Sarah

The news is just a press release of something we already knew, right? Or was there something new in there that I missed?  GiGi, Gideon told Eva that Anne came on to him but he was not interested in her until he learned who she's married to. Then he f*c ked her, purely to hurt her husband. Gideon was with Anne more than once, until she was ready to leave her husband for him. Then he tossed her back. I'm pretty sure that's how Terry knew about his wife's affair. And, Gideon told Eva, Terry loves his wife, probably as much as Gideon loves Eva, so he's willing to forgive her for the affair and blame it all on Gideon. From this I surmise that Terry and Anne are still together.  As far as I can tell, we don't know for sure whether or not Anne knows what her brother did to Gideon (and why Hugh killed himself). All we have is Gideon's perspective, and he doesn't believe that she knows. He believes that her husband has protected her from the knowledge.  I think Anne came onto Gideon because she was attracted to him. He hurt her badly and she's out for revenge.

 I think she's lovely.Â

 I'm sure that was Anne. I'm sure it was her, too, with Cary at the end of Entwined with You. She's dangerous. . . . a woman scorned.

 That sounds right to me.  Entwined with You (nook version): P. 84: "Deanna happened to be covering an event where Anne Lucas was making me uncomfortable. I used Deanna to keep Anne from approaching me." (This doesn't guarantee it was during his affair with Anne, but I suspect it was at least not too long afterward.) P. 189: "[Lucas] loves Anne. Maybe as much as I love you. Enough to overlook her cheating and cover up for her brother to spare her the truth. Or embarrassment." (Gideon doesn't think Anne knows what her brother did. Terry Lucas blames Gideon for the affair, not his wife.)

I agree that Alexis Bledel looks like a perfect Anastasia . . . except I just don't see her as 22 years old anymore. And not just any 22-year-old, but a very innocent, naive 22-year-old. Right after Gilmore Girls she would have been perfect (in my opinion) but she's about to turn 32 and I'm not sure she's perfect for the part anymore. That said, I've enjoyed the fan videos starring her. We'll see!

 Responding to just one little point - I don't think it's been that long. I suspect we're talking about a matter of months, maybe a year. I think Deanna's grudge is still fairly new - if she'd been out to trash Gideon for longer than that, I think we'd probably have heard about it/seen evidence of it and Gideon wouldn't have been surprised when Deanne started hanging out at Eva's apartment building. And since Gideon used Deanna to brush off Anne, that suggests that his affair with Anne wasn't so long ago, either. I think all this happened after Corinne. (Corinne was his first lover and there's nothing to suggest he cheated on her.) And I think Dr. Lucas (the pediatrician) was protecting Dr. Lucas (the psychiatrist) by covering up for her brother. I don't think Dr. Lucas (the psychiatrist) ever knew what her brother did to Gideon.

I agree about the voice . . . it's my biggest problem with the audiobook.

I should clarify that I don't mind a bit of slang and I loved the Scottishisms in On Dublin Street. My family has Scottish heritage and we spent a couple of weeks in Scotland a few years ago, so the book brought back some very pleasant memories.  "Your" vs. "you're" mistakes, however, drive me crazy. Just one of my annoying pet peeves.Â

Based on your recommendations, I'm reading On Dublin Street right now. I'm enjoying it. My only complaint is with the grammatical mistakes. Number/amount, she/her, me/I, etc. I wish the editors had caught more of these. (My one complaint about Sylvia Day's Renegade Angels series is that she keeps saying there are "less than 200 Sentinels" or "less than 200 Fallen" remaining. Fewer! Fewer than 200!)

I'm thinking Gideon can control the situation somehow. After all, he managed Nathan!

If you're reading to escape gloom & doom, you should definitely avoid J. K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy! I just finished it last night and it was a kick in the stomach. Well written for sure, but very very very sad.

 I think this news is already out. Eva has been well-photographed and identified by the press by name and as "the significant woman in Gideon's life." And she was outed as the inspiration for "Golden" at a press event, while standing next to Brett. In fact, she was briefly interviewed on camera about it! We know that Deanna (at least) covered that event and knows who Eva is. So if it's not hit the news yet, it surely will. (For such a private person, Eva handles all this publicity with good grace. I would not be so generous.)

I'm really enjoying this series. Thank you!

I wonder how many of the books on the master list are hot/open door/explicit (like Crossfire) and how many are more traditional romance novels. I've noticed that there's a lot of variation, even within Sylvia Day's books. Some of the Renegade Angels books are more explicit than others.  GiGi, I mentioned that I read the newest Anita Blake book. I'm not really sure how to explain that series. It's by Laurell K. Hamilton, who writes two series: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, and Merry.Gentry. Both series are contemporary and paranormal. The Anita Blake books (there are currently 22) have been marketed different ways. They are mysteries. They've been sold as fantasy and horror. There's explicit violence, and, starting midway through the series, increasingly explicit sex. They are not romance novels; the arc of each novel doesn't follow the love story. Hamilton's books are bestsellers, but the writing, well . . . I've heard similar criticisms to Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc. It can get a little clunky and sometimes the writing distracts from the story. But Hamilton's a storyteller who has created an interesting world that I find compelling. The Anita books are about humans, vampires, wereanimals, zombies, etc. all living in a contemporary America.  The Merry Gentry books are more sexual right from the beginning, but also violent, and each novel also follows a mystery arc. That series is about ancient European courts of faerie relocated to contemporary America.  http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/

Thanks, Sheens and GiGi.  GiGi, I'll write about Anita Blake over in the books thread.

