Con-fessed by Nicola Rendell is the sequel to Prof-essed and it is so good! Take a look at the details below and read our review!
[For Mature Audiences; Some Spoilers]
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Y’all, I have to say, Nicola Rendell is owning me with her writing! I adore Prof-essed, and you can read Funmbi’s awesome review HERE!
We came across Nicola Rendell’s writing when we got the opportunity to receive an ARC of Con-fessed, which is the second novel in the series, and I’m so happy we jumped on this train early because OH MY GAWD.
This story settles around Lucy. We meet her in Prof-essed as Naomi’s rich friend from Yale. She wasn’t really in the story all that much, so we didn’t get a good characterization from her, but that’s because the author was saving that for this novel!
Lucy is a bit spacey, a horrible driver, and dealing with a mountain of anxiety and scandal thanks to her father’s company being caught in the biggest e-coli scandal in American history.
When she decides that she can’t take it anymore, she packs her things and runs away from home, leaving behind her favorite horse, and her mentally unstable mother, who spends more money on gin than anything else.
It’s not too long before Lucy crashes–literally–into Vince. He’s on the run, too. Not from a family scandal, but the Russian Mob. See, no one tells the head guy that they’re just out…especially when they owe money.
From there, Lucy and Vince take a cross-country road trip together, getting to know one another, having obscenely hot sex, and finding their fair share of trouble.
What I really like about these series, and this book, is that the lead female characters are strong. They know what they want, and they take it. They don’t sit back and let back things come for them, they actively try and find ways out of the situations. These ladies are no damsels in distress.
Then the men in these stories respect that while at the same time, push those limits in the bedroom.
In this novel, Vince is the perfect mix of bad boy and really decent man. He can pick a lock and hot wire a car, but he’s also there giving the sentimental gifts.
As Lucy describes Vince, “Messy black hair. Rugged stubble. Eyes that could unlock a bedroom door from forty feet away. Don’t forget the tattoos because he’s certainly got those, too. And a talent for drawing. He’s just…lovely.
I will say this, sometimes the sex scenes get a little OOC for me. It’s not a bad thing, but I think it’s a caught up in the moment thing and roles are played that took me out of it a little.
That being said, I loved the story. Everything from running away together to fighting for each other to admitting they were wrong. Without a doubt, Lucy and Vince fit together.
Note: You don’t have to readProf-essedto read this one. They’re pretty standalone.
Lucy Burchett is the heiress to a notoriously disastrous family, and she’s left home for good. But when she runs a big, black pickup off the road, totaling it, she finds herself stuck in the middle of nowhere with the driver. He’s got a body to die for and a hair-trigger temper. Vince Russo looks like a felon, but he’s also pretty funny. He’s on the lam from the cops… and a psychopathic, Russian mob boss who wants to put his balls on a barbecue. Literally.
After a night of ill-advised cocktails and bathroom-wrecking sex, Vince just can’t get Lucy off his mind. But he’s got plans to rob her. And Lucy’s life is about to get a little bit criminal too.
But can a bad boy and a good girl really escape from their troubles together? Can they trust each other at all?
In the steady march of disasters that follow them west, they fight and they laugh. They tease and they’re tender. They’re either oil and water, or chocolate and peanut butter.
Except, they can’t run from the real world forever. And there’s a hell of a surprise in store for both of them…
***
To the reader: Confessed is a standalone featuring Lucy, who readers met as the best friend in Professed. Both are stand alones and do not need to be read together. Be advised, things get super dirty in this book. The sex is explicit, and the language is rude. It’s an erotic love story with fury. Other tasters’ notes: Bobby pins. Peculiar motels. Horses. Motorcycles. Aiding and abetting. Great Smoky Mountains. New Mexico.
I jam the brake to the floor.
My headlights shine back at me off his bumper.
Oh God, no, no, no, no…
I flatten my hand to the horn.
I clench my eyes shut. There’s a screech, and everything flies forward. The seatbelt locks against my body. I am a living crash test dummy, my limbs moving at a completely different speed than the world around me. There’s a sickening crunching noise, the squealing stops. My head bangs back on the headrest. And I remove my hand from the horn.
Everything goes silent.
For just one brief, disoriented second, with my eyes still closed, I think to myself, That didn’t happen. That could not possibly have happened. I could not possibly have gotten in yet another rear-end collision.
But oh yes, it happened. When I open my eyes, I see what I’ve done. Worst one yet.
Just at the edge of where my lights shine past the road, there’s the big black pickup with its front end wrapped around a big old pine tree.
“Shit, shit!” I say, scrambling for my purse to get my driver’s license and then my insurance. I’m just astonished that the airbags didn’t deploy, and I feel pain in my ribs where the seatbelt dug into me. There’s coffee everywhere. A box of Altoids mints has loosed itself from the console, and now there are tiny white pills all over everything. The whole car looks like the junk drawer back home. My phone has been thrown all the way to the floor of the passenger seat, and the screen glitters with a nasty crack.
In my head, I hear my dad’s voice. Never admit fault! Ever! The Fifth Amendment exists for a reason!
I snatch my phone from the floor and get out of my car. I begin to dial 911 as I start walking towards the mangled, hissing pickup.
That’s when the door of the truck squeaks open. In the dim edge of my headlights, I see the driver. He’s looking stiff and rubbing his neck.
My heart bangs hard against my already sore breastbone. He’s coming towards me, shielding his eyes from my headlights with one hand. That body. Two full-sleeve tattoos, all black and white. I can see the rise and fall of his pecs even in the shadows. Messy black hair. Rugged stubble. Eyes that could unlock a bedroom door from forty feet away. Jeans that fit him like he was the prototype for jeans in the first place.
Lucy. Lucy. Lucy. What have you done?
As if in reply, the pickup’s horn spontaneously fills the air with a long, sad beeeeeeeeeeep.
Nicola Rendell writes dirty, funny, erotic romance. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She is at an unnamed Ivy and prefers to remain mostly anonymous for professional reasons. She has a PhD in English and an MFA in Creative Writing from schools that shall not be named here. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She lives with her husband and her dogs. She is from Taos, New Mexico.