Double Book Review: Choices AND Secrets by Galia Ryan

Description:  Anna is broke. Really broke. Credit cards maxed out. Store cards, too. She can’t make her repayments and there’s nowhere to turn. Educated, intelligent, and—until recently—upwardly mobile, Anna is forced to make a choice. Sink or swim. And swimming means finding a part-time job to complement her full-time career. One that would pay enough to get her head above water. Except that part-time jobs don’t pay. Usually. Drawn into the sordid world of private escorts, Anna discovers there is little she won’t do for money, lots and lots of money. She even starts to enjoy the sex. Until she meets an unusually seductive client who introduces her to the world of Dominance and submission. Then everything changes.

Review:  I really enjoyed this book.  Anna's reasons for needing to turn to Escorting were really believable and drew me into believing her predicament.  I enjoyed seeing Anna progress from shy and timid in her role as Escort to confident and in control.  The title Choices comes from the fact that she ends up sort of "dating" two different men.  One is a client who has a dominant/submissive sexually charged relationship with her and the other has no idea about her Escort job and has the tradition hearts and flowers romantic relationship.  Although both men bring different and equally fulfilling lifestyle choices for her, I personally found myself rooting for Team Dom/Sub.  The scenes with him were VERY hot and I found myself rereading them often.  This book was a great start to a great trilogy.

Description:  Stephanie is a wild child, abandoned by her mother, spoiled by her father. Nothing is off-limits—even her father’s business partner—and bargaining her virginity for a summer on the Côte d’Azur is only the beginning.

But Stephanie is smart, too.

Through her lover Charles she meets Olivia, who ushers her into another world. One of wealth, opportunity, and sex. Lots of sex. Gaining entrance to society via the beds of the elite, Stephanie is on the brink of having it all.

What could possibly change?

Review:  This was a great follow up book to Secrets.  When you meet Stephanie in Secrets all you see is this Dominant woman who seems to know exactly what to say and do to get Anna to do exactly what she wants.  This books picks up Stephanie when she is just a teenager.  Although it seems that even from this young age she was already used to manipulating people into getting exactly what she wants.  It was no shock to me that the book starts with Stephanie basically selling her virginity for a summer in Côte d’Azur to an older man that is friends/business partners with her father.  But it is this background information that really helps me understand more about how Stephanie became the woman I saw in the first book.  Her story is equally as fascinating as Anna's (and has some really great, hot, sex scenes as well!) and I enjoyed finding out more about her.  I can't wait to see how both women end up in the last book, Desires.

About the Author:  Convent-educated from the age of four, Galia Ryan was brought up not to question. Perhaps because of this, she has always been fascinated by all things esoteric and “outside the square.” Originally from Sussex, England, and now living in New Zealand with her soul-mate husband and grown-up family, Galia tries to find time between her passions for writing and reading and for her other love—travel. There is always a growing list of must-see places.  CHOICES was her first novel, and the first of the Luxuria Trilogy which also includes SECRETS and DESIRES.  Galia is currently working on an anthology of short stories.

Social Links: Goodreads ~ Website

Buy Links: Amazon (Choices) ~ Amazon (Secrets)