SUNNY - BOOK REVIEW TOUR & GIVEAWAY: "Lead" by Kylie Scott

SUMMARY:

As the lead singer of Stage Dive, Jimmy is used to getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, whether it's booze, drugs, or women. However, when a PR disaster serves as a wake-up call about his life and lands him in rehab, he finds himself with Lena, a new assistant to keep him out of trouble. 　

Lena's not willing to take any crap from the sexy rocker and is determined to keep their relationship completely professional, despite their sizzling chemistry. But when Jimmy pushes her too far and Lena leaves, he realizes that he may just have lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

This series has a certain emotional note, and it is especially true in this book. The less frenetic pace in this story highlights the relationship.  Jimmy is a recovering addict.  He is moody, snarly, and mercurial. He’s had a series of handlers that he has intimidated away.  Lena got her job working for Jimmy because of her chutzpah. She is a self-assured firecracker that can dish it out with the best of them. She needs that fire working for Jimmy. 

Lena falls in love with Jimmy early in the narrative and that bothered me a little.  I wanted her to be less susceptible, more stoic with her demeanor, to hold out a little longer.  Must Jimmy be THAT charming?!!!  (Okay, it would be a wholly different story if he wasn’t)  Lena knows that if she cannot control her emotions, she will have to quit.  So she doggedly tries to persevere with this unrequited love.  (In the back of my mind I had to wonder a little of this is a healthy message to be transmitting.)  In the end, she finds the will to stand up for herself, and it is glorious.  The lesson: if you will respect yourself, others will respect you.  And if it is meant to be, it will be.   Most of the book is about building this relationship from employer/employee to friends to lovers.  It is emotional, heart-dropping, charming, and utterly satisfying.

With all the drama of a rocker story and all the emotion of a love story, Kylie Scott brings us a can’t miss installment to her terrific Stage Dive series. 

BUY THE BOOK AT: Amazon // B&N // iTunes

About the Author: 

Kylie is a long time fan of romance, rock music, and B-grade horror films. Based in Queensland, Australia with her two children and one delightful husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.

Twitter | Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Goodreads | Website      

a Rafflecopter giveaway

SUNNY - ARC REVIEW: "Taste of Darkness" by Katie Reus

Summary:

He spent more than a thousand years imprisoned in hell…

Drake is an ancient dragon shifter, one of the most powerful beings in existence, but a millennium trapped in utter darkness has left him ill-equipped for modern society. If it wasn’t for Victoria, the sweet female brave enough to befriend him, he’d be lost. She’s smart and gorgeous and everything he never dared dream of during his years of agonizing loneliness. He may not have anything to offer her, but one thing he knows for sure: he’d die to keep her safe.

Only to fall into the heaven of her touch.

Victoria is a wolf shifter, healer of the Stavros pack. She’s seen a lot, but she’s never met anybody quite like Drake, the fiery, fascinating shifter who can blaze through the skies unseen by mere mortals. He’s lost, dangerous, and the last male she should fall in love with, but the more time she spends helping him navigate modern life, the deeper—and hotter—their connection becomes. She’s thrilled when they finally locate his family, but reuniting with his people plunges them both into unimaginable danger. It’s a race against the clock trying to figure out who wants them dead and who they can trust, especially when the threat is closer than they ever imagined.

I am a fan of Katie Reus, especially her romantic suspense books, but this one put her as a favorite in the fantasy genre as well.  I loved the tone of this book.  I have recently enjoyed several reads featuring dragons, but they were so serious.  This one was more light-hearted, fun, and still had Reus’ trademark sexiness.  I immediately related to Drake’s sweet, fish-out-of-water character.  I could only imagine what it must be like to surface from Hell after being imprisoned for a millennium.  The food, clothes, TECHNOLOGY must be mind-boggling.  (I giggled a little as Drake mentioned learning about sex from the internet.)  Additionally, he has memory loss, so he doesn’t remember where his real name, where he is from, how he got to Hell, who he can trust … and we feel that bewilderment with him. 

Drake is paired with the Stavros Pack’s healer, Victoria, a beloved and heavily protected member of the pack.  She has her own mind, but having been adopted by the pack early in life, she defers to their protectiveness as a given.  There is a frankness and honesty to their relationship that is refreshing and sweet. 

Drake’s family is introduced into the story and we get to meet a whole slew of new

characters who will undoubtedly be the subject of future books.  This clearly just the beginning of the relationship between the dragon clans and the shifter packs.  Frankly, I cannot wait to see what is next!

If you want a fun, fantasy book that will leave you smiling, pick up this book!

Thank you to the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. 

SUNNY - RELEASE DAY BLITZ: "Five Weeks" by Dannika Dark

Five Weeks

(Seven Series, Bk #3)

By Dannika Dark 

Blurb:

Izzy has always loved the freedom and adventure of life on the road, but she’s recently decided to settle down—as much as a rogue wolf can. When her boyfriend gets her a job working at a hot Shifter bar, she runs into the last person on earth she expected to see again.

Jericho isn't the famous rock star he once was, though he still plays in a local band and loves to party. Beautiful women come and go, but music is his only passion—until a sassy redhead named Isabelle Monroe shows up unexpectedly.

Fate reunites two former friends living with one foot in the present and the other in the past. But will they have a future when one of them is forced to choose between life and death? Old habits die hard, and sometimes the toughest addictions to shake are the ones that control our hearts.

Available for purchase at 

      

Excerpt

SUNNY - RELEASE BLITZ with Excerpt: "Lead" by Kylie Scott

Stay up all night with the sexy rockers in Stage Dive, the epic New Adult series from New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott, author of Lick and Play.

