Seeing Night Reviews: {Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway} of The Frenchman by Lesley Young

The Frenchman by Lesley Young
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Series: Crime Royalty Romance Book #1
Add it on your Goodreads Shelf | Get a Copy: amazon

GENRE: Contemporary
THEME: Romance, Crime,Sports
RECEIVED: Tour

BLURB:

Fleur Smithers rarely veers off the straight and (excruciatingly) narrow. So moving to the seaport town of Toulon to live with her newfound biological mother—an inspector with the French National Police—for one year is a pretty major detour.

Son of France’s crime royalty family and international rugby star, Louis Messette, is devoted to his sport, famille and nothing else. But the saucy American he meets one night changes everything. She sparks a desire in him like no other. Possession takes root. She will do as he commands.

Bit by bit Fleur slips into the Frenchman’s realm of wanton pleasure agreeing to his one condition: that she keep their affair secret. She serves up her heart without reservation in the hub of the glittering Côte d’Azur, and the along the soulful Seine in Paris, unaware of the danger she is in. For her new lover’s “family business” will pit her against her mother, the police woman sworn to bring down the Messettes. And by then, far more than Fleur’s heart will be on the line.

REVIEW:

Rugby Hottie…check, sweet innocent heroine…check, crime family…check, momma cop and criminal daddy…check check! Bah! I’m such a hot mess after this book and it’s a good mess, I love the combo of crime and romance, especially with two totally opposite protagonist who fall head over heels for each other. Bravo Lesley Young, you totally one me over with this one, hands down!

The Frenchman follows sweet Fleur Smithers who has decided to take a year a get to know her biological mother in France. She is excited to know more about her unknown family as well as her kick butt mom who is a French inspector. While getting comfortable with her temporary home she meets and is baffled by the alpha male rugby star Louis Messette. Their first meeting doesn’t end well, but Louis sees that Fleur is someone he wants and must have. The bad thing is Louis’ family is known for their criminal background and Fleurs mother is doing everything she can to take down as many criminals as she can, including Louis’ family.

Fleur is a brave girl, leaving her Texas home to try and fit in and live in France. I’m not sure how some people can do it, but it would be such a culture shock to me, especially with the language and some people aren’t too kind when it comes to language barriers. But Fleur is determined to learn, live and love in France, as well as continue with her passion for food and blogging. She’s an easy character to adore, anyone would root for her to find happiness in connecting with her mother who in the end didn’t want to let her go. But the best tidbits are with Louis, their tension, and passion with so much angst is intense in every scene their together. My only issue is the “virgin” storyline is always used and I kind of wished it wasn’t in this book. However Young did a great job making it impactful but not dragging it on and having it be the big focus. The focus was on the romance, the mother daughter relationship and the criminal world that existed.

Louis was a force to be reckoned with, he was all alpha and all-powerful. He knew he had something special when he met Fleur and he went all in a charging to claim her. He was a bit of a mystery and made some big bad man mistakes but he just didn’t know how to handle what he was feeling with Fleur. He also has to deal with the fact his brothers don’t have the best reputation. But his love for rugby and his protectiveness of Fleur make him a good hearted man in the end.

Overall I could eat this book up, I love it so much, despite the virgin overuse in the romance world, I loved the characters, the connection of good and bad in law enforcement, and the family aspect all pulled into one. The pace was in full force from beginning to end, I never put the book down and when it was done I wanted to start all over again. I’m so excited for the second book and see what criminal royalty were going to get into next!

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Lesley Young is an award-winning Canadian journalist by day, and obsessive novelist by night. Her debut novel, Sky’s End (Soulmate Publishing, 2013) hit #9 on Amazon’s sci-fi romance paid best-seller list in its first three months of release.

Not too long after that, she started dreaming up quirky heroines who lose their hearts to extremely powerful, flawed heroes, only to find out what love really is while on a dangerous adventure abroad. She called it the Crime Royalty Romance series, and landed herself a pretty big agent at Spencerhill Associates. Never one to take the obvious path, Lesley ultimately decided to self-publish. She’s never sure who or what will pop up in her imagination next. The Irishman? The Spaniard? The Hawaiian? Anything’s possible, and she loves suggestions (or recommendations of really hot, er, talented, actors to work as a muses).

Stay in touch with her and feel free to forward on decent options at Facebook.com/LesleyYoungBooks and @LesleyYoungBks (note: Charlie Hunnam’s already taken the lead role of The American—#3 Crime Royalty Romance...coming soon!).

Find Lesley Young: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Tour Schedule

Monday, March 9th - BOOKS REVIEWS ETC & Lite-rate-ture

Tuesday, March 10th - Living In Our Own Story

Wednesday, March 11th - Book Swoon

Thursday, March 12th - Pretty Sassy Cool

Friday, March 13th - Curling Up With A Good Book

Monday, March 16th - Total Book Geek & Obsessed by Books

Tuesday, March 17th - Mythical Books

Wednesday, March 18th - My Favorite Things & Books and Things

Thursday, March 19th - Margay Leah Justice

Friday, March 20th - A Lick Of Romance