We all know how much I love a wonderful cover – and WOW, is this a wonderful cover!? I absolutely picked this book up purely on the power of this beautiful woman with her glowing skin, powerful smile, and amazing hair. Combined with the vibrant purple lettering of the title smack in the middle of the cover it just pops so well and I couldn’t stop staring at it. So, whoever designed this needs a huge round of applause! Continue reading “Book Review: Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann”
A story of how social media and the internet can be a detriment to our real-life relationships. Continue reading “Book Review: When We Were Young by Karen Kingsbury”
I sat down to write this review and didn’t know where to begin because I couldn’t remember what the story was about. That should give you some idea how this review will go. Continue reading “Book Review: An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena”
Reading this book required a stretch of the imagination, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying this wonderful and fascinating read. Continue reading “Book Review: The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain”
I’ve mentioned my love for Talia Hibbert’s writing…maybe once or twice here lol! Every one of her books are solidly in my favorites and she writes her heroines in such a vulnerable, yet fierce way that makes me love them every time. So I could not wait for Mating the Huntress to come out – her first take on a paranormal world. And I wasn’t let down at all. Talia manages to do this kind of hyper-focus on the main characters while still building the essentials of this other world the reader needs to get to know.
Blurb
This Halloween, love bites back… hard.
Chastity Adofo knows a monster when she sees one. As soon as Luke Anthony wanders into her family’s coffee shop, she recognises the evil lurking beneath his charming smile and fantastic arse. The handsome werewolf is determined to have her—but she’s determined to cut out his heart.
Little does she know, Luke’s plans for her are far more pleasurable than murder. And when the full moon rises, all bets are off…
Warning: Mating the Huntress is 30,000 words of red-hot, Halloween-themed romance. This book contains one flirtatious, cursed creature of the night, one badass, knife-happy heroine, and forbidden lust at first sight. Please read responsibly!
EXCERPT
“I’ll answer a question,” he said, “for a kiss.”
“How very nefarious,” she muttered dryly.
“I’m a monster, aren’t I?”
“Yep.”
“You should slap me and run off into the light.”
“Oh, piss off. Slap you and break my bloody wrist, more like.”
“I can’t help it if my bones are particularly sturdy.”
“Why are they so sturdy, again?”
He grinned at her innocent tone. “A kiss, love.”
“Fine.” Before he could grasp what was happening, she darted up on her toes and pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. Every fibre in his body seemed to shatter, to explode on impact, as if the slight, chaste brush of skin against skin were the most erotic thing he’d ever felt.
And then she was gone, pressing herself back against the wall as if she could sink into it, her lashes lowered. “There. Now answer the question.”
It took him a moment to find the wherewithal to speak, but he tried to sound unaffected. Luke had a feeling that with Chastity, the slightest slip of control might be taken as permission to ride roughshod.
Not that he’d mind her taking advantage of him, once in a while.
“That wasn’t a real kiss,” he said. “You missed my mouth.”
“It’s dark,” she scowled. “Except for those bloody eyes of yours.”
“Thanks to these eyes,” he said patiently, “I can see you just fine. So we’ll do it again, and I’ll kiss you.”
“Nope. My kiss counts. You never said it had to be on the mouth.”
He smiled slowly, glad that the shadows hid his satisfaction. Ah, she had no idea what she’d just walked into. “Alright. Fair enough.” He enjoyed the expression on her face for a moment, all adorably pleased, as if she’d just won a prize. “Like all healthy, cursed beasts beholden to the moon, I am physically stronger, faster and sturdier than the average human. Higher bone density, more powerful muscles, magic, blah blah blah. And I believe I have a stronger immune system.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve never gotten sick,” he said. “That was another question, Chasity. You owe me a kiss.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a pervert.”
“You know,” he said reasonably, “you could always reject my bargain. Or at least, you could if you weren’t determined to prove yourself useful to a family who have, for some reason, denied your skills as a huntress. But since you are determined to do so, and since you also secretly want to kiss me, why don’t you be a good girl and let me take what I’m owed?”
She gaped at him like a particularly pissed-off fish. Then, finally, she spluttered, “Don’t psychoanalyse me, you inhuman prick.”
“How am I supposed to support you in overcoming your insecurities—”
“Call me insecure again and I will scoop out your eyeballs with a silver spoon.”
“—if I don’t put effort into understanding you? And Chas, we both know you’re never going to attack me again. I’d be open to play-fighting, though. You’re very sexy when you’re trying to remove my vital organs.”
“What on earth are you blathering on about?” she demanded. But she didn’t sound as brashly confident as usual, or as disgusted and dismissive. She sounded, beneath that iron voice of hers… unsure.
