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Karina Halle, the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0Discretion<\/i>, lifts the veil off a privileged family dynasty to reveal a wealth of secrets and dangerous obsessions.<\/b><\/p>\n
Seraphine Dumont seems to have it all: she\u2019s gorgeous, brilliant, and part of one of France\u2019s most illustrious dynasties. But underneath the facade, Seraphine struggles to hold it all together. Besides grieving her adoptive father\u2019s suspicious and sudden death, she also shares a tenuous role in the family business with Blaise, her in-name-only cousin. As tumultuous as their history is, he may be the only member of the deceptive Dumont family she can trust.<\/p>\n
Seraphine is a temptation Blaise can\u2019t resist. The torch he\u2019s carried for years still burns. It\u2019s his secret\u2014a quiet obsession just out of reach. Until his brother demands that he spy on the increasingly cagey Seraphine, whom their father considers a dispensable Dumont outlier. But the more Blaise watches her and the closer he gets, the more he sees Seraphine may have every right to be suspicious. And she could be the next one in danger\u2014from his own family.<\/p>\n
As blood runs hot and hearts give in, Seraphine and Blaise have only each other. But can their love survive the secrets they\u2019re about to uncover?<\/p>\n
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Add to Goodreads<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.5 stars<\/b><\/p>\n The second book in the Dumonts<\/i> series, this book takes us back into the world of wealth and privilege with the story of Seraphine Dumont, sister of the hero of book #1, and adopted daughter of the head of a Parisian fashion dynasty. I love the first book of this series, where we were given a glimpse of Seraphine and the intense chemistry between her and her adopted cousin, Blaise. And with that twisted family dynamic, and the fact that their two families have a long-running rivalry, I was really excited to read their story.<\/p>\n Seraphine was adopted into the Dumont family as a 9 year old. Welcomed with open arms, she was loved without reservation by her parents and brothers. Her interactions with the extended family weren\u2019t so positive, except for young Blaise. Though adopted cousins, they never shared a familial bond, but there was always something \u2018extra\u2019 about them, and as teenagers that began to develop into something more, but it ended before it even really began and both were left broken hearted.<\/p>\n Years later and Seraphine is grieving the death of her adopted father and trying hard to hold on to his legacy. Her uncle (Blaise\u2019s father) seems determined to push her out of the family company and destroy everything that her father built, and when she begins to suspect that her father\u2019s death may not be accidental, with her uncle at the centre of it all, she starts investigating her suspicions.<\/p>\n Blaise has spent years pining for the girl he\u2019s loved his whole life. It\u2019s an obsession he\u2019s kept secret, but when Seraphine runs into trouble while investigating her father\u2019s death, he is there, determined to protect and be there for her. It\u2019s been years since they\u2019ve spent any time together, but their feelings for each other haven\u2019t diminished, and after all this time, Blaise refuses to hold back any longer and finally lays himself open for her.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I felt for you, what you did to me, body and soul, I was never able to find in anyone else. Not even close.\u201d <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n He is fierce and protective and so freaking swoony, and as things progress between them, he\u2019s hot as all hell. But just as they find what they have longed for with each other, they begin to realise the extent of the danger they are in as Seraphine\u2019s investigations uncover devastating secrets. Neither of them are safe and they don\u2019t know who they can trust, and there is action, excitement and intrigue as they fight for the truth and to escape the situation they have found themselves in.<\/p>\n The mystery\/suspense part of the story is really well done, and though there is some progression with that, it remains unfinished, to be picked up in the next book. I was stunned to learn that the next book will be Pascal\u2019s, and after establishing himself as a major asshole with only a glimpse of humanity, I\u2019m looking forward to seeing him redeem himself in Disavow<\/em>.<\/p>\n This was an enjoyable read. It\u2019s a quick one, and it moves pretty fast so there\u2019s not a whole lot of depth, but we get flashbacks of Seraphine and Blaise in the past which helps to build the anticipation of the love story, and I like the way their romance unfolded with honesty, passion and lots of heart.<\/p>\n \u201cI love you, and I\u2019ve never loved anyone before. Never said it to anyone. Never even thought it. because ever since you came into my life, those words have belonged to you, and they\u2019ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the chance to be heard.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n 3.5 stars.<\/p>\n An Advanced Reader Copy was generously provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Discretion (#1)<\/strong> Disarm (#2)<\/strong> Disavow (#3)<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cWe can never be together, Blaise,\u201d Seraphine says, like frustration is rolling through her. \u201cI know you understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t try.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she says and suddenly gets up to her feet, walking out of the room. \u201cNo. I can\u2019t do this. I can\u2019t handle this,\u201d I hear her cry out as she heads down the hall.<\/p>\n I get up and run after her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her right up against me, and she opens her mouth to protest and then my mouth is on hers, swallowing her words.<\/p>\n I kiss her with everything I have, every bit of anger and frustration and the years of lust and pining and wanting. I should be more gentle after the night she\u2019s had, but I can\u2019t help myself; in fact, I think I\u2019m seconds from turning into an animal as I hold the back of her head and press my hand at the small of her waist, keeping her pressed as close to me as possible.