• Holding on Tighter

  • Wicked Lovers Series, Book 12
  • By: Shayla Black
  • Narrated by: Christian Fox
  • Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (336 ratings)

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Holding on Tighter  By  cover art

Holding on Tighter

By: Shayla Black
Narrated by: Christian Fox
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Publisher's summary

Jolie Quinn is a woman in charge. Her no-nonsense attitude has made her a rising star in the fashion world and her brand a household name among the Dallas elite. Nothing will stop her from achieving her goals - not even the gorgeous British security contractor who seems just as interested in seeing her personal assets as he is in protecting her professional ones.

After a tragedy left him broken, Heath Powell made a rule of staying unattached. But Jolie challenges him in a way he can't ignore, and he isn't used to backing down from a confrontation - especially when the reward for winning could feel so good. As passion blazes between them, the stubborn, confident beauty arouses more than his desire. She touches his heart.

When a mysterious enemy threatens Jolie and her company, Heath is the only person Jolie can trust to help. But working with him to save her business might put her dangerously at risk of falling in love. Contains mature themes.

©2017 Shelley Bradley, LLC (P)2017 Tantor

What listeners say about Holding on Tighter

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Christian Fox. OMG!

The story is great. Jolees character is annoying at first, but Heath is a dreamy dark knight.. Made much better by the voice of Christian Fox. That man could read the dictionary and make it sound sinful.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Love it!

I totally loved this book. I read some of the negative reviews as well as the positive ones before listening and would definitely have to disagree with the negative ones. Although Christian Fox doesn't do a great job with the female voices they're definitely distinguishable and I think he did an amazing job and will look for him in other books. And as for Shayla Black I've already downloaded my next book

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

3.5 STARS.. GOOD BUT SADLY NOT HER BEST WORK

I usually love Shayla Black, and I've enjoyed most of her books in this series, but sadly I'm on the fence with this listen.. which had, IMO, its good moments as well as its bad ones. Jolie is a successful 30 yr old Fashion Designer with a Mother whose love married and divorced too many times which has left Jolie very cynical about men and love. Jolie has hired a Security expert to safeguard her office, the staff and her forthcoming designs. Heath is a handsome 39 yr old British ex MI5 Agent and he's got a tragedy in his past that makes him unable to commit to women any more than one and done. Jolie tracks him down after watching him complete one such 'encounter' at a local bar, she wants to warn Heath off her younger sister who works for Jolie and is naively infatuated with Heath. He has zero interest in the sister.. no, it's Jolie who starts to intrigue him, brings out his alpha dominant side and Heath vows to seduce Jolie.. but a frantic phone call soon has the couple racing into danger, teaming up for answers.. and teaming up in other ways too. Then Jolie's sister starts to get anonymous gifts with cryptic messages threatening Jolie, so Jolie asks Heath for help and the danger escalates, the who what and why's mount up but there's no answers, the sexual tension rises and Heath's protective side kicks in to save Jolie - but the enemy is closer and smarter than they think.

Sounds good right? and the suspense and drama was.. however my peeve was believing in the 'insta' everything (and I usually don't mind it) but this book took it a step too far. One damaged alpha manwhore who has, for the past seven years, been emotionally closed off and has successfully kept sex in a 'relationship' free zone.. clashes with a focussed independent feisty "never going to fall in that trap" career woman. SPOILER - They instantly give in to lust, fall for each other, arrange a Vegas 'quickie' wedding AND try to start a family - all done within a few DAYS of meeting.. all done without any "I love you's".. all done without any deep or meaningful discussions.. and all done within a few paragraphs. There was plenty of hot sweaty needy sex but not much passion or romance and they did all this while the intrigue grew, while the bullets flew and while danger loomed.. so when the enemy struck he knew just how to feed off Jolie's emotional insecurities and, for a 30 yr old savvy business owner, she was easily conned into believing the worst and did something truly stupid. Dual POV storyline and even Christian Fox's awesome awesome narration couldn't bring it to a 5 star level.

Worth a credit? Yes, I've soldiered on through the good and the not so good in this series so I felt compelled to get this final book and in the Epilogue there's a sweet HEA ending for all the characters from the previous books. The storyline was passable, enjoyable and fairly entertaining.. but sadly, in my opinion, Shayla didn't leave the best til last.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Strong Female Doesn't Mean Nasty Female

Again, I couldn't finish listening because Shayla can't distinguish the meaning of strong female vs. witchy female. Jolie is such a witch that I no longer cared what happened to her. I wanted her to get her teeth punched out so that she fell off that high horse she placed herself on. There is a difference between being driven and being mean. Jolie was nasty to her employees, she was nasty to her sister, she was nasty to Heath. She was just a nasty person personality-wise. There was nothing to redeem her character for me.

