Only Trick by Jewel E. Ann Blog Tour

“Don’t Look Back in Anger”

In one night, I lost five years of my life. Here’s what I know …

I was homeless.

I’m a recovering drug addict.

My inked skin crawls from lustful eyes.

I have a serious aversion to women.

My gay partner is a home wrecker.

I own a gun and I’m a damn good shot.

I’m a makeup artist, but it’s an insult to my talent.

I’ve never wanted to possess anything except my Ducati … until I met Darby.

Now here’s what I know since that day in the ER when she pieced me back together … nothing—but a few random thoughts.

My new “friend” is distracting, clingy, and obsessed with acronyms, emojis, and phrases like “breakfast soul mates.”

I didn’t want to like her, but she crawled under my skin and swallowed me whole. Now we’re best friends and she’s my new addiction. I'd drink her from a shot glass, snort her up my nose, or inject her into my veins if I could. What I won’t do … is ever tell her that.

She doesn’t know me … I don’t know me. When those missing years come back, I think she will hate me … I think I will hate me.

My parents named me Patrick Roth, and this is my story.

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“Ahh!” I scream as the closet door opens. My heart explodes and I nearly wet myself. I shuffle my feet against the floor, scooting as far in the corner as I can, hugging my knees to my chest.

“Come.”

I shake my head, holding my breath.

His lip twitches. Then, with what can only be described as a scene from a horror movie, he grabs my ankles and drags … he fucking drags me out of the closet. “Trick!”

Hoisting me over his shoulder, he smacks my ass so hard I yelp. “I’m thinking sofa.”

“Trick! Stop!” I scream, kicking and flailing as he carries me downstairs. As I pound my fists against his back, something catches my eyes. He has the ties to both my satin and terrycloth robes partially tucked into the waistband of his shorts along with one of his belts.

OH SHIT!

He sets me down with my ass backed up to the sofa, my chest heaving, eyes wide.

“Do you love me?”

I swallow and nod.

“Do you trust me?”

My gaze falters.

“Darby?” He lifts my chin with his finger.

“Do. You. Trust. Me?”

Another swallow, another nod.

“Good.” He lifts my yoga top over my head, wetting his lips as he stares at my breasts. Then he pulls down my pants, leaving me naked. His lips skim up my legs, stopping at my sex, but all he does is just breathe out causing my legs to pinch closer together. Then he inhales. Standing, he watches me—daring me to run again.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Angela – ☆☆☆☆☆
OH! MY!! GOD!!! Ms. Ann is one of those authors that manages to wring every emotion out of me with her writing. Joy. Anger. Happiness. Devastation. Amusement. Pain. Lust. Loss. Pleasure. Heartbreak. Love. And I and my puffy eyes thank her for every freaking moment of it and the beauty that is Darby and Trick’s love story.

While Only Trick is only the second book by Ms. Ann that I have read, she has a talent for creating characters that are so beautifully broken in their realism. Trick may have been Darby’s breakfast soul mate, but she is my social retardation soul mate. I sympathized with her social ineptness because I was the same way at her age. This made watching her flourish under Trick’s attention so enjoyable for me. I loved their interactions and the raw honesty in Darby’s responses – her complete loss of composure during their first encounter, her anger at his treatment of her after their first motorcycle ride, her ability to give him a true second chance (and third, and fourth, and so on), her need to make him smile, her jealousy, her guilt for when her reactions hurt him emotionally, and her ability to tell him when he hurt her instead of playing games to get the upper hand. But the very best thing about Darby was the way she insisted on being friends with Trick even as she knew she was falling in love with a man she couldn’t have simply because she had to have him in her life – a life without Trick in it was not option for her. Thankfully, Trick felt the same way about Darby despite his best attempts to keep her out of his heart…and him letting the world believe he was gay.

As for Trick, the missing five years of his memory is both a blessing and a curse because until Darby he had no worries about how regaining his memories would affect those in his life. Thanks to private investigators, his faux lover Grady knew the truth and kept it from him because Grady understood that knowing the facts would do Trick no good without the memories needed to put them in context. So the only people in his life – Grady and Grady’s sister Tamsen – knew the truth and made him family. And Trick was fine with that until Darby came along. Despite his best efforts to keep her at arm’s length, Darby’s quirks, social ineptitude, and absence of I’m-going-to-turn-the-gay-boy-straight attitude quickly endeared her to him. Their interactions were laced with humor and sarcasm that allowed them to build a binding friendship. As much as I enjoyed those interactions, they didn’t hold a candle to the sex scenes. Yes, I said it. Trick and Darby have a phenomenal sex life once Trick admits that he’s not gay and acknowledges that he wants to be more than just friends with Darby. And this is another area in which Ms. Ann excels – writing panty-combusting sex scenes that are consistent with the relationship development and the storyline. I wouldn’t call Only Trick erotica because even though the sex is THAT hot, it occurs within the natural flow of the story and it never felt like the author had an Oh-I-need-a-sex-scene-here moment while writing.

Despite the bonds they built, the obstacles they stumbled over and eventually overcame, and their soul-deep love for one another, I was devastated for them both when Darby learned what happened during Trick’s missing five years. That Trick’s memory returned right before Darby learned of it and he was still processing it, painfully I might add, just made the situation that much more heartbreaking. It will sound silly to some, but I cried for Trick and Darby. As Darby said, it wasn’t a matter of forgiveness, but a matter of acceptance and whether or not she could live with that piece of knowledge. Yet again, Ms. Ann had me on the edge of my seat as I got closer and closer to the end of the book without a clear resolution on the horizon, but that’s why I enjoy her writing. Life is messy. Love is hard. And sometimes we have to be on the verge on losing it all to realize what we can and cannot live with and that was exactly how Darby found her way back. Knowing that she could not face life without the texts, the laughs, the touches, and the love of her best friend made the ultimate decision easy to come to, it just took her a while to get there. The Epilogue was a perfect ending to the book – even if I didn’t want it to end – and I just have to say that I absolutely loved Nana and the fact that Trick takes her to the gun range once a week. Only Trick is easily a 5-star read for me and one I look forward to reading again soon, but I will be checking out Ms. Ann’s other books as well because Idle Bloom and Only Trick have been phenomenal reads for me and I need more of her writing.

Jewel is a free-spirited romance junkie with a quirky sense of humor.

With 10 years of flossing lectures under her belt, she took early retirement from her dental hygiene career to stay home with her three awesome boys and manage the family business.

After her best friend of nearly 30 years suggested a few books from the Contemporary Romance genre, Jewel was hooked. Devouring two and three books a week but still craving more, she decided to practice sustainable reading, AKA writing.

When she’s not donning her cape and saving the planet one tree at a time, she enjoys yoga with friends, good food with family, rock climbing with her kids, watching How I Met Your Mother reruns, and of course…heart-wrenching, tear-jerking, panty-scorching novels.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Only Trick by Jewel E. Ann to read and review for this tour.