Cruel Money

Cruel Series, Book 1

By: K.A. Linde

Narrated by: Stephen Dexter, Virginia Rose

Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

Get ready to lose yourself to the dark and glamorous underbelly of the Upper East Side with a brand-new romance from USA Today best-selling author K. A. Linde. 

She was supposed to be a one-night stand. 

A way to sate my sexual appetite. 

I let her glimpse the man I am. The face that I hide behind my carefully cultivated life. But she ripped open that divide - and there's no going back. 

Now, she's here. In my city. 

I don't care that I'm Manhattan royalty and she's the help. 

Only that she's living in my summer home. With me. 

And I want more.

©2019 K. A. Linde (P)2019 Tantor

BEWARE.. A CRUEL CRUEL CLIFFHANGER

As a big fan of her work, I was so excited when I got K.A. Linde’s recent Newsletter about the imminent release of this book so I preordered it, eagerly downloaded it early this morning and pretty much listened to it off and on all day. And, for nearly nine hours I was deliriously happy.. UNTIL I wasn’t.. until it ended on a CLIFFHANGER. Arrrggghh I could scream. I personally never never never intentionally do cliffy ‘to be continued’ endings.. so be warned - this is book 1 of a trilogy.. a trilogy that won’t have all the audiobooks available until August at the earliest.

However, it is a very addictive and compelling story, told mainly from the heroine’s POV, and the storyline had a good pace and balance of everything I love as it built, unraveled and inevitably headed towards the predicted hiccup and heartbreak. Virginia Rose did a great job with the narration.. but sadly, I could count on one hand the chapters Stephen Dexter narrated from the hero’s POV.

Worth a credit? Well, even though I’m seriously peed off at the moment, yes it’s definitely creditworthy.. but I won’t be tempted again until ALL the books are available from Audible.

HATE CLIFFHANGERS!!!!!!!

The book was good , if it had ended. I'm a busy woman and want books that have a beginning and an ending in one read. It's one thing to take a minor character and make him or her a leading character in the next book, but not to leave the original leads hanging just to sell other books. This bad review is for the author, not the story. Very good narrator. For other readers, just know what you are getting before you buy.

5 Is It More than a One Night Stand Stars??

I just finished listening to this audiobook even though I read it when it was released earlier this year. I've found with some books, especially those that have a lot of scheming behind the scenes I always find something new to love about the book or little details I may have missed while reading and this one is no different! Ms. Rose and Mr. Dexter bring an entirely new experience to this series. I was able to fully immerse myself in the characters thanks to their outstanding narration. Feeling Natalie's joy, love and agonizing pain. And oh Penn is even more of a you know what now that all his emotions and motives have been brought to life!! Having said all this, let's get to my review of this amazing book...

I’m still relatively new to Ms. Linde’s writing and I can say with all certainty that I’m going to be rectifying that this year. What an amazing book this was!!! I loved Natalie and Penn so much! Their one night together six years ago was something she never got over and to then be thrown back into Penn’s world was not something she wanted nor was she ready to deal with…. her feelings for him all came back in a tidal wave.

And so begins two months of their lives that changes everyone and in some very heartbreaking ways. There’s a group of friends that include Penn and man are they the stereotypical rich crowd that thinks they can do anything with no consequences. Well, I’m not going to reveal too much more because that’d ruin it for you.

I think I’m still in shock how everything played out…there was a two month period where our H/h were living a life that seemed somewhat idyllic…for one of them anyway. Don’t get me wrong, it was all sunshine and roses, but the chemistry between Penn and Natalie is truly combustible and they explored each other in ways neither has experienced previously. Unfortunately, for one of them, it didn’t play out the way they thought it would.

My heart was going double-time when I got to the crucial scene and so many things came to light! I wanted junk-punch someone too…it takes a lot for me to get to that point with a character too!!

This story is so well written and I connected with these characters in ways I wasn’t expecting to and getting pulled into their world for was an experience I won’t soon forget. Ms. Linde has written a book that has such a phenomenal storyline with characters that are richly developed and left me wanting more! Now I’m going to need Cruel Fortune ASAP!!!

Fascinating, alluring and suspenseful! Narration is incredibly well done!

What a fantastic and well written storyline!!! This book is such an intriguing and captivating plot that kept me turning page after page. This book takes place 6 years after “One Cruel Night.” I highly suggest reading that book before this one to understand what happened between Penn and Natalie all those years ago in Paris.

Now 6 years later, Natalie has a job where she house sits for rich people while she works on her novel. She’s now at a beach house in the Hamptons for her next job but it ends up being none other than Penn’s house. He’s the man who she shared a night with all those years ago and now he was there. At the house. With his friends. He didn’t recognize her at first but once he did, he wanted her again.
“I was Manhattan royalty and she was the help. But I wanted her all the same.”
Penn and Natalie’s journey is fascinating, alluring and suspenseful!

Virginia Rose & Stephen Dexter do an exceptional job performing this narration! They act out the dialogue SO WELL and perfectly articulate the tone of the story! Their voices are incredibly appealing and make this book an easy and enjoyable listen!

Disappointing

This is a review of the series. There’s potential here for a good story. You can tell it wanted to be good. The themes of rich vs poor, bullying, lovers from different social groups, familial expectations, soul searching, finding one’s way, etc. are all good concepts and the first scene; the “cleansing” and the embarrassing events that evening got it off to a good start but it went way down hill from there.
Oh man, there was so much wrong with the execution. There were so many inconsistencies in the characters themselves, as well as contradictions in the story from one paragraph to another. Combine this with a shocking number of mis-read or maybe mis-written fails (one example among many: “he fell to his feet” ...!! He’s already on his feet! He obviously fell to his knees... ugh, it’s small, but there were a lot of this type of jarring mistake, a big pet peeve).
All of this combined with several eye roll inducing totally implausible moments makes this series really disappointing. And yes, I listened to all three (on accelerated speed just to get through it), but only because they were available through audible escape and I needed to see where the train wreck would go. I wouldn’t spend a credit on any of the three.

boring

its just a ripoff of how to lose a guy in 10 days. only not nearly as good.

omg the whining

the leading lady in this story is such a fucking whiner I just really want to smack her. this may be exasperated by the narrator or maybe it's just the writing. either way, I got within an hour of completing the book and was just so bored and irritated that I decided I didn't even care how the story ended.

Hold on for this wild ride!

What a roller coaster ride of emotions! You’ll be hooked from the beginning to end! Penn and Natalie have chemistry in spades but will they survive The Crew. Can’t wait to listen book two in this trilogy. Virginia Rose and Stephen Dexter’s narration is great!

WOW

This is a wonderful series. I can't put it down. .Very good story line. To bad it is probably most of the real life.

Not bad but the end is a wee bit crazy

This was an okay book for me but the mentality level stops at 17. Everything is taken to the extreme and I ended up skipping a good portion of the last 90 minutes as the freak outs, constant internal dialog and the maniacal attitude of the overly obnoxious girl were driving me insane. I will go back and read the 0.5 as I did not realize that I was out of order. I am on the fence about reading the next book in the series. It almost seems like constant drama just to fill pages. I did like most of the first half but did roll my eyes a few times.

FYI: This is a series which will end with cliffhangers. If you don't like cliffhangers, skip the book.