Guest Post by Nina Croft on Living Forever + Giveaway

blood and metal by nina croftAs part of the celebration of her latest fantastic Blood Hunter book (see today’s review for deets) I’d like to welcome Nina Croft back to Reading Reality. In addition to the tour for Blood and Metal, Nina sent me a fantastic guest post about one of the central themes in a lot of her fiction. “Who wants to live forever?” along with that age-old romantic question, “If you could live forever, who would you want to spend it with?” As so many of her marvelous stories involve vampires and other immortals, this question comes up a lot. The answer, at least when Nina is answering the question, is always interesting.

Who wants to live forever?
by Nina Croft

Well, I do for one.

Of course, I might change my mind in a few thousand years, but until then it seems a way better option than the alternative.

I’m Nina Croft, and I write all sorts of romance often with a speculative element, and this week, BLOOD AND METAL, book 5 in my Dark Desires series releases.

The series is essentially science fiction romance with a paranormal twist and follows the adventures, romantic and otherwise, of the crew of the space ship, the Blood Hunter.

I hope readers find the series fun and sexy, but there is also an underlying deeper theme to all the books—that of man’s fear of death and the search for immortality, whether through science, religion or by some paranormal means.

The idea of immortality, and the price people would be willing to pay to obtain it, has always fascinated me, and I believe it’s one of the things that draws people to paranormal. It’s part of the lure of the vampire—the fact that they cannot die (well not easily anyway). It’s certainly one of the main things that draws me, as a writer, to the paranormal.

My Dark Desires series takes place in a future when man has fled to the stars and there they have discovered the secret of immortality—Meridian—a rare substance available to only a few. A new class has evolved; the Collective, super rich and immortal, they rule the universe. And just about everyone else is desperate to earn enough money to pay for the Meridian treatment. Though as the series goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that money isn’t the only price to be paid. And some members of the Collective are getting a little squeamish.

The series began with Break Out. Ricardo Sanchez, my hero, is the owner and pilot of the ship. Unlike most of the civilized universe, Rico isn’t interested in Meridian. He doesn’t need it, because he’s already immortal. Rico is a vampire and has lived a long time (he was born on Earth in the middle ages).

Move onto book 5. In Blood and Metal, Daisy, the co-pilot of the Blood Hunter, has never wanted immortality, rather it was thrust upon her when she was dying and Rico did the only thing he could to save her life…turn her into a vampire.

Fergal, our hero, on the other hand, doesn’t so much want to live forever as he doesn’t want to die (a slightly different goal but with the same results.) With that aim, he signed up for a totally experimental cybernetics programme, and is now dealing with some unexpected results.

So neither Daisy nor Fergal really wanted to live forever, but both are now immortal (if they get to survive the book), and they both have to learn to deal with that.

So what do you think? Would you like to live forever? And just how much would you be willing to pay? Let me know for a chance to win an ecopy of Break Out (book 1 in my Dark Desires series), Bittersweet Blood (book 1 in my Order series) and Operation Saving Daniel (book 1 in my Melville Sisters series).

[photo of Nina Croft]About Nina Croft

Nina Croft grew up in the north of England. After training as an accountant, she spent four years working as a volunteer in Zambia which left her with a love of the sun and a dislike of 9-5 work. She then spent a number of years mixing travel (whenever possible) with work (whenever necessary) but has now settled down to a life of writing and picking almonds on a remote farm in the mountains of southern Spain.

To find out more about Nina, look for her at her website, Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I have adored all of Nina’s series, so I’m absolutely thrilled that she is letting me give away an ebook prize pack of the first books in her three series. The winner will receive ebook copies of Break Out (reviewed here) Bittersweet Blood (reviewed here) and Operation Saving Daniel (reviewed here). I’m a fan, so I’m happy to be able to share some of my favorites with a lucky commenter.

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Review: Blood and Metal by Nina Croft + Giveaway

blood and metal by nina croftFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: science fiction romance
Series: Blood Hunter/Dark Desires #5
Length: 268 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Date Released: August 24, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

She’s his last chance for redemption…if she doesn’t kill him first.

Copilot of the Blood Hunter, Daisy is a newly-turned vampire, and she’s hungry. Really hungry and it’s interfering with her plans for revenge. Unfortunately, the only thing that can distract her from said hunger is sex…which is a problem when she can barely refrain from draining any man dry within moments. But old flame Fergal Cain might just be the sexy-assed solution to her problem.

Part human, part cyborg, and with a poison coursing through his system, Fergal’s running out of time to find the scientist who has the cure. Unfortunately for him, the misfit crew of the Blood Hunter put a serious kink in his plans. And if the poison doesn’t kill him, the hot little vamp he can’t resist might do the honors herself…

My Review:

Plant girl turned vampire meets intrepid reporter turned cyborg. Or at least that’s one variation on the romance between Daisy, copilot of the Blood Hunter and Fergal Cain, escaped prisoner. However, there are many, many layers to both of their identities, and lots of both internal and external tension in this latest installment in the marvelous Blood Hunter series.

temporal shift by nina croftThe previous book in this series, Temporal Shift (reviewed here) serves as a bit of a reboot for the series. During the events of that book, which take place on the other side of a wormhole, only six months pass for the crew of Blood Hunter. It’s during those six months that Daisy, a genetically modified young woman with a whole lot of chlorophyll in her DNA, is nearly killed and is changed into a vampire in order to save her life.

The crew of the Blood Hunter has already lost some of their nearest and dearest in the galactic power struggle that they keep finding themselves in the middle of, and Rico, who swore that he would never turn anyone again, turns Daisy to keep her with them. Especially since her near-death is all his fault.