A career driven woman has set goals, but is not necessarily mean to everyone who crosses her path. It seems Ms. Black's Female leads in all her books are either witchy, stupid, and all are over-sexed. There is never a middle grown for a woman in her books to be normal with regular flaws.

Heath morphed into Alex from Wicked for You. In that book he was the perfect gentleman, that opened doors for women, was refined and classy. In this book he rode a motorcycle and had sex with meaningless women not caring about their need. He was even a little nasty to the sister. But that was his version of letting her down easy... yikes!

Anyhow, we did not get a glance of that side of him and it was shocking to find out he was not the distinguished gentleman I thought him to be, but another horndog ready to get it on with anyone willing. Any why he wanted that pinched-up Joile was beyond me.

Summing it up, this book was not for me. Maybe I should take a break from reading or listening to Ms. Black's books where the concepts are way too similar. It's like each book replaces the characters and locations, but runs with the same storyline.

The drawback from not listening to her books means I won't hear Christian Fox. He is amazing regardless how bad the storylines are. But there are some things he can't fix.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Simply Outstanding!!

Once again Shayla Black and done it again.... it's amazing how all the titles from the wicked lovers series continue to tie into each other. I can't wait to see what's the next installment bring. As always, Christian Fox does and absolutely panty melting rendition of hot, bad boy alpha male. We'll see what happens with Cutter and " One Miles " story..... hopefully we won't have to wait too long. PLEASE tell me we don't have to wait too long....

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Great Listen

Would give Christian Fox 10 stars if possible! Ms. Black's series is terrific . Looking forward to Cutter's story.

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Since the author is an incredibly gifted writer, it was disheartening that she continues to create smart, engrossing and fascinating female characters who immediately turn unbelievably stupid the moment they meet an attractive man.

For the first third of this disappointing book, I thought that Jolie (30 year old entrepreneur) might be the exception. Jolie was feisty, independent and engaging; with a take-no-shit attitude. As soon as Jolie hired security expert Heath (39), she started to deflate from a competent adult into a pathetic, lovesick teenager.

Promiscuous, macho Heath was attracted to the sassy, capable Jolie, then slowly intimidated her into becoming a wimp and accepting sexual violence as a natural part of their relationship. How stupid! Heath admitted he had become bored with his passive, mousy wife before she died, yet he tried to bully Jolie into the same submissive role.

No surprising, all Heath's friends were domineering alpha assholes who routinely whipped & tortured women, then turned their girlfriends/wives into brainless brood mares. I wondered if these "loving men" continued to beat their pregnant partners or cut them a break until the dumb bimbos gave birth. And did these "loving" men also beat their children?

Sadly, the author did an amazing job of appearing to glamorize domestic abuse, subtly suggesting that women secretly crave being dominated and degraded rather than loved and admired. In 2017, it's discouraging that many female writers are still portraying women as second class citizens, not deserving of respect, kindness or equality.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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What A Waste

This series was so good the first four books then it all went down hill. This 12th book is such B.S. What a foolish book. This book jumped to the marriage then conclusion so fast my head is still spinning. One minute they are just having no strings sex, then exactly a day later they get married and the Hero figured out who is trying to kill Jolie the very next day after the ellop. All because of him and it still makes no sense. This book moved so slow then bam, they in love and want babes. This is so all over I got whiplash reading this one. Plus how can such an accomplished business woman who runs a million dollar company like Jolie let a stranger walk in and convince her that her husband wants to kill her for the money. First, he is a stranger and someone is trying to kill you, why the fuck do you let him into your office. Second, you just professed you love to your new husband, who is also your bodyguard,but you do t pick up the phone to call him as soon as this stranger walks into your company. Such glaring bullshit. Why even have a damn bodyguard then. Why even have the plot that someone is trying to kill her if she is not even going to take the threat seriously. What a waste of time

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Holding on Tighter

Interesting, the bodyguard from a previous book with Mystery is the main Hero in this book. I kinda loved that. I also loved that the Heroine is tough and doesn’t back down she isn’t weak at all she knows what she wants and she goes after it.
Jolie is a fair boss she wants all her employee’s to succeed she sets them up so that they will. We need more people like her in our real world.

Heath the British security contractor is soooo much more interesting in this book than the last truly I loved it. I liked that his way of thinking was changed because of Jolie.
Jolie’s sister is an interesting one too I though oh no she is a flake but there is more to her then what meets the eye.

Great narration even, the British Accent sounded authentic to me.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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loved it

great book.  I really enjoyed reading this book and look forward to reading more by this author.

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