Friday 1 July 2016

Ice (The Salisbury Series #2) by Chris Quinton & RJ Scott

Release Blitz - Ice (The Salisbury Series #2) - Chris Quinton & RJ Scott




Authors: Chris Quinton & RJ Scott

Release Date: July 1 2016


Other Books In Series:

Blurb: 

With millions in diamonds at stake, can Jon make Greg see that some things are not worth dying for?

Footloose adventurer Greg Drakowski used to live for the moment but these days shadows of grief and guilt cling to him. Recklessly following one lead to the next, Greg crosses oceans at the very hint of treasure, and doesn’t care that he rushes into danger.

This time his quarry is a cache of diamonds, hidden away decades ago. When the clues bring him to the ancient city of Salisbury, he knows he’s close to success.

Renovations expert Jonathan Ellis is part of Ageless Wood Restorations - three generations of knowledge and trade. Focused and hard-working, Jon finds value in recreating the elegance of the past with his own hands, and it will take something - or someone - extraordinary to break into his enclosed world.

When Greg drops into Jon's lap he finds it impossible to refuse him. Even when the bad guy appears and Jon isn't sure whom he can trust, he knows he has to stand by Greg, if only to save the idiot from himself. 




Excerpt: 

Greg woke up a good hour before his alarm went off and rolled out of bed to shower and shave, and dress in his usual jeans and T-shirt ready for work. He drank instant coffee and ate the small wrapped cookies that came with the room, then took out all his notes and spread them out in chronological order on the floor, holding down recalcitrant corners with anything he could find.
A mug held down one, a notebook another, a pillow near his knee, and a shoe furthest from him.
Not exactly the best way to have this laid out, but he couldn’t pin everything up on the wall.
Andrey would laugh at him, seeing him on his hands and knees like this. Familiar grief welled inside him. A year and he could still conjure up Andrey’s face. He held the pendant that hung around his neck in a tight grip.
Greg sat back on his haunches to get a better perspective on the papers and to get a grip on the heartache that wouldn’t leave him. Instead he focused on why he was doing this: a mental promise to Andrey to find the Khlebnikov Diamonds. Somehow, in his screwed-up brain, he had rationalized the guilt he felt over Andrey’s death with finding the diamonds. Like it would restore some sort of cosmic balance in his life.
“Stupid,” he muttered to the empty room. “Find the diamonds, give them to Mack, get your cut, give the money to Lena, and fucking retire, already.”
His own island in the Aegean, beaches, warm water, peace.
Find the diamonds.

Review:

I recently read ‘Heat’ the first of the Salisbury Stories, so I thought I had a pretty good idea what to expect from ‘Ice’—a fast paced, well written, almost impossible to put down thrilling story featuring an against the odds romance.

And that’s more or less exactly what I got, except that it was faster and darker than I’d anticipated and the romance came close to having too many obstacles for me. On the upside, while it took me some time to warm to Devon in the previous book, I was charmed by both characters in this book from the very start and firmly rooting for them, even if I couldn’t quite see how they might pull of a happy ending.

The story starts with tension, danger and a for Greg disastrous turn of events. It changes him and he’s getting ready to say goodbye to his old life and start out on a new path as soon as he finishes one more ‘job’ for the man who’s been keeping him busy with questionable quests for years. This last commission brings him face to face with Jon.

Jon is up to his neck in a tightly scheduled job renovating the woodwork in Laurels when his business partner and uncle injures himself, leaving Jon shorthanded and in need of an assistant. Greg’s appearance when Jon needs help seems too good to be true, but his talent is obvious so Jon hires him.

The attraction between the two men is clear from the beginning. But both Jon and Greg have good reasons for keeping their distance. Jon knows it would be a bad idea to start anything with an employee, and besides, while Greg is charming and Jon can’t deny he wants him, he can’t get enough of a handle on Greg to fully trust him. Greg would love to act on the attraction he feels but tries to pull back because he knows that what he feels for Jon is more than just the heat of the moment, and Greg already knows he’ll have to leave and disappear before too long.

Just as the two men give up the fight and surrender to the passion between them the danger that has been lurking in the background bursts into Greg’s life and Jon has to deal with feelings of betrayal battling with the love he’s already developed for Greg.

That’s all I’ll say about the story itself. It is shortish, it is fast and it is breathtakingly furious at times. For me the story could have been a bit longer. The attraction between these two men grew into real feelings too fast even for my liking and while I’m not a huge fan of angst, the relative ease with which Jon forgave Greg was a bit too good to be true for me.

Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and found myself racing through it if only to find out how these two men could possibly overcome the issues between them and still arrive at their happily ever after. It was wonderful to get another glimpse of Devon, Lewis and Rachel. The writing in this book is faultless and a delight to read, and the balance between tension-filled and more relaxed scenes was spot on. If you like your reads fast paced, thrilling, laced with an edge of danger and mystery as well as hot, you could do a lot worse than reading ‘Ice’ (or Heat for that matter).

Related review: Heat




Author Bios:

Chris Quinton started creating stories not long after she mastered joined-up writing, somewhat to the bemusement of her parents and her English teachers. But she received plenty of encouragement. Her dad gave her an already old Everest typewriter when she was ten, and it was probably the best gift she'd ever received – until the inventions of the home-computer and the worldwide web.

Chris's reading and writing interests range from historical, mystery, and paranormal, to science-fiction and fantasy, writing mostly in the male/male genre. She refuses to be pigeon-holed and intends to uphold the long and honourable tradition of the Eccentric Brit to the best of her ability. In her spare time [hah!] she reads, embroiders, quilts and knits. Over the years she has been a stable lad [briefly] in a local racing stable and stud, a part-time and unpaid amateur archaeologist, a civilian clerk at her local police station and a 15th century re-enactor.

She lives in a small and ancient city in the south-west of the United Kingdom, sharing her usually chaotic home with an extended family, three dogs, a frilled dragon [lizard] and sundry goldfish and tropicals.


RJ's goal is to write stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, that hint of a happily ever after.

RJ Scott is the bestselling gay romance author of over ninety MM romance books. She writes emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men who get mixed up in their lives. RJ is known for writing books that always end with a happy ever after. She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn't with family either reading or writing. 

RJ also writes MF romance under the name Rozenn Scott.

The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn't like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.

mailto:rj@rjscott.co.uk


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