Shades of Wicked by Jeaniene Frost 5 ✭

Title:	Shades of Wicked
Author:	Jeaniene Frost
Publisher:	Avon
Series:	Night Rebel
Genre:	Romance, Fantasy
Publish Date:	October 30, 2018
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers
Pages:	384
Ages:	18+

 Rating: ✭✭✭✭✭

Oh snap! I am so happy with this book. I, like many other people, have waited for Ian’s book for so long and I am so happy to have it. I devoured it. I loved it just like Cat & Bones story, maybe more. I will say I feel ill knowing the next book isn’t out til summer 2019. My mind is still spinning. I literally just put the book down and had to run to fangirl about the book.

Where to start? Even in the dedication of the book, she writes to her fans who keep asking about Ian's book. This is for us fam!! Jeaniene Frost has a sweet part in her acknowledgments to her husband that made me tear up because I just love her and it was so sweet. Chapter One I almost starting DMing her on twitter because I was so amused by the whole start. It felt perfect for Ian. It was everything that I would hope from his amusingly wicked (pun intended) character. Here’s the thing, I don’t even use twitter, really. I feel stupidly awkward using it, but I wanted to scream and shout my support out to her. I wanted to express how happy I was, and that was just chapter one. It continued to amaze me as I went and I read 70% of the book in the first half a day of having the book.

Ian was the multidimensional character that you have been getting hints about through all the books. He was amusing like a kid, dastardly with his schemes, downright dirty and you will love every bit. I think by the end of the Night Rebel series, He will be very strong. Like on scaled with Bones and Mencheres. He knows how to wield magic even though it is against the law. He is extremely intelligent which she found out when she was using many languages and he knew them all. He is impulsive, but it's amazing.

I really liked Veritas. With Jeaniene Frost, you always expect a strong, capable female able to take care of herself. Same goes for Veritas. She couldn’t be thousands of years old and not be able to. She’s got the dual lineage thing going for her too. Honestly, I was really concerned that she would be too tough. I didn’t want to read a predictably tough chick. Which is what I feel like Leila in the Night Prince series has become. Veritas has had a different life since she isn’t just a vampire. She has had to live always being guarded so people wouldn’t discover her mix breed. She also is a Law Guardian, so living to the law and being distant from people has made her have this guarded, boring personality. But like Ian says in the book, when she was drunk (which is my absolute favorite part of the book) and wearing her true form, that’s when she is most herself. When she and Ian were being playful with each other, it was such a fangirl moment for me. I can totally see them being an amazing duo for the rest of the book (s). 

It does leave on a major cliffhanger about a demon war that will be coming. I don't want to reveal too much about the ending, or the major events that unfolded during Shades of Wicked. But I will say with the last few lines of the book, it completely reminded me of a scene in one of Cat & Bones books. It felt like coming home to a warm hug. I don't know, I can't explain that well enough. I just felt right. I need to unpack and reread ALL of the books again. Soon. I will soon. I would absolutely pimp this book out to anyone I know to read. I just love these books. I love Jeaniene Frost. Whatever lacking I may have felt in any previous books, it's gone. I am so happy.

I may be biased. Jeaniene Frost is my favorite author. She always delivers a sense of humor that gets me. I urge you to at least read a sample of the book. You can below without leaving the page. 

Darkest Night by Tara Thomas 3 ✭

Title:	Darkest Night
Author:	Tara Thomas
Publisher:	St. Martin's Paperbacks
Series:	Sons of Broad
Genre:	Romantic Suspense, Thriller
Publish Date:	February 27, 2018
Sold by:	Macmillan
Pages:	352
Ages:	18+

Rating: ✭✭✭

Now, I am still trying to catch up on all the books I have requested from NetGalley. I love that site. I love getting copies of books to read. I love reading. This, as you can see, was released a while ago but I am going to continue to read through what I requested.

Darkest Night is the start of a romantic suspense series by Tara Thomas that takes place in Charleston. The series features one of three brothers romance in each of the books. While I am writing this, there are only three books in the series, and I haven’t researched to see if there are plans to go beyond that. Their family is being targeted by someone trying to destroy the Benedicts. 

The first book is the introduction. So you usually try to give it a little to help build up the story, but they rushed the first 25% of this book. It is all murder chaos, rushed character introductions, and few descriptions of what's going on. Most of it feels like just conversations.  

It starts with Tilly Brock and Keaton Benedict. They were best friends throughout childhood and first loves until they charged her father with embezzling funds from the Benedict‘s family company. At that point, it gets weird with the writing style. Keaton’s mother told him Tilly and her family moved to Texas, and he never contacted Tilly again. She was even hinting for him to date another family’s daughter, Elise, right after. There is only a handful of mentions about the embezzlement scandal and it leads you to believe it was a mistake. It doesn’t touch that plotline at all after those few sentences. Then Elise moving in and practically promised to Keaton because her father worked with his father. Apparently, marriage is all business then. That character felt odd, because she was angry and vindictive, but turns out to be a throwaway character in a bizarre turn of events. It felt clunky and thrown in for some hopeful intrigue. Not to mention there is a murderer who is targeting Tilly specifically. Why because she knew the Benedicts almost 10 years ago…. what… like she is from the deep past childhood, why is she a lynchpin to taking the boys down? It is written like the killer intended for Tilly and Keaton to meet, but they wrote the scene like a random meeting. There are so many random plot things in the book. The murders, a family affair with a half-sister, there is a mastermind with minions who murder. I think there is a human trafficking element.

