Blog Tour Review: Defy (Sinners of Saint #0.5) by L. J. Shen

Title: Defy
Series: Sinners of Saints #0.5
Author: L.J Shen
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Received an egalley to participate in the blog tour and give an honest review.
Release: February 3, 2017

BLURB:

Defy is a smutty, insta-love, insta-lust short novella. Defy is a prequel to Vicious (Sinners of Saint #1). It is recommended, but unnecessary, to read Defy before reading Vicious.

First included in Hot for Teacher Anthology: 19 Stories Filled with Lust and Love.

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’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.

Buy Links: ONLY $0.99

Amazon US || Amazon UK || Amazon CA || Amazon AU

In the Series:

Vicious (Sinners of Saints #1)
Amazon | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon AU

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Author Bio:

L.J. Shen resides in sunny California with her husband, son, chubby cat and wild, wild dreams.

Her passion is to write badass stories, sushi, UFC and her awesome family and friends (not in this order, though. Obviously, sushi comes before writing. Oh, and also the family part.)

She spend the first half of her twenties traveling the world and is now paying all the fun with extra shifts in front of her MacBook. Feel free to contact her on her Facebook page. She loves to hear from her readers.

Connect with L.J. Shen:
Amazon | Pinterest | Email | Newsletter Sign up | Facebook
 Twitter | Goodreads |  Website | Instagram

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REVIEW

As soon as I read the first book in the Sinners of Saint series, VICIOUS, I was immediately curious about Jamie and Melody! Then I saw that L. J. Shen had written a novella for them, and I was extremely excited to read it!! :D

In VICIOUS, we see little bits of Jamie and Mel, but we only see snippets of before and after their relationship starts. We don't get to see any of those in-between parts, or see how it develops, so I was really looking forward to reading about it in DEFY, and it definitely didn't disappoint!  

Having already read VICIOUS, I was familiar with L. J. Shen's writing, so I was definitely expecting there to be sex in DEFY, especially after reading the steamy teasers for it! Once I started DEFY though, I was seriously blown away. VICIOUS was sexy, but it was drawn out and tense before the tension breaks. DEFY, on the other hand, was carnal and so, so dirty almost right away! Also, Jamie is probably one of the dirtiest, if not the absolute dirtiest, talkers that I've experienced in a romance book, and I have to admit, I dug it. I really, really did. It definitely suited him. ;)

  
I don't have issues reading books that are a bit taboo myself, but I know others don't necessarily feel the same, so I will acknowledge that DEFY does feature a pretty taboo relationship. Since it's detailed right in the description, I don't see it as a spoiler, so I'll just go out and say it, Melody happens to be Jamie's teacher. It's definitely taboo for them to be together, but I will point out that Jamie is 18, so it's not actually illegal...just morally questionable. What I found interesting though was that since Melody is the one who should theoretically have the power in their relationship as the teacher, you expect her to be the one who who is influencing Jamie, but that couldn't be further from the truth...I won't detail it to much because I think that will definitely spoil things, but Jamie was definitely the one taking charge. That's probably not surprising considering I've already mentioned how he likes to talk dirty though. :P 

As I mentioned, after reading VICIOUS I was super excited for DEFY, and I really, really enjoyed it! I have to admit that I didn't love it as much as VICIOUS though. I absolutely loved Jamie and Mel together, and really loved getting to see more of the Sinners of Saint book-verse, but I was left wanting a bit more from DEFY. My friend, Patty, and I discussed it a bit, and after talking I came to the conclusion that there were a couple of things that I loved in VICIOUS that I was missing in DEFY. The first was that VICIOUS follows both Vicious and Emilia's POVs, but in DEFY, we only get Mel's POV. I really loved Jamie, and I would have absolutely LOVED to have gotten some of his perspective. Second, I really just loved that we got to see more in VICIOUS. DEFY was a novella, so I did expect it to be shorter, but I still would've liked to see more moments where Mel and Jamie were together, or even more moments with Jamie and his friends. If we'd had Jamie's POV, I think we would've gotten more of both those kinds of moments. Now, I'm holding out hope that L. J. Shen will release some kind of deleted scene or maybe a bonus chapter from Jamie's POV...I would absolutely LOVE that! 

To sum it up, I really, really enjoyed DEFY! While I didn't love it as much as VICIOUS, it was still a wonderful read, and I loved getting to see Jamie and Mel together! DEFY was sexy, steamy, and surprisingly very sweet at times, too. I loved getting to see more of the Sinners of Saint series, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from L. J. Shen in the future! If you're a fan of sexy stories that are a little taboo, and aren't just all fluff, then you should definitely check out the Sinners of Saint series!

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What do you think?
Does DEFY sound like something you'd enjoy?
Has anyone else started reading this series yet?
Anyone else as obsessed as I am? ;)