The harder the punishment, the deeper the love … All Ryan wants is to have some fun at a party with some college kids. It’s the summer before he starts in the fall, and he and his friend Jackson get invited to a frat party that they don’t want to miss. The fun turns into dread when some cops arrest Ryan for an underage DUI, then take him down to the station. Travis, the Chief of Police, has known Ryan for years. He was a close family friend, and has taken care of Ryan ever since his parents died in a car crash. For the last few years Travis has been everything to Ryan—father figure, brother-figure, and best friend. But now Travis wants more. He wants to keep Ryan and to possess him, but he also wants to share him. Travis realizes Ryan’s arrest is the perfect excuse to punish him. And Travis has a very special punishment in mind. When Travis takes Ryan down to a secret, sub-basement lockup cell below the police precinct, he lets Ryan know exactly what is in store for him. Tough Love: A Dark M/M Age-Gap Romance was previously published as Punished by My Brother by X Collins, and has been extensively rewritten and edited. It is a dark romance with themes of BDSM, humiliation, and 24/7 relationships.

Going undercover leads to sultry nights between the sheets for this trio of dynamic duos. The only thing hotter than their sparks are the secrets that they're keeping. Naked Truth: Special Agent Jack Boudreaux is a man who's always looking for a good time--no strings attached. That's fine with Kennedy St. George, whose ex-husband burned her emotionally and financially. But when Jack's FBI assignment sends him undercover at a male strip club in her city, their one-night stand becomes an affair that distracts him from his job and puts their hearts--and Kennedy's life--in danger. Undercover Heat: When Agent Kyra Sanders and FBI hotshot Quinn Daniels are assigned to go undercover as a married couple, trouble--and desire--flares. She's got a history, he's got a hell of a secret, and the only answer to this dilemma is almost criminal. Delicious Deception: Artist Emily Kate Boudreaux spends her days running a restaurant on a Texas bayou because it's what her family expects. Then sexy chef Connor Rikeland walks into her life and turns her business and her bed into one hot adventure. But his story is a sham, and Cajun cooking isn't his ticket to fame after all. Emily Kate must decide what's real, what's a lie, and what's worth risking her heart over. Sensuality Level: Sensual

Recalling pivotal moments from her dynamic career on the front lines of American diplomacy and foreign policy, Susan E. Rice—National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama and US Ambassador to the United Nations—reveals her surprising story with unflinching candor in this New York Times bestseller. Mother, wife, scholar, diplomat, and fierce champion of American interests and values, Susan Rice powerfully connects the personal and the professional. Taught early, with tough love, how to compete and excel as an African American woman in settings where people of color are few, Susan now shares the wisdom she learned along the way. Laying bare the family struggles that shaped her early life in Washington, DC, she also examines the ancestral legacies that influenced her. Rice’s elders—immigrants on one side and descendants of slaves on the other—had high expectations that each generation would rise. And rise they did, but not without paying it forward—in uniform and in the pulpit, as educators, community leaders, and public servants. Susan too rose rapidly. She served throughout the Clinton administration, becoming one of the nation’s youngest assistant secretaries of state and, later, one of President Obama’s most trusted advisors. Rice provides an insider’s account of some of the most complex issues confronting the United States over three decades, ranging from “Black Hawk Down” in Somalia to the genocide in Rwanda and the East Africa embassy bombings in the late 1990s, and from conflicts in Libya and Syria to the Ebola epidemic, a secret channel to Iran, and the opening to Cuba during the Obama years. With unmatched insight and characteristic bluntness, she reveals previously untold stories behind recent national security challenges, including confrontations with Russia and China, the war against ISIS, the struggle to contain the fallout from Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, the U.S. response to Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the surreal transition to the Trump administration. Although you might think you know Susan Rice—whose name became synonymous with Benghazi following her Sunday news show appearances after the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya—now, through these pages, you truly will know her for the first time. Often mischaracterized by both political opponents and champions, Rice emerges as neither a villain nor a victim, but a strong, resilient, compassionate leader. Intimate, sometimes humorous, but always candid, Tough Love makes an urgent appeal to the American public to bridge our dangerous domestic divides in order to preserve our democracy and sustain our global leadership.

Sometimes you need a bit of tough love to get where you’re supposed to be … Mia Anderson has been living a life that was chosen for her. But her impending thirtieth birthday is the wake-up call she needed to stop wasting time on all the wrong pursuits. Just as she’s figuring out what she wants to do about it, her beloved grandmother falls ill and Mia drops everything to be with her. What she didn’t expect to find in her grandmother’s tiny mountain town is the courage to quit working for her father, supplied by a little tough love from her Gran. Now faced with an uncertain future, the last thing on her mind is finding love. Nate Edwards is living a solitary life deep in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. He’s content, or at least he thinks he is — until the granddaughter of a good friend shows up and he starts having feelings he thought he’d never have again. But Mia’s future isn’t in Alpine Ridge, so acting on it would lead to nothing but heartbreak. Still, their connection is undeniable and circumstances continue to push them together, despite their resistance. Will Mia stick to her decision to carve her own path? And if she does, will it be with Nate? Or is he doomed to an isolated life?

