Leanne Crabtree's Blog, page 13

Book Review – Mine to Keep

Name: Mine to Keep (Mine, #2)

Author: Cynthia Eden

Genre: Contemporary, Romantic Suspense

Release Date: 16th September 2013

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Love is the most dangerous obsession…

Skye Sullivan is trying to put the pieces of her life back together. She survived a brutal stalker and escaped his abduction, and now she is looking to the future—a future that includes Skye’s lover, billionaire Trace Weston. Skye thinks the danger is finally over for her.

She’s dead wrong.

When Trace’s past comes back to haunt him, Skye discovers that the man she loves isn’t quite who he seems to be. Trace has been leading a double-life. An ex-special forces agent, his military training turned him into the perfect killing machine. He made more than his share of enemies during his time in the military—and as he built his security empire—and one of those enemies is striking back.

He won’t lose her.

Skye is the one weapon that can be used against Trace—his only vulnerability. But he won’t let her go—he can’t. Trace will do anything necessary to protect Skye. Anything. Yet when she discovers the secrets that he’s tried to keep hidden, Skye’s pain and rage may send her running directly into the cross-hairs of a killer…

I reviewed the first one in the series, Mine to Take, here.

This follows the events of the last one with Skye and Trace on an island as Trace tries to help Skye get over the terrible ordeal she suffered at the hands of her ex. Soon after they arrive back in Chicago, they are met by an old colleague of Trace’s who warns them that someone is coming after them. Then the intrigue begins…

This one focuses more on Trace and things that happened in his past that he wishes he could forget. I was intrigued to find out what he’d done that was so bad that someone was trying to get to him and Skye. To get to him through Skye. And I’ll tell you now I wasn’t quite expecting it to be that.

We see bits from the POV of the person after Trace and it’s slightly creepy how cold the person is at the thought of killing anyone who stood in their way.

Once again the books feature some really intense sex scenes between the two main characters and shows how they struggle to keep their relationship afloat as lies come out of the woodwork that have been buried for years.

I’m lucky that the author goes over a lot of the things that happened in the previous book because I will admit I read a lot of books and it’s sometimes hard to remember what happened in certain ones.

It all came back to me within the first 15% or so and then I could get on with my detective work of trying to figure out who was behind it all. It kept me guessing throughout, just like in the first one and I found myself going “Ooooooh!” as new information was uncovered. I was most definitely intrigued by this. Well done to the author for such brilliant writing!

I really enjoyed this, believe it or not it got better the more I read. That last 15% or so made it 5 star worthy for me!

If you plan on reading this, then read Mine to Take first as this is a continuation. If you enjoyed the first then you should definitely read this one too.

Next review(s): N/A

Cat’s Wolf free tomorrow.

For it’s last day enrolled in KDP Select, I’ve decided to put Cat’s Wolf on for free before I publish it on Smashwords. So tomorrow, the 10th of September, it will be free across Amazon. Enjoy!

Another First Reads win via Goodreads!

I’m feeling very lucky lately. I’ve just seen an email saying I’ve been picked out of 1461 people to win 1 of 2 paperback copies of this, Nocturne, a New Adult book that was released at the start of this month. Eeeh! So excited! Cant wait to read it!

Another NA book to add to my growing shelf

Book Review – Briar Rose

Name: Briar Rose

Author: Jana Oliver

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fairy Tales

Release Date: 12th September 2013

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I received this book as a first reads copy via GoodReads and My Kinda Book.

For Briar Rose, life is anything but a fairy tale. She’s stuck in a small town in deepest Georgia with parents who won’t let her out of their sight, a bunch of small-minded, gossiping neighbours and an evil ex who’s spreading nasty rumours about what she may or may not have done in the back of his car. She’s tired of it all, so when, on her sixteenth birthday, her parents tell her that she is cursed and will go to sleep for a hundred years when the clock strikes midnight, she’s actually kind of glad to leave it all behind. She says her goodbyes, lies down, and closes her eyes . . . And then she wakes up. Cold, alone and in the middle of the darkest, most twisted fairy tale she could ever have dreamed of. Now Briar must fight her way out of the story that has been created for her, but she can’t do it alone. She never believed in handsome princes, but now she’s met one her only chance is to put her life in his hands, or there will be no happy ever after and no waking up.

I’ll start by saying I love the cover of this book.

Then: I’m a big Jana Oliver fan, having loved her Demon Trappers series so when I saw the First Reads giveaway on Goodreads for this I just had to enter and luckily for me, I was picked as one of the winners.

I have to admit that I, too have always liked the idea of Princes and Princess’ and fairy tale endings and this was a unique take on it, with the twisted fairy tale one that is almost of Briar Rose’s own making.

I kinda wish I could say more but I don’t want to ruin it for those who are going to read this…sorry ;D

Saying that, it was very unique to me, as I have never seen or heard of anything like this before, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe it was the authors style which I can easily fall into or maybe it was the idea of the story but I was captivated by it from early on.

I also really liked all the major characters though it took a while for Pat to grow on me. The rest; Briar, Joshua, Reena and Ruric were all pretty cool from the start.

If you’re a fan of the author then you should give this a try, as well as those who like fantasy books as this is no ordinary fairy tale.

