get them. No price seems to be too high for us here, literally. And when we manage to snag one of them, especially The One, we practically worship them. We’re basically ready and willing to go down on our knees and kiss their feet.

I’m talking about us authors and those brand new “gatekeepers” – reviewers. If you’re an author, I’m sure you know that heady feeling when a reviewer praises your work to high heavens. When it’s more than just one reviewer doing that? Lordamercy!

Well, I know that from personal experience, I simply go limp and find the nearest place to sit down before I keel over, and immerse myself in my personal euphoria.

Suddenly all those months and even years of dancing your fingers over the keyboard, all those sleepless nights mulling over that rebellious scene that refuses to obey your artistic codes of conduct, all the waking up suddenly in the middle of the night with a “Eureka!” and missiling yourself to your writing desk or grabbing that notebook you keep on the bedside table just for occasions like this, and bending the stubborn scene over your knees with the perfect words. The words that now flow calm, cool and collected like a mountain stream. All of it pays off in abundance when reviewers rave about your work. You did it. You gave birth to the perfect baby that everybody loves.

But then you also get that other reviewer. The one who makes you feel like you’re the tide and they’re the fish who have to swim against the current of your work like salmon swimming upstream to ensure the survival of their offspring. Or like the damselfish swimming against the tide to protect their territory.

But then the reviewer explains their criticisms and when these are justified they open your eyes to those pitfalls you or your editor should have avoided or discovered and edited out. So the reviewer still contributes positively to your work.

Lastly, you just might also stumble over what I call the SR – the sado-reviewer. The reviewer who seems to hate authors and books and all that, and is out to simply bash them. If you’re me, you send a few expletives their way under your breath. I just had one like that. Here’s their take on my latest book:

Title of review: Nope

Review: I really wanted to enjoy this one but I just couldn't. The writing wasn't that great, the story was hard to follow, and I just didn't care for either main character.

Bloody marvellous, dear reviewer. Now, just be a dear and tell me 1) what made you want “to really enjoy this one” and why you then “couldn’t”; 2) why “the story was hard to follow” and why you “didn’t care for either main character”. Then you’d have given me a review I would absolutely find valuable.

This reviewer, BTW, has over a thousand Amazon reviews and only 3 titles for each of them (admittedly I didn’t scrawl down all the 1000+ reviews): Nope, Okay, and Good.

I was reminded of the English historian, Lord Acton, and his famous words in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Absobloodylutely.

Blurb

You love to hurt, I love to hurt. A perfect f*cking match we make.” ~ Adrian

LEO

A three-letter word made me a murderess at the age of eight years. But having experienced the curses of that word, I was done with men as I grew up. All men.
Except to outplay them in the New York financial arena.
Then Crowned Sex enthroned in gorgeous velvet
charm and lustful gallantry storms into my life.
Spewing volcanic lava on my monumental arctic ice block. With the unapologetic fierceness of a savage god. Wearing crackling thunderbolts straight from the god Zeus. Explosive has nothing on it.

Adrian isn't hot, he's fucking hellish. He embarks on melting my ice block at the speed of lightning. But I was done with men.
I was done with sex. For ever. I. Was.

ADRIAN

I scented her darkness from the moment I was told
about her.
The sight of her sealed my decision. She was the woman created for my own darkness. I set off to protect her even from herself. Protect her to claim.
Fuse her darkness with my own. For. Myself.
I'd fended women off me with bazookas when I was done but they weren't. I wasn't prepared for the battle I soon fought. Not only with her but also with her family. And New York's billionaire gangsters who own
entourages of corrupt cops and politicians. With every battle I won, she started new darker wars around me.
You ate or you were eaten. Not even starving was an option.

NOTE: Although the blurb is in the first person, the story of Leo and Adrian is written in the third person. This book contains adult material, explicit sex, and violence. You have been warned.

