ARC Review + Giveaway: The King by Tiffany Reisz

“[THE KING is] my favorite book of the year…Tiffany Reisz has shot straight to the top of my favorite authors list.” ~ Under the Covers

Tiffany Reisz has officially ruined me for any other Erotic or BDSM book ever. When I read THE SAINT earlier this year, I fell in love with it, gushed about it and then promptly said it was one of my favorite reads this year.

But then THE KING happened and now I’m thinking THIS book will be my favorite book of the year. Nevertheless, Tiffany Reisz has shot straight to the top of my favorite authors list.

There’s just something about her authorial voice that makes reading her books so engaging. For one, I could read her dialogue for ages. If you notice, Reisz doesn’t drone on with character monologues or the such in her books. A lot of the characters we fall in love with are shown interacting with others and that’s how we learn more about them. In THE KING, Kingsley has a dark past that involves a whole lot of things and while he drinks himself to oblivion most nights, we don’t see him just sitting in bed, nursing a bourbon ruminating about how he hates himself for too long. There you get the angst and you get the character development, but then Reisz extends on that and gives Kingsley something to work for. He wants to build a club that caters to the people who love kink and that spurs him out of his desolation and into motion. I find that much more exciting than having pages and pages of why we should feel sorry for him. I love him more because despite that dark past, he wants a future now.

If I had to compare Tiffany Reisz’s writing to another author, I would say Karen Marie Moning. Now I know you’re probably thinking, what the hell Annie! That makes no sense, Reisz writes Erotica and KMM writes Urban Fantasy. But if you really think about it, they’re not that much different in how they approach things. In Urban Fantasy, there’s a kickass heroine who readers continuously root for (Nora), you’ve got your Alpha hero in Soren (no one will argue that Soren isn’t alpha) and there’s also the matter that there are some cliffhanger-ish endings, some ways to go before a true HEA is presented to readers. There’s also the fact that Reisz is a skilled storyteller that is able to explain details to previous known facts in a way that boggles my mind. Why Kingsley dresses the way he does and how the Eight Circle came to be is all explained here and it reminds me of rereading KMM’s Fever series where you don’t see the clues because you don’t know what’s significant to the plot yet. Both are just really good at what they do.

Soren remains a big part of King’s life whether he’s actually in it or not. Everything that King and Soren have shared, it had stained on King’s soul. The bromance is strong in this book and boy, was I happy to see them together again. Again, just reading about them talking, going back and forth, hassling each other is something I can do for hours. Reisz always makes it entertaining and fun. I don’t know how she does it!

I should mention that THE KING occurs in parallel to The Saint. Readers get to see the other side to the story and what King had to go through in order to get Nora out of trouble. Plus, you also get to see how the Eight Circle came to be. It’s a really nice treat for fans who have followed the series thus far.

There are other characters that really made this book enjoyable. Sam, King’s news secretary was also fun to read. I loved how unapologetic all the characters are in this series. I think it’s such a refreshing outlook on life and is really empowering to see character who aren’t ashamed of who they are and embrace their sexuality. While the series has been largely erotic this far, this series has more than just hot, kinky sex. The series kind of just embraces love and happiness in all forms. And that is something I can firmly stand by.

THE KING completely blew me away. I was riveted from cover to cover with Kingsley’s story. I never thought I would say this, but Tiffany Reisz somehow made me love King more than I already did with this book.

*ARC provided by publisher

 

INTERVIEW WITH TIFFANY REISZ

Welcome back to Under the Covers, Tiffany! We are thrilled to have you return! Congratulations on the release of THE KING. Kingsley has been my favorite character throughout the entire series. While writing his book, did you already have a firm grasp on his secrets and his story for this book?

No! I had no idea what to write in THE KING. I’d originally planned for the story of King building The 8th Circle to be the subplot of THE SAINT but then the book would have been 1000 pages long so it had to be its own book. I only had the vaguest outline of events to work with. I knew that King got shot at age 28 and Søren visited him in a hospital in Paris and gave King his trust fund. I knew King took that money and went to Manhattan to start a new life and Søren came back into his life a year later. That’s all I had really so I was just making stuff up as I went along. I think that’s what it made it so fun to write. I was discovering Kingsley for myself.

Sam becomes a very important character to King. How did introducing her to the series help you tell this story?

King is a sex-haver. He had sex like every single day and often three times a day and often with more than one person. So when you have a character like that, the most fun you can have with him is by giving him someone he CAN’T have sex with. So you have Sam and Søren who are Kingsley’s closest friends in this books—a lesbian and a priest. Neither of them will sleep with King and yet the two of them are the ones who love him most. THE KING is really a bromance, not a romance. I believe people need friends as much as they need lovers. Maybe more.

I’m a big fan of your writing style. How would you describe it?

I’m not sure. I write the way I think. It’s been described as “literary, but who knows what that means. I’ve been told I have a good writing voice. I try to write a story like I’m telling it to someone as a bedtime story. “Once upon a time there lived a king without a kingdom…”

Can you take us through a typical writing day for you? How long do you write for per day and how many words do you typically get in that time?

First of all, I don’t write every day. Some days are for editing. Some are for researching. When I am writing a book, I write 3000-5000 words a day. Then when the first draft is finished I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite…I pull all the threads together and tie off my knots. After about the fourth draft I give it to beta readers and if they don’t like something in the book I finish it. Usually I throw out about half the words I write. So I have to write about 180,000 words to end up with a 120,000 word book.

What can readers expect in the next book of the Original Sinners series, THE VIRGIN?

THE VIRGIN is the story of the year Eleanor/Nora left Søren after their big fight. Shockingly Kingsley sides with Eleanor this time around and he too runs away from Søren. During that year, Nora hides in her mother’s convent and Kingsley runs off to Haiti to lie low on the beach. Nora meets a young virginal nun and has an affair with her. Kingsley meets Juliette. There are A LOT of surprises in THE VIRGIN including the return of an old friend of ours…

Thanks so much for stopping by and chatting with us!

Thank you for having me! <—that’s what she said

 

Cunning. Sex. Pure nerve. Only this potent threesome can raise him to his rightful place as ruler of Manhattan’s kink kingdom.

Bouncing from bed to bed on the Upper East Side—handsomely paid in both bills and blackmail fodder—Kingsley Edge is brilliant, beautiful and utterly debauched. No carnal act or chemical compound can relieve his self-destructive apathy—only Søren, the one person he loves without limit or regret. A man he can never have, but in whose hands Kingsley is reborn to attain even greater heights of sin. He plans to open the ultimate BDSM club­: a dungeon playground for New York’s A-list that’ll change the scene forever.

The Siren: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
The Angel:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
The Prince: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
The Mistress: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
The Saint: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
The King: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads

[about-author author=”Tiffany Reisz”]

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