Hi there! I’m so excited to share a review for Kat and Stone Bastion’s new adult romance HEARTBREAKER out today! You know I’ve loved their NO WEDDINGS books (No Weddings, One Funeral, Two Bar Mitzvahs, Three Christmases and For Valentine’s) so I was excited to read their next collaboration. Kiki Michaelson is the artsy gal who got burned by a boy and seeks men who can’t hurt her. Little did she know Darren Cole would turn her palette from monochrome to Kodachrome…

Catch the details on the $25 giveaway below….

About the book:
Kiki Michaelson wants one wild night to forget her starving-artist worries. Simple.
Only instead of Darren Cole becoming her one-night stand, he taunts her with a challenge. Then while she’s trying to best him at his own game, he turns out to be the last thing she’s prepared for: someone she wants to keep.
Which means all he can ever be…is a friend.

Darren Cole never allows a girl to get close—not close enough to matter.
Then storms in Kiki Michaelson, a beautiful, fearless temptation that rocks his world off-balance. But he fights their attraction, unwilling to gamble something physical with their close ties. Until the passionate sculptor exposes her heart and breaks his wide open.

In that moment it becomes clear: she could never be just a friend.
Sometimes what you run from…is exactly what you need.

***HEARTBREAKER is a standalone, full-length new adult romance told in dual POV. Due to mature themes and adult language, this book is for those 18 and older.***

How about a little taste?

I watched his prone body lower, then lift.

Lower.

Lift.

My breath caught and my stride slowed as I drew closer. My mouth gradually fell open. My eyes widened.

Shirtless, baseball hat spun backward, hands sunk into silver metal pails of sand, he performed the most unique pushups I’d ever seen. His skin glistened with a sheen of perspiration under the section’s brighter lights. Taut muscles along his back, shoulders, and arms flexed under the strain of every measured drop and rise.

The world around me seemed to stop—except for him. Art in motion. Beauty in action. Every woman’s fantasy-come-to-life coalesced into one surreal moment where my mind fabricated my body beneath that incredible male form, under all that raw muscle and energy.

On the next downstroke, he paused. Then he glanced up. His gaze locked with mine.

Busted.

Yet powerless to stop myself, I studied the rigid contours of muscle as he held that position. The artist in me flared to life, imagining those lines sketched in charcoal. His tattoo. My gaze lingered on three thick curving tribal-style crescents. The largest began at the base of his neck, where its tip fanned into multiple points. Two smaller crescents overlapped tips with the first, each arcing a different direction, one toward his back, the other curving beneath his arm.

My skin began to heat under the spotlight of his attention, and I burned the image into my memory for when I had a quiet moment, later.

My mouth had gone dry.

I swallowed hard.

Then I found my voice as my brain cells finally began to fire again. “Really? You invite me here and do that” —I gestured toward him with a wild wave of my fingers— “and I’m supposed to think only friendly thoughts?”

His lips twisted into a smirk. “Try.”

I forced my attention back to his face and held his stare. “All I see is sex on a stick.”

Oh, shit. I blurted that out loud.

His knees lowered to the floor, then he pulled his hands from the sand. “Try harder.”

My Review:
While this book shares some of the characters from the No Weddings series, it can be fully enjoyed on its own.

Kiki’s a 27 y/o woman who has been burned more than once, in more than one way. Despite being a successful up-and-coming artist, she’s got money struggles she doesn’t know how to fix–and which are totally outside of her control. Her high school crush busted her heart wide open and that makes her–to this day–gun shy of any man. She prefers anonymous hook-ups, but struggles to put herself out there, too.

She reaches out to Darren, one of the DJs who works for the event planning company Kiki owns with her three siblings, only to be shot down. Darren’s life is complicated by guardianship of his teen-aged sister, who suffers depression. He works hard and goes to school, trying to support them both, and while he’s attracted to Kiki, he is spread very thin between all his responsibilities. Still, he doesn’t want to never see Kiki, so he offers her friendship, and to help her train for a 5K race–which is one of her goals.

Over the several weeks of the book’s span they do develop a friendship, with the a side order of lust. Both Darren and Kiki are guarded regarding their own personal problems, but that changes when Darren has to rescue his sis and Kiki intercedes. I really liked the way depression was handled in the book. Both Darren and his sis suffer in different ways since their mother died, and Kiki is a good mediator between them. Also, the romance development was steady and not rushed. Kiki and Darren get to know each other before they get into bed together. There’s a bit of sexytimes, but it’s just the right amount, I think. The main focus remains on the growth of both Darren and Kiki to allow each to trust the other and find comfort in their sorrow and joy in their successes. Lots of feels, here, that are very companionship-centered. It’s a solid spin-off romance that will please romance fans.

Interested? You can find HEARTBREAKER on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CAN, Amazon AU, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Barnes & Noble UK, and Kobo.

HEARTBREAKER Release Day $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

Be sure to visit Kat & Stone on their Facebook page today to enter: Kat & Stone Bastion’s Facebook

About the authors:
Kat Bastion won several awards for her bestselling debut novel Forged in Dreams and Magick.

Kat and Stone Bastion’s bestselling first novel No Weddings and the No Weddings series were named Best of 2014 by multiple romance review blogs.

When not defining love and redemption through scribed words, they enjoy spending their time mountain biking and hiking in the beautiful Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

Catch up with them online on their blog, Facebook, Kat’s Twitter, Stone’s Twitter, website.