Perdition

by Ann Aguirre

Series: Dred Chronicles (#1)

Published by: Tantor Media

August 27th, 2013

Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy

Format: Audiobook

Source: Library Loan

Rating: 4 Stars

WELCOME TO HELL

The prison ship Perdition, a floating city where the Conglomerate’s most dangerous criminals are confined for life, orbits endlessly around a barren asteroid.

Life inside is even more bleak. Hailed as the Dread Queen, inmate Dresdemona “Dred” Devos controls one of Perdition’s six territories, bordered on both sides by would-be kings eager to challenge her claim. Keeping them at bay requires constant vigilance, as well as a steady influx of new recruits to replace the fallen. Survival is a constant battle, and death is the only escape.

Of the newest convicts, only one is worth Dred’s attention. The mercenary Jael, with his deadly gaze and attitude, may be the most dangerous criminal onboard. His combat skill could give her the edge she needs, if he doesn’t betray her first. Unfortunately, that’s what he does best. Winning Jael’s allegiance will be a challenge, but failure could be worse than death…

This was a very interesting read. We have this bunch of criminals that love a good fight but that have banded together to defend their territory in the hopes of having at least a good night's sleep and a meal.

Dred is a great ruler that helps these convicts with their desires for fighting by hosting rivalry matches and other methods that keep the men occupied and out of their heads for a while. When new "fish" come along the different territories vie for the chance to recruit new and able bodies to help defend the territory.

This was a very interesting story because every character, including the main couple, is a criminal.

I liked the story and the characters. I liked the plot and its twists. I think the author did an excellent job with this story and how all of the details fell into place. I do have to say that I did not expect that ending and I can't wait to see what comes next for this lot. I have never rooted so hard for criminals like I've done with this book.

April 22, 2019 No comments

Butterface

by Avery Flynn

Series: The Hartigans (#1)

Published by: Entangled: Amara

July 30th, 2018

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Format: eBook

Source: Free on Amazon

Rating: 5 Stars

It’s true. I’m not what most people would call “pretty” and, well, high school was rough. Fast forward ten years and life is good…

Until a bunch of jerks think it’s hilarious to put the “butterface” (AKA me) on a wedding Kiss Cam with the hottest guy ever—and that old humiliation hits hard.

I recognize him immediately. The sexiest cop in Waterbury and totally out of my league.

But then he kisses me.

And we totally forget the room, the crowd, everything.

Then he tells everyone we’ve been dating for months.

Soon everything starts to feel too real, from adorable fights over “necessary” tools to fix my broken porch to surviving a free-for-all dinner with his six siblings to picking up where our last kiss left off.

But there’s something he’s not telling me about why he’s really hanging around, and I’m pretty sure it has to do with my mob-connected brothers.

Because this is not a make-over story, and Cinderella is only a fairy tale…

I'm doing the romance-opoly challenge and one of the categories we have to read a book that was recommended by one of the hosts of the game. I chose to read the second book in this series. After rolling my dice I thought I had landed on this spot so I started reading that book only to realize at about 2% that I had landed on the wrong spot.

What I read from that second book I really loved and I can't wait to read it. Then I saw that this first book was free for a few days so I decided to read this one until I can start again with the second book.

I have to say that I am not disappointed. I loved this book from beginning to end. I mean, talk about plain Jane.

Gina is a wedding planner who all her life has been called a butterface. She has come to terms with her being a plain Jane but every once in awhile she is reminded of it. One such occasion is the wedding that she has been planning for a cop.

At the wedding reception, there is a kiss cam and she ends up in it with one of the guests who is another cop. This specimen of a man being detective Ford Hartigan.

From there on it is a mix of funny, exasperated moments where I didn't know if I wanted to clobber these characters or sigh in contentment. I cannot wait to read the next book in the series or more from this author.

February 27, 2019 No comments

Love Letters to the Dead

by Ava Dellaira

Published by: Brilliance Audio

April 1, 2014

Genre: Young Adult

Format: Audiobook

Source: Purchased

Rating: 5 Stars

It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person.

Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to the dead - to people like Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, Amelia Earhart, and Amy Winehouse - though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating the choppy waters of new friendships, learning to live with her splintering family, falling in love for the first time, and, most important, trying to grieve for May. But how do you mourn for someone you haven't forgiven?

It's not until Laurel has written the truth about what happened to herself that she can finally accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was - lovely and amazing and deeply flawed - can she truly start to discover her own path.

In a voice that's as lyrical and as true as a favorite song, Ava Dellaira writes about one girl's journey through life's challenges with a haunting and often heartbreaking beauty.

