Thursday, November 13, 2014

Review: Broken Course by Aly Martinez

SYNOPSIS:

Seven years ago, my life changed forever. One accident and the person I saw in the mirror no longer resembled the woman I used to be. I was lost and confused inside my own body. I felt alone and disconnected from the world, carrying the incredible weight of guilt and loss that wasn't even mine to harbor.

Then fate led me to Leo James. He taught me that crazy could be perfectly normal and it shouldn't hurt to breathe. Don't get me wrong. Leo isn't perfect. He has his own cross to bear, and the truth is, that might be why I fell for him in the first place. But despite everything he does for me, learning to forgive myself is infinitely harder than overlooking the flaws of another.

Now, the secrets and lies of our past have begun to dictate our future—threatening to ruin us before we get the chance to try. Perhaps we were cursed from the start. Or maybe, just maybe, the remnants of our fractured lives will fit together to form one whole, where love isn’t questioned and being happy is…well, easy.

Can a second broken soul be enough to fill the voids of my own? Or will such scarred pasts prove too much for our love alone to overcome?


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19169762-broken-course?ac=1
 
MY THOUGHTS:

5 out of 5 stars

Before I get officially started with my review, I need to put this out there:

Dear Aly Martinez...my birthday is in February and I want Leo.  Or Christmas.  Christmas would also work.  Or tomorrow.  I have no issue with tomorrow.  You just let me know when.
 

I'm not even joking.  It is like when you were creating Leo, you crawled inside my head and picked every single one of my weaknesses.  I'm pretty sure you have ruined me for any other contemporary romance heroes.  Dark, dirty and flawed...I mean, hellllllo Leo.

Ahem.  So back to the review of the story.

There MAY have been a bit of trepidation on my part going into this story...you see, I have a tendency to hold grudges longer than is probably healthy and I loathed Sarah in Changing Course.  And yes, I know that Stolen Course sheds light on her situation, but still.  I haven't hated a character like I hate Sarah since reading Gone Girl.  There may have been a few WTFs uttered when finishing Among the Echoes.  Okay, so maybe more than a few.

BUT...I love Aly and I have faith in Aly and then Celeste from The Book Hookup tweeted me about Leo and I knew I couldn't put it off any longer.

My plan was to simply pretend Sarah was somebody else.

Y'all...this may be my favorite book of the series.  If you haven't read the first books in this series, I'm not going to rehash what brings Sarah and Leo together, but once they are together their chemistry is undeniable.  But it isn't just the intense attaction between Sarah and Leo that makes their relationship work, it is the fact that they are both broken.  Yes, I say "are" because what the two of them had experienced in their separate lives are events nobody could ever let go.  The scars are long.  The scars are deep.  And the scars are permanent.

That being said, that doesn't mean that Sarah and Leo have to let the scars define them.

And I think that is what I love most about this book.  Aly Martinez doesn't write a story that erases the past simply because the future happens.  She writes a story that allows a future in that happens because of the past.  What Sarah did and what Leo experienced doesn't just go away because they are in love.  Actually, their emotions bring everything closer to the surface and it isn't sunshine and rainbows.

I loved this story.  It had everything I look for -- intensity, emotions, unf, humor and an ending that fits the characters.  This whole series and Beyond the Echoes have a permanent place on my Kindle because I know I will be rereading them...I refuse to say goodbye to these characters.  And I can't read what Aly Martinez gives us next.


Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Review: Love Me to Death by Marissa Clarke

Medical research scientist Elena Arcos has always lived her life under the radar, which is not easy to do when you live with the craziest woman in the world. But eccentric Aunt Uza is a picnic compared to the other people who enter her orderly life after she is shot in a convenience store robbery.

Elena finds herself rocketed from comfortable predictability to supernatural insanity courtesy of her own private angel of death who happens to have the sexiest accent on earth and a body to match. Her death angel is convinced she’s some kind of freaky half vampire thing and that her deceased dad was the real deal: a blood sucking monster.

Yeah, right. She’ll play along, but then she doesn’t have much choice seeing how as the guy claims to be some immortal law enforcer and has taken her prisoner.

* * *

Nikolai Itzov had expected to fight the urge to torture the progeny of his father’s murderer, but he’d never anticipated battling the urge to kiss her her.

As a Slayer, an elite law enforcer descended from Azrael himself, his charge from the Underveil General is clear: Kill her or die. He has been told she is one of them--an Undead. Nothing but a parasite to be destroyed. But he has been told wrong.

Nikolai and Elena find themselves in a life and death battle to stop a plot designed to lift the Underveil and enslave humans.

With her analytical mind and his centuries of training and experience, they might be able to foil the plot with their lives and maybe their hearts intact. But in order to succeed, he must help her become the very thing he hates the most: an Undead.

 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696013-love-me-to-death?ac=1

MY THOUGHTS:

4 out of 5 stars

I used to read PNR's like they were air I needed to breathe.  For every title I started, I had at least four waiting for me to finish.  Have you seen the book igloo on Pinterest...yeah, I could probably build it with the books I've accumulated.

And then, just like that, I dropped the genre completely.  Because sometimes you just need to read something different...and then you discover all the books in your new favorite genre and the cycle starts over again.  Hence my stack of YA and NA and Fantasy books that I can use to build neighboring igloos.

