Wraith Redeemed

Wraith #1

by Melissa Fox

For years, Merry Bradbury's world revolved around Conor O'Shea. After his sudden betrayal leaves her alone and heartbroken, she comes home to settle her past and move into the future. The last person she expects to see is Conor.

Conor O'Shea never wanted anything more than forever with Merry. Discovering he is a Wraith warrior, honor bound to fight demons, destroys that plan. Merry is his Amorta, his one true soul mate, but he leaves to keep her safe from the evil that stalks him.

Eight years later, Conor's worst fear is realized, and he returns to defend Merry from his enemies. Can he save her from an unspeakable fate and reclaim her heart? And if he does, will Merry accept all that he is?

Genres: Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Romance, Fantasy

291 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 27, 2012

About the author

An avid reader of any and all genres since I could turn a page, I remember my parents rationing Hardy Boys and Black Stallion novels like most kids were rationed candy. Getting lost in a captivating, exhilarating story is my favorite way to spend time, whether reading or writing. Nothing is better than being drawn into a story so deeply you don't realize you're turning a page until you've reached the end, and the characters live on in your heart and mind long after the cover has been closed.

I currently live in the Pacific Northwest on an island with my husband and dogs.

Reviews

[Carrie (Book Fairy) Fort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite Line(s) He wanted to batter her, break her into pieces and absorb them, reform her so they were intertwined and could never be parted.

Have you ever read a book with so much love, emotion, feeling, heartache, and happiness that it leaves you in an emotional whirlwind? Well that Wraith Redeemed! I am still reeling from reading this book. The love Conner and Merry have is the love every person should be lucky to experience in their lifetime.
It felt so real , so perfect, so heartbreaking, and heartwarming all AT THE SAME TIME! The way the author described everything they went through was amazing. Every detail of the feelings the have for each other, what the fight,face, and love was so clear and perfect! Then of course the demons! Oh the demons I could see each one so clearly! I JUST LOVED IT!!
I will be on the look out for more of this authors books and I would love to maybe have a series come from this!

I was give this book by author for an honest review.

Review by Carrie of http://www.faebooks.co.uk

FIVE WRAITH FAIRIES

[Michela Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Demon-slayer Conor O’Shea is about to engage in the most dangerous encounter of his life—facing the woman he scorned.

Wraith Redeemed tells the tale of fated lovers, Conor O’Shea and Merry Bradbury. The pair grew up in a small town in Maine and everyone knew they were one of those couples that were just ‘meant to be’. That is until Conor’s twenty-first birthday when his entire world comes crashing down around him. It is on this day he learns he is part of a long ancestral line of demon-slayers. In a moment of immature panic, Conor breaks up with Merry, telling her only that he doesn’t love her any more. Without any reason for the split, Merry is left with a broken heart and a thousand unanswered questions.

The story picks up years later with Conor returning to their tiny hamlet after the death of Merry’s mother. Knowing Merry’s life is in danger; Conor tries to make Merry understand why he’d had to leave all those years ago.

The story is quick paced and is filled with romance, action and even some sexy times thrown in. The story weaves the legend of Conor’s Wraith heritage easily into the story, keeping what could have been incredibly confusing mythology into a simple and easily digestible paranormal story.

I liked that Merry wasn't a push over, although she did acquiesce a little quickly in my opinion, but understand the need to keep the plot moving, even if it seems a bit unrealistic to the average reader. I needed to suspend my belief and imagine the draw and intense pull that comes from being someone’s Amortia. All in all, a well told and enjoyable debut read from Melissa Fox.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing book. I wasn't sure if I would like it from the description, but the more I read the more I liked. It was a love story inside a paranormal world. The thing I liked most is that we got the love story as the main component with the paranormal there for angst.

Merry and Conner are childhood friends and lovers up until Conner turns 21, then things change and Conner finds out that he's part of an elite group that hunt demons, he's a Wraith. Because of what he learns from his father, who is also a Wraith, he pushes Merry away to protect her. Instead he just hurts her.