But Daisy the vampire is also a problem. She’s hungry ALL THE TIME, and doesn’t have enough control to manage her hunger. Her crewmates are now also food, but food she doesn’t want to kill. Lucky for her, they are all immortal and can afford to feed her regularly. Rico tells her that sex will also quiet her hunger, but every single person on the Blood Hunter is part of a couple. Everyone has already found their soulmate, except for poor lonely and starving Daisy.

When they come back through the wormhole, they discover that 20 years has passed in the world they left behind, and everything has gone into the shitter. The very militant and anti-anyone-not-pure-human Church of Everlasting Life has taken control of everything, and people in general are either true believers or truly terrified.

deadly pursuit by nina croftThe head of the church, Temperance Hatcher, is responsible for the deaths of too many of the Blood Hunter’s crew. And he has two of the crew as hostages, Alex and Jon. Alex has been forced to resume her role as reluctant High Priestess in order to keep her husband Jon alive. (If you’re curious about how they got together in the first place, read Deadly Pursuit (reviewed here) for the story of Alex’ escape from the Church and their unlikely romance.)

In their first unsuccessful attempt to break Jon out of prison, the crew rediscovers Fergal Cain instead. When they first met, Fergal was an investigative journalist infiltrating a company that produced cyborgs. Twenty years later, Fergal is an escaped cyborg attempting to rescue the one man who knows the details of Fergal’s condition, and the one man who can possibly keep him alive.

The Blood Hunter crew can’t leave Fergal behind, they’ve just blown his cover as a prison guard. But Fergal is certain that he can’t stay with the Blood Hunter, he’s carrying too many deadly secrets that will either get them all killed, or get him tossed out an airlock. But when he and Daisy discover that they are everything the other one needs to cure everything that ails them, he can’t make himself turn away.

Not even when it is much, much too late.

Escape Rating B+: I’ll confess to being a bit confused by the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey bits in Temporal Shift, so it was great that the author put the crew back into normal space and into a story where time behaved normally again.

At the same time, the 20 year break served as an interesting reboot. When the crew left normal space it took the leaders of the two of the three major power groups with them. So the Collective and the rebel conclave both collapsed without their leaders and the Church very much ascendant took over everything.

Rabid theocracy is not anyone’s friend in this book. In this case, the True Believers in human purity are unable to tolerate any deviance, either in DNA or in thought. The prisons are full and the people are scared, quite reasonably, to death.

Fergal Cain has a big secret that he is carrying through most of the book. However, it is a secret that is easily guessed by the reader. And my knowing what it was did not detract from the drama, because the tension always revolved around other people’s reaction to that secret, not its existence.

Daisbreak out by nina crofty and Fergal make a perfect pair. He is a cyborg, and he normally has to hold back on his strength and capabilities. Daisy is a vampire who is afraid to let down her guard out of fear that she might kill her partner. Except that Daisy discovers that while Fergal may be terrific in bed, he isn’t food for her vampire. As a cyborg, he tastes terrible!

But that they are each able to let down their respective guards makes their intimacy, both physical and emotional, hard for them to resist. Fergal has never belonged to anyone or anything before, and his connection to Daisy, and through her to the crew of the Blood Hunter, kills his resolve to remain alone. It may be safer on his own, but he finally discovers that being connected to other people is worth it.

And Daisy finds herself in a relationship that is not just worth fighting for, but also worth living for, and someone with whom she may be able to share “forever”.

If you like your science fiction romance with a heaping helping of non-stop action adventure, start this series with Break Out (reviewed here). You’ll be glad you did.

 

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Blood and Metal Button 300 x 225

As part of the tour, Nina is giving away 2 sets of the paperback copies of the first three books in the series, Break Out, Deadly Pursuit and Death Defying and 5 ecopies of Temporal Shift, book 4

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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Escape Velocity by Jess Anastasi

escape velocity by jess anastasiFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: science fiction romance
Series: Valiant Knox #1
Length: 192 pages
Publisher: Entangled Select Otherworld
Date Released: February 2, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KoboAll Romance

Rebuilding his life. And rediscovering love… Ilari, Brannon System, 2436

At first, Dr. Sacha Dalton is simply curious about the prisoner of war admitted to her med-lab…until she sees who it is. For Commander Kai Yang—the commander of the battleship Valiant Knox—has long been thought dead. Killed in action. But after almost a year and half, he’s returned home. Returned to her.Kai is recovering from his ordeal and under the watchful care of Sacha, his childhood friend and the widow of his best friend. Only now, their friendship has grown and deepened into something far deeper, and far more complicated. Yet as Kai’s body recovers, his psyche remains broken. How could he ever be the man he was, and the man Sacha deserves? But an intergalactic war has a way of forcing a man to be the hero he was always meant to be…

My Review:

Before I start critiquing, let me say at the beginning that I had a terrific time aboard the Valiant Knox in Escape Velocity. But because this is science fiction romance, I have a few things that are niggling at me.

The plot of Escape Velocity is relatively straightforward. One of the doctors aboard the space ship Valiant Knox has had the universe’s worst year and a half. Her best friend was declared KIA and her husband was very definitely killed in action.

That best friend, Commander Kai Yang, has had a time equally as bad. He was NOT killed in action. He was captured by the enemy and kept prisoner in their “re-education center”. The CSS are fundamentalists, and not just when it comes to technology. They want to step back from the high-tech universe and go back to their roots, but they don’t seem to care how many spaceships they have to steal along the way in order to fight their more technologically advanced enemy.

The CSS soldiers are real fanatics who don’t seem to care if they die to further their cause, which wasn’t spelled out nearly well enough for me. They’re not winning, but they are not losing either. It’s always difficult to fight an enemy who does not give a damn about his own life as long as he can take you with him. Think suicide bombers on steroids. Or at least the bombs are on steroids.

