Blog Tour For Salt Kiss By Sierra Simone

𝗔𝗩𝗔𝗜𝗟𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗡𝗢𝗪

Welcome to a world of a kinky MMF retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend with age gaps, bodyguards, and antiheroes.

✓ bodyguard romance

✓ morally gray hero

✓ New Camelot but make it dark

✓ sweeping retelling

✓ forbidden romance

✓ MMF

✓ age gaps

✓ antiheroes

Blurb:

𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗿, 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:

Keep the owner of DC’s ultra-secret club safe.

Don’t think about his midnight eyes or his devil’s smile.

Don’t surrender my body to his wicked desires.

But I underestimated Mark Trevena and the power of his dark, seductive world. I underestimated the hold he’d have on me, the way I would do anything for him, anything at all. And so when he asks me to escort his soon-to-be bride home, I can only—miserably, broken-heartedly—say yes.

Isolde is nothing like I expect, however. Quiet and lonely and sharp, a girl who likes knives and God, a girl whose nightmares echo my own. One night while sailing under the cold stars, we share a reckless, tear-soaked kiss.

I’m doomed. Falling in love with Mark was one thing, but his bride too? Being in love with a husband and wife at the same time?

Torture. Misery.

A tragedy if tragedies came with bruises, sweat, sighs.

But it isn’t enough to merely fall into the forbidden. 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗮’𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴…

The Lyonesse trilogy is a queer, kinky contemporary retelling of the legend of Tristan and Isolde, set in the same world as the New Camelot series.

Readers will not have to read New Camelot to enjoy Lyonesse, although readers who enjoyed New Camelot will find all the things they loved about the trilogy here: MMF ménage, plenty of the angsty forbidden, and a sweeping retelling of a familiar story.

Available Now:

Grab your copy here → https://www.thesierrasimone.com/salt-kiss

Add to Goodreads → https://bit.ly/SaltKissGR

Salt In The Wound:

Read the Lyonesse Prequel, Salt in the Wound, for FREE

Tropes: Anti-hero. Age gap. Arranged marriage

https://www.thesierrasimone.com/saltinthewound

Note From The Author:

Let’s skip straight to the good stuff: Salt Kiss is LIVE!  Everywhere!

😈 Antiheroes! 

🔫 Hot bodyguards! 

🗡️ Pretty girls who like knives!

❤️‍🔥 Your yearly quota of horny pining (and wax play) or your money back!

This bad boy (or…good boy, I guess, if we’re talking about poor bébé Tristan) is available in paperback, ebook, and now also in audio!

You’ll be panting and also wishing you could give Tristan a hug.  (Tristan is fine, this is how he likes it, I promise.

Life is hard, and I think you deserve a possessive antihero.

Welcome to Dark Camelot – You’d think after doing this job for over a decade, I’d be used to the strange feeling of releasing a story that’s been years in the making. But it’s still unreal to have all my inchoate daydreaming and playlist-gathering and note-taking contained into a single collection of pages that other people can see.

I knew after I started American Queen that I’d probably do a Tristan and Isolde retelling at some point, because kingship and fidelity are two things I’m persistently obsessed with. 

While writing New Camelot, I knew Mark would be kinky and a Dom, I knew Lyonesse would be his club, and also the club where Ash learned the ropes (SO TO SPEAK.)  But I could still only see the barest glimpse of his story while I was writing Ash, Embry and Greer.  

Sometimes I find myself writing things out of pure id, pure instinct, hoping that later these little bits of horny grit will have turned into (hornier) pearls. That ended up being the case in American King, where I have this little moment between Mark and Ash at Lyonesse:

Mark smiled too, although his expression was still edged with hunger. “One day,” he murmured, hand gripping the heavy muscles of my thigh, “I’ll have to find a male submissive that reminds me of you. Get it out of my system.”

The moment I wrote it, I knew it would be Tristan. I knew Tristan would need to remind Mark of Ash in some way—namely in being a dark-haired hero with an unimpeachable moral code.  Isolde would appear to fuck things up, and the usual mayhem would ensue.  

Easy peasy, right?  MMF with equal parts angst and lube is basically the Sierra Simone mission statement. Except then I wrote Sinner, and then Thornchapel, and then Saint. Julie Murphy and I ate too much pie while watching schmaltzy Christmas movies and came up with the Christmas Notch series.

And as I was slowly reading versions of the Tristan and Isolde legend and ideating on Mark, the Lyonesse story shifted from a straightforward MMF to…something else. Something dark and vengeful, bound up with cheating and secrets and surrender. A story not about good people doing their messy best to love each other, but about two monsters and a hero, about twisted sin and bruising atonement. About when hurting feels too good to stop.

Salt Kiss is a love letter to anyone who’s ever preferred the villain, to those of us who like our flags carmine-red and our fictional lovers toxic as hell. This is for anyone whose favorite part of the fairy tale was trading yourself to a beast, or spinning gold for a cruel king, or bargaining with a wolf not to eat you whole.

