Unexpected, 7 Deadly Sins: Lust

by Haley Rhoades

Tattered and weary, life tosses Ryan more hardships than one should have to bear. Can yet another family illness bring her closer to the love she’s longing for?

Ryan and Lewis met during their college years and while they stayed in touch, they both went their separate ways.

The road of life is rarely straight, and Ryan deals with creating life, losing her love, handling loss, and enduring pain along the way. Ryan is a stay-at-home, single mom after suffering through her husband’s tragic death.

Lewis, an identical twin, and self-made millionaire makes his way through business deals around the world. Separating himself from his one true love, he even places an ocean between him and the married women that he desires. He’s far from Ryan’s side when he learns that she needs him most.

Once together, Ryan and Lewis hatch a long-term plan looking for a miracle to help avoid another tragic event in their lives. Can they overcome and find their true happily ever after?

Buy Unexpected, 7 Deadly Sins: Lust and enjoy this emotional romance story today.

Genres: Romance

Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2023

About the author

Be sure to follow Haley on BookBub for the latest on sales https://buff.ly/3wdDaKH

Haley Rhoades’s writing is another bucket-list item coming to fruition, just like meeting Stephen Tyler and skydiving. As she continues to write romance and young adult books, she plans to complete her remaining bucket-list items, including ghost-hunting, storm-chasing, and bungee jumping. She is a Netflix-binging, Converse-wearing, avidly-reading, traveling geek.
A team player, Haley thrived as her spouse’s career moved the family of four eight times to three states. One move occurred eleven days after a C-section. Now with two adult sons, Haley copes with her newly emptied nest by writing and spoiling Nala, her Pomsky. A fly on the wall might laugh as she talks aloud to her fur-baby all day long.
Haley’s under five-foot, fun-size stature houses a full-size attitude. Her uber-competitiveness in all things entertains, frustrates, and challenges family and friends. Not one to shy away from a dare, she faces the consequences of a lost bet no matter the humiliation. Her fierce loyalty extends from family, to friends, to sports teams.
Haley’s guilty pleasures are Lifetime and Hallmark movies. Her other loves include all things peanut butter, Star Wars, mathematics, and travel. Past day jobs vary tremendously from an elementary special-education para-professional, to a YMCA sports director, to a retail store accounting department, and finally a high school mathematics teacher.
Haley resides with her husband and fur-baby in the Des Moines area. This Missouri-born girl enjoys the diversity the Midwest offers.
Reach out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or her website…she would love to connect with her readers.

Reviews

[Dani · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the worst book I’ve ever read and I don’t say that just to be mean. I bought this book as part of a blind date with a book, not realizing it was coming directly from the author. This book is self published and being marketed on TikTok shop and it’s clear why she has to do that. Not a single editor so much as touched this book, and I can’t imagine anybody but her read it before publishing. At one point, an author’s note in parenthesis about how the character should react to something was left in the book, which would have been noticed by any good publishing company editor. The characters also lacked any depth or dynamics. The characters met in college and are best friends that know each other better than anyone else, and you get to hear that fact about them again and again at least once every 30 pages. The main plot is very underdeveloped. The main character’s child is sick, but you don’t actually see many of the struggles pertaining to that throughout the story. Instead, the characters live their daily lives in chapters that are no more than 4 pages long and consistently have insane and unnecessary time jumps between them. The whole book covers a whopping two years or so of time. At one point a character is rushed to the hospital, only for the next chapter to start “weeks later” with no real resolution for some reason. Way the squelch all possible suspense or drama or actually decent plot the moment it even begins. The plot never really gets going. Every time a decision needed to be made, it was made almost entirely without struggle in a matter of a few pages. The romance is rushed into the final 50 pages or so, and the sex scenes are redundant and forced. And this doesn’t even mention how incredibly morally grey the entire main plot points are. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say that recently dead relatives, sick children, and savior siblings don’t make for a very steamy environment to kindle a romance. I hated this book and this author should seek professional writing help.

[Tanya Mcintosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lewis moved to Dubai for work to escape the fact that his twin brother and best friend got married. Truth is, he has been in love with his best friend for years. Suddenly, his twin dies and his best friend Ryan is widowed and a new mother. After a few years, Lewis returns to help take care of Ryan and her son Ian who was diagnosed with leukemia. They decide to live together so Lewis can help support them. They decide to try one more treatment for Ian, a savior sibling. Ryan uses IVF to get pregnant and finds that they are having twins. As her pregnancy progresses, they grow closer and Lewis finally admits his unrequited love.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. I loved Lewis and his relationship with his best friend. His longing and support for her was so sweet. The story of how his twin and Ryan got together bothered me a little bit. Lewis was too understanding about that. It was sad that he just put his wants aside for his twin. I enjoyed Ryan's character and their slow burn romance. Although there was a period in the middle of the book where it felt slow. The biggest proboem I had with the book was actually the title and cover. It didn't feel like it fit the vibe of the book. Going into the book just based on the cover, it was not at all what I expected.

[Ramona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read about Ryan and Lewis. Lewis and Carter are twins who fell in love with the same women, Ryan. Carter marries Ryan and Lewis goes overseas to forget his lost love. Carter and Ryan have a child named Ian. Carter dies in a construction job and keeping a promise, Lewis checks up on Ryan while he's overseas. 3 months later Lewis gets a call from Ryan that Ian has leukemia. 6 months later Lewis comes home. What happens afterward is a steamy read with drama. I found the characters likable, their problems relatable, the story engaging in this first book I've read by this authoress.

[Amber Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I absolutely hate to give books less than a four or five star rating but this book had so much promise to me it skipped around too much in my opinion it went from 0 to 5000 and there was very little background in my opinion for it to jump like it did it was a gift so I powered through the book and I read it but I will not be continuing the series unfortunately

[Louise Wardell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romance

Twins share and brothers look out for each other. In this case Lewis and Carter both love Ryan after Carters death Lewis keeps his promise to his twin brother. Life turns out as God plans.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shirt fast read. I really enjoyed the story.

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received Unexpected as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

When his twin brother dies suddenly, Lewis returns to the United States to care for his newly-widowed sister-in-law Ryan and his infant nephew Ian. When further tragedy strikes and Ian is diagnosed with cancer, Lewis proposes an unorthodox arrangement, one that threatens to upend their delicate circumstances and unearth secrets long buried.

This was not a good book. It was incredibly rushed, the character development was nil, plot elements went in and out as convenient, and the characters themselves were unrealistic and morally awful. First and foremost, there's not one moment of discussion as to the ethics of creating a human being solely to save another human being. It's just taken as Right, without so much as a backward glance. Second, Ian's illness is somehow central to the plot but also completely ignored. They barely spend any time in a hospital, he shows no sign of being medically delicate...we spend more time watching both adults masturbate and make "that's what she said" jokes (seriously) than dealing with any semblance of reality in regard to childhood cancer. The whole thing was a front to get Ryan pregnant with Lewis but in taking such massive subjects as widowhood and deadly illness so lightly, it made me disgusted by the main characters. On the positive side, it was a quick read so I wasn't subject to its nonsense for very long.