Kai escapes from prison in a rather grisly, but totally necessary, way. It’s gut-wrenching and heart-rending and totally makes you feel for his pain and his trauma. Which is really important for the rest of the story.

Kai escapes the prison grounds and is rescued by a patrol ship, only to reach the Valiant Knox, a ship he once commanded, to discover that everyone believes he was dead, and that there have been a whole lot of changes while he was gone. Especially changes to himself. Just because he physically escaped that prison does not mean that he has escaped psychologically.

He doesn’t even want to think the phrase “PTSD”, but it keeps staring him in the face and derailing his attempts to return to his old life.

His best friend, Dr. Sacha Dalton, is going through a turmoil of her own. She is absolutely overjoyed to have Kai back, but is still emotionally scraped raw by his presumed death followed by the loss of her husband. When Kai returns, she goes on an emotional rollercoaster of her own.

Kai turns to her, not just as the only friend and trustworthy face, but also as the woman he dreamed of in his cell. Thinking of returning to Sacha was one of the things that kept him alive. But he remembered her as married. Now that she is a widow, Kai is able to let a lot of feelings into the light of day that he would have kept bottled up if Sacha’s husband Elliot had still been alive.

Sacha comes back to life, herself. But starting a romantic relationship with Kai is the right kind of wrong. As a doctor, she knows that Kai needs to focus on his own recovery. He can continue to avoid dealing with his PTSD by getting into a relationship. Sacha knows better but can’t resist, then goes through all kinds of guilt for giving in to emotions that she has been burying since long before Kai was captured.

They both suffer from a massive amount of misunderstandammit as Sacha lets her doctor side get in the way of really listening to what Kai is saying. Not just about their relationship, but about a possible CSS infiltrator he has seen aboard the Valiant Knox.

Sacha thinks his paranoia is just another facet of his PTSD. It takes her almost too long to realise that Kai is absolutely right – both about the infiltrator and about their relationship.

Escape Rating B+: I enjoyed the hell out of this. However, as I read it I couldn’t decide whether this was truly SFR, or whether it was a contemporary military romance cloaked in SFR trappings. It was an excellent military romance about PTSD sufferers and the beginnings of their recovery, but it felt like it could have been contemporary without too many changes. The SFR setting was good, but it didn’t feel integral to the plot. Which makes this a good book for military romance fans to dip their toes into SFR.

I didn’t get enough of a picture of the CSS to figure out exactly what they stood for. They felt like cardboard fundamentalist fanatics of the crazy cult school. Also, the stealing of spaceships was absolutely counter to what they were supposed to believe, and yet they knew how to not just pilot them, but conduct space battles with them to pretty good effect. Those two things felt mutually exclusive, and I need more on what they believe and how the war got to this point.

Where the SF really shone was in the setting. The Valiant Knox was a city in a space ship. It reminded me more than a bit of the Enterprise D and E in Star Trek: The Next Generation, particularly if Ten Forward was transformed into a whole deck of commercial and leisure outlets. Or maybe a cleaned up version of Battlestar Galactica. Or possibly even a Babylon 5 that moved. Kai’s position and the straightening out thereof fit really well into an Starfleet-type bureaucratic framework.

The centerpiece of the story is the relationship between Kai and Sacha. They both have a metric ton of baggage and it gets in the way both of their relationship and Kai’s recovery. Which it probably should. Kai’s PTSD is something he has to learn to manage but will never get over. He isn’t the man he was before he was captured, so he has to figure out who he is now and learn to deal with that. Sacha never really grieved for either Kai or her late husband. She’s numbed herself with work. Kai’s return forces her to come back to life, and just like with a limb that has fallen asleep, the pins and needles are often painful. She has to decide whether she is Kai’s doctor or his friend and lover. As she bounces between those two emotional states, she almost kills their entire relationship.

While the attack by the CSS forces everyone to get their heads out of their asses and face the real threat, I wish that there hadn’t been an accidental pregnancy involved. It felt a bit too deus ex machina as far as fixing their relationship was concerned. I also question whether a military organization would put Kai back in command so easily, considering the way his PTSD manifests. If they are that desperate for experienced commanders, there is way more wrong with the war effort than we have seen so far. And I want to see it.

So I can’t wait for the next book in this series, Damage Control. I hope that it answers my unanswered questions.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Don’t Blackmail the Vampire by Tiffany Allee + Giveaway

dont blackmail the vampire by tiffany alleeFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Series: Sons of Kane #2
Length: 156 pages
Publisher: Entangled Covet
Date Released: April 28, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

Rachel Davis will do anything to get her sister out of a bad relationship with her fiancé. Even if it involves a few fibs, a little breaking-and-entering, and blackmailing the fiancé’s potential boss, Charles, for his help. So what if the handsome Charles happens to be a vampire?

Charles Wright has found the perfect way to trap the man threatening his brother’s wife: cozy up to him, get invited along on the skiing trip, and then search for incriminating evidence. How much better that audacious but gorgeous Rachel is just as eager to nail the bastard. As far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing wrong with a little blackmail between two consenting adults. Especially when it’s time for Rachel to pay up.

My Review:

Don't Bite the Bridesmaid by Tiffany AlleeDon’t Blackmail the Vampire is the sequel to Don’t Bite the Bridesmaid (reviewed here). As the titles indicate, this series is a fairly lighthearted take on vampires and paranormal romance.

Not that there isn’t some skullduggery involved, but it’s the good old-fashioned human kind. We’re just as capable as vampires of being rotten, with or without sharp fangs.

The fun thing about this series is that the existence of vampires may be a general secret, but it’s not specifically secret–the heroines in both books know perfectly well that vamps exist, because they know someone who nearly married one.

But I said this is a sequel, because the characters in this story were all introduced in the first book, and the story directly follows the last one. Or it appears to.

