SIN and INK by Naima Simone is a story about Knox a former MMA fighter now tattoo shop owner and his deceased brothers wife. She's also employed at the tattoo shop and lives with his family. There's lots of family drama and some very HOT scenes!

Naima Simone's Blood and Ink has a great mix of plot and erotica. A bit too heavy on the guilt, but since the story was being in love with your brother's widow. It's to be expected.

One rough-edged, dirty talkin’, tattooed bad boy with a hidden depths. One forbidden to him, fiercely protective, sassy woman who didn’t know she tamed the beast. One complicated relationship neither saw coming...

Naima Simone writes smashing characters and some of the hottest **fans self** love scenes I’ve read to date! This book was exactly what I was hoping for! Raw, sexy, and oh...em...gee...HOT, HOT, HOT, Sin and Ink was a sensually wicked read!! I found myself pulled in to the story from the get-go and swiped pages as fast as my hands could manage! Knox and Eden weren’t perfect and I loved that. The loss, heartache, and disappointment Eden and Knox suffered, individually and together, made me wish and hope they grabbed for love, light, and happy for their future.

Now I’m hoping Knox’s brothers, Simon and Jude get their own stories😁

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.25 stars

I've heard so many fantastic things about Naima Simone's books and I can totally understand why everyone loves her so much! Sin and Ink was amazing! My first Naima Simone book and I cannot wait to read her backlist!

Sin and Ink was an emotionally intense book in many ways. It's a taboo romance between a man and his brother's widow. It is also very much character-focused so prepare yourself for that. Understandably, there are many complex emotions involved in the story and Ms. Simone does a fantastic job navigating and translating these emotions so the reader can truly understand the characters. I fell so hard for Knox. He has so many admiring qualities and you're probably shaking your head like 'Are you crazy, girl? He wants his brother's widow!' But trust me on this - there is so much more to Knox. He's a tortured hero and as you keep reading, you can't help but fall for him. I also adored Eden - she is a fantastic heroine. She has a quiet strength about her that was given the spotlight in the last third of the book. She's quietly fierce and extremely loyal. What's not to love?

The angst level is also perfect - it doesn't take over the story and only shows up at the right moments. And the steam level was just HOT! The only thing missing is an epilogue wrapping up the story.

I hope Ms. Simone decides to write stories for the other brothers! I really liked them!

I volunteered for this ARC

Amazing gritty gripping and love being worth the fight! It was a very detailed emotional book with a good story line and true angst. Sexy steamy and true love.

Heartbreaking but sexy! Heartbreaking because Eden's husband, Connor, died after a MMA fight. She's devastated and Know, his brother, feels the blame. Eden has taken a few years to heal and ready to stand on her own- live alone.

Knox has been in love with Eden from the start, but Connor got her first. Reconciling that with loving his brother's wife, guilt over his death and throw in his mom that rips him to shreds and you get big, bad, broody Knox- the tattoo master. Seeing Eden every day at work is crushing but when she starts showing signs of interest in him he feels like he has betrayed Connor once again. Eden can't believe or fight this longing she has for Knox and is shocked to find he has been in love with her for years. While this is all forbidden fruit- it's hot sexy chemistry with a yearning for a happy ending.

Naima Simone writes these two as perfectly imperfect people who you need to get together. Despite all that can be seen wrong in it, the mother dead set against it, Knox and Eden must fall in love. The battle they each wage separately to arrive at that point makes for a sweet, sexy and intense read.

Please let this be the first of a series! I want more of this gang!

I enjoyed this erotic book. It was a little lean on plot and heavy on the sex, but that was okay.
Loved Knox, he was broody and Alpha but still vulnerable and possessive and sweet. I enjoyed Eden, she was trying to come to terms with her desires after Connor passed away. Knox and Eden together were extremely hot and sexy. A fast read that's good when you don't want a story that will make you think too much.

Wow! Great book!! I really enjoyed reading this book! This is Knox and Eden book, Knox is ex mma fighter and Eden is his sister in law!! She married Connor Knox brother and he passed away in a match doing mma ! Knox had actually always had feelings for Eden but stepped aside when she fell for his brother! Knox mother was horrible! I understand she lost her son but she blames knox! This book had everything! It was heartbreaking, heartwarming, really really hot! It definitely got me all up in the feels!! Don't miss out on this book! I hope it's going to be a series?! Thank you NetGalley and of course my favorite publishing house, entangled!! Thank you for sharing this book with me!

This book kinda sucked me right in from the start. It is my first erotica in a long time, and its right up my alley, I love the angst, emotionally scarred alpha males. I like the dark forbidden taboo stuff, I think that the brother in law wasn't as taboo as it could have been, but it was still angsty. The sex was pretty well done, though sometimes Knox would do something like "guide her down to him" and I couldn't figure out what that meant unless I reread and paid attention. I read this at work so I wasn't as focused as I could have been I guess.

I wasn't fond of the tattoo chair in the beginning, I thought it came on all of the sudden, I had to look and see if I missed a page, I thought more suspense could have been built before all that happened. The book itself is heavy on erotica, not so much on plot, I thought the tattoo/fighting could have been expanded on just a little bit more, I like my erotica with plot, otherwise I feel like I'm reading something I could find on literotica.

