.#REVIEW #Giveaway Soul Avenged by @KeriLake

Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath #1)
by Keri Lake

Paperback, 534 pages

Published January 16th 2013 by Keri Lake

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Lycans, wolves, Demons, Kick a** heroine,
Goodreads

Passion is blind in vengeance and love ...
Ayden’s suburban home was invaded by a pack of Lycans.
The brutal attack is the only memory she carries of her former life.
Now, one motive burns in her soul:
KILL THEM ALL.
The Sons of Wrath—a brood of vengeance-dealing warrior demons—band with Ayden to hunt the Lycans on Detroit’s most deadly feeding grounds.
Kane Walker should’ve been her easiest kill.
Unfortunately, the newly bitten Lycan has something she wants—clues that may finally lay her past to rest. To reach them, she must be willing to submit to the sensual pleasures awakened by his touch.
Time is running out.
In seven days, Kane will become what Ayden despises most. She can halt his transformation but the antidote requires the ultimate sacrifice. As the beast takes hold, Kane becomes more of a threat.
Ayden must choose between her lust for revenge, or surrender to her enemy and discover a horrible truth.

B&N


*A copy of Soul Avenged was provided by the author, for an unbiased review. No compensation was provided for review. Purchasing from Amazon compensates a very small percentage to this blog. I DO NOT receive any compensation from B&N.

The author has created an exciting installment in the Paranormal/Urban Fantasy genre! Rivaling authors like J.R.Ward. Her writing is fabulous, her characters likable, and engaging. The Plot is spot-on, and let's not forget the main character and her fierceness. What a treat for fans of this genre!
Soul Avenged is on my Best of 2013 list for sure and on my top ten Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy List ever read.

Ayden was one strong heroine. She is an Alexi warrior, a group formed to slay Lycans. Although, she has left the Alexi group, due to their corrupt ways, she still pursues Lycans, for revenge. Revenge for what happened to her years ago.

Ayden was attacked by a Lycan, but before she turned into one of them, her blood held a resistance to the Lycan venom that when mixed with the Lywa Antibody prevents that person to change into a Lycan. Instead, she was found by the Alexi warriors and infused with this antibody. These "warriors" take on the Lycan's attributes, in the form of enhanced power, strength etc... From then on Ayden was trained with the Alexi and became second in command, but with a corrupt leader, Ayden decides to flee, knowing full well she will be hunted by the Alexi. Seems once you are an Alexi warrior there is no other option for you, and they do not tolerate abandonment, they will hunt her down and either drag her back or kill her.

Ayden being the smart and skilled heroine that she is, comes up with a plan to avoid being detected by the Alexi, while still on the hunt to kill as many Lycans as possible. The deal she strikes happens to be with some damn, sexy Demon warriors. Brothers who basically have unmatched powers and whom can be contracted for certain jobs. These brothers are sexy, confidant, and sometimes arrogant with each other, as well as others. Ayden is under their protection and hunts down Lycans with them.

When a kill goes down a human is lunch, left for dead, or with an attack wound from a Lycan. In seven days, those who have survived the Lycan attack will be one of them, a foul-hunting machine. 
Ayden comes across a human who has been left by the Lycan group, she knows what he will become, she goes in for the kill, but something in her has been provoked. Seems that touching this human has brought back tidbits from her past, as a human. Memories that were thought to be erased from her mind, forever. Ayden is shocked over this, and decides to use this human as a way to find out what happened to her before she was attacked.

This human is Kane Walker, he was attacked and now is confused over his outcome. With Ayden telling him she will kill him because he will become "one of them(Lycan)". He wonders why she keeps him around and learns of his fate as well as the secrets behind Ayden's past life. Although, he is shunned and kept confided to a room in the Demon brothers mansion, he is slowly seeming to win over Ayden, although, she knows she will kill him at the end of the week. Kane's week is filled with torment from the change his body slowly endures, but his mind is strong and Kane is determined not to let himself become one of them, and if he does, he agrees that Ayden should kill him.

 What ensues is a plot that ensnares you with the interest. We have the Alexi warriors hunting Ayden down, as well as those vile Lycans, who are killing machines. The build-up of Kane's change, and what he will become, as well as a build-up of romance. Ayden's mysterious human past, and let's not forget the Demon brothers! I did enjoy their camaraderie  together. The last half of the book was full steam, action-packed, excitement, and had me enjoying the outcome, of course, except for the death of a character. But, things look up for the group and I only hope with fingers crossed that the author does the second book with the same "group" like setting, including the fan favorites of the group.