First of all, I would like to apologize for not putting it in the review of a book last week. But I was dealing with some news story from Puerto Rico, which had me very worried and a little sad. The news was that my mother found another mass that might or might not be cancer. Never in my life have I felt so powerless. I, who reside in the United States, receive news as this one falls apart. She is a survivor of breast cancer and liver cancer for more than 20 years. The good news is that later this week she received more results from the biopsy, and it is not cancer. However she still needs surgery, but despite all for me this is great news.

Returning to the subject of books, this book has been published for several years, more precisely in 2014, and as always was in my TBR. As my mood took me to the point that I was a little melancholy for the news that I received. This book, what can I say about this book ... It is not something that is used to. The point from which it is counted is through letters. Not as always we see that it is a person we are used to. I love him in that aspect to begin with. It is a sad story but at the same time of courage and of many willpower.

It is not easy to be at a point where you just follow by inertia. Where everything seems to be wrong and you have to put a smile on your face even if everything is wrong in your life. Where you have to smile so as not to worry other people. This book is great, it's very emotional. I cried like I did not cry with a book. I highly recommend it and not only because it makes you depressed because you believe me will make you cry, but because it has a story to tell and which we have to learn.

With this been said I want to thank the people who care and show interest in these things. And some last words from the bottom of my heart fuck cancer, my prayers to all that families which are going through this. And for those families that passed and are going through as the story of this book. You can get it for free when you subscribe to audible.

November 26, 2018 No comments

Today we have the blog tour for NEVER LET ME FALL by Abbie Roads. NEVER LET ME FALL is a psychological thriller in the Fatal Dreams Series and available for purchase on all retail outlets!

Never Let Me Fall
by Abbie Roads
Series: Fatal Dreams (#3)
Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca
November 6th
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher (via InkSlingerPR)
Rating: 4 Stars

Seeing is believing...

Thomas Brown can't see color, but he can see people's true souls. His abilities allow him to work with criminal investigators and deliver justice to families of the wronged. And he's starting to accept that his life will forever be in black and white... Then he encounters Helena Grayse, and everything changes. She brings vibrant color to his world, and he brings acceptance and belief to hers. But Helena's past is quickly catching up with her, and Thomas is in the crosshairs. As an enemy hidden in plain sight threatens their every move, they'll have to rely on their love to beat the darkness.

First of all, I want to mention that even though this book is the third in a series you can read it as a standalone. Although it is so well crafted that you get curious about the couples on the first two books if you have not read them, which I haven't, which I definitively will.

This is the story of Thoma's Brown, the brother of Evanee who is the heroine of the previous book, and Helena Grayse, a convicted felon.

From the moment this book started the night before Helen's release from jail to that final scene on the porch I was hooked. This story was so convoluted and full of twists and turns that surprised me at every time.

Helen and Thomas have both been thru a lot of trauma from a very young age and that is something that connects them on a level not seen but felt. But there is much more than connecting them and that more than anything is what saves them time and again.

There was just something about the story that left me filling left out. I felt like something was missing, or it was there and I couldn't see it, that didn't let me completely enjoy the story. But whatever it was I guess it was just my problem and I recommend this book to anyone who likes their romance with a sprinkle of paranormal on it.

Disclaimer:

This copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review for an InkSlingerPR blog tour. This does not affect my opinion of it or the content of my review.

EXCERPT

Thomas walked through the granite garden, looking for an open grave. His mother’s grave. Cold air stung his face and seeped in around the collar of his coat. A chill sliced across his shoulder blades—part cold, part dread.

Trees dotted the landscape, their naked branches spearing the clouds. The sky above and the land below shared the bland, gray color he’d come to associate with winter in Ohio. Grass crunched under his feet and looked as desiccated as the bodies planted beneath it. Nothing was more depressing than a cemetery in winter. Would it look more alive with color? Was the sky really blue, while all he saw was gray? Were the gravestones a motley of different types of granite instead of the same dull color? Was there beauty here while all he witnessed was drab and dreary?

It was so frustrating not being able to see what everyone else saw. As if the world had a secret and wouldn’t share it with him. He clenched his hands into fists.

Clng. Clng. Clng. The sound of metal clanging against metal sounded loud as a church bell in the quiet cemetery.

Across the endless sea of gravestones, Thomas spotted a canopy erected to protect the mourners from the elements. The fabric flapped and snapped in the wind. A metal grommet hitting one of the legs made the endless clng, clng, clng noise. The sounds grew in volume, became unnaturally loud. He reached up to cover his ears. But before he could get his hands into place, his vision winked out. Gone. Blackness.

