From USA TODAY bestselling author Naima Simone. Feel the drama and passion in the Dynasties: Seven Sins series! Some men are meant to sin… Pride made him what he is but desire might change him forever… Millionaire CEO Joshua Lowell earned his icy reserve and arrogant pride through painful experience. He refuses to allow gorgeous but determined reporter Sophie Armstrong to dredge up his … Armstrong to dredge up his family’s dark past–or circulate rumors of his secret child. But Joshua’s fierce pride is at war with his heated desire for Sophie, the only woman who could ruin him…or save him from himself.
Harlequin Desire: Luxury, scandal, desire–welcome to the lives of the American elite.
One man’s betrayal can destroy generations. Fifteen years ago, a hedge-fund hotshot vanished with billions, leaving the high-powered families of Falling Brook changed forever. Now seven heirs, shaped by his betrayal, must reckon with the sins of the past. Passion may be their only path to redemption. Experience all Seven Sins!
DYNASTIES: SEVEN SINS
Book 1: Ruthless Pride by Naima Simone
This CEO’s pride led him to give up his dreams for his family. Now he’s drawn to the woman who threatens everything…
Book 2: Forbidden Lust by Karen Booth
He’s always resisted his lust for his best friend’s sister–until they’re stranded together in paradise…
Book 3: Insatiable Hunger by Yahrah St. John
His unbridled appetite for his closest friend is unleashed when he believes she’s fallen for the wrong man…
Book 4: Hidden Ambition by Jules Bennett
Ambition has taken him far, but revenge could cost him his one chance at love…
Book 5: Reckless Envy by Joss Wood
When this shark in the boardroom meets the one woman he can’t have, envy takes over…
Book 6: Untamed Passion by Cat Schield
Will this black sheep’s self-destructive wrath flame out when he’s expecting an heir of his own?
Book 7: Slow Burn by Janice Maynard
If he’s really the idle playboy his family claims, will his inaction threaten a reunion with the woman who got away?
more
What a juicy kick off to the Dynasties: Seven Sins series. Joshua, CEO and heir to his father’s lies and deceptions and Sophie, the investigative reporter determined to revisit his past. The intensity and sparks between these two flared brightly from the first instant they met. I loved Sophie’s unwavering faith in Joshua and her steadfast determination to stay true to herself and her career. I was unable to put this down and read it in one sitting.
Ruthless Pride perfectly lays the groundwork for the remainder of this series.
: 3.75 stars—RUTHLESS PRIDE by Naime Simone is the first instalment in the multi-authored DYNASTIES: SEVEN SINS erotic, romance novella series focusing on the families destroyed by betrayal and greed. This is millionaire CEO Joshua Lowell, and reporter Sophie Armstrongs story line.
Told from dual third person perspectives (Sophie and Joshua) RUTHLESS PRIDE introduces some of the backstory and fall-out of Vernon Lowell’s betrayal of the people who trusted him with their money and their lives. Fifteen years earlier Vernon Lowell disappeared with millions of dollars in client’s hedge fund money, and the man has not been seen or heard from since. In the ensuing years, his eldest son, Joshua Lowell, gave up his own burgeoning career as an artist, to take over as CEO in an effort to repay and repair the damage done to so many people but Joshua never expected the sins of his father to once again scandalize the family. A young reporter has set her sights on the Lowell story, and is determined to reveal the truth, as she knows it. Enter reporter Sophie Armstrong. What ensues is the building but tempestuous relationship between Sophie and Joshua, and the potential fall-out as more sins and lies come to the surface forcing Joshua to chose between Sophie and the life he has come to endure.
The relationship between Sophie and Joshua is acrimonious at best. Joshua does not trust Sophie to not report further on the Lowell family sins, and Sophie struggles between head and heart when she begins to fall for the our story line hero. Joshua hopes to keep Sophie close but never expected to fall for the woman who has stirred up a hornets nest of bad memories and sins. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
The secondary and supporting characters are limited but we are quickly introduced to Zane Patterson, a man who is willing to do anything to see the Lowell family further disgraced, by any means necessary, including using Sophie, our story line heroine. Zanes story is next in Forbidden Lust by Karen Booth.