After their parents are killed Conner comes back home to win Merry back, whose home to forget Conner and maybe move on with her life. She was proposed to by a Pro Football player that she couldn't give her whole heart to because she still loves Conner.

The thing I was frustrated with was that Conner wouldn't tell Merry the truth about what he is, and why he left her. It's not until she enters the demons den that she finds out what he is...and because she loves him and is his mate she accepts it.

Overall a great book.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely amazing. I was sucked in from the very beginning. The way that Conor broke poor Merry's heart in an attempt to save her or protect her from the Demons that he learns he has to kill in order to rid the world from evil, was absolutely heart wrenching. My heart broke for this girl. I love the way she makes him earn her trust back when he comes back several years later. It wasn't necessarily your typical love story. It had lots of anguish and heartache and wild crazy, lose yourself in someone else, sex.

Two of my favorite quotes from this book are: "He wanted to take her hard, to brand her with his body and wring cries from her lips, assert himself in her mind and body so there would never be any doubt between them." and "What was between them went beyond love, beyond desire. It was basic need. It was not being whole unless they were together. It was compulsion and connection, pledge and promise, fate and fortune."

So incredibly deep. Seriously a great book. I'd happily recommend this book to anyone. You will not be disappointed. reviewed by Ashley E. of www.faebooks.co.uk

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book you can not put down. As first you want to be the one to punch Conor for what he did to Merry. Oh! Wait! She did it for me. Conor was a man of his word when he returned to win back the women he loved for as long as he can remember. He and Jonas do everything in their power to protect Merry.

This is a story of love, demon fighting, survival, and trust.

Will Merry love Conor again or did she ever stop loving him? Will she be able to trust him after all this time? If she does love and trust him again will they survive the coming battles?

This is the start of a great series.

[Brenda Sparks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first Melissa Fox novel and I was not disappointed.
Demon-slayer Conor O’Shea has returned to the home of his youth to try to mend a past transgression and once again win the heart of his childhood sweetheart. Unfortunately for Conor, Merry has no intention of making that easy. Between burning barns, feminine stubbornness, deadly demons, and an attraction that won’t be denied, Conor has his hands full.
The romance was steamy, the action exciting, and overall Wraith Redeemed left me wanting more. All in all, an entertaining debut from Melissa Fox.

[Mara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to give this book a chance twice. But I found it pretty bad. It's overly melodramatic skipping into the snorting territory. It reminds me of an XIX century operetta.

Dialogue is cringing at times: I love you but I had to leave you. Yes I knew you loved me but you lied about it.Rinse and repeat. Sigh.

What I found worse is the idea that at 17 you really loved and 10 years later you never grew out of it. If this is real 90% of us would be screwed...
Oh and the usual hormones driving a woman's life. Pretty please can we be portrayed as intelligent beings. Thank you.

Stopped at 30%

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book I loved the story line and the way Merry and Conor loved each other. I wish I knew more about Merry and Johns work and the creatures Conor fought. Merry's family and ex boyfriend stuck by her and were willing to protect just as much as Conor. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves action and romance.

Reviewed by Sabrina of www.faebooks.co.uk

[Pretty Sassy Cool · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

Mysterious background. Sensual man. Weapons. Secrets. Broken hearts. Shared past. Feisty, beautiful heroine who lives with a lingering sorrow.

The ingredients are all there for a story that will get your attention and make you want to wrap yourself up in the characters, aching for them to get figured out and renew their love with one another.

Melissa Fox’s debut novel, Wraith Redeemed , is an intriguing beginning to her Wraith series. There are some terrific elements here and I enjoyed them.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this book is the mythos to which we readers are introduced. The hero, Conor O’Shea, is a Wraith and can become smoky and immaterial at will to pursue demonic forces that work evil in the lives of mortals. Pretty cool, yeah? And Brimstone, his horse, changes with him, making them a dynamic pair. I love this. We read about different levels and varieties of demons and other evil creatures such as revenirs, which are as vampires. Dangerous and deadly.

I also very much enjoyed the hero’s good friend, Jonas Grey. Another Wraith like Conor, Jonas is strikingly attractive and a force to be reckoned with as well. He, too, has a sorrowful past, involving his lost Amorta.

