The Dirty Girls Book Club (42 page)
Special thanks to my friends and critique partners, Michelle Hancock, Elizabeth Allan, and Nazima Ali, who help me make every book the best it can be.
I’d also like to recognize my own book club: Kate Austin, Kate Denby, and Alaura Ross. Ladies, thanks for your friendship and the wonderful discussions over the years. And yes, in case readers are wondering, my club has been known to read dirty books!
If you enjoy
The Dirty Girls Book Club
, I hope you’ll check out my other titles at
www.savannafox.com
, where you’ll find excerpts, behind-the-scenes notes, recipes, a monthly contest, my newsletter, and other goodies.
I love hearing from readers. You can contact me through my website at
www.savannafox.com
.
Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.
We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books
The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.
Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.
So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.
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Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
First published in the United States by The Berkley Publishing Group 2012
First published in Great Britain as an electronic edition in Penguin Books 2012
Copyright © Susan Lyons, 2012
books: © Neville Mountford Hoare/PhotoAlto/Corbis;
flowers: © Eling Enger / Getty Images
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-405-91191-7
Our journey began in fire …
Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness – beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily …
Gideon
knew
. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other’s most private wounds … and desires.
The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn’t tear us apart …
‘This is a sophisticated, provocative, titillating, highly erotic, sexually driven read and extremely well done. I enjoyed
Fifty Shades of Grey
, but I loved
Bared to You
’
Swept Away by Romance
‘
Bared to You
has an emotional feel similar to
Fifty Shades of Grey
… It is full of emotional angst, scorching love scenes and a compelling storyline’
Dear Author
‘A well written and sexually charged romance with characters who have real depth … I would highly recommend
Bared to You
, because it’s what
Fifty Shades of Grey
could have been’
The Book Pushers
‘This is an erotic romance that should not be missed. It will make readers fall in love’
Romance Novel News
Gideon Cross. As beautiful and flawless on the outside as he was damaged and tormented on the inside. He was a bright, scorching flame that singed me with the darkest of pleasures. I couldn’t stay away. I didn’t want to. He was my addiction … my every desire … mine.
My past was as violent as his, and I was just as broken. We’d never work. It was too hard, too painful … except when it was perfect. Those moments when the driving hunger and desperate love were the most exquisite insanity.
We were bound by our need. And our passion would take us beyond our limits to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession …
Intensely romantic, darkly sensual and completely addictive,
Reflected in You
will take you to the very limits of obsession - and beyond.
'It is full of emotional angst, scorching love scenes, and a compelling story line’
Dear Author
'Far sexier than
Fifty Shades of Grey
… this is an erotic romance that should not be missed’
Romance Novel News
'I became so attached to Eva and Gideon that I actually hurt for them. I shared their pain and their joy as they fought to keep each other’
Joyfully Reviewed
Available from Penguin in October 2012