I want to touch beyond the story and hit the characters a little here too. Keaton is supposed to be this “notorious bachelor” but he feels like just some random college kid in a rich family. The family doesn’t feel like they are as famous as that label suggests. Maybe one of the other brothers would fit that description better, but beyond their own household, they don‘t feel like they are that renown to the community. They really could just be any slightly rich people. It just added to the rough feeling of the story.

There is a lot of unanswered questions left in this book. The writing got better as the story progressed. It ends well to lead you into the next book(s) I feel. I just don‘t know if it is a strong enough start to pull people in for the whole series. I almost quit myself at the start. There are issues with the story I have, but again, that will hopefully be resolved in the future books. I’m just not sure if I am interested enough to try and finish it. I try to push through tough points in books. I am glad I did it with this book. I appreciate this story, but I wasn’t completely sold on it. 

If you would like to take a look at the start of Tara Thomas' Darkest Night, you can click below to read a sample without leaving the page. 

Colllision Point by Lora Leigh 4 ✭

Title:	Collision Point
Author:	Lora Leigh
Publisher:	St. Martin's Press
Series:	Brute Force (#1)
Genre:	Romantic Suspense, Military Romance
Publish Date:	February 27, 2018
Sold by:	Macmillan
Pages:	331
Ages:	18 +

Rating: ✭✭✭✭

I’m always nervous about starting a book series that is a spin-off without reading the original that it came from. Thankfully, this never seemed like a spin-off because all the information to understand the story is there for you to read. That made this an easy beginning to a new world for me. Which is funny because my notes from reading the book completely contradict how I started this post. I know how that sounds, but bear with me, the confusion there seems like that is completely authors intention here. 

See Amara is like a Russian crime lords daughter. At the start of the book, someone breaks her body while she was being held captive. Then as she is weak, she gets rescued. So my first thought while I was reading and as she is seeing people she knows are rescuing her. On top of that, she is already completely in love with one, Riordan. During the rescue, she knows it is a trap that is meant to kill Riordan. So as they are escaping, she trying to warn him of the trap and he gets shot carrying her. As they are making their escape on the helicopter, Amara hears that Riordan is dying from one of the men helping with the rescue. He dies but comes back a time or two. Amara wakes up completely forgetting him and a bunch of stuff from the past year. So you get to read the journey while she rediscovers her love for him. Amara forgets a lot, from meeting him on to waking up in the hospital was completely gone. She couldn’t remember any of it. There is only one thing that she remembers and it is an intense loss. She lost someone that day.

Flash over to Riordan because he isn’t just a hunk of meat to throw at the reader to enjoy super hot romps. I mean he is in a way but... Anyway; he is a good a good Irish boy that has a family attribute that is magical. It’s not actual magic but it might as well be labeled that way. Basically, Malone men if they have the soulful Irish eyes and when they fall in love with their one soulmate, they have this intense bond with them. It reminds me of a bond you find in some vampire romances. Where they instinctively know how the other is feeling or thinking. Oh, they also connect to each other through dreams and nightmares too. It’s called “finding their way” which I like. I like that it has its own family legacy to it.

Having that soulful connection and her memory loss was a strong way to explain that soul connection that they share. There are few surprises that I feel were predictable and then some I didn’t expect. I didn’t see it going that way. The whole journey through the book was good as she rediscovered her memories and her love and loss. I really like the book and how well the whole story was written out. 

Now I have heard Lora Leigh over the years and I know that she has tons of books but I have never read one. If I have it was so long ago that I completely forgot the story. Although I really don’t think I have. So my opinion is this is a pretty good book with a little mystery and “magic”. I’m calling it magic.

If you would like to read the beginning of Collision Point by Lora Leigh for free, you can click below. You won’t even have to leave the page. 

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones 4 ✭

Title:	Wintersong
Author:	S. Jae-Jones
Publisher:	Thomas Dunne Books
Series:	Wintersong
Genre:	Young Adult, Dark Fantasy, Historical, Romance
Publish Date:	February 7, 2017
Sold by:	St. Martin's Press
Pages:	448
Ages:	Teen

Rating: ✭✭✭✭

Wintersong leaves you feeling open. Your base emotions felt. You have a bewitching enchantment. S. Jae-Jones wrote some really cool scenes that feel spooky but completely captivating. This is for a person who appreciates someone having an actual style to their writing. 

This haunting romantic tale reminds me of older horror novels. The ones that lead you on a trail into their enigmatic world. I guess it starts with the world building right. There are key scenes in the book that are unforgettable. For example when Liesl can’t find her sister in the market, or when she finds her sister eating a forbidden fruit in the goblin grove. You could almost feel the juices from the fruit yourself just reading about it. There are so many little pieces that make it the story such a good read. The confusion Liesl feels, and the reader’s anxiety knowing what she has forgotten. Their grandmother’s constant reminder of the tales of the Goblin King.

The characters are set in a different time than us. It is distant but not so distant that it isn’t relatable in Germany. Which that caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting that, but I found it appealing. They have a drunk for a father and a nagging mother. There are three siblings in total. The older daughter is the prized beauty to be sold off into an arranged marriage. The younger, Liesl, is to watch after her old sister and sort of end up the old maid. There is a brother who relies heavily on Liesl’s support to maintain his confidence.

Overall I couldn’t be happier with reading this novel. It was thrilling for me. I always love a bit of romance to my stories. I really liked that this wasn’t as cookie cutter as I was expecting when I initially read the blurb. I am very thankful to have received an ARC copy to enjoy.

You can check out a preview of Wintersong below without leaving the page.