He just stood there. Frozen. Not from fear, but from acceptance. He was blind, and he should be freaking out. But then, blinding himself had been something he’d contemplated in his darkest moments. He’d always thought blindness would grant him an odd sort of relief. No more gray existence, no more seeing the shadow of death. Ignorance really could be bliss, right? The only thing that had kept him from following through was not wanting to be dependent on anyone for anything.

Light flashed in his dark vision like far-off lightning. His sight blinked back on. Everything was the same. But everything had changed.

He still stood in Sundew Cemetery, but it was as if everything around him had faded into the background and a spotlight gleamed on a woman in front of him.

She stood no more than fifty feet away, a beacon of light, a burning flame that he couldn’t look away from.

Her body was bundled against the cold, her thick, black coat zipped up over her mouth with the hood pulled down over her forehead. The tiny bit of skin he saw was the palest of—his mind searched for the name of the right color—pale peach. Her skin was pale peach. Pale. Peach.

Holy motherfucking son of a bitch.

He saw color. Color. She brought vibrancy to his gray existence. And she carried no shadow of death. Not even a wispy hint. If love at first sight existed, he loved her for these gifts.

At this distance, it should be impossible to see the color of her eyes, but they were gold and shining right at him, locking him in place with their brilliance, their luminescence, and some ethereal quality that made him think of purity and perfection.

Call it instinct, call it pheromones, call it instant visceral attraction—his dick went hard.

“Thomas? Are you all right?” The question he’d been asked too much lately punched him in the head, breaking his attention on her.

Sound clicked back on. He heard the canopy flapping and the metal clanging. Almost as if his body was working in slow motion, he turned his head, absorbing a world that was alive with vitality for the first time. He felt like a kid who’d just learned to name colors. Brown grass. Green canopy. Red scarf.

Audie stood outside the canopy wearing the same getup as last night. Only now Thomas could see the hat and scarf and mittens were bright red.

Thomas raised his hand in a gesture somewhere between wait-a-minute, a wave, and what-the-hell. Audie smiled, his wrinkled face conveying a wordless understanding. That was why Thomas always liked the guy. No explanations, no empty phrases needed. And it didn’t hurt that he looked like Gandalf.

Thomas turned back to the woman, but she no longer stood there. She was walking away, carrying an aura of color with her. The sky above her glowed a sweet, watery shade of blue, the grass under her feet a subtle tan, and the grave she passed was a pinkish granite. Holy shit. It was all so beautiful, but then his gaze locked on the erotic sway of her hips.

Without warning, his mind flashed him images of her in his bed and him being mesmerized by her golden eyes, her matching gilded hair, and all that creamy, warm skin surrounding him, holding him tight. Without ever seeing her face, he knew she would be beautiful, so lovely that it would hurt to gaze anywhere but upon her.

There was the before her part of his life. Now there was the after her part of his life. And he couldn’t let her go. He needed her in every sense of the word—emotionally, physically, sexually. He wanted to be underneath her, on top of her, inside her. He wanted to surround her, swallow her, take her into himself and keep her there. Forever. Always. A-fucking-men.

He ran after her, opening his mouth to shout her name, but… He didn’t know her name. Yet he felt like he should know it. And know her. She was his other piece. She completed him. Healed him. Made up for all his deficiencies.

“Thomas? What are you doing?” Pastor Audie yelled. The concern and worry riding along the old man’s tone was more effective than diving headfirst into one of the granite markers dotting the cemetery.

What was he doing? Chasing after some random woman in the cemetery who obviously had no reaction to him. If she’d felt even an ounce of the connection he had, she wouldn’t be walking away.

He stopped running. But the urge to keep going pushed him forward a few more steps. He grabbed on to a gravestone to keep from following her. His heart rammed against his sternum so hard it threatened to knock him to the ground. It hurt—physically hurt—to watch her walk away, taking color and beauty with her, leaving him alone inside his gray existence once more. It felt like she’d amputated half of his soul, leaving him with the phantom pain of what could have been. A cold heaviness settled over him. He felt as dead as the stone he clung to.

BUY NOW!

Amazon | Apple Books | Nook | Kobo

Google Play | Target

Enter the Giveaway

$10 Amazon Gift Card, Painting by Abbie, and a Necklace

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About Abbie Roads

Abbie Roads loves Snickers Parfaits and acrylic pour painting. It’s her new obsession. The pour painting. Not the parfaits. Though the parfaits would qualify as an obsession too. She spends her days a mental health counselor always looking on the bright side, but at night she likes to write dark and dangerous things—with kissing and sexy times. She loves reading inspirational quotes and stories about serial killers. She is married to her favorite fellow and they have two cranky old rescue dogs that are not spoiled. Not at all. Okay. Maybe a little. Alright, the dogs are terribly spoiled, but they do give lots of cuddles and kisses in return.