To all my readers who love Paranormal Romance or Urban Fantasy this should be the next book you pick up. I loved this book right from the start, The main character is a smart, strong, and  a resilient character. The secondary characters, the Demon brothers are  sexy, strong, and a whole lot of bad a**!! The romance is hot, and the enemies are unrelenting! A super debut, and I'm super excited to learn that Keri will be continuing on with this series, the next book will be one of the Demon Brothers, Logan's book.

5/5+ Stars

Ayden to Kane~

"Ayden grinned. Lycan, you make think the pain you felt last night is over, but it's only just begun." Her tone had a patronizing slap to it."So I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show. And when seven days is up, I'm personally going to remove your spine from your body and feed you to my demon friends." She winked. "Then we'll see whom proved whom wrong."
"Sounds lovely" he muttered,..." 

Don't forget to check out the SOW cover model contest, for the next book in the series! 

Read the first chapter HERE

This giveaway is International.
Prizes will be supplied by author, and this blog has no responsibility for lost, or unfulfilled prizes.
Must fill out rafflecopter form to enter.
Two winners will each receive an E-book of Soul Avenged, Sons of Wrath T-shirt, and coffee mug!
Winners will be notified by e-mail and will have 48hrs. to respond,  if there is no response within 48hrs. I will pick another winner.
         

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Book Tour: #Review Guest Post: Big bad Bite by @JessieLaneBooks

Welcome to my stop of the Big Bad Bite tour. I have a funny guest post to share with you as well as my review. So get ready for a little laughing with these two funny, crazy at times, authors!





Big Bad Bite (Big Bad Bite #1)

by Jessie Lane

ebook

Published January 28th 2013 by Jessie Lane

What would it be like to live in a world where you are considered abnormal to those who are above the norm?

Jenna O’ Conner has been taught her whole life to hide from everyone. Never to let anyone to close enough to know that she would prefer a shotgun for her birthday over of a bouquet of roses. She’s been smothered by her over protective family so that no one learns what she truly is. Which is not human. Nor, is she considered the norm for the supernatural Other community that is benevolent enough to share this world with the humans.

In a desperate attempt to live her own life away from the small town she was raised in, Jenna obtains her dream job as the newest member on the Wilmington Police Department’s SWAT Team. What she didn’t predict was that she would run into trouble her first day on the job, in the form of a deadly, mouthwatering man named Adam McPhee. Who is also not human, but more like a wolf walking around in human skin. He’s determined to figure out exactly what Jenna is, which unbeknownst to him, could very well put her life in danger. He’s also determined to have her all to himself.

As if that wasn’t enough for Jenna to deal with, bad news blows into town. A group of extremist Shifters who think humans are cattle and factions of Others worldwide should stay within their own species - never to intermingle. Chaos ensues. Jenna has to find a way to shut them down, but in the process of trying to do that, discovers things about herself that even she never thought was possible.

Who said the wolf was what you had to worry about?
Welcome to the real world.

7 Things We Need To Write 

 

Hi everyone! We’re grateful that Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Reviews blog reader’s let us stop by today to talk about some of the things we need the most to function as sane writers! (At least we think we’re sane. Our husbands tend to disagree.) During the process of bringing our latest book together, Big Bad Bite, we relied on most of these things day in and day out to get us through writer’s block or pages of dialogue without pulling our hair out.  

Big Bad Bite is a paranormal romance that features a kick ass heroine named Jenna who’s not quite what she seems, and the dangerous Alpha wolf named Adam who wants her. If you read this book you’ll see that Jenna has to have one of her beloved guns while at work to have a functional day. If she doesn’t, well she’d feel naked! Below is our list of items/things we used on a daily basis to write.  

(Please note, no writing was done while feeling naked due to lack of items listed – or being just plain naked. Cause that would be wrong.) 

 

Quiet. Crystal has two crazy girls. Melissa has a berserk dog named Yuffie and a mouthy husband. Needless to say that maintaining a quiet household while trying to write can be a challenge. This is why we’re grateful for two things. Headphones so we can listen to music and duct tape. We plead the fifth on what we use the duct tape for. Melissa’s Dad always says that silence is golden, but duct tape is silver. 

Coffee. We’d rob a Starbuck’s warehouse if we thought we could get away with it. There are days when we live and breathe for coffee. Just coffee. Only coffee. Oh how we love our coffee! We’re waiting patiently for the person who will invent the coffee IV so we can jump on board the caffeine express. Hurry inventive person. Hurry! 

