Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts

Dec 31, 2016

#REVIEW: Behind the Hands That Kill (In the Company of Killers #6) by J.A. Redmerski



Genre: 
Romantic Suspense/ Thriller

Buy The Book: AMAZON / B & N  / BD

Connect With The Author:
Goodreads / Blog / Twitter / Facebook

Reading Order:


#1 - KILLING SARAI
#2 - REVIVING IZABEL
#3 - THE SWAN & THE JACKAL
#4 - SEEDS OF INIQUITY
#5 - THE BLACK WOLF
#6 - BEHIND THE HANDS THAT KILL
#7 - SPIDERS IN THE GROVE


Synopsis:

Even professional killers need vacations, but for Victor Faust, his vacation in Venezuela is about more than relaxation and time alone with Izabel Seyfried. It is a chance for him to come clean to Izabel: to tell her the truth about why he sent her to Italy with his brother, the truth behind his interest in Nora Kessler, and about his knowledge of Izabel’s child with her former captor. But before Victor can spill his soul, reality proves that for some killers, vacations are just pipe-dreams.

Attacked and kidnapped, Izabel finds herself stuffed in a suitcase, while Victor later wakes up imprisoned in a cage. In any other situation, Victor would find a way out and save himself and the woman he loves—but not this time. When the identities of their kidnappers are revealed, Victor loses all hope, and begins the mental process of accepting his and Izabel’s last moments together. And Izabel’s final moments of life.

As if his circumstances are not complicated enough, members of Vonnegut’s Order are finally closing in on Victor. And when they do, he comes face-to-face with someone else he once knew and loved, who could either help him, or make a grave situation much worse. Victor’s past has finally caught up with him: the women he has cared for, loved, and killed; the families he has destroyed; the unforgivable crimes he has committed. And now he must face the consequences, and pay the ultimate price for absolution.

But when it is all over, Victor may not have the strength to pick up what is left and move on. Because the event changes him. Because love changed him. And because, unlike before when he thought it is was for the best, he cannot imagine a life without Izabel in it.
REVIEW 
"I am a monster in the shadows; the blood of many stains my gnarled hands;
the souls of the innocent are forever caught in my blade-like teeth. So how can this be, that even an ounce of light be given to a monster such as me?"
My biggest fear after I've finished the magnificent previous installment of ItCoK series - The Black Wolf was that the author will turn this one into some kind of melodramatic & soapish love triangle and anyone who's met me knows how much I love love triangles. Or better say despise them. I just can't stand the never ending drama and cheesiness they bring into the stories and I've even given up on some of my beloved series because of this. But this is Redmerski we're talking about, whose last two installments have literally blown my mind, I still can't decide which book do I adore more The Black Wolf #5 or Seeds Of Iniquity #4, so, as they say- the resistance was futile. I just had to know!
And now I finally know... There is no *beep* love triangle, people!!! (Btw. kudos to you, Redmerski  for that.) And yes, I liked this installment for the most part, but there is... ...unfortunatelly a lot of melodrama of different kind which brings me to the biggest problem of this book when it comes to my reading expirience: Just how much mind-fuck is too much mind-fuck??? I know, you never expected me to say this since I always said that dark, edgy, thrilling and provocative mind-fucks are my favorite type of reads and they still are, but here it is. I've said it and I even mean it, lol.
Just how much more can you complicate the story and keep hitting us with this new, shocking twists and at the same time maintain the excitement and the most important the credibility of the story? Well, in my opinion, Redmerski had its up and down moments in this installment, maybe even more of the later ones. But that's just me. As far as I've seen most of the fans think otherwise and I repect that. 