The concept of the Amorta also very much captures me, because I love the idea of a bonded relationship of the supernatural variety. The Amorta is a love-bond between a Wraith and his mate, and for Conor this bond is found in the girl who had been the love of his life since his teens, Merry Bradbury.

He claims her, in one of the steamy scenes that Melissa Fox brings to this definitely 18+ book.

“You know perfectly well why I didn’t do this last night,” Conor growled, returning to his task. He was surprised it had taken so long for Jonas to mention the subject. The other Wraith wasn’t known for his restraint.

“The Claiming of an Amorta doesn’t go unnoticed.” Jonas’s tone turned serious. “The energy the two of you created was bound to have been sensed, and not just by me.”

Yes, Conor’s love is in danger because she is close to him. Conor’s vulnerability is directly linked to Merry and his enemies will do anything they can to get to her. And to him.

The plot of this first book is fairly straightforward, which makes it comfortable. The demonic forces at work in the story lend that edge of danger that can captivate. Melissa Fox brings us some strong supporting cast members in Merry’s sister and brother-in-law as well as Conor’s housekeeper (who has known Merry since the lovers were quite young). Add Irish accents, horse breeding, and multiple romantic, erotic encounters, and this should be a winner.

There were some aspects, though, that did not captivate me as I was hoping they would. Merry’s character is quite underdeveloped in many respects beyond the “Do I forgive Conor for abandoning me eight years ago or don’t I?” and her pain at the death of her mother. I had little sense of who she was beyond the specific setting of this story—which took place while she was away from her usual life and the boyfriend (famous football player) with whom she had just ended things. It was as if Merry only lived in this setting, which might have some deeper meaning in terms of her character, but it left me less than fulfilled as I felt I didn’t know her very well. And the former boyfriend is brought into the mix for no real discernible reason except to make Conor jealous—an unnecessary few moments that didn’t play out as really amusing or at all tense.

Also, I confess, I like watching a romance play out. The tension of a first meeting, the “will-she-if-he” of the first kiss and, if the book is that kind of book, watching the steps that lead to intimacy. I enjoy feeling with a couple as they learn about one another and fall in love. In this book, all of that has gone on before we begin, and we meet estranged lovers who have some tense conversations of the “You have to trust me!” “How can I?” type before they acknowledge openly that they are it for one another.

However! I have heard from Melissa Fox (who was kind enough to chat on twitter) that the second book brings us a relationship just like the type I’m craving for Jonas Grey. I look forward to reading it and delving further into this world that she has envisioned for us. I’ve read other stories from this author online and know that she rocks the romance in a big way.

I encourage you to take some time to meet Conor and Merry (and Jonas!) and enter their paranormal world.

For more reviews and bookish talk, visit our blog at Pretty Sassy Cool

[Anna L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pace and solidly written.

Lots of ups and downs in the story to keep me reading. Read it in one sitting and looking forward to the next one.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, book is exciting lots of action very hard to put down and I fell asleep with it open!! Must read. Great love story and redemption.

[SydneyGen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it took me a little bit to read I was glad when I finally got into it. The world is created with meaning and I enjoyed the aspects of background story interwoven throughout to give a whole picture of the story. Enough action to keep it fun an interesting. I enjoyed this book and am glad I got to read it.

[TravelingGal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. What could have been an interesting idea got bogged down with way too much (repeated) inner dialogue, too little action, and an odd reluctance to use actual words in the intimate scenes. Shame because I could see the potential for a good book in there somewhere.

[Tia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cool start to a series, however I felt like I've read something very similar before but I can't remember which novel it was, since I've read so many different ones.

[rubywednesday]

Gave up at about 25%. What I read was dull and cringe-worthy.

[jackie redmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the story

This is a new type of story for me. I did like the story line and will be reading more of them.

[Barbara S. Sturdivant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where is the next one???????

Loved the storyline. The action was spectacular and difficult with new creatures and heroes. Love also plays a big part. Excellent book.