Buy Links (Ebook)

HIS UNTAMEABLE WICKEDNESS Bk 1

US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09XKL9R6N

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09XKL9R6N

DE https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09XKL9R6N

CA https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09XKL9R6N

AU https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09XKL9R6N

SMASHWORDS: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1151357

Reviews

This author is new to me so I was intrigued, and I'm glad I read this story. Leo is the kind of strong heroine that I'm obsessed with, as she managed to not let her traumatic childhood beat her down, nope, it made her even stronger. She's worked her behind off to get to where she is, and she definitely won't let anyone take it away from her. However, life is about to take a big swing at her when Adrian comes into her life, so let the games begin. I'm telling you, these two aggressive alphas made for one hell of an entertaining journey that I truly enjoyed, but I'm not going to tell you why because that would be no fun… ~ Jennifer Pierson

This is the first in a new series, and the first time I have read any of this authors’ work, and I will certainly be looking out for her work in the future. Leo survived a traumatic childhood, and she is resilient, strong, and wealthy, and has worked hard to be in the place she in now and is adamant that nobody will take this away from her. When Adrian comes into her life, she was not prepared for him, and they may be opposites like petrol and a match, but they complement each other perfectly. This is a good story which is intriguing, and entertaining, and enjoyable. I look forward to reading more from this author, and I recommend this story. ~ Wendy Livingstone

This is the first book I read from this author and I enjoyed it. Leo had an extremely hard childhood and has been successful in the business world. I will say that it’s a wild ride when Adrian comes into her life. ~ GVLADY

Excerpt

Men were monsters. Powerful beasts. They misused their power. They destroyed what they should nurture. They were megalomaniacs who mistook themselves for God. They mass ruined and failed to even notice that fact, as if it was some invisible Da Vinci Code cryptogram shit, while they leave nothing but desolation and devastation in their wake. They interchanged their wants for needs but disregarded the needs of others. They attacked the helpless. Those they should protect. They hurt those loving them. They were callous. They were cruel. They believed that they had the right incentive to make a woman willingly become their doormat. Insult to injury, they thought they were entitled to it by virtue of owning a penis.

They were the scum of the earth.

And they were chameleons, blending in perfectly with their surroundings as and when the need arose.

That’s why she’d decided never to let herself want a man. Never to land herself anywhere where she would have the misfortune of needing a man. She could screw them and leave them, balls crushed. And never between her legs.

All of which were the reason she should find a way to get Adrian Xerxes Cranford forbidden from coming anywhere near her. He was the worst thing, almost, that ever happened to her.

All the bad things in her childhood, she’d been powerless to do anything about. But she could do something about Adrian. About the thermal energy radiating from his stellar-explosion eyes. About his voice that vacillated between icy hissing crystal, over authority demanding attention, all the way to a lullaby. She caught herself all too often drawn to his voice as it aroused something in her. There were times when his voice sounded like the very science of happiness to her. The almost constant irritation he caused her was apparently not the only response he elicited from her. She knew all too well that moths zooming in too close to the flame get singed to death. Admittedly, the lullaby lured her, but also made her feel like she was navigating between Scylla of authoritarian taste and the Charybdis of slop.

Right, rock and a fucking hard place.

About the Author

A P von K’Ory writes romance, psychological thrillers, and nonfiction. She loves diversity – it’s in her aristocratic DNA. She has won more than half a dozen prizes and awards from four continents. Her family stretches from the Nilotes of the Eastern African Nile Delta to Germany, France, and the Walloons (Belgium). She lectures Economics and Sociology in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Being migratory –  and weather willing –  she lives in Germany, France, Cyprus, and Greece. 

Connect with A P von K'Ory

A P VON K'ORY can be reached under the links below.

Visit her Website: http://apvonkory.com

Signup for her Newsletter: https://apvonkory.com/contact

Instagram über mich & meine Bücher & Macken:

https://www.instagram.com/apvonkory

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https://www.facebook.com/AkinyiReadersReviews/

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It would be lovely if you could visit and like my author page and read more bites about Shana and Roman as well as Leo and Adrian, the Coming Soon(s), Cover Reveals and even about what I had for breakfast, the dinner I burnt to cinders the night before or the perfect cake I baked for Sunday family coffee Here’s my Author page link:

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAPVonKOry

Follow me on Twitter under: @Apky11162 https://twitter.com/Apky11162

English Book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkGuFzsRgsM

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7063572.A_P_Von_K_Ory

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/a-p-von-k-ory

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/APvonK'Ory

Google Play: https://play.google.com/books/publish/u/0/a/14014035798980597784#list

Verve Romance: https://ververomance.com/app/APVonKOry

Autorenecke (German): https://www.autorenecke-gelsenkirchen.de/autorenecke/a-p-von-k-ory