Aside from all that, I thought it was one of the better eroticas I've read in a while, I did take a break because it all seemed the same, and I really enjoy the darker part of books and this delivered nicely

Sin and Ink by Naima Simone is chock full of steam and angst. Yes, it’s an erotic romance but she didn’t skimp on the emotions or character development. This story has all the feels and the angst got to be a bit much at times but I still couldn't put it down.

. I fell in love with Knox for his strength and depth of emotions. He seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Eden was perfect for him despite the “forbidden” aspect of their being together. I understood where they were coming from but a few times I wanted to knock their heads together and say "get over it!" but they did eventually figure it out for themselves.

I recommend this to anyone who loves well-written, steamy stories full of angst.

Wow, just wow. Sin and Ink, is beyond sexy. Knox pushes all my book boyfriend buttons. I was kind of jealous of Eden, she got to touch and lick all of that man. Yummy!

‘Sin and Ink’ is somewhat different from Naima Simone’s previous offerings, but considering this is categorised clearly as erotica with several sides of forbidden/pseudo-incest/the tortured hero who wants what he can’t have, I knew what I was in for the moment I requested for this ARC. But every forbidden-type thing in romance is my kind of catnip, so I did expect quite a bit of push-pull and pretty much the soul-hollowing kind of angst that typically accompanies such tropes.

It isn’t to say that it can’t get painfully exhausting. Simone’s writing is drawn up with descriptions of every minute detail that strangely heightens emotion, yet still feel like page filler at times—from interior décor to every small movement that the characters make, to the relentless unravelling of every emotion they have. Both ride the waves of guilt and regret, all through the simmering sexual tension that underlies all of it, though there are parts that feel stifling as well as both Knox/Eden do the one-step-forward-two-steps-back routine until something finally, finally gives.

Essentially, a lot of ‘Sin and Ink’ is a long, long journey of angst and emotional overload of wanting to cross a line; this is however, repeated ad nauseam when Knox keeps swimming in guilt as he rehashes all the reasons why Eden is forbidden goods while the latter tries to decide whom she really loves, with the constant fixation on body parts that leads to imagining how each other would be like in bed. There is the use of a trope that I absolutely detest nonetheless, (Eden watching Knox hook up with another woman in the past and then getting aroused by it ) though this is a clearly personal preference, which in a way, becomes a disturbing part in how Eden—spurred on by this memory—finally decides to do the same to Knox later.

But is this nitpicking on my part? Maybe. I’m well aware of the expectations that I have to manage considering this has been published under Entangled's Scorched Imprint.

’Sin and Ink’ is after all, primarily erotica and a decently-written one at that if you take into account what this story is supposed to be heavy on sex and lighter on plot. In that, it delivers. The sexy times are abundant and scorching, despite the dead spouse whom Eden can’t seem to let go of and Knox’s constant self-flagellation and the subsequent uncertainty surrounding their forbidden relationship. So if this is exactly what rocks your boat, then ‘Sin and Ink’ does exactly what it promises.

Sexy and hot enough to melt your kindle, this is a wonderful book that fans of the genre will love. Eden is a widow whose husband's (Connor's) family had "adopted" her after his death, especially important to her since she doesn't have a family of her own. Knox is the Connor's older brother whose mother blames him for his death.

As a MMA champion that retired to own a tattoo shop, Knox is the ultimate bad boy and Eden is smitten and can't stop fantasizing about him. When Knox returns her interest, their "forbidden" relationship adds complications to their family and their lives, but they can't seem to stop....

If you enjoy the genre, you will love this book. Sexy, sexy, sexy, and HOTTTTT with a bit of spice. I loved the relationship between Knox and Eden and the way their hidden secrets were revealed.

Put this one at the top of your TBR list. The author is on my must read authors' list.

Wow. This book is just fantastic.

Knox is in love with Eden, his brother's widow, and the tangled and shameful feelings about his attraction to her are difficult for him to overcome. Meanwhile, Eden has been fighting her own attraction to Knox, but the longer they work together, the harder it is for them to ignore their feelings.

This is such an angsty, delicious read. This is almost more of an erotic romance, because they already know each other so well, a lot of the development of their relationship is shown through the development of their sexual relationship. (this is SMOKING HOT and very satisfying, by the way). But the emotional punch of the forbidden love aspect, especially as it relates to Knox's mother and her disapproval, is just so wrenching and so good.

I have only TWO quibbles---one's about geography and one's VERY important to the character and a bit spoilery, so just stop reading here if you care.

As a Chicagoan, there's a misspelling of a street name (it's Halsted, not Halstead), and it wouldn't take 40 minutes to get from Ukrainian Village to Bridgeport...probably 20 minutes.

Spoilery one: It seemed both unnecessary and hard to believe that Eden had never had orgasms with her husband? Did the author mean *during intercourse* only, but then OF COURSE he brought her to orgasm after? I honestly am just hoping it was lack of clarity, but there's really no reason for Eden to have never experienced orgasms with her husband. This implies that Connor is THE WORST, MOST SELFISH LOVER EVER. Because I'm sorry, if she was married for 3 years and she only had a handful of orgasms? Then that's the only logical conclusion, and probably something that would have worried her and made her very unhappy or maybe even would have sent her to a doctor. More than anything else, though, I think it's unnecessary. Eden can still think Knox is a great lover who teaches her something about her own desire without her having had a pleasure-free sex life with her husband.