RUTHLESS PRIDE is a story of secrets, lies, betrayal and revenge. The conflict resolution does not address certain aspects and revelations but I suspect the plot line will continue throughout the series. The premise is engaging and entertaining; the romance is seductive and steamy; the characters are energetic and dynamic.
You are not ever, ever going to go wrong with a book by Naima Simone! Sign me up for this hot millionaire hero, please and thank you. I dare you not to read this in one sitting!
A beautiful, intensely passionate romance, perfect to get lost in and forget about reality for a while. The tough, successful CEO falls for the one woman who poses a threat to his peace of mind and challenges him to be more, and most scarily of all … to feel more. There’s a bit of a Cinderella vibe to this story, though both the prince and his true love are hard-working in this scenario. Joshua, the aloof businessman with an artist’s soul, and Sophie, the intelligent and ambitious though not ruthless reporter, are not a likely match, but they sure do have the “lust at first sight” thing down pat and sparks fly like you wouldn’t believe. There’s such animosity between Joshua and Sophie at first, fueled by pride and misconceptions, and it was wonderful to see them gradually start to understand that the other is more than they at first seemed. The vulnerable moments these two share are what’s most seductive about their entire story.
The story of Joshua and Sophie begins in quite the adversarial way when Sophie, a reporter, writes a story digging up the painful past of Joshua’s corrupt father from 15 years ago. It continues though with a growing attraction and deepening respect for each other. It’s a well-written tale of pride and how it can wreak havoc with trust, but it’s also a tale of learning that sometimes you can have both.
4.5 Hot and Angsty Stars
Naima Simone has kicked off this multi-author series with an intense romance that had angst and heat. With just the right amount of world-building to set up the rest of the series, we are treated to an enemies to lovers story that will have your emotions all over the place and wondering just how Joshua and Sophie are going to find their way to a happy ever after.
From the moment Sophie Armstrong strong-arms (see what I did there) her way into Joshua Lowell’s office, the sparks start flying and you know it won’t be long before things combust between these two. Joshua employs the “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” strategy with Sophie, but that tactical error has his heart becoming more involved as these two spar, fight, and then burn up the sheets.
They both are carrying some pretty heavy baggage, which of course leads to assumptions, accusations, and some pretty harsh words, all that lead both Joshua and Sophie to some pretty big realizations – the biggest being their feelings for one another and how their past doesn’t have to continue to define their future.
These Harlequin Desire reads are short, so there’s not a lot of pages to define characters and the world they are operating in, but Naima does an awesome job doing both – leaving me wanting more of the world but happy with how this story wrapped up. There were a few characters that were introduced that will be featured in other books in this series, plus there are a few overarching story arcs that will hopefully get tied up as the series continues.
It’s hard to be let-down by a Naima Simone book – so this is one that is worth checking out!
I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book I received from the author.
Joshua Lowell is the stoic hedge fund CEO who has rebuilt a business that his father ruthlessly destroyed by embezzling millions, destroying many families, and then disappearing. Sophie Armstrong is aninvestigative reporter who is dredging up 15 year old memories on the anniversary of the date that Vernon Lowell destroyed Black Crescent Investments, the Lowell family and 10 other families.
Sophie barges into Joshua’s office, uninvited, with the voracity of a dog with a bone, she’s looking for Joshua’s input and Joshua has avoided all of her requests to meet until this moment. Their first meeting is loaded with distrust, anger, and an underlying sexual tension.
I loved Joshua, his sense of duty, loyalty, and honor are what is missing in the real world today. Sophie is smart, strong, determined, and she fights for the truth and seeks out answers. What I also loved about Sophie is how she is the one to help Joshua return to his passion and find whom he is amidst the craziness of his father’s betrayal.
I’m looking forward to reading more about the Blackwell family and the other families affected by the embezzler in the future books in the series.
The story is filled with mystery, intrigue, deception, steamy interactions, and a happy ever after for Sophie and Joshua.
Smoking hot
Naima does it again. Joshua and Sophie’s story was hot and sexy as only Naima knows how to bring them to us. A rollercoaster of emotions but totally worth the beautiful HEA. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.
