Wicked as Lies

Wicked & Devoted, Book 3

De: Shayla Black

Narrado por: Troy Duran

He wants her...and he doesn't care that she's the enemy.

Chase "Zyron" Garrett left a bloody stint with Uncle Sam for the personal security business. His employment agreement forbids hookups with coworkers, which isn't a problem - until Tessa Lawrence, the office secretary and single mom, is harassed by her vengeful ex-boyfriend. Zy is assigned to protect her, but the moment he meets the gorgeous blonde, those contractual restrictions tighten around him like a noose.

Tessa Lawrence is alone in the world...except for her newborn baby, and she's determined to survive without a man. Then Zy walks through her door. Fiercely protective yet tender, he's everything she wants in a man, lover, and father for her daughter. But he's totally off limits. If she falls, she'll be fired.

When a teammate is captured and the enemy predicts their every move, it's clear they've got a mole. The bosses task Zy with discovering their traitor, and all clues point to the woman he's fast falling for. With danger lurking, he finds himself caught in a tangle of unquenched need and searing betrayal. Will their love be the greatest casualty of all?

Contains mature themes.

©2021 Shelley Bradley LLC (P)2021 Tantor

Amazing story

Wow what an amazing book by Shayla Black and the emotional journey she takes us on with Zyron and Tessa! Troy Duran was fantastic narrating this book and bringing the characters and story to life. He was great performing both male and female voices and the story flowed smoothly without missing a beat. Looking forward to listening to the next book.

Half a book again?! Nope. I’m out.

I know what they say about the definition of insanity but I’m a sucker for freebies, especially for palate cleansing fluff between meatier books. Bad enough that “book” three, just like “book” one, was half a book chopped up for zero reason. This “book,” however, was all tease. That’s right: zero nooky. Also, this was all filler. I suspect you could skip this “book,” listen to “book” four, and not have lost anything from the story. I’ll never find out, however, because this is where I stop in the series.

Sorry

I dnf’d this book. The narration was good and I love Shayla Black, but this book got boring pretty quick. No steamy scenes and the dull storyline made me hang it up. Then we find out the story is even continued in another book. My time is more valuable than that.

cliff hanger ahead!!!

I guess I didnt pay attention when I purchased this one, total cliff hanger! That is why this one gets 3 stars from me. Make sure you buy the next story too so you don't have to wait for the conclusion!!
The characters are compelling, though I was getting tired of the non-progress between them; now I see why that was the case. Some of the other characters' stories are briefly touched on, but in a way that made the details given unnecessary.
Troy did a great job bringing the story to life. He is one of those voices I could listen to forever and will solidify my choice to purchase a book.

scam allert

this is actually just the first half of the story. The book opens with a hook, and the rest of the book is a flashback that you expect to lead up to the scene the book opened with. IT DOESN'T. You have to PURCHASE the next book to get to the scene in chapter one. it's chicken $#[+. Now I don't trust that any of the books will have an ending, or will leave me hanging. Bad ethics. they need to let you k ow that this is a Novela or that the book has multiple parts, otherwise I would have skipped reading this one. The good thing is that it is a romance novel... spoiler! The guy gets his girl and his girl is very satisfied... I know this, It's how they all end. So I won't be purchasing the next book.

HUGE DISSAPOINTMENT!

I have listened to All the books from this author. Especially in this series. I can't believe a whole book went by and there was not ONE steamy scene. I felt like I was reading a Christian romance for YA. One of the reasons I started reading shayla black was because she knew how to wrote scenes so they didn't get stale n presented them in innovative ways. I seriously feel this book was a total sell out !

Frustrating cliffhanger

Cliffhanger. Didn’t like how MMC intentionally hurt FMC by calling ex for a hook up. Let FMC think he had been hooking up with OW for months. Yuck

Really

this story did not need two books, I skipped half the book hoping to wrap it up only to left hanging. very disappointing

💔The A Team Soap Opera!❤️‍🩹

I really wanted to love ❤️ this book but it went nowhere amigas. I pride myself on leaving five star reviews and I'm truly a hopeless romantic. With a heavy heart I must say there was very little about this book that I liked. It was like watching an old-fashioned 80s soap opera, more strict than a PG-13 movie!

Let's start with the pros and then the cons....

The story was set in a unique place, giving our lead female, a unique job title. I was rooting for her in the beginning. You can't go wrong with the old Rambo alpha males on the prowl. I'd like the overall theme because it had a thrilling edge.

I felt the story had a lot of potential, but there were so many missed opportunities. I didn't see this as being angst. It was boring and dragged out. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. (disappointed)

Our leading male Zi starts out as a good guy takes a wrong turn and ends up being a bit of a jerk toward the middle, but then revives himself back to gentleman status. OK!

Our leading female was truly written ignorant. There's no other way around this, my friends, but I don't know why writers choose to write their lead females so willfully ignorant!

I didn't like how our writer Shayla gave our leading lady Tessa the "pregnant" role. The story would've been much hotter without a child involved ...let's face the facts!

The writer did not keep the characters..."in character"!
One minute Zi is a hot blooded man enjoying his one night stands and Rambo job title Jet settin all over the planet on secret missions... next he is held up at a small home guarding a coworker. Within 72 hours he falls hopelessly in love? Sorry but Shaylas writing did not allow me to buy it.

Our leading lady Tessa comes off extremely ignorant with the personality of a sixth grade girl. I guess she didn't know she could get pregnant? (no one ever informed her of the birds and the bees?) She didn't have a problem sleeping around with her first boyfriend with unprotected sex, but then was shocked when she got pregnant? Really? But once pregnant gets a case of morality? Sorry, but the writing did not make sense. If she slept with her baby daddy on first date of course she would have slept with ZI after having a real connection.

Everyone knows babies take up all your time whether you have kids or not. Tessa was shocked when she had to do it all because her baby daddy, who she barely knew... didn't want to be a dad...?
Again, she was written as an extremely ignorant female. If she would've been 18, I probably would've felt sorry for her character, but she supposedly was in a high-end technical job position working with professionals that traveled all over the world. There's no way her character would have been this dense!

My biggest pet peeve in life are people who "choose" to be simple minded.
I have no desire to listen to audiobooks with extremely dumbed down females. (PORFAVOR!) Shayla could've easily written her as an alpha female, waiting to bloom. It was difficult to connect with her character since I found her bewildering.

The worst part of this book is when our leading lady invites her loser baby daddy back in to live with her, even though she has feelings for ZI! Double head swivel! Again, not sure why our writer Shayla wrote our leading lady so gullible?! (dry throat gulp!)

At that point, I really found this book to be cringeworthy. It was only sticking with it due to time involved hoping to get to the bottom line with her and her true love ZI ....but no, nothing was revealed. They never got together... nothing happened.... just a series of boring side stories like a Christmas party, etc.. in which our leading lady left early. Blah blah blah.

The only thing about this book that I would give five stars was Troy Duran. Kudos ~ always sensational. Your voice is like a fine scotch whiskey brought to life, ahh!

Please note, this book does not contain any romance, no sex scenes, nothing sultry or compelling. I would compare this to a 1980s soap opera where people are not allowed to hold hands, kiss or do anything on camera because it would be against CBS guidelines. Kind of like that. Again, the storyline had a ton of potential. I was very disappointed more was not done with Shayla's hard work. Onward romance lovers. Namaste!