In Don’t Bite the Bridesmaid, Alice asks her hunky neighbor to be her pity date at her sister’s wedding. He’s taking pity on her because her sister is marrying her ex’ brother, and said ex is a slimy arse who she caught cheating on her with her ex-best friend.

Her neighbor Noah is the vampire in this equation, and the pity date turns out to be true love after all.

But all is not well; someone is threatening Alice by phone and email, and with specific knowledge of vampires. Everyone suspects her ex, because he’s just that slimy.

And that’s where this story comes in, because someone needs to get to the bottom of the death-threats, and Noah’s brother Charles elects himself as the charmer to charm the slime. But Charles isn’t the only one who wants to nail Brant for his sliminess, so he joins forces with Rachel, the sister of Brant’s new girlfriend, who just so happens to be that ex-best friend of Alice’s that he cheated with.

Everything follows from the first story. Except for Charles and Rachel. Rachel knows Brant is sleazy and slimy, but can’t convince her sister. So she “coerces” Charles to help her, by threatening to reveal his vampiric nature. Actually, threatening to reveal his plans to out Brant would have been more of a threat.

Charles goes along because Rachel is the first truly “interesting” woman he’s met in decades. He’s met beautiful, but really interesting and fun to be with have been in much shorter supply. She’s refreshing as well as beautiful.

Rachel, of course, thinks he’s too gorgeous to be remotely in her league, but she needs his help.

And it turns out that he needs hers, more than he thought possible.

Escape Rating B+: This series is tremendously fun. It’s an absolute blast because the people involved are not just easy to empathize with, but also people you’d like to sit down and have a drink with, or be friends with, in real life. (At least the good ones, Brant is definitely a slime ball).

Charles is not your typical dark and brooding vampire. He was a charming people person before he was “turned” and being a vampire has not changed his basic nature. He’s in this initially because he truly wants to help his brother and desperately wants to save his almost-sister-in-law.

So naturally he gets caught up in wanting to help Rachel too.

There’s a bit of the “fake relationship” story in here as well, and it works because it’s turned on it’s head and upside down. Rachel and Charles fake a relationship and then fake him being a selfish ass so that Rachel’s sister can see the same thing happening to her. But the fake relationship turns real, and the fake breakup only proves it to both Charles and Rachel, even though they both think they don’t have a chance long-term.

As Charles reveals more and more vampire secrets, he discovers that they do belong together, and that he needs her to solve the mystery he started with. Rachel just needs to trust in her feelings, and that’s damn hard for her to do. When she finally figures it out, it’s an ending that makes you smile.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Pump Up Your Book
Tiffany is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky commenter on the tour. To enter, just fill out the rafflecopter.

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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Descartes Legacy by Nina Croft

descartes legacy by nina croftFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Romantic suspense, Science Fiction Romance
Length: 250 pages
Publisher: Entangled: Edge
Date Released: September 30, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Lucas Grafton has spent the last ten years hunting the Conclave, a secret organization who took everything from him: his wife, his child, his very identity. Now he has a lead—an imminent terrorist attack on London—code-named Descartes.

Born with a genetic illness, Jenna Young has always known she was different. But the unexpected death of her father catapults her into a world of murder and terrorism she never expected. In order to stay alive, she must solve a twenty-five year old mystery—and her only ally a hard bitter man in search or retribution, her only clue the Descartes Highlands, an area on the near side of the moon.

Luke’s need for revenge collides with Jenna’s hunt for the past, and together they must stand against the Conclave. All the while uncovering the truth behind Jenna’s illness, a truth that will make Jenna question her very humanity.

My Review:

The Descartes Legacy takes a fairly standard romantic suspense story and enhances it with a bit of science fiction in order to create a “can’t stop reading” experience.

All the elements of romantic suspense are right there; heroine experiences a major life change event that makes her investigate something mysterious. Said investigation pushes the buttons of some very shady customers and heroine finds herself in serious jeapardy without knowing why. In swoops hero to save her life and help her with her investigation. Bad guys continue to pursue for nefarious reasons. Heroine makes life-changing discovery. Evildoers attempt to suppress heroine’s knowledge. After climactic fight, hero and heroine start new life together.

Just because something follows a formula, doesn’t mean that the author hasn’t taken the elements of that formula into new and interesting directions. In the case of The Descartes Legacy, those elements were born on the moon.

Really.

Jenna Young believes that she is dying. She believes that she has a genetic disease and that her father-the-doctor has been giving her medicine to keep the disease at bay. Then he dies suddenly and she’s running out of meds.

She thinks she’s sick, so she turns to another doctor to get the medication she needs. Her friend gets tortured and killed, and she has no idea why.

What she did makes perfect sense, based on what she believed. But what she believed isn’t true. Over the course of the story, Jenna discovers that nothing she believed about herself and her origins is true.

Her father didn’t just lie, he covered up his part in a world-spanning power-hungry organization called “The Conclave”. An organization whose genetic experimentation both created Jenna, and ordered her “termination” at age 4.

Jenna’s always known she was different. But as she is forced to dive into the murky politics of The Conclave, she discovers just how different she is.

And Jenna’s not the only one peering into the depths of the Conclave’s evil, nor is the death of her doctor-friend the only torture-and-murder to be laid at their door.

Lucas Grafton has been looking for revenge against that organization for ten years, since they murdered his wife and daughter. But Luke’s search for justice runs him headlong into Jenna’s need for the truth.

Luke starts out uncertain whether Jenna is an innocent bystander, a co-conspirator, or bait in a trap. Eventually he discovers that she is all three, but by then, he’s willing to sacrifice anything to keep her safe.

And she feels the same way about him.

