Ruthlessly His: A Dark Billionaire Contemporary Romance

Gilded Decadence Series, Book 1

By: Zoe Blake, Alta Hensley

Narrated by: Melanie Hastings, Gideon Frost

His family dared to challenge mine, so I am going to ruin them... starting with stealing his bride.

Only a cold-hearted villain would destroy an innocent bride's special day over a business deal gone bad...

Which is why I choose this precise moment to disrupt New York High Society's most anticipated wedding of the season.

As I am Luc Manwarring II, billionaire heir to one of the most powerful families in the country, no one is brave enough to stop me.

My revenge plan is deceptively simple: humiliate the groom, then blackmail the bride's family into coercing the bride into marrying me instead.

My ruthless calculations do not anticipate my reluctant bride having so much fight and fire in her.

At every opportunity, she resists my dominance and control, even going so far as trying to escape my dark plans for her.

She is only supposed to be a means to an end, an unwilling player in my game of revenge.

But the more she challenges me, the more I begin to wonder... who is playing who?

Tearing off the gilded veneer of elite privilege exposes the sordid scandals, dark secrets, and taboo desires of New York's jaded high society in this dark romance series from best friends and USA Today bestselling authors Zoe Blake and Alta Hensley.

©2024 Stormy Night Publications and Poison Ink Publications (Zoe Blake) and Alta Hensley (P)2024 Podium Audio

The story really started off well

I love these authors but hate what they turned their MMC into at the end.

M/F, Audible, Abuse from Parents, BDSM

Well written story with great characters… mostly

Really enjoyed the story. Liked the characters… well most of them. The mother could…. Sigh… I have to be nice or my review won’t post. But she deserves whatever happens to her.. always!

The narrators were new to me and I’ll have to hear them again to form a better opinion. These authors are separately excellent and also together!

Revenge

Hate and stealing the future bride away was all Luc wanted. Nothing could stop me to plan my revenge and Stieglitz his sister.

Excellent!

This book is a great start to a new series. It is spicy, interesting, and delicious to listen to. I cannot wait for the next to be available on Audible! I love Zoe Blake and though Alta Hensley is new to me, I’ll be downloading her books too.

Just okay

The story was fine. Not my favorite, and a bit on the nose and predictable, but fine overall. I actually really liked Luc and thought he was a strong MMC. He was an alpha and rude and just didn’t care and that’s exactly what I was hoping for when I picked up the book.

Amelia is a little all over the place for me. She was offended by the f word, but then in the same chapter was referring to her lady bits as the p word. ??? She was very conflicting.

I would not recommend getting this audio book though. The MMC was fine to listen to, but the FMC was doing this weird over acting voice the whole time and no one speaks like that. It was weird and breathy and really off putting. I’ve never heard an audio book by her before, and I wouldn’t buy one by her again.

They were speaking so slowly I ended up listening on 3x speed and still understood the whole book.

If I had to do it again, I would just read the physical book.

Terrible female narrator

It's so annoying when an fmc is a doormat to her mother but suddenly finds her backbone against mmc. I just can't roll my eyes hard enough.
I still have 4 hours left but I'm not sure if i could last with the female narrator's voice. Her impression of a man is so horrible. She sounds like an old lady with vocal chords ruined by smoking. This is my first audio of her and i didn't expect it to be this bad. I really love this story. Ugh. Gideon Frost is perfect tho.

Enjoyed the story

Planning to read on! Liked the characters but female narrators breathiness and intonations were a bit distracting . Thank you authors!

Mine… oh my ❤️🔥❤️

These two authors give the story a different twist, it’s a combination of naughty and nice. I wish the storyline would have been developed a bit more since it has potential. There are a couple of characters that you will love to hate… that’s an understatement!!! The love scenes are very steamy, and if you love an alpha male that is possessive, but knows how to love and take care of his woman,.. than this novel is for you. The male narrator has a deep voice that brings you to your knees especially in chapter 24. The female narrator is great as well. Both of them bring the characters to life. The one thing that could have made this novel better would have been a Duet Narration… where each character only narrates their character from start to finish.

Dirty minds

Everything was about power and its expression thru sexual dominance. Pretty sickening. Narration was whining and self aggrandizing. Terrible!

Ruthlessly His

My first 🎧book by this author and it wasn’t bad but it definitely was not great. It could’ve been so much better if different narrators would’ve chosen. I also wasn’t thrilled that it kinda left you wondering what happens next sorta like a cliffhanger.🙄
Is it worth a credit? No, but since it caught my attention at the end of the story. I’m probably going to buy the next book.😏