A story about the sacrifices we make for love... He's the son of a mafia foot soldier. My father is the boss. I shouldn't even know Giovanni. And I definitely shouldn't kiss him. Our relationship is doomed to fail, but that won't stop me from trying. I sneak out of my room every night. My father's guards don't see me. My sister doesn't see me. No one sees me, except him. Not every girl wants to be a princess. I just want to be free. **************** Tough Love is the prequel novella to the sexy Stripped series. Fair warning: Contains a dark hero who will do anything to keep his girl safe and an ending that will make you gasp! Praise for Skye Warren and the Stripped series: "I've always been a fan of Skye Warren ever since I read Wanderlust. Her writing is flawless and tales captivating. Love The Way You Lie is no exception. 5 Stars." - Pepper Winters, New York Times bestselling author of Tears of Tess "It's gritty, edgy, and sexy, served to you in the well-written, absorbing style that Skye is so talented at delivering. I can't wait to get my hands on the rest of the Stripped series." - Shameless Book Club "It's dark, mysterious, sexy, and I loved every page of it! There were twists and turns that I never saw coming! I love when an author is able to keep me guessing until the very end of the book." - Book Fancy Book Blog

An exploration into representations of the Amazon, and how they were essential to both homerotic and heterosexual social constructions in early modern English texts.

The Tough Love series is about men and women working in tough careers who sometimes need a little help finding their happily ever after. Naked Truth - An FBI agent goes undercover as an exotic dancer (think Magic Mike) to catch a killer, while embarking on an affair with a gun-shy nurse. The trouble *really* heats up when his case puts her life in danger. Undercover Heat – It’s enemies to lovers with a heavy dose of suspense when two troubled FBI agents go undercover as husband and wife and find it harder and harder to resist taking advantage of the physical aspects of their “fake” relationship. Delicious Deception – Connor Rikeland is a chef without a restaurant, until he stumbles into Emily Kate Beaudreax’s Cajun restaurant. When he sweet talks his way into her bed, he incurs the wrath of her brother, Jack (the hero from Naked Truth). Yes, danger and hilarity ensue!

Collects a novel and a novella, including "Tough Love, " wherein fighter Stack Hannigan's family secrets come into the light, threatening his new relationship with Vanity Baker.

In recent years, black neoconservatism has captured the national imagination. Clarence Thomas sits on the Supreme Court. Stephen Carter's opinions on topics ranging from religion to the confirmation process are widely quoted. The New Republic has written that black neoconservative Thomas Sowell was having a greater influence on the discussion of matters of race and ethnicity than any other writer of the past ten years. In this compelling and vividly argued book, Ronald Roberts reveals how this attention has turned an eccentricity into a movement. Black neoconservatives, Roberts believes, have no real constituency but, as was the case with Clarence Thomas, are held up—and proclaim themselves—as simply and ruthlessly honest, as above mere self-interest and crude political loyalties. They profess a concern for those they criticize, claiming to possess an objective truth which sets them apart from their critics in the establishment Left. They claim to be outsiders even while sustained by the culture's most powerful institutions. As they level attacks at the activist organizations they perceive as moribund, every significant argument they advance rests on fervent mantras of harsh truths and simple realities. Enlisting the ideal of impartiality as a partisan weapon, this Tough Love Crowd has elevated the familiar wisdom of Spare the rod and spoil the child to the arena of national politics. Turning to their own writings and proclamations, Roberts here serves up a devastating critique of such figures as Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele, Stephen Carter, and V. S. Naipaul (Tough Love International). Clarence Thomas and the Tough Love Crowd marks the emergence of a provocative and powerful voice on our cultural and political landscape, a voice which holds those who subscribe to this polemically powerful ideology accountable for their opinions and actions.

Leanne Crompton had it all - beauty, fame, money. But when Leanne is sacked by her modelling agency she soon finds herself penniless. With her seven-year-old daughter Kia to support, she has no option but to head north to her home town . . . back to her wayward family. With a brother just released from prison, another being taken for a mug by his wannabe-WAG girlfriend, and two sisters trying to escape her shadow, life with the Cromptons is a harsh reminder of how far she's fallen. Now, starting over and with an explosive secret to hold on to - the identity of Kia's dad - things start to get tough. Can she trust her ruthless mother Tracy not to sell her out to the papers? Or will Kia's dad catch up with her and silence her for good? Tough Love is the startling debut novel from former pop star and tabloid favourite Kerry Katona. Her memoir, Too Much Too Young, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.