Defy is a smutty, insta-love, insta-lust short novella. It is a prequel to Vicious (Sinners of Saint #1) and can be read as a complete standalone with a HEA.Now an international bestseller. My name is Melody Greene, and I have a confession to make.I slept with my student, a senior in high school.Multiple times.I had multiple orgasms.In multiple positions.I slept with my student and I enjoyed it.I … slept with my student and I enjoyed it.
I slept with my student and I’d do it all over again if I could turn back time.
My name is Melody Greene, and I got kicked out of my position as a teacher and did my walk of shame a la Cersei Lannister from the principal’s office, minutes after said principal threatened to call the cops on me.
My name is Melody Greene, and I did something bad because it made me feel good.
Here is why it was totally worth it.
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When is a novella more than a novella? When it’s this one. These are usually hard for me to like unless it’s a follow-up to a full size book that’s about the same couple. I don’t like insta love and that’s what they usually are if they are their own story. LJ Shen somehow made this one so good that the insta love didn’t bother me at all.
I read Vicious before I read this one so some of this was kinda sorta ruined for me but I didn’t mind that much. I still really enjoyed this regardless of knowing what happens in the next book.
The student-teacher part of this book was different but I think it worked and ended up not bothering me as much as I thought it would. Their chemistry was hot and I liked Jamie a lot more after reading this then I did after reading Vicious. The humor and one liners I liked in Vicious were also in Defy. The author has a real talent for that and it’s one of my favorite parts of these books.
I can’t wait to continue the series and I’m so ready for book two!
I really should have reviewed this book right after reading it because the feeling I had when I finished were eclipsed with the feelings Pretty Reckless left me with about Jamie and Mel.
Suffice it to say, I enjoyed this book, it was hot a steamy but I didn’t really really feel the emotion until Mel was moving and Jamie skipped school and showed up upset about her not telling him. That’s where I fell for Jamie.
I kind of wish that this had been a longer, full length book. Especially because it came out after Vicious, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was trying to set up the other books instead of establish the story between Jamie and Mel.
Overall, it was still good and it gave me a greater appreciation for Jamie vs just seeing him as a secondary character the books for the other guys. Because let’s be real, he doesn’t really play a huge role in the other guys books the way Dean and Vicious do in each other’s book, or the way Dean and Vicious do in Trent’s book. Jamie was just kind of…there.
So this definitely gave me a greater appreciation for him, and the dad he becomes in Pretty Reckless.
Defy is an intense and sultry little page-turner certain to leave you blushing! These two set the pages on fire with the off the charts chemistry and forbidden little secret rendezvous. I loved this novella, it was steamy, emotional, and good on the heart! Highly recommend!
adored Jaime and his love towards melody along with his loyalty to his three brothers from other mothers. it was balanced perfectly in this book and im surprised a rich kid like him would approach her the way he did. there were a couple things I wished had more clarification and things between them seemed a bit fast but I still enjoyed their teacher forbidden romance
I defy you not to love this book! 5 stars
I didn’t know that I should I have read this book first in the Sinners of Saint series. If you haven’t taken my advice to read Vicious and Ruckus yet, then start here! It is a novella, but it is filled with so much good! This is a taboo relationship between a teacher and student. The student Jamie is 18 and Melody the teacher is 26, so to me it didn’t feel that taboo! Jamie is the glue that holds his hothole friends together, but there is so much more to him. Melody is a great mix of smart, sassy yet vulnerable. And together Jamie and Melody are fire! When the angst came, I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. But it was an ending that made me smile! I highly recommend this series!
Vicious was the first book in the Sinners of Saint series that I read, so when I found out that there was a short novella for Jamie and Melody, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Melody and Jamie are so wrong for each other, but L.J made it feel so right! Their relationship is forbidden, they shouldn’t be together, but they can’t fight it. Jamie knows from the jump that he wants Melody and once he gets her on board, there is no stopping them.
‘Defy’ might be the shortest of the hothole books, but it packs the same punch as the full length. The steamy moments, and the moments that make you want to throw something, everything is packed into this book. This is a page turner to say the least and gives you a greater look at their forbidden love! One-click this book if you haven’t already, I wasn’t ready for Jamie Followhill but I need one for myself!
Defy is the first book of Sinners of Saint series.
And this is totally awesome book!
Jamie Followhill is a one of my fav heroine (Vicious Lover here) and this plot with Melody is so illegal, but so sexy!
I totally love this novel!
It is a fresh start in contemporary romance for me.