He didn’t like that, because he knew she must be uncomfortable. Chastity appreciated certainty, which meant that he appreciated certainty for her. That was what drove him to say, his words painfully blunt, “I want to mate you.”
There was a heavy pause. Then, finally, she said, “I wish I didn’t know what you meant by that, but…”
“Context clues?” he guessed helpfully.
“Context clues,” she agreed.
“How do you feel about it?”
“Horrified, obviously. I don’t think I need to tell you that whatever mating me entails, it’s never going to happen. Unless you force me.”
He ground his teeth together and breathed through his nose for a moment, her scent ironically comforting as he fought down nausea and fury in equal measure. Then, his temper and his roiling stomach under control, he gritted out in his best imitation of calm, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Um… are you okay?”
“Do you care?” he snarled, the moonlight-fine thread of his control finally snapping.
“Yes,” she clipped out, her voice equally harsh. And then they both faltered, blinking at that unexpected response. There was a heavy pause as she swallowed, the sound loud in the silence. Distantly, he recognised the rumble of passing cars on the nearby street, the open-and-shut of a door somewhere close, a faint conversation across the block. But that evidence of a world beyond the secret space between them wasn’t enough to drag Luke out of this moment, this precious breath of time when her eyes met his without aggression, when her pretty lips parted not to attack him, but to drag in air.
When she was just as affected as him, and unable to hide it.
His heart pounding, his beast growling hungrily for more, he leaned closer. “Chastity.”
“Mm?” she hummed, the sound unsteady.
“May I have my kiss, now?”
She took a deep breath, then gave a jerky nod.
“Say it,” he murmured.
Her voice was whisper-fine. “Yes.”
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ABOUT TALIA HIBBERT
Talia Hibbert lives in a bedroom full of books. Supposedly, there is a world beyond that room—but she has yet to drum up enough interest to investigate.
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Thrall is “a modern queer retelling of Dracula, where romance meets thriller meets gothic.” The story is told in a modern-day version of an epistolary novel with journal entries, IMs, twitter feeds, chat logs and more. I, personally, loved this and really enjoyed that the narrative format never varied from that. On top of the narrative style, there is also both f/f and m/m pairings to follow – which I was a fan of as well.
Excerpt:
Mina Murray’s Journal
I can’t believe we finished a whole season of Shadowcast. Lucy and I have sure come pretty far from lurking in the occult book store on Magazine and trawling LiveJournal looking for everything on true crime we could find. Ha, take that, everyone who thought I was a total morbid creep! Well, okay, I am morbid but not a creep. Besides, what does it mean to be morbid except to be fascinated by the things that are kept hidden and are excised from “polite” conversation. The guarantee of death is the singular thing every human shares—how odd that it should be the thing we’re glared at for mentioning.
Things with Luce have been great lately. I think in some ways the podcast has given her a thing to focus all her excess energy on, and that focus has brought us closer together. There are still moments when I see my life as it would have been if I’d never confessed my feelings for her. It horrifies me to imagine that life. I’ll never let myself forget that I was scared and shaking with the threat of losing my best friend, but that if I hadn’t taken a risk, I would still be trapped in that purgatory of longing that made every moment I spent with Lucy a bittersweet agony.
I’ve been thinking of asking L if she’s ready to move in together yet. I’ve been wary of being the one to broach all new levels of our relationship, but knowing Lucy if I wait for her to do it then one day she’ll rush up and grab me and say we should move to a castle in the south of France or the mountains of Romania. Which…wouldn’t be the worst thing…
Enter the giveaway: win 1 of 3 e-copies of any back catalog book by Avon Gale or Roan Parrish BELOW!
Avon Gale was once the mayor on Foursquare of Jazzercise and Lollicup, which should tell you all you need to know about her as a person. She likes road trips, rock concerts, drinking Kentucky bourbon, JRPGs and yelling at hockey. She’s a displaced southerner living in a liberal midwestern college town, and she never gets tired of people and their stories — either real or the ones she makes up in her head.
Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia, where she is gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre.
When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.
I am finally approved for an ARC of a Picoult book from NetGalley and I can’t rave about it! 😦 Continue reading “Book Review: A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult”
Today I’m taking a break from book reviews to tell you about my trip to New York City. I spent a few days there last week to help a friend and her son with their 9/11 project. Continue reading “One Tuesday Morning: My Trip to New York City”
Lies is all about the ending. The journey there is not the best journey you’ll ever go on … But the ending!! Continue reading “Book Review: Lies by T. M. Logan”
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