Escape Rating A-: The story ends with a series of stunning revelations that make the reader yearn for more. It doesn’t feel so much that things have concluded as that there is a pause in the action. Jenna and Luke’s story isn’t over, and I want to know what happens next. Very, very much.

The science fictional elements in The Descartes Legacy are of the “laboratory” variety rather than the space ship type. It’s not just that Jenna was created through some very tricky genetic engineering, but it’s the source of some of her genetic material that pushes the story through the science fiction envelope.

The “Descartes” in the title is not a reference to Renaissance philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, at least not directly. It refers to the Descartes Highlands on the moon, and to Apollo 16’s mission there.

The Conclave is a many-headed, completely heartless beast of an organization. The plot that Jenna and Luke discover is chilling in its inhumanity. Discovering the nature of that plot and stopping it add to the breakneck pace of the story.

But this is also a romance, and that part of the story hinges on the chemistry between Jenna and Luke. For all the science fiction, their story together has a few too many times when Jenna is a drugged and helpless captive, waiting for Luke to rescue her. Considering the powers she discovers during the story, she gets kidnapped a bit often.

And there was definitely a touch of insta-love in their relationship. But the thriller and suspense elements still kept me racing to finish the story.

*This review originally appeared in the Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Death Defying by Nina Croft + Giveaway

death defying by nina croftFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: science fiction romance
Series: Blood Hunter #3
Length: 286 pages
Publisher: Entangled: Select
Date Released: February 24, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

Part snake, part human, and—some would say all bitch—Captain Tannis of the starship El Cazador has one goal in life—to earn enough credits to pay for the Meridian treatment to achieve the immortality she craves. And one last job will get her there. The assignment: protecting the most powerful man in the Universe.

Being leader of the known universe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it sucks big time. And after five hundred years, Callum Meridian, founding member of the Collective, is bored out of his mind. But as things are changing, he’s changing—into what, though, he isn’t sure. Callum is determined to discover the truth, and he’s employed the crew of El Cazador to help him do it.

Not everyone agrees with his plan, though. His own people will stop at nothing to prevent the truth coming out, the Church is taking advantage of the confusion and attempting a coup, and even the crew of El Cazador seem close to tossing him out the airlock without a space suit. But defying death has never been more dangerous, sexier, or more fun.

My Review:

deadly pursuit by nina croftDeath Defying begins its action/adventure/romance/space opera story just at the point where Deadly Pursuit leaves off.

And the crew of El Cazador is being pursued, with deadly intent, yet again. It looks like all the forces they have previously defeated are out to get them, once in for all.

It doesn’t help that the Collective and the Church are out to get each other, with the crew of El Cazador seemingly caught like fish in a large, space-spanning barrel.

The Collective controls the immortality-granting drug Meridian. After 500 years, the founding members of the Collective have a few problems. They’ve managed to gain control of the galaxy, or at least their corner of it, by their control of the drug. People who defy them are banned from ever receiving “the treatment” that gives them not just immortality, but membership in the elite circle that controls the system. Very few people are willing to lose their chance at the drug, no matter how high the price for it or how slim the chance that they could ever receive it.

But Meridian has a downside–doesn’t everything? Those who take it are not just made immortal, they are irrevocably changed. Everyone knows that members of the Collective are telepathic with the group. But the whole “growing wings” thing is totally unexpected. The members of the Collective are becoming something other than human. In a system where many people consider Genetic Modification to be “less than human”, what will winged people be?

Also, a lot of inhumane acts have been committed in order to keep the supply of Meridian flowing to the select few who qualify. But the supply has run out. The planet where Meridian was found is all tapped out.

The Collective doesn’t want to relinquish their control by admitting that they can’t elect anyone else into the club. Their leader wants to let the whole “wing thing” out into the open. Quite possibly because he’s tired of hiding the fact that he can fly. He wants to test those things out!

When the Council turns down his request for the big reveal, he goes to plan B–escape on El Cazador. The fee he’s paying for their assistance is the last bit of coin that Captain Tannis needs to fund her own Meridian treatment.

Instead, the Council betrays its leader, Callum Meridian, and plans on using double-and-triple crosses to get the Church of Everlasting Life to destroy the planetary source of Meridian in a blaze of glory–so they have a public scapegoat for the end of the supply.

Both the Church and the Collective plan on catching Callum in the cross-fire; the Church because it has decreed the Collective as anathema, and the Collective because Callum wants to delve into secrets that the Collective wants hidden.
Both sides have tackled with the crew of El Cazador before, and wiping them off the face of the galaxy would be a pleasure for either side.

But the crew is much too clever to go down without a fight. Several fights. Especially now that they have recruited their own rebel alliance to help even the odds.

Callum Meridian has been unwilling to admit that immortality has gotten boring. On El Cazador he discovers that fighting for his life, and the lives of the crew who have managed to become friends–is the opposite of boring.

Falling in love is the best experience of all, and one he thought he was no longer capable of. But will loving and losing be worth the price, if he has to live with it forever?

break out by nina croftEscape Rating B: Death Defying, and the entire Blood Hunter series so far, has been an absorbing combination of space opera and romance. In Break Out, as much as I adored it, the space opera took a backseat to the romance. In Death Defying, it’s the romance that takes the backseat, and the space opera political maneuvering that comes to the fore.

All three romances have been between a man who has been around entirely too much, and a woman who has little or no experience of sex, love or romance. Not necessarily because they are young, but because their lives have otherwise excluded romantic possibilities.

The heroine of Death Defying, Captain Tannis, almost seems too damaged to have changed so fast. She was experimented upon by a mysterious lab for 14 years, from the ages of 4 until she turned 18, and she can’t stand to be touched. She wants Meridian so she can hunt down the people who tormented her. Callum is the first man she’s ever let touch her, and she manages to forgive him for letting that lab, and other inhumane acts, be perpetrated on his watch as head of the Collective.