Leigh Shen know how to write a really good book, which stay with reader a long time after the reading. I reread this story three times, and each rereading I love it more and more.
Why Jamie and Vicious can’t be real?
Dear God, pretty please do this!
If I can give 100 stars of course I will give.
Leigh you da best!
Love this prequel
Beautifully written.
I read Vicious first and loved all the secondary characters so i couldn’t wait to read about Jamie and Melody and i was not disappointed.
The chemistry between them is off the charts.
So much more to come from the hotholes, i cant wait to read more.
I’m also starting to like Vicious more.
JAIME IS HOT FOR TEACHER!!!
DEFY is not actually Book 2 in the SINNERS OF SAINT Series by L. J. Shen, but since I read VICOUS first, I’m referring to DEFY as Book 2…
DEFY, (Book 0.5 in the SINNERS OF SAINT Series) by L. J. Shen, and as much as I loved Book 1, VICIOUS, I’m always prepared to be a little disappointed to read the 2nd book in a series, by an author whose books I have never read, and I am fantastically surprised when Book 2 is as fan-freakin-tastic as Book 1…
I fell in love with Jaime Followhill and his English lit teacher, Melody Greene…And although teachers and student relationships are taboo, Jaime is 18, so he’s legal….and their love story is fantastic…
I just recently “discovered” this author, but I’m so thankful I did…
This Novella sets the stage for the Sinners of Saint series. It begins in High School with a forbidden relationship between a teacher and her 18-year old student. He blackmails her into having the relationship and the rest is history. This entire series has not disappointed! Very Alpha males and strong ladies.
In the world of hotholes, Jaime is king!!!
This story puts a new twist in a classic student/teacher taboo. Jaime maybe 18 but he’s all Alpha male, and Mel doesn’t stand a chance.
Loved the story line so much I literally devoured this book. An exceptional start to a fun series.
Short but oh so sweet!
I loved this little novella! I knew I was going to totally vibe on the story of Jaime Followhill seducing his lit teacher when I read Vicious, and sure enough, I was in it from the start. I usually read longer books, but I also LOVE short ones. I’m sort of disgraced that this technically took me 2 days to read, but I assure you it was only a couple hours collectively lol.
Jaime is ultimate swoonz, and Melody is a mess LOL, but she means well and I love the fact that they worked so well together. They fell right into a relationship without even knowing it, and it was so cute watching them pretend they didn’t care.
I truly enjoyed the fact that Jaime was only 18, but whooped Melody’s 26-year-old ass into shape! He really seems perfect. And knowing that he’s Daria’s father… well well… I can’t WAIT to see what happens…
Eeee! Thank you again, Leigh for another stunna! On to the next one!
Can I just say that I absolutely love this series and can’t wait to get all the Hotholes stories
What took me so long to read this?
I think everyone on my friends list already devoured the entire series. Ok, I did read Vicious. I really wish I had started the series with this one, though. I ended up falling completely and madly in lust with Jamie. By the end of the book, I wanted to have his babies. You don’t see many older woman/student teacher, forbidden romances. This one really set the bar for me. I loved the entire dynamic. And get this, I haven’t been able to read 18yo book boyfriends very much lately. ROLLS EYES. Yeah, Shen blows my expectations out of the water. I never wanted to be a cougar so bad in my life. Come to Mama, Jamie. I can’t believe the amount of forbidden steam, emotion, and world building that was incorporated, a huge surprise in such a small package. Being on the shorter side, Shen pretty much said, fuck the lines, I’ll paint my own. I have to finish the series now. It’s a must.
I definitely recommend!! Fans of taboo, you will loooove this one.
I had my ups and my downs with this story. Some things rubbed me the wrong way but overall, I enjoyed the story. I don’t mind a fictional student-teacher romance from time to time. As long as the student is 18 and the teacher isn’t a whole lot older than they are. Plus everything has to be consensual all the way around.
Moving on, I really enjoyed the whole setup this series has. I loved the drama and how everyone had their issues going on but tried to act like they didn’t. Money runs this town and so do the hot holes. Hot holes are these four hot a-holes. They are the best of friends and all attend the same school. We’re introduced to the series with Jamie Followhill. He has a crush on his teacher, Melody Greene. One thing leads to another and they end up having a fling.
Melody had been dealt a crappy hand in life. She had such big dreams and almost reached them, only to have it taken away. I felt for her. She was lost and struggling to find her path in life. She needed an anchor and Jamie became that for her.