<\/p>\n Her tongue slides across mine, hot and fevered and\u2014<\/p>\n She pulls back, gasping for breath, and slaps me across the face.<\/p>\n Whack<\/em>.<\/p>\n That hurt.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the hell is wrong with you?\u201d she says. \u201cWhat are you doing? What am I doing?\u201d<\/p>\n Her face is red with anger, perhaps even shame. I mean, my cheek is stinging from her powerful wallop, but even so, I expected it. She\u2019s always been the type of woman to put you in your place. But I didn\u2019t expect her to slide so easily back into hating me.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t pretend you haven\u2019t been dreaming about that,\u201d I tell her, trying to control myself. \u201cDon\u2019t pretend that you haven\u2019t wanted that, wanted me, all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing I\u2019ve been dreaming about, Blaise, is getting justice for my father. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all that matters. And as far as I\u2019m concerned, you\u2019re no better than the rest of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Anger pokes at me, building up inside. \u201cHey,\u201d I say, my inflection razor sharp. \u201cI risked my neck tonight for you. I saved you from a bad situation. And more than that, I let you know the truth. I chose you over my family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m choosing not to trust you,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019ve given me no sign over the years that I mean anything to you at all. Why should I believe you now? Why do that when it might derail everything I\u2019m working on?\u201d Something comes over her, a flash in her eyes, as she\u2019s realizing something. \u201cThis is all a setup, isn\u2019t it? This is just something that Pascal is having you do, just like you followed me. You\u2019re supposed to tell me all this nonsense about wanting me and staying celibate like some joke and waiting for me, and it\u2019s all a lie to get my guard down. If you\u2019re telling me I\u2019m in danger, it\u2019s because you\u2019re putting me there.\u201d<\/p>\n I knew she\u2019d go this route at some point, but even so, it stings. \u201cThat\u2019s not it at all. Seraphine, please, I\u2019m serious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou just want me to back off because I\u2019m close to the truth,\u201d she says, shaking her head wildly as the idea takes over. \u201cFor all I know, every single thing this evening that\u2019s come out of your mouth has been a complete lie, all to throw me off.\u201d<\/p>\n I run my hands down my face, trying to squash my frustration. I knew this was coming, and yet that tiny coal of hope was always burning inside. \u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d I mutter into my hands, but I know when she gets like this that there\u2019s no changing her mind.<\/p>\n \u201cGet out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n I look up to see her opening the door and gesturing for me to hurry up.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re making a big mistake by not trusting me,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I don\u2019t take threats very well. Get out, and if I see you around me again . . .\u201d<\/p>\n I almost laugh. \u201cYou will see me again. At work tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight. I almost forgot that you\u2019re taking over my job.\u201d She runs her fingers under her eyes and sighs so defeatedly that leaving her feels like a crime.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like that,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n \u201cJust go,\u201d she says quietly, holding open the door and looking away, like she can\u2019t be bothered to face me.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know where to reach me, if anything happens,\u201d I tell her as I walk past and out into the hall.<\/p>\n \u201cIf anything happens, you\u2019ll be the first one I\u2019ll blame,\u201d she says to me.<\/p>\n Before I can say anything in response, she closes the door in my face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She deals with it the way that Seraphine deals with any hardship\u2014she tucks it away deep down inside and rises above it. She’ll force herself to be strong – her pride is very powerful – and she’ll trick herself into thinking she never cared about him to begin with. It’s much easier to paint Blaise with a villainous brush, that way it doesn’t hurt so much.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nothing. It’s all in there, baby! If anything, scenes were added during edits.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n I learned a lot about Muay Thai fighting moves haha.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n The Escapist Book Blog is not responsible for this giveaway<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Halle is represented by the Root Literary and is both self-published and published by Simon & Schuster and Hachette in North America and in the UK.<\/p>\n Connect with Karina:<\/p>\n Facebook\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0\u00a0Amazon\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0\u00a0Instagram<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Website\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0\u00a0Join her Reader Group<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Stay up to date with Karina by signing up for her\u00a0newsletter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kindle Ebook \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Paperback Blurb Karina Halle, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0Discretion, lifts the veil off a privileged family dynasty to reveal a wealth of secrets and dangerous obsessions. Seraphine Dumont seems to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":3.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,95,9,24,29],"tags":[59,1067,38,48],"class_list":["post-47537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-mystery","category-romance","category-second-chance-romance","category-steamy","tag-arc","tag-dumonts","tag-karina-halle","tag-review"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Disarm.jpg?fit=200%2C299&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-cmJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nReview<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Dumonts<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n