 

Lead
(Stage Dive #3)

by Kylie Scott

SUMMARY:

As the lead singer of Stage Dive, Jimmy is used to getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, whether it's booze, drugs, or women. However, when a PR disaster serves as a wake-up call about his life and lands him in rehab, he finds himself with Lena, a new assistant to keep him out of trouble.
Lena's not willing to take any crap from the sexy rocker and is determined to keep their relationship completely professional, despite their sizzling chemistry. But when Jimmy pushes her too far and Lena leaves, he realizes that he may just have lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

Amazon // B&N // iTunes

The Stage Dive series by Kylie Scott:

Lick (Stage Dive #1): Amazon / B&N / Goodreads

Play (Stage Dive #2): Amazon / B&N / Goodreads

Deep (Stage Dive #4) available on January 6th, 2015: Amazon / B&N /Goodreads

Check out more of Kylie's work:

The Flesh series

Colonist's Wife

Heart's A Mess

 

Excerpt:

“Lena, you seen my old black Led Zep shirt?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?” His brows became one dark cranky line. The scratches on his face were healing well, thank goodness. Though it didn’t reduce my desire to throttle his mother on a daily basis.
“Yes. I haven’t seen it.”
Can’t find it anywhere…”
“And this is a surprise, how?” I slipped my hands into my back jean’s pockets. “Jimmy, you own more clothing than Cher, Brittney, and Elvis, put together. Things are bound to go missing.”
“Sure you haven’t seen it?”
“For goodness sake, what do you think, Jimmy? That I stole it to sleep in or something?” I laughed bitterly. Sure as hell, the truth deserved a good mocking. I’d sunk so despicably low.
I hadn’t even meant to steal the stupid thing, but the shirt had been mixed up with my laundry a few days ago. It’d been the first top I laid my hand on after stepping out of the shower, ready to go to bed. Without thought, I’d put it on and it’d been so soft, the scent of him lingering beneath the laundry detergent. Every night since, I’d found myself in it come bedtime. My shame knew no limits. And no, I still hadn’t quit. The words still hadn’t come even close to leaving my mouth.
He frowned. “No.”
“That I have some deep secret longing to feel close to you resulting in my stealing your shirt like some creepy perv?”
“Course I don’t fucking think that,” he replied crankily, reaching up to grip the top of the doorframe. All of his bulging muscles stretched the arms of his white T-shirt in the nicest way. It was all I could do not to start drooling, my heart beat taking up residence somewhere down between my thighs. And who could blame it? Not me. Maybe if I got laid, this would go away and things would return to normal. It’d seemed safer to avoid rubbing up against any men just in case I got carried away and started dating again. This new situation, however, changed everything.
“Well, of course not! That would be crazy.” And wasn’t that the god’s honest truth? Cray-zeee. Lock me up and throw away the key because it wasn’t like I didn’t know better.
“Just can’t figure out where the hell it could be.”
Angels couldn’t have smiled as innocently. They might have tried, but they would have failed, the dirty-mouthed, winged, little liars. “Jimmy, I don’t know where it is. But I’ll look around for it later, okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, and then added as an afterthought, “and stop looking at me weird.”
“I’m not!”

About the Author: 

Kylie is a long time fan of romance, rock music, and B-grade horror films. Based in Queensland, Australia with her two children and one delightful husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.

Twitter | Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Goodreads | Website      

SUNNY - ARC REVIEW: "Poison Promise" by Jennifer Estep

SUMMARY:

In book eleven of her New York Times bestselling Elemental Assassin series, author Jennifer Estep continues “one of the best urban fantasy series going on the market” (Fresh Fiction).

Gin Blanco is hard-nosed, sexy, and lethal. Nicknamed “The Spider,” she’s a stone elemental assassin who brings her unique mix of magic and tact to every assignment, no matter the target.

There’s a new drug on the streets of Ashland, and its name “Burn” sums up the potent effect it has on its users. When one of her restaurant employees is threatened by dealers of the drug, Gin steps in to set things straight…

Poison Promise is book 11 in the Elemental Assassin series. 

The joy of reading a long running series is the attachment I feel toward the characters. I love Gin and her friends. I love her overwhelming need to protect them.  Each book brings a spotlight to one of those relationships.  This time we, the reader, get a little more into the dynamics between Gin and her sister, Bria.  Jennifer Estep does a fantastic job of revealing the love, competition, resentment, and admiration in a relationship between older and younger sisters.  I don’t know if she has a sister, but she nailed this one on the head. This struggle happens all within the context of Gin battling an evil gangster and the emergence of a new super villain. 

Beauregard Benson is flooding the streets of Ashland with a new drug called Burn.  It’s highly addictive and seems to affect Elementals especially hard. Benson is not a new criminal in Ashland, but he is making his move to become a big player.  Benson is not only a drug pusher, but considers himself a scientist noting with Mengele-like eeriness the pain and suffering as he pumps the drugs into his subjects.

Bria is desperate to bring Benson down and the stress brings certain emotions to the surface. Being on opposites side of the law, she and Gin have a conflicted relationship already and the pressure of this pursuit results in a painful confrontation for both.  This is not the first time they have clashed, but this one is unexpected considering things are going well between them.  Gin is different too. She is tired of constantly looking over her shoulder and fighting for her life.  Her weariness makes her think twice about engaging with Benson.

As this conflict resolves, a new one emerges.  We learn the identity of M.M. Monroe.  This sets up a whole new set of challenges for Gin and for me, restarts the series.  M.M. Monroe promises to be a worthy adversary for our beloved Gin and I am looking forward to this epic conflict.  

A fantastic addition to the Elemental Assassin series, Poison Promise is a heart-satisfying story with dramatic turns and suspense.  Highly recommended.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.