Facebook | BookBub | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

November 07, 2018 No comments

Read and Gone

by Allison Brook

Series: The Hunted Library Mystery (#2)

Published by: Crooked Lane Books

September 11th, 2018

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Format: eARC

Source: Publisher (Netgalley)

Rating: 4 Stars

Seven-million dollars' worth of missing gems bring Carrie Singleton's long-lost and larcenous dad back into her life and it's up to Carrie to clear his name.

A devoted dad is as precious as diamonds, but Carrie Singleton wouldn't know since her dad Jim's been on the lam most of her life. In an unusual family reunion, she finds Jim breaking into her cottage in the middle of the night. The fun really starts when he begs her to help him recover his half of a seven-million-dollar gem heist he pulled off with the local jeweler, Benton Parr. When she refuses, Jim takes off again.

Carrie finds her father again behind bars for the recent murder of Benton Parr. Who made the connection? Unbeknownst to her, Carrie's boyfriend Dylan, an insurance investigator, has been searching for the gems. Determined to find the jewels herself, she starts examining every facet of Parr's life. She turns up a treasure trove of suspects, one of whom bashes her on the head as she's searching the victim's country cabin.

Retreating to the quiet confines of the library where she works, Carrie watches as Smokey Joe, the resident cat, paws at a hole in the wall. Is he after the library's ghost Evelyn, or something shinier?

The book takes place a few weeks after the first one and this time Carrie is helping her dad clear his name. From the moment Jim reenters Carrie's life it goes downhill for her happiness and well being.

There are many revelations that sent her on a roller coaster of emotions that makes you want to get in the book and smack her upside the head. I found myself engrossed into the story and wanting to know everything quickly. The speculations this lady comes up with have you mistrusting everyone and their cat but at the same time makes you wonder why she's working as head of P and E at the library and not as a detective.

I am intrigued by Evelyn and all her fashion stuff. I love uncle Bosco and aunt Harriet and Smokey Joe too! Such an adorable cat and smart to boot.

The only thing that I found not liking was the fact that at the end of book one Carrie and Dylan were starting to get involved and in this one, they are an item. I feel like I missed something (just the romantic reader in me I guess). Although I am happy that we get to learn a little bit more about Dylan and his work.

I am seriously falling in love with this characters. I can't wait to read more and get to know this characters better.

Disclaimer:

This copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of it or the content of my review.

Reading Order & Buy Link

Click Cover

October 13, 2018 No comments

Branded Captive

by Addison Cain

Series: Wren’s Song Book (#1)

Published by: Author

July 16th, 2018

Genre: Fantasy

Format: eARC

Source: Publisher (via Hidden Gems Books)

Rating: 5 Stars

Wren can't sing like a bird. She can't speak at all.
The Alpha kingpin and his pack didn't buy the Omega to hear it talk.

Disclaimer:

This copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of it or the content of my review.

OMG! I couldn't stop reading this book and sadly for me, it ended to fast. Left me wanting more and more. This story is a perfect naughty story -if you can read between lines- you will understand. It’s about Wren and no one, not two but 3 alphas. But here is the interesting part, dear Ms. Cain you just spin completely the concept about Omega for me. Wren is an Omega! This review has spoilers, now you are warned it’s up to you if you want to continue reading otherwise you can jump right away to the last paragraph for my opinion -Don’t say later I didn't give enough and fair warnings.

Wren was sold to an Alpha by her father and then he rejected her, marking her as defective, and she was cast to Warrens, a wasteland where death and despair exist. She is a scavenger and trades for what she needs for herself and the two boys, Alec and Mikael. But when the boys are missing, she knew she has to go into the tunnels and find them. Wren will sell herself to protect Alec and Mikael, but in the process, she will discover more about herself too, and in spite of it all, she finds pleasure in submission.

About this 3 sexy, hot and steamy Alphas. There is Caspian the leader, the second Kieran and their third in command Toby -Maintenance please come clean my keyboard for drool all over it-. Like good brothers they share everything including their taste for woman -I am talking about Wren here-. Can I ask Santa this 3 for me, please? *more drool*

For those who don't like to read spoilers but can't resist and can't help themselves on reading them anyhow, please raise your hand *I have mine up*; What are your thoughts? Wants to read it?. For those who follow my warning and jump to this paragraph this story is a darkest sexual fantasy that you will be enjoying. This author was a genius!! She get's a slow clap from me -I think I've been watching too much of Grey's Anatomy- Very well develop and everything fit perfectly. This book is a must read and will not disappoint you! That is a promise from me. I can't wait to read the second book!

September 04, 2018 No comments