\nReview<\/a>
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\nBuy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook\u00a0<\/a> |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nExcerpt<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nQ&A: Author\u00a0Karina\u00a0Halle\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n1. To start off, can you tell us a little about your main characters from\u00a0Disarm<\/i>. Seraphine and Blaise have quite a history (not to mention they share the same last name!)<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\nSeraphine and Blaise Dumont are (gasp<\/i>) cousins. But not to worry, they aren’t blood-related. Seraphine is actually from India and was adopted by Ludovic Dumont when she was a young girl. Even though she was brought into the “nice” side of the family, she has always had trouble fitting in. Her looks, her accent, the fact that she was born poor and discarded like trash, gives her a very different perspective to life than her affluent family. This POV has colored her into the very outspoken, vibrant and feisty\u00a0woman she is today – she is definitely one of my favorite female characters I’ve written.<\/span><\/div>\n
\nBlaise, of course, belongs to the bad side of the family, though there were hints in the first book,\u00a0Discretion<\/i>, that he’s not as bad as you would think. In fact, he’s a lot like Seraphine, a bit of an outcast and the black sheep of his family. As we read\u00a0Disarm<\/i>, we also discover the history that Blaise and Seraphine have together which sets up for the angst, tension and hate for each other that they have in the present day, especially as Seraphine thinks Blaise has something to do with her father’s death.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n2. They live in a world of privilege\u00a0that most of us cannot fathom. What are the biggest pluses and some minuses of living with fabulous wealth?<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
\nThe biggest plus is the material things: houses, cars, clothes, jets, vacations. You name it, they have it. You would also think a great deal of freedom comes with money too and it does but with that sort of wealth, it makes you go to great lengths to keep it. So that freedom still ties you to the wealth, in maintaining it and getting more of it. Of course, it breeds some pretty out of touch and unscrupulous characters, too, and you can never know who to trust when your world (and family) revolves around money instead of love.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n3. What about Blaise makes him totally unique and different from all other book boyfriends?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\nThe torch he has carried for Seraphine for so many years. This man is the epitome of yearning and pining for someone you can’t have, more so than most book boyfriends you’ve come across (and I won’t spoil exactly how but you’ll find out in the book just how secretly devoted to his cousin he is). He’s also an anti-hero, a man who has done some crooked stuff but still tries to do the right thing, even if it comes at the expense of his own family.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n4. Seraphine has faced many difficulties during her life, but one of her toughest challenges is thinking Blaise abandoned her. How does she deal with this heartbreak?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\n\n5. Extreme events are said to bring out a person’s true character. What harrowing situations do Seraphine and Blaise get entangled in and what does this say about them?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\nThere isn’t anything more extreme than fighting for your life, and the two of them have had to do that in this book. Literally. But they willingly walked into those situations as a way to put an end to the tangled web they’ve been caught in. It says they would rather face it and fight than flee. This is especially true for Blaise, who, at the end of the book, choses to confront his loved ones face to face, even if it potentially means making some difficult choices.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n6. What scene from the book do you think readers will enjoy the most and why?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\nPersonally, I love the scene at the end, a nail-biting showdown between Blaise and his brother Pascal (and his father, too). That was a blast to write and read, I basically just watched it all unfold in my head and it had my heart pumping as if I was watching a movie. It’s DELICIOUS. Romance-wise, I think the flashbacks are pretty special, particularly their first kiss in Italy. There was something about that scene that felt so real.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n7. It is often said that writing is re-writing. What were some things that didn\u2019t make it into the book that you were hoping to add?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\n\n8. What did you learn about yourself while writing this book?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\n\n9. What do you want readers to take away from reading this book?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\nThat family isn’t just through blood, and that sometimes in order to do the right thing and be your own person, you musn’t be afraid to stand up to your family, even if it means tension or separation down the line.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n10. Who is the next Dumont on your list to receive their own story?
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\n<\/span><\/div>\nThe infamous Pascal. And believe me when I say, this villain’s story will both wow and win people over. His book is even more thrilling and dramatic than\u00a0Disarm<\/i>\u00a0and I can’t wait for everyone to read it!<\/span><\/div>\n
\nGiveaway<\/strong><\/h4>\n
To celebrate this release, the author is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card, and a digital copy of Disarm!<\/h4>\n
ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nMeet Karina<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling author of The Pact<\/a>,\u00a0Love, in English<\/a>,\u00a0The Artists Trilogy<\/a>, Dirty Angels and over 20 other wild and romantic reads. She lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books.<\/p>\nCheck out our Karina Halle Author Spotlight<\/a> for more amazing reads!<\/strong><\/h4>\n