Hello, all! I was off on vacation for a few weeks - two weeks of a 3500 mile road trip to Yellowstone with little mobile/internet reception - followed by a family reunion just a few days later. It was SO MUCH FUN, though, in part because of these books.  My husband listens to audiobooks while he mows, runs, and - wait for it - drives. Usually he listens to technical books involving his areas of expertise or business philosophy books. But to humor me, on our big trip, he started listening to Bared To You. I reread right along with him, so that we could discuss the novel in sync. When he finished Bared To You, he rolled right into Reflected In You. He's enjoying them, and I'm really enjoying the . . . discussions . . . we've had as a result of our informal book club!  Much appreciation, Sylvia Day!  I haven't read her historicals, but on vacation (in addition to Gone Girl, Casual Vacancy, Anita Blake, and other books I mentioned in the Other Books thread) I got hooked on Day's Renegade Angels series. I can't wait for more . . . but that series is on hold until after Crossfire so I'll have to just keep waiting for both. Â

 I agree. This would also be (as I know I've said here before, sorry!) a good way to introduce the secret marriage, since Eva can't be compelled to testify against her husband. But the big downside is that the Crossfire series doesn't skip forward in time, and everything so far has happened in a matter of weeks (over the first three books). Surely a major murder trial of one of the world's richest men would involve months of preparation.  It would drive me crazy to try to keep this secret forever . . . but Eva is very discreet, as is Gideon. Perhaps they really could keep something this important between just the two of them without it eating them alive (as it would me).

I don't think that Dr. Anne Lucas has treated either Elizabeth Vidal or Corrinne Giroux. Gideon has spent too much time with Corrinne talking about her depression and medication; I can't believe her doctor hasn't come up at all. Mr. Control would definitely have noticed if his ex-fiance mentioned Dr. Lucas, and her name would be on any prescription bottles.  And Gideon's abuse probably started about 18 years ago, when Anne Lucas must have been in her early-to-mid-twenties. That's too young for her to have been the more experienced psychiatrist supervising a psychiatrist-in-training. Psychiatrists are physcians who go to university (~4 years), medical school (4 years), and then through a residency program (~3 years) before sitting for board certification exams. (And that's putting aside the unlikelihood of one sibling training another directly like that. And the unlikelihood of Gideon not remembering her/not having looked up who she was.)

(Re: earlier comment about why many men tend to disparage these books) I think some men might be threatened by novels like these, fearing that they might lead to . . . unrealistic expectations. I mean, gorgeous, young, self-made billionaire with an 8-pack, huge c o c k, and mad skillz in the sack. What's not to worry about?!  On a semi-related note, I mentioned earlier that I downloaded the audio version of Bared to You to my husband's phone. He obligingly started listening, and so far the results have been most gratifying!

<oops, wrong thread.>

SME, sorry, I slipped into some writer-speak there. I was using "narrator" to refer to the character from whose point of view we see the story. So by that definition, Eva is the "narrator" of the first three Crossfire novels. She proves herself to be an unreliable narrator when we hear her saying that she's not very attractive because she's so hot and sweaty but random guys at a club keep coming up and telling her how attractive she is, etc. Her self-esteem issues get in the way of how she perceives events, and that alerts us/readers to be on the lookout for that, to not necessarily trust what she's saying/thinking is objectively true.  I agree that the story could still have some mystery with alternating points of view. It might start to feel gimicky - if we were seeing some things from Gideon's POV but he never explained the big holes that Eva so desperately wanted to see. But after reading these three novels, I trust Day's plan for this story. I'm sure if she does Gideon's POV it will be better than I'm imagining it. Until then, I'm perfectly OK keeping him a bit mysterious.  (FWIW, I liked that all of FSOG was from Ana's POV with just a peek into Christian's head at the end, looking into scenes we'd already seen from Ana's perspective.)  And I agree with what you said a couple of pages ago about men and women being socialized to express ourselves differently, but that we can all grow and change and open up more.Â

 Absolutely. Gideon asked Eva if she was on birth control that first Saturday afternoon in her apartment. And we know he always used condoms. So I'm thinking: female birth control + condoms + spermicide = Mr. Control always made very sure there would be no unintended pregnancies.  Gideon said several times that there was no one else for him from the moment he saw Eva, that his life began the day he met her, etc. But at the beginning, with Eva, he was mostly following his usual patterns (even if his desire was more intense and he had to pursue her more than usual). The night she left him at the hotel, that's when he really changed, in my opinion. He went after her, he took her to his apartment, and he had s e x with her without using a condom. All very big things that he never did!

I just got to this scene in my reread.  In the bedside table were condoms, lubricant, and spermicide. In a dresser dresser drawer were sex toys. Gideon later admitted that he took women to the hotel room twice a week, on average. And while he usually used toys, having intercourse was the exception rather than the rule. So it's not that he never did it, just that it wasn't every time.  Aha! Nook makes it so easy to search. Entwined with You, P. 28 "I took women to the hotel, but I didn't always nail them. It was the exception when I did."

I think Natasha Henstridge would make a lovely Monica. But wait! She's only my age! (It wouldn't be unheard of in Hollywood for a woman to play "mother" to someone only 10-15 years younger.)

We did! And it went poorly. We'd practiced and taken lessons, but never with quite as much skirt as my wedding dress had. My brand-new husband kept stepping on my skirt every time he stepped foreward. There's a hilarious photograph of me grimacing. I still love the song, though Paul and I are no Gideon/Cary and Eva.Â