Ruthless Pride by Naima Simone is the first in the Harlequin multi-author continuity called the Seven Sins. Joshua Lowell is a wealthy, powerful man. He turned his back on his dreams of a career as an artist to helm the company his father attempted to bankrupt, pouring his time, energy, and self into making recompense for his father’s crimes. When reporter Sophie Armstrong requests his time for a follow up story, he refuses, but the hook has been set for them both.
Ruthless Pride is everything you want in a Desire—fierce emotions, deep passions, and a page-turning story. Joshua and Sophie don’t come to trust easily, with good reason, but Ms Simone makes every step of their journey one to follow eagerly. Seeing them slowly lower their defenses and begin to build a fragile relationship will melt your heart and also set you aflame. Ms Simone’s writing completely swept me away with the power of their connection and emotions.
Naima Simone’s story is a delicious read, and a perfect way to begin this series!
Naima Simone always knocks it out of the park with engaging characters and fan-yourself love scenes.
Sophie and Joshua’s story is great read, the chemistry between the characters is present and their attraction for each other comes off the pages. Both of them bring a lot baggage and turmoil to the story to make this a very interesting one. This is a good start to this series. I honestly volunteered to review this story.
Naima Simone has written another fabulous book that had me hooked from beginning to end. Ruthless Pride is book one in the Dynasty: Seven Sins series. I loved Joshua and Sophie so much. I’m excited to see what’s in store for this series.
This is a great read. Joshua and Sophie have chemistry that you can not deny. The backstory if Joshua is so good trying to fix his fathers mistakes. I could not put this book down. I loved the backstory and the new story although it makes me wonder about something’s like the possible child. I now had]be to read the other books i this series by other authors. Naima Simone did not disappoint with this read and I look forward to other from her and the other books from other authors i this series
Ruthless Pride is riddled with scandal, secrets, betrayal, lies and sexy times. I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series are there are unanswered questions.
Copy provided by author
I read this in one sitting. I could not put it down.
It was very very fast paced. I’ve never read a Harlequin Desire book before to my knowledge, so I don’t know if that is how they all flow or if it’s the beauty of Naima’s writing, although I’m inclined to say it’s the latter.
This is a solid strong dislike to lovers story. Also an opposites attract kind of situation. Josh and Sophie have both been hurt in the past by important people in their lives. They are plenty jaded and enter into a bedmates only agreement that they both know will not be enough.
But there is a lot on the line for both of them.
There are side plots that do not in any way get closure in this story and I assume there will be threaded into other stories in this series.
I’m not sure if I’ll pick those up, but I do really want to know more about the other side characters in this world and what happens with the whole subplot.
**An Advance copy of this was provided to me by the author and I volunteered to leave an unbiased review. All opinions are my own and have not been influenced**
This was such an interesting concept for a multi-author series! I love this author’s work, but I’ve never read the other authors, so we’ll see where this thing goes!
Joshua Lowell is a man on a mission. 15 years ago, his father embezzled money from his own hedge fund, and drained his family’s personal accounts, and then went on the run. Joshua gave up his own artist’s dreams, and took up the mantle of the family business. He wanted to try to right all the wrongs of his father. As CEO, he’s built back the reputation of the hedge fund, made reparations payments to the 10 families affected by his father’s theft, and helps with many charitable funds and projects. But, he’s lost his family in the process. His mother is a shell of her former self, his twin has run off to backpack across Europe and ignore the family issues, and their hometown, and his younger brother has become the typical rich jerk with a drug problem. Both brothers resent him for taking over for their dad, after what he did, but it’s the only way Joshua knows how to make amends.
Sophie Armstrong is a reporter for her hometown newspaper, and she’s doing a story on the anniversary of Vernon Lowell’s crimes going public. She is confident in always doing her job properly, with integrity, so she wants to get the current CEO’s statement for her article. After he repeatedly ignores her calls and emails, she shows up at his office, but he is not interested in talking to her. So, she moves forward with her article, though most of her sources clearly hate Joshua Lowell, and a lot of the statements made about him are conjecture, or rumor. She does her best to wade through them to the truth, but floats some pretty damaging theories in her story. Joshua Lowell shows up at her office the next day, and offers her an exclusive look inside his company, so she can have all the facts. She accepts, even though she’s afraid it’s a huge miscalculation.