I didn’t quite buy into their romance, but the political machinations and Callum’s search for the secrets to Meridian kept me on the edge of my seat. The Church and the Collective are using each other, and both want to wipe out El Cazador. That ship is in everyone’s sights, and it takes a huge trick for them to escape both sets of clutches.

It was difficult to believe that the Church could get even more evil than they were in Deadly Pursuit, but they hit new lows. Not that the Collective is any better.

Riding the spacelanes on El Cazador has been so damn much fun that I’ll be sorry to see it end. I thought that Death Defying wrapped up all the loose ends left over from the first two books in the series, the fabulous Break Out and the terrific Deadly Pursuit. I was incredibly pleased, but I’ll admit also slightly surprised, to see that the author has two more books planned for the series.

I can hardly wait to see how she picks this up from where she left us this time!

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Nina Croft Double Feature BannerNina is generously giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky commenter on the tour. To enter, just fill out the Rafflecopter below. For more chances to win, check out the other stops on the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Bittersweet Darkness by Nina Croft + Giveaway

bittersweet darkness by nina croftFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: The Order #3
Length: 251 pages
Publisher: Entangled: Edge
Date Released: February 24, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

There are no monsters, only good guys and bad guys. That’s the creed by which Detective Inspector Faith Connolly has always lived.

When Faith discovers that she has a time bomb counting down in her head, she has one goal; to solve the murder case she’s working on—a young girl who was found drained of blood—and in doing so gain closure for a long ago murder never solved. Her investigation brings her in contact with Ash Delacourt. Ash is all black leather, big guns and sexy bad attitude—definitely not one of the good guys.

As payment for a debt, Asmodai AKA Ash Delacourt, finds himself working with the Order of the Shadow Accords. He’s the demon representative on the newly formed Committee for the Integration of Mankind and well…everything else. It’s a chance to be near his daughter, make a new start, and—once he’s met the delectable detective—maybe have a little fun.

There are no monsters. But as Faith’s investigation deepens, her beliefs are eroded and for the first time, she is falling in love—with one of the bad guys. But how can she ever let Ash close when her time is running out…?

My Review:

I always believed that “bittersweet darkness” was just a description for especially delicious dark chocolate, until I got into Nina Croft’s Order series. The books are every bit as yummy (and addicting) as the best pure dark chocolate.

Like the other books in the series (Bittersweet Blood and Bittersweet Magic, both absolutely marvelous) Bittersweet Darkness is the story of a woman who has unknowingly been living a lie about her relationship to the supernatural, and a man who embodies everything that is dark, dangerous and otherworldly.

It’s not just about exploring the fire between Faith Connolly and Ash Delacourt, it’s about Faith finally discovering the truth about her past, and Ash figuring out that even a demon is capable of loving and being loved, even a second time around.

Ash Delacourt is a demon. In the first two books, he has been better known as Asmodai, a Prince of the Abyss. He’s also the father of Tara Roth, vampire Christian Roth’s wife. (Their story is the heart of Bittersweet Blood).

Tara and her dad have issues. Ash was using Tara to get back at Christian. By the time he discovered that Tara was the daughter he thought had died, Ash had done one heck of a lot of damage, and most of it to Tara.

bittersweet magic by Nina croftBoth Tara and Roz, the heroine of Bittersweet Magic, are mixed-blood. Tara is half-demon and half-fae. Roz is part-Angel. The fae hate mixed bloods, but the angels are positively rabid about it. They believe that any part-Angel is an abomination, and they want Roz obliterated.

Meanwhile, The Order of the Shadow Accords has created a Council that represents all the races, in the hopes of keeping all this internecine warfare from spilling over onto the unsuspecting original-recipe humans.

But it already has. They wiped out one crazed vampire who was going around exsanguinated young women, and leaving them for the human police to find. But one team of human police got a little too close for the Council’s comfort.

One partner was recruited, but the other refuses to admit that there might be anything supernatural in the world. Ms Oblivious is Faith, the heroine of Bittersweet Darkness. There’s a block in her mind that absolutely prevents her from believing in anything that goes bump in the night, even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence.

But she can’t let her last case alone. She believes that if she finds her serial killer, she’ll find a link to her own past. She doesn’t know that the Council has already wiped him out.

She also doesn’t have a clue that she’s absolutely right. There is a link to her past. The question is whether she can find resolution to her case, to both her cases, before the aneurysm in her head blows up and kills her.

And whether Ash is able to let another woman he loves die without a fight.

Escape Rating A-: Unlike the first two installments of the series, Faith starts the story as 100% human. A little too human in fact, as she has a ticking time bomb in her head in the form of an inoperable aneurysm. She wants to close that serial killer case, and find some answers, before she dies.

She has had an involvement with the supernatural, but she’s been blocked from remembering it. While it’s pretty clear early on that somebody messed with her mind, exactly who and exactly how is quite a surprise in the end, but it doesn’t change a lot about who Faith essentially is.

Faith doesn’t want to get involved with Ash because she knows that she can’t give him a future. She’s interested (very) in a fling, but she is dying and doesn’t want to break anyone else’s heart in the process.

[Bittersweet Blood by Nina Croft]Ash is the one who changes the most in this story, and in the course of the series. He starts out on a selfish quest for revenge in Bittersweet Blood, but by the time he meets Faith, he’s on the road to becoming a better man. He desperately wants a good relationship with his daughter, and he’s having to work damn hard to get halfway there (with good reason). But his need to make things up to Tara turns him outward in general, makes him less self-centered. It also helps him to heal from his loss of Tara’s mother, and he’s ready to let others into his life and heart.

