Tyrant: King Part 2 (The King Series) Paperback – August 14, 2015

Tyrant is book two of the King Series. If you haven’t read King (Book 1), I highly advice you skip this review because the review of book 2 may spoil some of the storyline of book 1 for you. And trust me… you do not want that to happen. This series is a wild ride, filled with hidden secrets and shockers at every turn. I am now convinced that T.M. Frazier is a little bit twisted but that’s okay because it makes for extremely great reading for you and me!Now that you’ve been warned… let’s move on! Tyrant (and King) is a dark romance that picks up where King left off. If you all remember we were left hanging with our mouths hitting the floor, cursing at our kindle. It’s always great when an author makes us look like a crazy person, yelling at an inanimate object. So, now we’re all ready for some answers, right?! Don’t stress, you will get them. You won’t see them coming but they will come! You’ll even learn some things you didn’t know you were waiting for.King! Oh, sexy and dangerous King. Our dark leading man is an unexpected hero for Doe. The rough around the edges King of the Causeway is everything we could want in a book boyfriend; save the clean cut, boy next store types for someone else! King is a man who plays life by his own rules; this may mean he breaks a few (okay more than a few) laws but in his rule book the bond he has with the people he cares for is important to him. Mess with him or the people he cares about… well he just may hunt you down. Strong bonds, whether it is between love interests or friends, is one of my favorite things to read about in a story and this one has that, tenfold.Pup, Doe, Ray… She’s a woman with a lot of names but not a lot of memories. She doesn’t need her memories to tell her that she loves King and that the house on stilts is her home though. Doe is left trying to pick up the pieces of the life she can’t remember and the life she longs for with King. She’s not sure who to trust and what’s real or fake. She’s mostly left in a house alone with people she doesn’t remember and no answers to why she left, why no one went looking for her, and how she feels about these people from her life prior to becoming Doe.We’ve all seen the FB status, reviews, and messages of people cursing T.M.’s for the fate that fell upon Preppy and Mrs. Frazier finds a really great and clever way to still feel his presence in the story. I saw a lot of people hoping that Preppy wasn’t really dead but I think from book 1 it was fairly obvious that he was. So with this I don’t feel like I am giving you a spoiler even though I did see people were still holding out hope. He’s gone but he is definitely still very much a part of King and Doe’s story. T.M. found a way to keep the vibrant personality of Preppy alive; his presence is still deeply felt.Dark is light, light is dark, good is bad, and bad is good. Confused? Well you won’t be if you read Tyrant. Basically expect the unexpected and you never know what someone’s truth really is until they expose it. It’s part of the excitement and twists and turns of the series. I am so beyond glad I found these books and I would strongly suggest EVERYONE read it. It doesn’t follow a standard rule book of romance story line, it’s powerful, engaging, VERY steamy, and for me just the right amount of dark.Tyrant exceeded my expectations by far and this was a story I was waiting like an addict for a fix to go live. The minute I got my greedy fingers on it I dove in and needless to say that night was an ‘up all night’ type of thing. T.M. Frazier has become an author I will automatically pre-order, one click, etc. the moment these options become available on a new release of hers. She is wickedly satisfying, bringing about a story that bends the rules, makes you think, re-think, and over think, sends shivers down your spine from the evil and steamy in equal measures, and creates a story you have to LOVE and crave more of. Her leading men hold a royal spot in the area of book boyfriends, her evil villains are twisted and depraved, her stories are original, engaging, and dark but heartfelt, and the bonds she writes about in her books are enviable to every reader. Tyrant and the King Series gets 5 stars from me across the board.

The Greek physician, Hippocrates is said to have been the originator of the expression “desperate times call for desperate measures”. What does this have to do with anything? I am beginning this review with a little bit of self-disclosure, self-deprecation and self-flagellation in a sense (not the good kind though 😊 ). Thank you for your indulgence.Circumstances have called me away from my beloved reading and review writing and I was quite frankly uncomfortable with myself. I asked myself over and over why does it matter if you review a book or not? After all, in the overall scheme of things… my opinion isn’t really that significant and I certainly derive no monetary value from the practice. I am rather poorer financially because of it. I purchase most of all that I read.Getting away from the practice made returning harder and harder to come back to it. But the relief of romantic escape and enjoyment of a good story with well-penned characters that I find between the pages of a book and an author’s creative mind needs to be acknowledged…so I have decided to trim the art a bit and become a little less formal about my reviewing…these are my desperate measures. I just “gotta” offer praise or comment…even it only echoes back or spins out aimlessly into the ether.Now onto the important stuff:Tyrant is the continuation of Brantley King and Doe aka Pup or Ramie’s story which began in King. It is perfectly titled! A “tyrant” can be described as charismatic, charming, but also calculating and cruel. This personality can have a certain insouciance to convention, rules and even morality. Sounds like the beginning of the description a beloved character in a contemporary romance. Those alpha-male bad boys we love to hate…and fall head over heels in love with because the feisty heroine is going to wrestle and breach his walled-off heart.Well as to who is the tyrant and who is not as clear cut as you would assume as you begin to read. This story is cleverly done and I loved it. I found the protagonist, King, to be an amazingly sexy dirty talker. That his words came from Doe’s perspective as hearing them added tremendously to the impact of not only his words but his beyond sexy maneuvers. OK so T. M. Frazier is seriously "mama jammer" when it comes to writing erotica…unique…super-hot and inventively dirty. This guy is a dirty pleasure that warms your heart.I appreciated how Doe grew into her character and her memory of the past. She is an appropriate tough girl with an enticing degree of innocence. Clever of the writer to have had King tattoo across her back a paraphrased version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote from This Side of Paradise : “I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again." along with his name somewhat obscured. It is a familiar longing…anyone past their 20’s can relate. And in relation to the dynamic between Doe and King…who she was before and after knowing him truly as an innocent… the sentiment in the quote selected by King for her is a delightfully…what I would call…“thick” ponderance.I promise you who love the dangerous dirty…off center…alpha male character and meaningful love story with suspense…a bit of the supernatural…some appropriate humor…this duet delivers. So much so…despite the current crazy constraints on my real life, I had to read it to the finish and was compelled to return to reviewing.(Thank you for indulging me in my temporary autobiographical angst. 🤣)Favorite quote:“…I could practically see the flames dancing in King’s burning gaze as it penetrated my [expletive deleted] soul. It couldn’t have been the way his hard lines of muscle rose and fell with his quick breaths, stretching the fabric of his already tight wife-beater across his chest. Panting. He was panting. We stood like that for what seemed like an eternity, daring the other to make the first move, frozen in the moment. I didn’t feel one thing for him. I felt everything. Anger, confusion, love…lust, and it all swam around us in the water as we stared each other down.”

The King series book 2. This book will take you there, from page one all the way to the end. You think you're ready, but you have no clue how far this will go. Extra WTF craziness, high angst, dramati, and gut-wrenching twists. So much is going on and continues from book 1. Lots of questions were answered, and yet so many more will pop up. Ye, you will need tissues. Unbelievable action that will have you grasping your pearls. I'm reading on cause dang it, I love me some Bear. I love Preppy more.