Josh is attracted to Sophie right off the bat, but he HATES her job. He hates the way she’s dug up all his family’s old drama and made it new again. Sophie begins to realize she’s misjudged him, as she gets to know them better, and she’s attracted to him too. Josh has SO MANY trust issues, but who could blame him?! The man he looked up to his whole life was a liar and a thief, and now Josh doesn’t even know if his father is dead or alive. Even the FBI couldn’t find him. Sophie has her own valid trust issues, after her parents’ ugly divorce that put her in the middle as a kid, and her last relationship, where she discovered her boyfriend had ulterior motives for being with her. They both had no real interest in overcoming those issues, they just wanted to keep it moving, but they were unable to ignore each other.
Once they actually get together, they can’t stay away from each other, though they both agree up front that it’s just sex. Of course, neither of them can really stick to that, and they start having heart feelings, in addition to their serious pants feelings. They both basically ignore it, until they can’t and things blow up. I loved watching them both helpless to falling in love, and both handling it so poorly.
There’s an ongoing mystery situation that will clearly carry over into the other books, and I’m not crazy about that. If it was an entire series of Naima’s books, I’d be all over it, but I have no idea if I’ll move on with the other books or not, so not having answers is frustrating. I liked the way everything ended up with our main couple, and their connection was steamy and satisfying, but I hate not having the rest of the story hammered out.
Overall the story was highly enjoyable, but I would’ve liked A LOT more closure on all the issues outside of the couple’s relationship. I’ll have to decide if I want to know the answers enough to continue on with the series. This was still a 4 star book for me because this author’s words always make me believe in her couples, and I enjoyed Josh and Sophie’s crazy journey into love with each other. I highly recommend this author’s work!
This was a good read. The story was entertaining and the characters likable. Sophie and Joshua each had some baggage that weighed heavily on their story and the way their relationship evolves. I felt that this couple had a lot of appeal as a couple and I did enjoy their chemistry. That being said, I wish I could have felt a deeper and stronger connection between these two. I couldn’t help feeling that the thick emotional barriers that they each had really put a damper on that ever getting a chance to show through and I truly missed it. This is my frank, freely posted review.
WOW!!!! I’m not sure I have words for this one.
A great start to a new series that I’m definitely going to have to read the rest of to see what happens. This book has everything I would expect from Ms. Simone; scandal, angst, a dirty talking, damaged alpha male; and steam beyond belief.
There is so much to Joshua & Sophie’s story and the author does an amazing job telling it. She is definitely an automatic one-click author for me!
What a fantastic start to the new Dynasties: Seven Sins series. Joshua is a shadow of his former self after his father ran off with millions of dollars that belonged to the family business and left a family in tatters. Joshua was trying to make up for all that his father did by putting his own life and desires in his past and out of his reach. In comes reporter Sophie who is investigating a rehashing of what is Joshua’s worst day of his entire life on its 15th anniversary. Sophie doesn’t want to bring the pain back into Joshua’s life but she wants to look into what he gave up. The animosity and distrust between Joshua and Sophie can be felt and yet the underlying immediate attraction is there too. And wow the chemistry was explosive between these two.
This book does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger but nothing that detracts from the story of Joshua and Sophie. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next one in this series.
The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. … Poor Joshua has had to deal with the fallout of his father’s misdeeds for the past 15 years. And Sophie, a reporter, wants to bring back the spot light to Joshua’s family’s sordid history. But as Sophie investigates, she uncovers a secret that Joshua has had to bury in order to save his family’s name but which might save his soul.
Both Joshua and Sophie are strong and relateable characters. There is quite a bit of angst especially in Joshua’s history. And there is plenty of steam! While there was certainly lust between these two, I found the jump from lust to love a bit sudden. Overall, an enjoyable read.
I received a complimentary copy from Booksprout. This is my unbiased review.