It’s another gritty and emotionally intense read, an epic romance between two characters who readers have come to see as family, with this new release set in the world of the Satan’s Knights MC. Keep reading to get a tempting taste of Blackout: Book One by Janine Infante Bosco, along with my impressions of it, then definitely add it to your bookshelf. In honor of this first installment in the Leather and Lace Duet make sure to fill out the form below for the chance to win a Kate Spade necklace too!
After years of struggling with alcoholism and drug abuse, I got clean and put my best foot forward. I became the man worthy of Lacey Parrish’s love and made the girl with the sad brown eyes my wife. But I’m not the only one in our marriage with demons. Diagnosed a manic depressive, Lacey struggles daily with her mind, never willing to succumb to the stigma of mental illness.
The odds have always been stacked against us, but the stakes have never been this high.
Pregnant with our child, Lacey is forced to choose between her mind and the baby we wished for.
I can take pain, but I can’t take hers.
Helpless and at the mercy of her illness, I turn to my past.
It’s always our favorite sins that do us in.
Leather.
Lace.
Me.
Her.
Suffering through hell, hoping love is enough for us to survive one more blackout.
EXCERPT:
Learning our baby might be born with a heart defect if Lacey remains on her medication was the final card to fall. Now, all that’s left is a mountain of debris and I don’t know how to drudge through any of it.
“Just go,” Lacey says, keeping her back to me as she fills a water glass. It’s the third time she’s poured herself a refill and I wonder if she’s wishing it was something harder. God knows I’m fixing for something.
Scotch.
Whiskey.
Tequila.
I’d fucking drink turpentine right now.
“I’m not going anywhere, Lace, that’s not how this works,” I tell her, bracing my hands on the kitchen island. We both know what happens if I leave, the problem is she’s too wrapped up in her grief to realize she’s sending me straight to hell because if I do as she says, I’ll either go to a bar or drive out to Queens to score some drugs.
“Stop pretending like either of us know how anything works,” she hisses, dropping her glass into the sink. There’s truth to her words. A truth we’ve both been too fucking naïve to accept.
She turns to me, crossing her arms over her chest as she gives me her dark eyes.
“Every time we take a step forward, we take three back. We’re a fucking joke, Blackie. Two lost souls who will never get it right and now, we’re bringing a baby into the world. If that’s not fucking selfish, I don’t know what is.”
“You didn’t think it was selfish the first night I came in you,” I fire back, slamming my fist against the counter. My anger gets the best of me and I lose my patience. Everything, all the shit with the club, Jack’s failing mind, my addictions, and her fucking illness, it all comes crashing to the surface.
“I told you that night, I was worried about you getting pregnant and not because I thought we didn’t deserve to be parents or because I didn’t want to have a baby. I was concerned for you, for your fucking mental health but you told me there were people like you all over the world having kids.”
“People like me,” she repeats.
Ignoring the hurt in her eyes, I continue my rant.
“You fucking promised me you’d get in touch with your shrink. You swore you’d tell her we were trying for a baby—“
“I didn’t know I’d get pregnant so quickly,” she spats.
“You pissed on your fucking word,” I shout over her.
As soon as the words leave my lips, I regret them, but there’s no taking them back.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe I should’ve fucking left.
At least then I wouldn’t have to watch the painful expression fill her pretty face.
It’s funny.
I can take pain, but I can’t take hers.
Exhaling, I swipe a hand over my face and bow my head.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Lace.”
“Don’t be sorry for expressing how you truly feel,” she spats, furiously wiping at the tear that escapes the corner of her eye.
“I don’t know what the fuck I feel,” I admit, gripping the edge of the counter again. Frustration claws at me as I keep my eyes pinned to her. “All I know is the last thing I want to see is you lose yourself to your maker. I don’t understand why you won’t just talk to the doctor before you make a decision.”
“And I don’t know what’s so hard to comprehend. You know, it’s my body, therefore it’s ultimately my decision, but it’s our baby, Blackie. It’s not a dream anymore. It’s not a what if—I’m pregnant and I can’t understand how you would risk our child being born with a heart defect.”
Her words slap me in the face, and I clench my jaw, trying to keep my emotions in check. There shouldn’t be a choice. We shouldn’t have to choose between Lacey’s mental stability and bringing a healthy baby into the world, but once again life’s got us by the balls. No one gets a say in the cards they’re dealt. You get what you get. You either play your fucking hand or you fold. Some people, go all in. They risk everything they got and pray they don’t lose. Others, they’re more cautious and maybe that’s because they’ve lost in the past. Maybe, just maybe they want to hang onto what they got and don’t want to press their luck.
I already visit one wife in a cemetery.
I don’t want to visit Lacey in the fucking psych ward.
“Let me ask you something,” I say hoarsely, pausing to swallow the lump suffocating me. “Have you thought about what happens after the baby is born? More specifically, have you taken a fucking second to think about what happens to you?”
She doesn’t answer me as she diverts her eyes away and I take the opportunity to paint her a picture.
“The baby is born, and she’s perfect. She’s got a full head of dark hair and the prettiest brown eyes either of us has ever seen. She’s everything we dreamed of and yet, I’m the only one living the dream. You don’t look at her the way I do. You don’t hold her and feel the same things I do. To you, she just exists, and you don’t understand why. You forget the sacrifices you made bringing her into the world. You forget the dreams you had for her. You forget it all.”
“Stop,” she orders, balling her fists at her side.