When I started collating my notes for this story and going through seven years of scribbled lines and scene ideas and character sketches, a couple things became clear:⁣

1. This story was going to be different from New Camelot. Like a lot different.⁣

This is the legend’s fault!!! The story of Tristan and Isolde is fffff*cked up and it’s dark and it’s raw. ⁣

⁣There’s some speculation that the story of Tristan and Isolde is older even than the stories of King Arthur and his court—which means that deep in the Tristan and Isolde narrative DNA is some bleak and edgy Celtic shit. ⁣

And I believe it! Because Camelot is a story about messy love, about loyalty and courage, about good people. There are no good people at Mark’s court. They lie, they cheat, and they kill. ⁣

The table is laid with power and lust. The throne is held with cruelty. ⁣You cannot trust the king.

Which brings me to my second problem…⁣

2. I have it bad for Mark. Like really bad. ⁣

He’s a morally gray killer with a good watch and perfect hair. He’s cold and mysterious and has no qualms about using Isolde to get what he wants.⁣

He’s made up of secrets and murder and riding crops.⁣

Also he smells nice.⁣

Anyway, I just couldn’t stop with these two, and then there was the quick lil’ cameo from a certain kinky president, and then of course there was the ending when we get to a certain pouty bodyguard…⁣

This is a story about danger and hunger and obsession, and the games we play for power. This is a story about falling in love with the people you should absolutely not fall in love with…⁣

…and about how the most perilous thing ever to befall you would be them loving you back.

Welcome to Dark Camelot. Don’t trust the king.

⁣Sierra.

My 5* Review:

Salt Kiss is book one in Sierra Simone’s new Lyonesse series. Be prepared to be captivated by this very steamy bodyguard / boss romance between Mark Trevena and Tristan Thomas. It is a complex story involving a complicated love triangle, unrequited love and a hint of revenge. Will you be seduced by the devious Mark Trevena just like Tristan and Isolde? Could you fight the temptation or resist the desire he conjures up so easily? 

After reading the excellent prequel Salt In The Wound, I was on tender hooks throughout this book just waiting for Mark to show his true colours. The prologue got me intrigued as we are introduced to Mark’s family. He has a twin sister Melody, who is the deputy director of the CIA and they are attending the wedding of their sister Blanche to Ricker Thomas, Tristan’s father. There is obviously far more to this story than I first thought because Mark and Melody discuss if his plans have changed and she warns him not to do anything that would hurt their sister. 

Tristan is struggling after leaving the army and trying to adapt to civilian life. He is haunted by his past and suffers from PTSD. He has has no idea what to do until his uncle-in-law Mark, offers him to be his bodyguard. His father warns him Mark is an an evil man, an assassin and spy but he takes the job. He is shocked and fascinated by the club and learns about the different types of  kink. Mark has a way about him that excites and intrigues Tristan but also unnerves him and unsettles him because he gets obsessed and attached very quickly.

The author cleverly draws you in and at the start I could understand Tristan’s confusion and worries. Mark plays on his inexperience and insecurities. I can’t work out if what is happening between them is real or if Mark is manipulating him like he did Isolde. It all starts with a kiss between them and escalates from there. Tristan feels ashamed of wanting his boss and is scared over what his feelings will lead to. One moment Mark is a charming club host then changes to a controlled dominant with absolute power. He tells Tristan he craves him and teaches him about sex and being a submissive. He totally corrupts him even though he explains it will complicate things in the future. He has lived through war so can he survive Mark?

A trip away for the pair is very enlightening as the author teases us with snippets about Mark’s past. There’s an incident at the club which brings some suspense into the story but also brings a shocking revelation for Tristan. He has let Mark use him for his pleasure but never expected him to be so cruel. He can’t understand why Mark has kept this secret from him and then asks him to do something so hurtful. Can he find the courage to do it when he could lose Mark. 

We follow Tristan as he goes to collect Mark’s fiancé Isolde from Ireland and bring her back for the wedding. The moment he sees her every thought about her goes out the window and he’s totally taken aback. She tells him about the arranged marriage, her lost dreams and how she wants to hate Mark for making her believe what they had was real. They have both been affected and manipulated by him. The author now gives us another love story as the pair fight their attraction to each other, even though it’s very dangerous for both of them. Loved seeing a different side to Tristan as he changes from submissive to dominant. 

What will Mark do if he finds out, has he set Tristan up to fail by telling him to step into his footsteps and do what he’d do? Can they keep their relationship as secret or do they end it? Poor Tristan ends up loving two people and realistically can’t have either of them. I still can’t stop trying to work out Mark’s plan and constantly wonder what he is hoping to achieve. Why did he choose Tristan and what will happen to him and Isolde when his plan comes to fruition? In the prologue Melody passes a comment that stuck with me about Mark suffering a loss and she understands how he could be looking for revenge? Is this what is behind his plan? Book two can’t come quick enough especially after the shocking warning Tristan gets when he arrives back with Isolde.