From New York Times bestselling author Karina Halle comes a delicious saga of wealth, luxury, and scandal—and the wicked secrets of success behind an envied family dynasty.

Discretion, a full-length contemporary standalone romance by Karina Halle is Live!

 

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From New York Times bestselling author Karina Halle comes a delicious saga of wealth, luxury, and scandal—and the wicked secrets of success behind an envied family dynasty.

The Riviera means indulgence—if you’ve got money. For Sadie Reynolds, a down-on-her-luck student, the Riviera means dingy hostels and back streets. When a wrong turn puts her in jeopardy, the last thing she expects is to be saved by the most handsome stranger she’s ever locked eyes with. When she later wakes up in a luxury suite with a Mediterranean view, she’s in the tender care of her rescuer: Olivier Dumont, France’s most eligible bachelor, billionaire hotelier, and heir to the Dumont fashion fortune.

Olivier also owns his reputation for scandal. But Sadie is unlike any woman he’s ever met. Her humble persona and wild innocence promise real passion. He’s promising Sadie something too: anything she wants. From Bordeaux to Cannes to Paris, Sadie’s past in America is swept away and replaced with a fantasy too good to be true.

Pulled into Olivier’s orbit of wealth, glamour, and excess, Sadie discovers that the Dumont dynasty comes with a legacy of wicked secrets. And Olivier’s secrets may be the most damning of all…

 

 

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Review

4 stars

The first book in Karina Halle’s Dumont series is romantic, dramatic and super sexy with an intriguing, suspenseful twist. Taking us to France, and an exclusive world of wealth, privilege, power, greed and hidden secrets, we are introduced to the Dumont family for the beginning of a dramatic family saga that had me completely captivated.

Sadie Reynolds is a struggling American student backpacking around Europe. She started the trip with her boyfriend, but is finishing it as a single woman after her relationship fell apart, and she’s navigating the back streets of the French Riviera when she runs into trouble. She is rescued by a gorgeous stranger who turns out to be a millionaire hotel mogul from one of the most exclusive families in Paris. Heir to a fashion empire, Olivier Dumont is one of the most bachelors in France, and her personal knight in shining armour.

Olivier is well aware of his reputation as a player, and he owns it. He has dated models and celebrities, avoiding relationships and living in the moment, but from the moment he picks up an injured American tourist and whisks her away to one of his hostels, he is captivated. Sadie is unlike anybody he has ever met – real and unpretentious, and with no clue about his celebrity or strange family dynamics, and he is drawn to her in a way he never has been with anybody else. And amidst the luxurious backdrop of the French Riviera, their chemistry sparks a wildly passionate love affair that flips both of their worlds upside down.

“Are you trying to, I don’t know, seduce me?”
I regret it the moment I say it.
He breaks into a devastating grin, the kind that could steal my breath away and never give it back. “Do you want me to seduce you?” he asks, running his long fingers down the length of his jaw, like he’s now considering it.
“No,” I say quickly.
I’m pretty sure I’m lying.
“Good,” he says, still smiling. I see a hint of pink tongue as he bites his lip. “Because, believe me … you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Karina’s books usually contain a healthy dose of steamy time… this book is hotter. Seriously. Between Olivier’s confidence, sexy moves and filthy mouth (complete with French accent), and Sadie’s willingness to embrace all that he has to offer, and give it right back, the chemistry between these two is off the charts! You can feel the connection between them, which very quickly develops beyond just the physical, and they fall hard, fast and completely, and I loved watching it happen!

Our lives are made up of nothing but moments.
But I want to live in every moment with her.

But as Sadie is swept up into Olivier’s world, she also learns about his complicated family politics full of greed, secrets and vicious blackmail, and he is caught right in the middle of it all. And as much as Olivier tries to protect her, when Sadie is dragged into it, it will put the new lovers to the test in ways they never expected.

“You are the only thing that’s good and pure and real in my whole life.”

Oh, I love this love story! It’s super romantic and really fast moving, but it works! You can feel everything happening between Sadie and Olivier, and it gives you that heart-pounding, tingly anticipation feeling that I love about reading romance, and I was in a world of swoon.

“Look at you, being all romantic.”
“I’m always romantic,” he says, kissing my neck. “Because it’s impossible to be anything but a lovestruck slave around you.”

This book has a different feel to it than what I usually expect from Karina’s writing. It doesn’t have that edge that I associate with her books and felt a bit more generic than her usual writing style. But I think this series will have a different sort of feel overall. The intensity of the romance and the family drama is extreme, but it feels intentional, creating this decadent, powerful and passionate world, and I really enjoyed losing myself in it. And Sadie’s down-to-earth nature balances it out really nicely. Though talking of extreme, I did think that the reason behind the blackmail and the resulting consequences were a bit OTT, but it works to bring intrigue to the story and set up the next book nicely, so I just went with it.

This is a really great read. The characters are likable, the romance is hot and heavy, the setting is wonderfully described, and the drama/suspense adds a great twist to things. It’s a really strong start to the series, and I’m excited for more.

4 stars!

An Advanced Reader Copy generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

 

The Dumonts

 

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Meet Karina

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, Love, in English, The Artists Trilogy, 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.

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.

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