Three Chicks and Their Books: Blog Tour: Shadows and Lies by Eden Butler

Title: Shadows & Lies (Shadows, #1)
Author: Eden Butler
Genre: Romantic Suspense | Mystery
Release Date: March 26, 2015

Synopsis

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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4 Star Review by Jen Skewes

I have read most of Eden Butler’s books and when I read the blurb for this one I was certainly intrigued. For one it is very different from what she usually writes but it is also very different from what I normally read. It is filled with mystery and suspense with a bit of romance. While it may have been different I really enjoyed this book and loved the two main characters.

Ryan is an ex Navy SEAL and an ex cop who currently runs his own security company with a few of his best friends. Alex Black is a grafter, a thief who spent most of her life stealing and conning people to survive. When Ryan is given an assignment it is there that he meets Alex. Actually I should say that is where he sees her doing what she does best and catches her in the act. They make a deal because Alex has something that Ryan wants back. So he agrees to let her go if she can get back what was his in the first place but of course makes her aware of his insurance policy should she run and back out of their deal.

That night Alex finds that the situation she has been in has just gotten worse. And the only place that she can think of going to, to stay safe is Ryan’s place. These two realize that they have a lot more in common than they could ever have imagined. They are both looking for answers and if they put their heads together and share what they know they could quite possibly work to get what they have both been looking for. See this is where the mystery and suspense come into play. Alex is being followed, her old boss wants her back in more ways than one and both Alex and Ryan are trying to get answers to their own mystery that they have both been trying to solve. So the questions remain, how is everyone connected and will they get the answers that they have been searching for.

I don’t want to go into too much detail regarding what these two are after or who else may or may not be involved. Because that is all part of the mystery behind this story. Ryan and Alex work very well together. There is this odd connection and attraction that they both feel. No woman has distracted Ryan the way that Alex does. And growing up the way she did it is very hard for Alex to trust Ryan. But in some weird way she does. He has her back at all times. And maybe in the beginning it was because it was a part of their deal She knew how to get back something that was very valuable to him. But as time goes on it’s so much more than just a deal between the two of them. This book does not have a lot of romance and the author certainly explains that in the beginning of the book. It is more of a mystery/suspense novel. But you still see the connection between the two main characters. And while you are trying to figure out the mystery and decide who you can and cannot trust, you also want to see these two characters get together. Because you can feel what they feel.

I really enjoyed this book. It was definitely different from what I am used to. But I felt myself not wanting to put the book down because I needed to know how it would all play out. I tried very hard to solve the mystery myself but let’s just say I was not so successful. I loved the supporting characters in this book and hope to see more of them. The ending was very good and leaves this wide open for the next installment. Because while some issues may have been resolved, there are still more that need to be solved. Looking forward to the next one!

“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.

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.

Please send help.