Blog Tour: Excerpt, Review, and Giveaway for Shadows & Lies by Eden Butler

Get ready for a story that that'll grip you from the first page!  There's an excerpt so you can get a little taste and a chance to win some wonderful prizes! Eden does not disappoint! 

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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Excerpt

“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.

Review

★★★★★ stars

I've read Eden's contemporary novels which feature romance heavily and now I can say I've read romantic suspense by her too. Many might say there's a large gap between the two genres, and they'd be right.  However, they've obviously never read any of Eden's books before.  A number of her novels have featured suspense elements before and they've always been  very well written. 

Shadows & Lies is a high intensity, high octane, and fast paced story.  This tempo is maintained throughout the story. The action starts almost immediately with our introduction to Alex.  The chemistry between Alex and Neil Ryan (Ryan) was palpable from the beginning.  It made it interesting to see them try and work together to solve their individual problems.  What made it even more interesting was their distrust of one another and seeing how it changed.

I love how this story was told from both Alex and Ryan's points of view.  It was the best way to learn of their individual painful and haunting pasts.  What was even eerier was the fact the ghosts Ryan was chasing and the ones chasing Alex were connected. Not just to their presents, but also their pasts.  I didn't see that coming.  It made for some nail biting anxiety and heart pounding hyper awareness as I read.  There were plenty of times I wanted to stop reading because I didn't know what was going to happen on the next page, but my curiosity drove me on.

I liked Alex and Ryan.  Alex might be a crook, but she's got morals too. There was this vulnerability about her that peeked through the tough exterior she had.  Alex wasn't above using all the weapons at her disposal to get what she wanted, so Ryan threw her for a loop. It was easy to relate to her and to Ryan.  He might walk on the straight and narrow, but Alex really shook him up.  He had to mesh the idea of the criminal Alex and finding the answers he needed.  Plus she came to him asking for help from her stalker.  He couldn't say no to that, but he also couldn't condone what she needed to do to get him what he needed.  It was truly a conundrum for him.  Throw in their attraction to one another and it was like watching a keg of dynamite, waiting for it to blow.  

Alex and Ryan get the answers to many questions they've been looking for, but for every question that's answered they have more that they need to find answers to.  I ended this book eager and excited for the next part.  Especially after that Interlude at the end of the book. Eden Butler did a great job at capturing my attention and I can't wait to see where the search for answers takes Alex and Ryan next.

*Thank you to the publicist for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for them in any manner.*

About Eden Butler

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.

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