What I loved the most when it comes to this installment is the introduction of the new characters and their background stories. Victor and Izabel annoyed me tremendously. I think it's time for them to step back and give spotlight to other more interesting, bad-ass characters. Or if not- cut out with the melodramatic crap and bring back the old confident and deadly Viktor & Izabel we love and know. That's why my rating for this book is: 3/5 stars.

xoxo,

Purple


Mar 5, 2016

REVIEW: One Step Too Close: Coffin Nails MC Louisiana (Sex & Mayhem #6) by K.A. Merikan

Genre: MM Romance/ Contemporary / Crime
Buy The Book:  AMAZON
Connect With The Author:
Goodreads / Twitter / Website

Synopsis On GR:

--- One love. One motorcycle club. Two stepbrothers. ---

Ryder. Controlling. Ambitious. Protective.
Jed. Self-destructive. Trapped. Lonely.
Their love? Forbidden. Taboo. All-consuming.

For Jed, the Coffin Nails Motorcycle Club is family. With them, he learned how to think, what to enjoy, and how to fight, but there is one thing he knows his friends can’t find out about. They would never accept him as gay, and so his life is a constant struggle with desires that fill him with despair. Only there is a much darker secret lurking in Jed’s heart. His feelings for his stepbrother, Ryder, go far beyond brotherly. Trapped with a yearning that can never be fulfilled, Jed spirals out of control and unwillingly puts the love of his life in danger.

Ryder is climbing up the ranks. Recently promoted to sergeant-at-arms, he has it all: drive, respect, and the love of his biker family. When his stepbrother gets into trouble with the law, Ryder decides to take the blame and save him from a long sentence. Deep inside, he knows there is nothing he wouldn’t do for Jed, but through a desperate attempt to suppress his own hidden desires, he might irreversibly break the man he secretly loves.

But finding out what they feel for each other will test their loyalty to the Coffin Nails MC and change their lives forever.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Themes: Outlaw motorcycle club, criminal activity, forbidden love, stepbrothers, blackmail, homophobia
Genre: M/M dark romance, suspense, drama
Length: 135,000 words STANDALONE novel
WARNING: Adult content that might be considered taboo. Explicit sexual content, strong language, violence. Reader discretion advised.


REVIEW

Ueber-hot bikers with bodies covered in muscles and tattoos and piercings on the most interesting (read: sexy) parts involved in the criminal and dark side of the gangsta world, in the middle of which is one turbulent, all-consuming and forbidden love- love between two stepbrothers.

Oh boy...I know that stepbrother-stepsister romances are currently one of the hit romances in the readers' world, but somehow they never appealed that much to me, but after reading One Step Too Close by K. A. Merikan I guess stepbrother-stepbrother romance most certainly does. Yup, I'm a perv that way and I have no shame. :P Btw. I don't get why people consider this type of romances taboo. It's not as if the persons involved are blood related. Okay, it does sounds creepy if they are raised together since they were babies which wasn't the case when it comes to this book, so while I run the other way from incestual romances, I had no problems with this one. In fact, I really , really liked it.

Action-packed, gripping, suspenseful, deeply emotional and smoking hot with a little dose of forbidden. The best part of this book for me was definitely the romance and the two bikers it revolved around- the strong, responsible and controlling Ryder and the fun, broken and self-destructive troublemaker Jed, while I wasn't that much interested in the occasional biker crime world drama. Probably, because I haven't read the previous books of the series yet, but I definitely plan to.

Therefore- 3.5 stars! I definitely need more stepbrother-stepbrother romances in my life, so feel free to recommend. Recommended to fans of dark romances!
 
RATING: 3.5 stars/5 stars 
xoxo,
Purple

Mar 2, 2016

Spotlight Tour & Giveaway: Lipstick and Camouflage by Frances Stockton

Lipstick and Camoflage - tour header1
Lipstick and Camouflage (Brandt’s Dozen, Book One)
by Frances Stockton
WLK synopsis
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Security specialist Travis Blake’s undercover assignment should be easy. The former Navy SEAL has to protect Cassidy O'Neal from an elusive assassin. Yet, nothing about this case is simple.
For Cassidy, it’s easier to believe in ghosts than to think she’s in danger. Despite a series of unusual happenings around her apartment that make her feel uneasy, she has no idea her hot new neighbor is far more than he seems.
What starts off as simple flirtation quickly turns passionate. But, as danger intensifies, more than just their hearts are on the line.


Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/1LMyqfb
WLK excerpt
Maybe Justin was the reason she was so jumpy lately. He’d not exactly left that night with a smile and she’d wondered if he’d come back and try again.
Or, maybe it was something else, something unexplained. Ever since she’d gone to Salem and took Mike Smith’s place as the lead cameraman in a ghost hunt, something had been off kilter about her apartment and the building itself. Granted, they’d caught some amazing EVPs that night, but the experienced investigators in her group, Jerome and Sam, concluded what they’d caught on audio was residual and non-threatening.
If it wasn’t Justin Myers or a ghost, maybe it was that surveyor who’d staked out the neighborhood. He’d claimed to be doing a favor for a friend looking to move into the area and open a new business. She hadn’t believed him. That man had an aura about him that was mysterious and dark, maybe dangerous. She’d run him off, and as far as she knew, he’d not returned.
Frustrated, she snapped her book closed and set it aside, going over to check the last load of laundry for the day. Being Friday, she’d worked a half day and had plans to do laundry, eat rocky road ice cream for dinner, and continue reading Edmond’s tale of revenge, justice, and romance until he skewed his best friend with a sword.
Okay, she’d read the book a couple of times. Next week, she’d open up The Three Musketeers and have four book boyfriends, though her personal favorite was Aramis.
Yeah, like anything that exciting would happen to her, but one could dream a tale of fiction even if her day job wasn’t exactly the same as a French sailor’s false imprisonment or Musketeers saving a king from a treacherous cardinal.
Taking a moment to switch up her music, she chose her classic rock playlist and increased the volume, singing, well, mostly humming until her favorite line, “We were making it,” came out loud and clear.
As if it mattered how badly she was singing while pulling bras and panties out of the dryer and tossing them into the hip-hugging basket on the floor beneath the machine.
Slamming the dryer door home and picking up her basket, she turned to go back to where she’d been sitting when movement caught her eye. Whipping around, she saw a tall, impressively built man standing in the doorway, as if he’d stepped right out of the pages of one of her novels.
A heartbeat later, he came toward her, proving he was no figment of her active imagination and seeming to get bigger with every step. Unsure what to do, Cassidy threw her basket at him and rushed for the door, getting less than two feet before her bare foot caught his boot and she went tumbling.
WLK Author Bio
frances stockton photo
My love for storytelling began in kindergarten when I created my first fictional characters. Though I’d given them simple nicknames, I’d convinced my family that Red Henry and Green Henry were identical twin brothers in my elementary school.
They were mischievous, rarely did their homework, had trouble with math and spelling, experienced heartbreaking losses, and yes, they even had girlfriends!
It wasn’t until the Henry twins mysteriously moved to a different state that my family realized that they were entirely fictitious and my mother suggested I write the stories down.
A few years later, I began to write, completing my first manuscript at age thirteen. I confess the heroine was a cross between Nancy Drew and a contemporary Laura Ingalls Wilder, who happened to be dating one of the Hardy Boys. But when I’d written ‘the end’ on the very last page, I’d known I had more stories to tell. Of course life intervened, but whether I was in high school, becoming part of a local theater and dance company, working as a Veterinary Technician, earning a degree in History and Secondary Education, or teaching, I was always writing and reading romances.
Finally, I met and married the love of my life and moved from Maryland to Massachusetts in 2001. Shortly after, I proudly joined Romance Writers of America and the New England Chapter, and I’ve been writing faithfully ever since.
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorFrancesStockton
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FrancesStockton
WLK Giveaway
1 - $25 Amazon Gift Card
 2 -  Charm City Soaps
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