Chrysalis

A Crown Family Novel

By: Rie Anders

Narrated by: Lessa Lamb

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Charlotte “Charlie” Chase appears to have everything: a lucrative marketing career, a handsome fiancé, a mansion in Houston. But a chance encounter with the mysterious, and alluring, Paxton Crown (owner of L.O.V.E. enterprises) at a pole dancing studio, is forcing her to admit that she’s disillusioned with her stellar-but-soulless job and frigid fiancé. The world of pole dancing pulls Charlie in, and the passionate, sultry environment has her questioning her life’s direction. Taking a leave from her executive position, Charlie becomes immersed in a world of independence, unbending friendships, and sensual power. The studio and the thrilling knowledge of an upcoming competition become the only bright spots in her conventionally basic life.

Paxton is crass and unapproachable, and despite the delicious way her body responds to his presence, Paxton has made it clear he’s not interested in an emotional attachment. As Charlie and Paxton work more closely together, Charlie finds herself caught between his vulgarity and his warmth. Wanting desperately to discover what has caused him to close himself off from falling in love, she pushes him to open up. As layers of a dark past are revealed, Paxton closes himself off further from Charlotte, preventing him from seeing how sensuous, courageous, and strong Charlie really is.... And how this could be the love they both need, in order to live a life of not so basic things.

©2021 Rie Anders (P)2021 Rie Anders

I’m obsessed with this story

There aren’t enough stars to give to this story. I loved the book but the audiobook blows it away. Less a did an amazing job, I feel like I know her after listening. I wanted to jump into the story and participate. I found myself looking up terms (dance moves) mentioned that I wasn’t familiar with and one of the songs that Charlie dances too. Rie has a knack for this, ive done it before with other books of hers. If you are on the fence with this audiobook, jump off and hit the play button

SPECTACULAR ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ FABULOUS

This was an amazing story and the narration was perfection! Every character was well developed. The transitions were woven so smoothly that it felt seamless to me. I could not let myself stop listening from beginning to end. BRAVO! ✨ I cannot wait for the rest of the series!!

Amazing

This book is amazing! It catches you and keeps you hooked until the end. Well written and well narrated! Great Job Rie and Lessa! Please hurry up with book 2!

Breathtaking, unbelievable good and satisfying.

All the feels, a heroine made to feel like she never quite meets expectations, a hero betrayed in one of the worst ways possible. Neither able to move on easily. This is a beautifully written story with heart, soul, and wonderfully developed characters that you want to care about, you want to find happiness, and you want to ease their pain. The narration that brings this story to life is beyond fabulous. There is absolutely no doubt as to which emotion is being felt by the character in question at any time. Chrysalis is the proverbial full package. It is one of the best books I have listened to this year and I simple can’t recommend it highly enough!

Sexy pole dancing romance

I listened to this as an audiobook and I really enjoyed the narrator! I thought she did well with the narration and voices of characters – a few were a little awkward but overall it was a good listen. I ended up on 2.4x speed.

This story follows Charlotte aka “Charlie” – she is vice president of marketing for a company, she’s engaged to be married, her and her fiancé have a beautiful mansion – but Charlie still feels like something is missing in her life. She decides to stop by the dance studio across the street from her office and sign up for classes – pole dancing classes.

Charlie falls in love with pole dancing and takes classes as often as she can. When she tells her fiancé what she has been doing, he is displeased and belittles her, telling her to stop taking “stripper” classes – which she is not happy about. Despite that, Charlie doesn’t stop taking classes and only becomes more invested in pole dancing even entering a competition. I love that Charlotte doesn’t let a man tell her what she can or can’t do – she loves dancing and both her mind and body are stronger because of it.

One day at the studio she literally runs into Paxton, owner of the dance studio, and he is crass and unapproachable and yet Charlie feels drawn to him. You can guess where this is leading. It’s hard to say more without giving too much away, but dark mysterious sexy man? Oh yeah, hard to resist.

Honestly there is a lot packed into this book. The main focus is the pole dancing but there are a lot of emotional relationships within this story. I was really invested in each character and they all felt pretty well fleshed out. I wanted to know what would happen next. While some moments were predictable, others took be my surprise and I appreciate when a book can do that.

While this was good, its not without its flaws. Some authors use certain words too often, and with this story, its “laughs” – everyone laughs at everything! And not just laughs. “…laughs, and laughs, and laughs” – 3 times in a row – is said more times than I could count. (I should’ve counted.) It got to be a little ridiculous how often the laughs x3 was used throughout this book. Nothing was ever THAT funny and it drove me up a wall insane.

Another thing that bothered me – Charlotte tells everyone to call her “Charlie” but only her fiancé and college best friend call her that. Everyone else in her life calls her Charlotte – so that nickname felt almost pointless to mention.

As with Rie Anders past book, this book was good, but it was missing a spark that could’ve made it great. Don’t get me wrong – I still enjoyed this and thought the romance was sexy, but I always felt like some spark was missing. I’m giving this a solid 3 stars – still a good rating!