He doesn’t plan on falling for Faith, but watching it sneak up on him is terrific. And nearly heart-breaking, both his and ours.

[photo of Nina Croft]About Nina Croft

Nina Croft grew up in the north of England. After training as an accountant, she spent four years working as a volunteer in Zambia which left her with a love of the sun and a dislike of 9-5 work. She then spent a number of years mixing travel (whenever possible) with work (whenever necessary) but has now settled down to a life of writing and picking almonds on a remote farm in the mountains of southern Spain.

Nina’s writing mixes romance with elements of the paranormal and science fiction.

If you’d like to find out about new releases then sign up for my New Release Newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/rZ5rz

To find out more about Nina, look for her at her website, Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Nina Croft Double Feature BannerNina is generously giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky commenter on the tour. To enter, just fill out the Rafflecopter below. For more chances to win, check out the other stops on the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Haunt Me by Heather Long + Giveaway

haunt me by heather longFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Length: 175 pages
Publisher: Entangled Covet
Date Released: January 27, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

Recently divorced author MacKenzie Dillon has lost her writing mojo. When she inherits her great aunt’s haunted house in Virginia, she is determined to make a new start. The creepy old house provides inspiration but at what cost?

Successful architect and paranormal skeptic Justin Kent returns to Penny Hollow to fulfill his father’s dying wish of revitalizing their small town. To do that, he needs the allegedly haunted estate at Summerfield. Mac, the new owner, may be gorgeous and spunky, but she refuses to sell.

These two have a dangerous history that spans the ages, but will they discover the truth in time to save their lives?

My Review:

As a paranormal romance, Haunt Me is kind of a ghost romance. It’s not that either the hero or heroine is a ghost, or romancing a ghost, or any of the things usually associated with the phrase “ghost romance”.

Instead, the protagonists are haunted by ghosts who are attempting to finally get things right. Call it an “umpteenth chance at love” story.

As the hauntings continue through the story, even though you know where things are heading, the reader gets the feeling that the ghosts have been waiting for centuries for living people to get close enough to their old story that they have their chance at a happy ending. Or at least a satisfying resolution.

It is a big part of what makes the ending, well, haunting.

But at the beginning, we have Penny Hollow, Virginia, a town that wants to bill itself as the “most haunted town in the U.S.” in order to bring in some much-needed tourist income. It’s not a bad idea, especially since the town really is haunted!

Justin Kent wants to use Summerfield, the big house with a reputed curse, as the centerpiece of the tourist strategy. Justin doesn’t believe in the curse, he doesn’t believe in ghosts. He vehemently doesn’t believe in ghosts. (Yes, the gentleman doth protest too much)

But Summerfield house would be perfect as the town’s focus point. Perfectly creepy, perfectly legendary, perfectly haunted.

Unfortunately for Justin, when the aged owner dies, instead of leaving the house to the town as promised, she leaves it to her great-niece. And MacKenzie Dillon has no intention of selling out. She needs the house–not just as a home, but also as an inspiration for her stalled writing career.

She also needs the refuge from her abusive ex-husband.

Justin starts out by helping Mac fix up the place. He begins by wanting to buy the place, but decides pretty early on that things with the town will still work out if Mac is willing to allow the house to be used for ghost tours.

Even though his business is in restoring old houses, there’s something about bringing Summerfield back to its former glory that obsesses him.

Just as there is something about being in Summerfield that makes stories absolutely pour out of Mac to the point where she forgets to eat and even sleep. She feels compelled to work on her new historical romance, even though she can’t make it come to a happy ending.

The house wants Mac and Justin to resolve its story. Which ended tragically before, and might very well end tragically again.

Escape Rating B+: Haunt Me has all the elements of a potential tragic romance, along with the charm of a small-town romance with all its busybody fun. The people in Penny Hollow can’t resist interfering in Justin and Mac’s relationship at every turn.

The history of the house is very creepy. It becomes clear that the house is using Mac and Justin, even to the point of using them up, in order to get what it wants. It’s hungry to re-enact the old tragedy. The more Mac dives into the history of the house, the more she realizes that the romance novel she thinks she is writing is actually the true history of Summerfield.

In the end, she uses that knowledge so that it doesn’t use her.

Mac and Justin’s relationship develops slowly, from a position of distrust on her side and overbearingness on his to a sweet love story, but it takes time. Mac is still recovering from a lot of abuse, and its difficult for her to trust. With good reason, her ex is a nasty piece of work. He’s also a necessary player in the story that the house needs to resolve.

Justin comes around to admitting that the paranormal not only exists, but that it scares the crap out of him. He has to accept in order to see what’s really happening below the surface. He also has to come around to admitting that he’s willing to put down roots in the town he tried to hard to get away from.

The way all the elements swirl together makes Haunt Me a terrifically inventive paranormal romance, where the past and the present blend into a very satisfying ending.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

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Heather is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card. Fantastic! To enter the giveaway just fill out the Rafflecopter below.

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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Love At Stake by Victoria Davies + Giveaway

love at stake by victoria daviesFormat read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Series: Fated Match #1
Length: 225 pages
Publisher: Entangled Covet
Date Released: January 27, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

Abbey is the lone human working for Fated Match, a company that pairs members of the supernatural community with their eternal mates.

To snag a young vampire socialite as their next client, Abbey journeys to the home of Lucian Redgrave, the oldest vampire on the East Coast. But he’s not willing to allow his vampire daughter to use the agency… unless Abbey can first find his perfect match in a month.

As Abbey coaches Lucian through his dates, she can’t deny the chemistry between them. But humans are toys for vampires, and risking her heart isn’t a part of the plan.

My Review:

This was the perfect antidote, or make that the perfect reading change of pace, after a series of very big books with earth shattering themes.