“No,” I growl. “I won’t stop. You won’t get to experience the joys of motherhood, Lacey. You won’t hold her in the middle of the night when she wakes. You won’t get to watch her grow or teach her how to walk. You won’t even give a fuck because you and your maker will be one. She wins and your child, the precious baby you fought to bring into this world, she fucking loses.”
Suddenly, Lacey spins around and takes the glass from the sink. Before I realize what she’s doing, she turns back to me and throws it across the room. It misses me by an inch and crashes against the floor.
“Get the fuck out of here,” she cries.
When I don’t move, she advances towards me and stands across the other end of the island.
“I want you to leave!”
“I’ll go,” I tell her. “But I won’t fucking apologize for a word of what I just said. Children are born with birth defects every day, Lace. Sometimes the doctors catch them early on and sometimes they don’t find out until the baby is already in the mother’s arms. That don’t make them broken or any less loveable.”
MY IMPRESSIONS OF THIS BOOK:
Having just finished reading this book I must admit to feeling drained. I feel lost and heartbroken for these characters as they’ve fought for each other through the years and just as HEA seems in reach things again get upended. It’s a reflection of the talent that Ms. Bosco has in spades that has so deeply rooted these characters into my being and that has me now waiting with bated breath to see what happens next.
Dominic “Blackie” Petra’s life has never been easy as the Vice President of the Satan’s Knights MC. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster ride full of blood, danger, feelings of unworthiness, along with trying to deal with an addiction to drugs and alcohol. The moment his story took center stage I knew it would be hard to read, and it was, as none of his low points were sugarcoated. It was a tense read, but well worth it as it gave him his soul mate...Lacey Parrish, daughter of his Club’s president. Theirs was a romance meant to be and since they got together the glimpses we’ve seen of them have been happy. Chinks in their armor started to appear though in Ms. Bosco’s previous release Parrish and that’s where this story takes place. It runs parallel to the action in that story, giving us deeper insight into all of Blackie’s fears in taking over the club and becoming a father. These insights were raw and had me aching for him. For so long he’s tried to feel worthy of Lacey’s love and this story shows just how low his self-esteem is as his thoughts got quite dark at times. With these dark feelings also came great feelings of joy with his impending fatherhood that brought a smile to my face while I rooted for him to overcome his demons and allow himself to be happy. Blackie’s a compelling hero, rough around the edges, but with a big heart. He’s devoted to his club, throws himself in front of a bullet for each brother, and this often puts him at war with his love for Lacey as he’s slowly starting to realize how hard it is to balance the roles of club VP and husband. Everything comes to a head by the final page as Blackie once again sacrifices himself, leaving readers with their jaw on the floor and screaming right along with Lacey.
Lacey Parrish knows how hard it can be living with someone part of an MC. Her father, the president of the Satan’s Knights MC, has taken her on an emotional ride full of worry and fear and despite that their bond couldn’t be any stronger. Suffering from the same mental illness as him has taken her to some very dark places, bonded her and her father in a sad yet supportive way, and taken her places where only Blackie has been able to bring her back from. She’s been in love with him since she was young and with their marriage all her dreams seemed to be coming true, but recent events within the club has marred her happiness and with recently becoming pregnant she’s also putting her own health in danger. She’s battling her own demons, just like her father’s current losing battle, and it has her questioning Blackie’s devotion to her and left her struggling to keep those thoughts at bay. Through it all though Lacey’s remains a strong-willed heroine, trying to be strong and supportive to the clearly hurting Blackie. She’s a forgiving soul too with his relapses, but impending motherhood forces her to be even stronger as her and Blackie’s future takes an even more dramatic turn that ends this story with a heart-pounding conclusion.
Ms. Bosco’s again left me in awe as she took me on a raw and unvarnished journey into the darkness of addiction and the struggle of having a mental illness. It’s a journey that pulled no punches and pulled me into the lives of Blackie and Lacey wholeheartedly where each hurt and each happiness felt like my own. Having read Parrish I knew where things were going regarding the club and their legal troubles, but told from this different viewpoint took things in an even more emotional direction. Alongside all the intense issues surrounding Blackie and Lacey was a sizzling connection that made for numerous erotically-charged encounters that deepened their bond each time things got tough. While these interludes were scorching they were also a reaffirmation that pulled at my heartstrings, a desperation to keep the outside world at bay. Along with this unforgettable main couple came an equally entertaining cast of secondary characters, the men and women who inhabit this gritty world. Blackie’s bond with his MC brothers gave us moments of humor, especially in parenting discussions with Riggs, along with blows to his self-esteem as he felt like he was disappointing them by not rising to the heights Jack Parrish planned for him. From the first page to the last readers will find this an epic love story, one just starting to be told, that takes us from the lowest of lows to moments of true joy. It’s a romance full of heart and soul and I applaud Ms. Bosco for her gritty storytelling that left me utterly captivated and rooting for Blackie and Lacey to find their true HEA.
My rating for this is an A+
*I got this book from the author for review in exchange for my honest opinion.
THE NEXT INSTALLMENT IN THE LEATHER AND LACE DUET...
BLACKOUT: BOOK TWO
Releases on May 6th
AUTHOR INFO:
Janine Infante Bosco lives in New York City, she has always loved reading and writing. When she was thirteen, she began to write her own stories and her passion for writing took off as the years went on. At eighteen, she even wrote a full screenplay with dreams of one day becoming a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Janine writes emotionally charged novels with an emphasis on family bonds, strong willed female characters, and alpha male men who will do anything for the women they love. She loves to interact with fans and fellow avid romance readers like herself.
She is proud of her success as an author and the friendships she’s made in the book community but her greatest accomplishment to date would be her two sons Joseph and Paul.
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