Jamie was, after all, still a teenager so sometimes I had to eye-roll at the way he was acting. He frustrated me with the things he did but at the same time, it was how most teenagers behaved. Jamie would go back and forth between acting like a man with his life together, to acting his age and all that comes with being a high school student. He did grow on me by the time I finished reading the story.
Overall, I’ve heard great things about this series and I’m excited to continue on with it.
I love the Hotholes – and this will be my 3rd time reading through the series in anticipation of the release of the new spin-off featuring the Totholes 🙂
This is Jaime Followhill and Melody Greene’s story. A little bit forbidden with some reverse age-gap thrown in. Jaime is finishing up his senior year of high school and Melody is his 26 year old teacher. It’s a fast paced hot and heavy read and a great introduction to the four privileged Hotholes that roam the halls of All Saints High. If you haven’t dived into this series yet, you are missing out!
This was pretty good! I didn’t enjoy this as much as the other book I’ve read previously from this author, but I think I’ll like this series. I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.
This was only a novella, so it was short and to the point. Melody was a little weird sometimes; like some of the things she said/did/thought were strange. I think the author might have been trying too hard to make her quirky. Overall, I thought she was an okay character.
I really liked Jaime a lot! I was nervous since this series (and I think all of Leigh’s books) featured alpha a-holes; the ones in this series are known as HotHoles. That type of guy has to be written in a certain way to not annoy me. If it’s a romance book, it’s pretty much guaranteed I won’t mind a d*ckhead who at least has his act together concerning the love interest. And Jaime was fantastic. I swooned quite a bit where he was concerned. He knew what he wanted, and he went after it, no qualms about it. He was protective, sexy, and seemed older than his age in many ways.
There was obviously the forbidden romance aspect since this was a teacher/student book. I just want to put it out there that he was legal the entire time they were together, so I didn’t mind. The beginning of this book was probably the hardest for me to get into/connect with, but once I got past the first 1/4 or so, I enjoyed it a lot more. I expected this to end differently, but I liked it nevertheless. I’m excited to read the rest of this series!
#HotHolesForLife
Short and Sweet! I freaken LOVE Jamie
I enjoyed every minute of this.
It’s a perfect addition to Sinners of Saint.
Yaaaaaas!
I am a big fan of L.J. Shen’s work and so I loved reading the “Sinners of Saint” series. In light of her new series ‘All Saints High” almost coming out, I figured I would do a re-read of all the books so everything is fresh in my mind. Now imagine my surprise (read: shock) when I found out I never read Jamie’s story !!! I just don’t understand how this happened !!
Of course, when I found out (a few hours ago), I put everything else aside and fixed the error of my ways… Normally I would be thankful this was a short story, but we are talking “HotHoles” here and so I was just sad when I was finished so soon.
Since I already read every book in this series, I knew exactly who Jaime was and that Melody was his former teacher. I was so happy to finally find out how they got together…better late than never 😉
It was sooo good. Melody is a 26-year-old English Lit teacher at All Saints High. This makes her 8 years older than the “Hotholes”, who are all in one of her classes. And somewhere along the way she has caught the attention of one of them specifically… Jamie …
Melody isn’t really happy with her job. She is trying to teach a bunch of privileged kids, who make it a mission not to listen to anything she says. To make matters worse, the principal of the school, who is also Jamie’s mother, is a cold-hearted bitch seemingly trying to get her fired. Not that being a teacher was ever her dreamjob…she wanted to be a dancer, but life isn’t always fair.
You know what also isn’t fair….One of your students trying to blackmail you for sex because you wrecked his car 9f01372377900d9203bc4efe48eb1659 Jamie makes it perfectly clear what it is he wants from Melody. I just don’t think it really classifies as blackmail …since she seems to want it just as much.
I loved these two. This book was definitely a bit on the lighter side compared to all the others. Melody’s inner voice was hilarious and she really is “my kind of girl”. I can understand why Jamie wanted her so badly. That said…Jamie was pretty freaking awesome himself !!
I can’t wait for “Pretty Reckless” to get here. I know Daria is gonna be the heroine and she is Jamie and Melody’s daughter. I am sure she will be just as awesome as her parents.
Highly recommended
My reviews are posted at WendysWyckedWords @Wordpress
A fabulous quick read that gives you the background into Jamie and Mel’s story .
She should have been off limits it was a relationship that was forbidden but what happens when it’s no longer possible to deny the love that has taken hold…you accept it no matter the cost!!!!
A fantastic heartfelt story that shows you that you can’t help who your heart wants!!!