Next review: Mine to Keep by Cynthia Eden

Proof Ordered of Cat’s Wolf :S

I eventually went with the Girl and Wolf cover, since it had 3 votes out of 4 and the CreateSpace team have looked through the file and found no errors so I’ve ordered a proof copy to look through.

The only problem now is that it says it’s going to take up until the 22nd of OCTOBER to be delivered. I really hope I’m happy with it now…

September Challenge (Goodreads)

So, on Goodreads, I’m a member of a few groups and one of the more active (Paranormal Addicts & Newbies – Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy) does challenges every month and some full year ones. Well this month it’s visually pleasing. This is a good thing because it means I have to read some of my older books that have been on my kindle for over a year.

We had to pick book covers which contained these:

Hot Male (I’ll leave you to interpret this one!)

Beautiful Woman

Artistic Cover

Vampire

Blood

Castle

Moon

Car

Couple

Gothic

Rose

Tattoo

Terrible

Dress

And pick a difficulty rating: 3 (easy) 6 (medium) 9 (hard) —- I went for 9.

So here are the books I’ll be reading for the challenge:

I’m currently reading Die For Me and Birth of the Nyxian.

First Reads copy of Briar Rose by Jana Oliver!

 

Look what’s just arrived in the post!

I won it via GoodReads last month and it’s just arrived. Cant wait to read it! As you may know I loved Jana Oliver’s Demon Trappers series so I have high hopes this will be as good. I’ll let you all know what I think when I get around to reading it

Ciao for now!

Bully – Penelope Douglas

I feel I have to post about this book because I read it until 1:10am this morning just to finish it, it was that good.

Synopsis

My name is Tate. He doesn’t call me that, though. He would never refer to me so informally, if he referred to me at all. No, he’ll barely even speak to me.

But he still won’t leave me alone.

We were best friends once. Then he turned on me and made it his mission to ruin my life. I’ve been humiliated, shut out, and gossiped about all through high school. His pranks and rumors got more sadistic as time wore on, and I made myself sick trying to stay out of his way. I even went to France for a year, just to avoid him.

But I’m done hiding from him now, and there’s no way in hell I’ll allow him to ruin my senior year. He might not have changed, but I have. It’s time to fight back.

I’m not going to let him bully me anymore.

This book grabbed me from early on and it was written in a way that I could easily get into. I was intrigued with how he was going to go from her bully to her boyfriend (come on, you had to guess it would happen, it’s NA after all ) and I wasn’t disappointed in the least, though you have to wait till the 50% mark for them to even get around to anything in the least bit friendly between them.

I liked that Tatum stood up to him after her year away, not wanting to put up with any more of his sh*t. While Jared went to sneakier means of trying to get to her by using her best friend K.C. Strangely I liked Jared from the start (that first party) though I’m not sure why because he was acting like a right ass and Tatum went up in my expectations that first time she had a go back.

If you’re a fan of New Adult, then this is a must read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bully-Fall-Away-1-ebook/dp/B00DGT3VL2

http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Fall-Away-1-ebook/dp/B00DGT3VL2

Book Review – Keeping Her

Name: Keeping Her (Losing It, #1.5)

Author: Cora Carmack

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary

Release Date: 15th August 2013

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What happens after the happy ending?

Garrick is over the moon that his girlfriend, Bliss, said yes. He’s finally found the love of his life. That means his worries are over, right?

But when he invites her to visit London and meet his family, he is presented with a whole new set of problems. How will his privileged and wealthy family react to Bliss’s unique brand of awkwardness?

Well as my regular visitors may know, I loved Losing It and Faking It, books 1 and 2 in this New Adult series so when I saw this come up on NetGalley, I just had to request it and I’m so happy they let me have it. (Thank you, publisher! )

This one alternates between Garrick and Bliss’ POV with each chapter and we see how they feel about going to London and meeting his family and friends. Garrick is worried how is mum will treat her and Bliss is worried they wont like her. Bliss being Bliss worries far too much but in that humorous way she has that leaves you smiling if not laughing out loud and Garrick is just his charming self trying to make things as easy as possible for her.

One scene I liked was where they go to meet his parents and Bliss, being her clumsy self, knocks over his mothers favourite vase and it smashes into pieces and she just stands there like a rabbit caught in headlights while going through this funny mental conversation with herself.

It isn’t a full length novel but plugs the gaps of what happened between Losing It and Faking It with Garrick and Bliss. It was short and sweet and if you are a fan of the series then you have to read this. (Just make sure you do it in order or you may get a little confused )

Next review(s): N/A

Long overdue update…and Covers (Jen?)

This feels like the first word count post I’ve done in ages. And it probably is as I’ve been busy doing other things. So here it is:

 

 

Coming along rather nicely now. I have a feeling it may end up shorter than Cat’s Wolf which, when complete, was 72 pages and 31,122 words. Fingers crossed it will be finished soon and then it will be off to one Miss Natalie Herzer for a read through.

 

Jen, you came up with some good ideas/points regarding the cover for my possible paperback version of Cat’s Wolf. It may come to fruition, it may not since it’s only going to be 113 pages long but that’s better than I expected. But I need to do a cover before I mess about with all the finer details of CreateSpace so I’m asking for input. Which one do we like best?

 

 

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