Sins of Sevin

By Penelope Ward

Release Date: September 21, 2015

Buy – Amazon / Amazon UK / ITunes / B & N / Kobo

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of Stepbrother Dearest, comes a new forbidden STANDALONE romance.

What happens when the one you want is the only one you can’t have?

My name is Sevin.

Homeschooled and sheltered by my ultra-religious family, I was always taught that lust was a sin.

Elle was the girl who’d been carefully chosen for me.

After a long-distance courtship, I’d be moving into her family’s guesthouse so that we could get to know each other in the months before the wedding.

Boundaries were set: no inappropriate touching, no kissing, no sex before marriage.

I’d accepted those rules and my fate.

Until I met the one I wanted to sin with.

That was when restraint became a problem…especially since the one wasn’t Elle.

It was her sister, Evangeline.

You know what they say about best laid plans.

My name is Sevin, and I have sinned.

 

Told in alternating points of view, Sins of Sevin is a full-length standalone novel. Contains graphic sexual content and harsh language. Only appropriate for adult readers age 18+.

Excerpt

As he gulped down the water, I watched his Adam’s apple moving up and down. I used the opportunity to glance over his sweaty body up close. The top of his underwear was sticking out of his jeans. The smell of him was intoxicating, a mix of cut wood, sweat and cologne. I thought about our talk the other night, how he’d confessed his sexual history. As much as it disturbed me, knowing he’d used that body to give a woman pleasure made me weak with desire. I could only imagine what that would feel like with him.

Elle would find out.

I was still looking down at his abs when he said, “Thank you.” My eyes immediately shot up to meet his incendiary stare.

He’d caught me checking him out.

“You’re welcome.”

His mouth curved into a smile as he handed me back the glass. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you much this week.”

“Yeah. I’ve been busy.”

“I have something for you,” he blurted out in a way that indicated he was anxiously waiting to say it.

“For me?”

“Yeah. Wait here, okay?”

Sevin ran over to where his truck was parked and grabbed something out of the open window.

He returned to where I was standing and handed me a CD.

“What is it?”

“If you like the Smiths, you’ll like some of the songs on here. I included a few Smiths songs—the ones from your favorite album, but there’s also The Lemonheads, The Pixies…and Pulp.”

“You made this?”

“Yeah. I made it for myself and burned you a copy.”

“Thanks.”

He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Number ten is my favorite.” Then, he walked away.

I immediately took it back to my room and dusted off my old portable CD player.

Lying down on my bed with the sun streaming in, I drowned out the world and listened to every song. When it got to number ten, I paid special attention, knowing he’d specifically called that one out.

The name of the song was Like a Friend. I later found out it was by Pulp. With each lyric, my eyes became heavier until they welled up in tears. The words described to a tee exactly how I’d been feeling about him. The singer was shouting out all his feelings about his friend, that she was everything he shouldn’t want, everything that was bad for him, but yet he couldn’t stop wanting her. He’d take what he could get even if that just meant being friends. Every single line spoke to me. It was the first time I realized that maybe I wasn’t alone in my torment. This situation—whatever was happening between us—was taking a toll on him, too.

I must have listened to the song five times before I went over to the window and looked down at him. At one point, he finally looked up and noticed me. He squinted his eyes to see me through the glare of the sun. I still had my headphones on. He knew I had heard number ten. The look on his face when our eyes locked only confirmed that number ten wasn’t just a song. It was his way of speaking to me.

Tracey’s Review

When Sevin Montgomery is offered the chance to trade in his less-than-perfect life for a new beginning in Dodge City, KS, there’s not much to think about. The only condition? He’ll have to marry the daughter of the man making the offer. Desperate for change, an agreement is struck, and Sevin prepares for his new role: husband. Too bad his bride-to-be is the wrong daughter.

When I start a book by Penelope Ward, it’s always with the understanding that I will not be stopping until I have finished every single page, and SINS OF SEVIN was no different. I love a forbidden romance, and this book has it in spades. Sevin has not lived a saintly life. Rebelling against the strict moral code imposed by his stepmother, he has done things that he isn’t very proud of. When he’s offered the chance to move to Kansas and court Elle, he knows that he’ll have to toe the line in order to respect the rules of her family. And he’s ready to do that, until, that is, he meets Evangeline. From the moment that these two lay eyes on each other, there is a connection that nothing, not his engagement, not the social mores of her family, not time and distance, can break.

Penelope has done her usual job of creating a story and characters that grab your heart and don’t let go. I was invested in Sevin, Evangeline, and the rest of the gang from page 1. Addie, Luke, Rose, and all the other members of Sevin’s and Evie’s ‘family’ are wonderful foils that round things out. There is joy, angst, bite-your-fingernails tension, and, ultimately, happiness here, and I could not recommend this book more. No surprise that this is a 5-star read, and one of my favorites this year. Add this one to your TBR; you will not be able to put it down.

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 Penelope Ward is a USA Today Bestselling author.

She grew up in Boston with five older brothers. She spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor, before switching to a more family-friendly career.

Penelope lives for reading books in the new adult genre, coffee and hanging out with her friends and family on weekends.

She is the proud mother of a beautiful 10-year-old girl with autism (the inspiration for the character Callie in Gemini) and a 8-year-old boy, both of whom are the lights of her life.

Penelope, her husband and kids reside in Rhode Island.

 

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Additional Books by Penelope Ward

Cocky Bastard– Amazon / B & N / ITunes / Kobo

Stepbrother Dearest – Amazon / B & N / ITunes / Kobo

My Skylar – Amazon / B & N / ITunes / Kobo

Gemini –Amazon / B & N / ITunes / Kobo

Jake Undone –Amazon / B & N / ITunes / Kobo

Jake Understood –Amazon / B & N / ITunes / Kobo