There was something about this book though, that made me want to read it NOW.  Even though I wasn't looking for a PNR, I NEEDED to read it.  (And ok, yes I'll admit it...the cover wasn't hard to look at).  So when I was flying to attend a conference a couple of weeks ago, I had it all set on my Kindle ready to go -- 2 flights and a 3 hour layover in between...perfect!

Thrown headfirst into a world she didn't know existed, Elena Arcos has quite the situation on her hands.  Vampires, hunters, elves, shifters, new powers...welcome to life underneath the veil.  Oh, and Nikolai - can't forget him.  Especially once they are joined together by magic that doesn't break easily.

Oh, and there is the tiny little bit about a prophecy.  So that also complicates things a bit.


I have to confess that I was a bit confused with the story at the beginning -- granted my PNR wheels were a bit rusty, but it took me a few chapters to visualize the different worlds and beings that exist "beneath the veil".  But once I did, I was hooked.  I found the story to be funny, attention-grabbing, and...well, lets just say that all the elements that I look for in a paranormal romance book were there.


As a reader with an overwhelming number of books on my to-read list, I sometimes feel like starting a new unknown series can be a bit of a risk - especially when it is an genre that has been off my radar for a while.  No risk, no reward though, right?  While this book is primarily the story of Elena and Nikolai, the world that has been built and the other characters introduced are intriguing and I look forward to reading more in this series and more from Marissa Clarke. 


Thank you to Entangled Publishing for allowing me a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.


Monday, November 10, 2014

Release Blitz: Broken Course by Aly Martinez

 
Broken Banner

Title: Broken Course (Wrecked and Ruined, #3)
Author: Aly Martinez
Release Date: November 10, 2014
Genre: Contemporary Romance

I had the chance to read this one over the weekend and I can not wait to get my review up in a few days! 
   
Seven years ago, my life changed forever. One accident and the person I saw in the mirror no longer resembled the woman I used to be. I was lost and confused inside my own body. I felt alone and disconnected from the world, carrying the incredible weight of guilt and loss that wasn't even mine to harbor.  

Then fate led me to Leo James. He taught me that crazy could be perfectly normal and it shouldn't hurt to breathe. Don't get me wrong. Leo isn't perfect. He has his own cross to bear, and the truth is, that might be why I fell for him in the first place. But despite everything he does for me, learning to forgive myself is infinitely harder than overlooking the flaws of another. 

Now, the secrets and lies of our past have begun to dictate our future—threatening to ruin us before we get the chance to try. Perhaps we were cursed from the start. Or maybe, just maybe, the remnants of our fractured lives will fit together to form one whole, where love isn’t questioned and being happy is…well, easy. Can a second broken soul be enough to fill the voids of my own? Or will such scarred pasts prove too much for our love alone to overcome?

goodreads
 
**Each book in this series can be read as a stand alone.**
BrokenNormalteaser
     

Wrecked and Ruined
wrecked and 

ruined

Changing Course (Wrecked and Ruined, #1)
Stolen Course (Wrecked and Ruined, #2)
Broken Course (Wrecked and Ruined, #3)
About the Author
Aly Martinez

Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, Aly Martinez is a stay-at-home mom to four crazy kids under the age of five, including a set of twins. Currently living in Chicago, she passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a glass of wine at her side. After some encouragement from her friends, Aly decided to add “Author” to her ever-growing list of job titles. So grab a glass of Chardonnay, or a bottle if you’re hanging out with Aly, and join her aboard the crazy train she calls life.  
Enter to win a $50.00 Amazon Gift Card or a Signed Paperback set!
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Monday, November 3, 2014

Cover Reveal: The Law of Moses by Amy Harmon


SYNOPSIS:

If I tell you right up front, right in the beginning that I lost him, it will be easier for you to bear. You will know it’s coming, and it will hurt. But you’ll be able to prepare.

Someone found him in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and close to death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his story on the ten o’clock news – the little baby left in a basket at a dingy Laundromat, born to a crack addict and expected to have all sorts of problems. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that ran down his body, like he’d been broken at birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant, but the image stuck in my mind. Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to him from the start.

It all happened before I was born, and by the time I met Moses and my mom told me all about him, the story was old news and nobody wanted anything to do with him. People love babies, even sick babies. Even crack babies. But babies grow up to be kids, and kids grow up to be teenagers. Nobody wants a messed up teenager.

And Moses was messed up. Moses was a law unto himself. But he was also strange and exotic and beautiful. To be with him would change my life in ways I could never have imagined. Maybe I should have stayed away. Maybe I should have listened. My mother warned me. Even Moses warned me. But I didn’t stay away.

And so begins a story of pain and promise, of heartache and healing, of life and death. A story of before and after, of new beginnings and never-endings. But most of all...a love story.


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23252517-the-law-of-moses




ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Amy Harmon knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story.

Amy Harmon has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in 2007 called “What I Know” – also available on Amazon and wherever digital music is sold. She has written five novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue, Making Faces and most recently, Infinity + One.

Her newest book, The Law of Moses releases November 27, 2014.

Website: http://www.authoramyharmon.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoramyharmon?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aharmon_author
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/authoramyharmon/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Amy-Harmon/e/B007V3HXUY
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5829056.Amy_Harmon

GIVEAWAY:

Amy is giving away a $100 Amazon gift card, this is an international giveaway.


a Rafflecopter giveaway