Not that I didn’t enjoy those, but it’s a different kind of enjoy.

Love at Stake was frothy, refreshing and just plain fun. And I really needed a fun book, so it was fantastic.

Also fangtastic, since the hero is a vampire.

Love at Stake is a contemporary/paranormal romance about two people who move in totally different worlds, discovering that they are just right for each other, even though “conventional” wisdom would say they have nothing in common.

So it’s a kind of opposites attract romance. Not just opposite because Lucien Redgrave is a vampire, but also that he is a major player in vampire politics and big business. Without the fangs, Lucien could easily be the hero of a “billionaire” love story.

Abbey is a human who got into the supernatural world by accident. Her mother got bit by a were-badger. (Badger!?!) And its not just that Abbey is human, but that she works for a living in a supernatural matchmaking business.

Of course, the matchmaking business brings them together, but not as a match. Lucien’s daughter wants to use Fated Match to find herself a true mate. Lucien is certain that no computer program can find anyone their mate. He won’t let his daughter sign up until he vets the service first.

Lucien challenges (or let’s call it a bit) that Fated Match can’t find his mate within 30 days. If the company wins, his daughter can sign up. If the company loses…there will be a lot of disappointment all around.

Except that Lucien can’t make himself concentrate on any of the women that might be his match. He’s become fascinated with Abbey. Even though vampire-human matches are not supposed to be possible.

From the beginning, Abbey’s job is at stake. She has to find Lucien’s mate or she’ll lose her job. But long before the time is up, Abbey realizes that what is really on the line is her heart.

Because Lucien claims that he doesn’t have one.

Escape Rating A-: Love at Stake is a paranormal romance where the paranormal elements take a back seat to the romance. But it’s a very plush, leather upholstered back seat in the back of an expensive limo.

The story is about two people who shouldn’t find each other, but do. And because they both know that a relationship between them is not supposed to work, they resist their attraction as long as possible, and with enough suppressed steam to heat my iPad’s circuits.

Abbey is certain that Lucien is out of her league, not just species-wise, but also socially, economically, and she’s certain he’s way too gorgeous for her average self.

Lucien sees a woman who brings life to everything she touches. Her humanity makes every experience fresh and new, something he hasn’t felt for over 900 years. She makes him feel alive.

But they both believe it can’t work. So they pretend it isn’t. The number of times they hurt each other, and themselves, is a little heartbreaking. And it completely sucked me in.

Discovering that Love at Stake is the first book in the Fated Match series is excellent news! I want more!

And if Love at Stake turns out to be your cup of tea, (or glass of red wine), take a look at Jessica Sims’ Beauty Dates the Beast for more supernatural matchmaking fun.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

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Victoria is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card. Woohoo! To enter the giveaway, just fill out the Rafflecopter below.
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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Beg Me to Slay by Lisa Kessler + Giveaway

beg me to slay by lisa kesslerFormat read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Length: 188 pages
Publisher: Entangled Covet
Date Released: December 30, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

He’ll slay her demons, but it may cost her heart…

Four years ago Tegan Ashton was attacked. Determined never to be a victim again, she devotes her life to martial arts and self-defense. When her assailant returns to finish what he started, only one person can help her.

Gabe is a private investigator by day and demon slayer by night. After losing loved ones, he vows to defend people from a threat they don’t realize exists.

The relationship is supposed to be strictly business, but fighting demons together stirs up emotions they never expected. Turns out demon slaying is a breeze compared to facing their scarred pasts and even worse – hearts.

My Review:

I always wanted Buffy to end up with Ripper, which would have required a time machine and somewhat of an attitude change on Ripper’s part before he settled down and became Giles. That almost makes sense if you look at it sideways.

But this story made some of these dreams come true, and in a really hot way. Only this slayer is the guy, and he hunts demons instead of vampires.

Work with me here, people!

Two people with the same secrets, except they both need some time to figure that out.

Four years ago, Gabe was lured away from his fiance by a demon attack on a woman who managed to escape. While he was saving the mysterious stranger, his fiance was brutally murdered.

Four years ago, Tegan escaped from a demon attack. Of course, no one believes her. She’s spent the past four years becoming a martial arts expert and trainer, opening her own dojo. She decided that she will not be a victim again.

Gabe has spent the past four years continuing his search for the demons that break through to our world from the hells. It’s his duty. He’s this generation’s demon slayer for the Van Helsing family. He’s also kept himself from becoming emotionally attached to anyone else.

Then Tegan sees her demon nightmare bury a woman in the sand on a webcam, and she starts looking for someone who can help her hunt him down. Someone like Gabe, who advertises his services as “Private and paranormal investigations”.

As soon as they meet, he knows that the demon is still hunting her. Her scar is a beacon. He tells himself that his need to bodyguard her is all about catching the demon; and not about sticking close to Tegan.

What Gabe doesn’t bargain on is Tegan’s refusal to let someone else, even a man as utterly delicious as Gabe, take away her right to deal with whatever happens to her. She will defend herself this time. She can take on whoever, or whatever comes.

Even if she has to cut out a demon’s heart with a bloody knife.

Even if Gabe takes her heart with him.

Escape Rating B+: I just found out this is a stand-alone story, and I am seriously bummed. I want more demon slayers. Why does there have to be only one?

Moving right along…Beg Me to Slay just begs for a sequel. Really. There absolutely have to be more demons that need slaying, and more yummy slayers in need of partners who can both kick down the armor around their hearts and kick demon ass.

Because that’s what this story is all about. Both Tegan and Gabe have chosen to wall themselves off from any emotional involvement after some serious emotional trauma. It makes sense.

But they are perfect for each other. Watching them fight their intense attraction at the same time they learn to fight demons together is just plain fun. And hot. And did I mention fun?

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.