Separation Games by CD Reiss Series: The Games Duet #2
Published by Flip City Media Inc. on January 3rd 2017
Pages: 340
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The stunning conclusion to the New York Times Bestseller.
These are the unbreakable rules in the game.Stay collected. Compartmentalize. Think your next move through. Never let your heart dictate your tactics.
The heart is impulsive. The heart makes bad decisions. The heart doesn’t see the long game.
Because the heart may have decided to get Adam back, but when the endgame comes, the heart’s going to be the first thing to break.
If you thought Marriage Games by CD Reiss was intense, you’d better brace yourself for the enticing conclusion, Separation Games.
Adam went to extremes to fight for his estranged wife’s love in the previous book. Now the tables have turned, and Diana is determined to make Adam realize their marriage can work while at the same time coming to terms with her submissiveness.
The first half of the book is told strictly from Diana’s point of view which made it harder for me to comprehend Adam’s ability to suddenly switch off his feelings for her. She’s an admirably strong woman, even though her actions are desperate and sometimes humiliating. It’s difficult to swallow Adam’s continual rejection. Frankly, I was confused at times and some of the behavior is repetitive.
The second half of the book is told from Adam’s point of view, and I was grateful for the change in narrative. Exploring his feelings is crucial to understanding the crossroads where he and Diana find themselves. The tension between these two is sky high and takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster.
Yes, there are places in Separation Games where things are drawn out and confusing, but I couldn’t get enough of the story. I devoured the book in one day. As usual, CD Reiss uses every ounce of her stellar writing ability to bring life to conflicted characters and a thought-provoking plot. The series as a whole is positively engrossing and despite some shortcomings, I enjoyed this alluring story.
Recommended for fans of:
BDSM
Second chance romance
Angst
** ARC kindly received for an honest review. **
Separation Games Excerpt
He took my hand, putting it in his lap as if it was finally home. “What are we doing?” he asked.
“Screwing up.”
“Like it’s our job.”
“If you’re going to do something, I say, do it all the way.”
He squeezed my hand. I was jarred by the way he looked in the direction of the window, but not through it. He didn’t look like the commanding Dominant who had been my partner for the past few weeks. As handsome as ever, and graceful and sharp, a leader and a decider, but not the same.
He faced me. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
The streetlights glinted off the light in one eye and his jaw locked, catching things he’d never say. He looked like a man I knew and abandoned. Manhattan Adam.
“We can’t fix it,” I said, putting his hand in my lap, watching our clasped hands make a new form. I rubbed the outside of his thumb with mine, feeling it’s familiar shape, the strength of the knuckle and the texture of his skin on mine. “We have to build something new. And we can.” I looked up from our hands to his face.
Could I make him feel my optimism? Could I take a piece of it onto a fork and lift it to his lips? Would they part? Would he let me lay it on his tongue? Would he chew and swallow, saying “I do. I do believe we can, I do.”
He didn’t say that. He didn’t believe, but his lips needed to touch my belief and his tongue needed to taste my hope.
I don’t know if I kissed him or if he kissed me, but it felt like a first kiss, with full quivering that left me paralyzed at his nearness. The act of two tongues tasting each other was so intimate between strangers, so taken for granted over time, and so rarely is the wonder of it felt through to the bone.
He was licorice. Fennel and leather. And he moved like cool water, reacting to my movements, countering with his hands and his mouth, covering me with his attention. The kiss was the sway of sex, the smell of it, the carnal desire without the promise of anything but another dance.
Marriage Games (The Games Duet #1)
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Paperback
Separation Games (The Games Duet #2)
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Paperback
About CD Reiss
CD Reiss is a New York Times bestseller. She still has to chop wood and carry water, which was buried in the fine print. Her lawyer is working it out with God but in the meantime, if you call and she doesn’t pick up she’s at the well hauling buckets.
Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California to get her master’s degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere but it did give her a big enough ego to write novels.
She’s frequently referred to as the Shakespeare of Smut which is flattering but hasn’t ever gotten her out of chopping that cord of wood.
If you meet her in person, you should call her Christine.
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