Music. For those days that quiet is impossible to obtain, or when we need a spark of inspiration, we turn to music. Music is a huge factor in both of our lives and we need to have daily doses of it to keep us sane. Who on earth would want to go a day without listening to Halestorm or Black Veil Brides? 

Post it Notes. Seriously, we should buy stock into the Post It Note Company. We have them everywhere and constantly scribble down ideas or sentences on them. Crystal has a bulletin board that overflows with them. In fact, she needs a bigger bulletin board so she can have more of them! How else will she remember that Melissa told her (repeatedly) that if she overuses the tab button one more time that she would find herself buried alive? Eep! 

Internet. We use the internet for so many things. It’s literally vital to us. If we lost the internet we would absolutely perish! Ok, so maybe we wouldn’t croak, but it would probably feel as though we should. We use the internet to connect with each other since Melissa lives in Washington State and Crystal in Kentucky. We also use it for around eighty percent of our research. Why hunt a book down when we have a search engine? HELLO – we’re smart people, remember? Not to mention that when we’re stuck, we pop onto certain websites to entertain ourselves with. How else can we drool over pictures of Alexander Skarsgard, Joe Manganiello, Jason Momoa, and whoever that yummy man in the cowboy hat is? Seriously, we need his name! 

Our story outline. This is necessary because Crystal tends to go all wonky and writes one thing at the beginning of a book, and then tries to change the facts of that thing at the end of the book. Melissa then refers to the outline and sets her straight before threatening her with bodily harm if she does it again. Can anyone tell yet that Melissa has a hard job keeping Crystal in line? 

Chocolate! If Hershey’s is reading this, and feeling generous, how about hooking up two starving artists? We’d be happy to do a study on how much chocolate a writer can consume daily while typing away on their computer. I’m sure the results will stagger you. (We both prefer dark chocolate, just saying.) 

 

We hoped you enjoyed this list of necessities for two crazy writers who belong in a coffee/chocolate addiction group! So now we’d love to hear from you! What’s something you need to have a functional day? Please feel free to share in the comments section below!

Author Bio: 

Jessie Lane is the writing team of Melissa Pahl and Crystal Leo. The two sister-in-laws share a passionate love of naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them. Because really, it is ALL about the characters. (They're kind of megalomaniacs - but don't tell them that we said that.)        Crystal and Melissa often live half their lives with their heads in the clouds dreaming of alpha military hunks, werewolves and kick ass heroines crazy enough to chase after creatures that they unquestionablyly should know better than to chase.       Their first YA novel, The Burning Star, was released in May 2012. Big Bad Bite is their second novel, but their first adult paranormal romance. They are now working on their next two novels, Walk On The Striped Side and Secret Maneuvers. With these projects underway, they are looking forward to showing the rest of the world their crazy stories, heroes and heroines that often plague their minds until written, and hope you will join them on their journey!  

 

Social Websites: 

 

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snarky female protagonist? Check. Humor? Check?  Shifters? Triple Check!

 

 

 

 

Right from the start, this book's humor shines through. With a snarky female protagonist, who just happens to be a bad a** cop, and part of the Swat team, we learn there is more to Jenna than meets the eye. She's tough and knows how to handle herself against a male testosterone driven job, plus she has the ability to shift, an ability she has kept secret from the everyone. All that changes the day she meets Adam and learns not only is he a shifter, but figures she is something more, and he is not going to back down from chasing her until he claims her for himself, but that could lead to dangerous consequences.

 

 



The hunt was on. Here I come little rabbit. 

 

 

 

 I did like reading Big, Bad Bite, even though at times I was doing the ole' eye rolling over the humor, that at times seemed forced, but it did have it's good qualities. It was not a fully centered romantic book, although it did have some heated scenes. It had it's share of action and I enjoyed the use of bringing the secondary characters to life, and making them just as front and center as Adam and Jenna.

I also enjoyed the police/swat elements in the book, and how the plot seemed to center around Jenna's job, and paranormal world at the same time. The middle was a little lost in the plot but not so much that would have you completely giving up the book. All in all I would recommend this book to paranormal fans with it's blend of comedy, snark, and action it was a unique mix. Fans of Darynda Jones First Grave On The Right, may find a liking to this book, due to the humor, snark, and the many secondary characters that take front and center at times.

 

 

Quotes

It made her want to chop off his cracker jacks, hang them around his neck like a sadistic messy necklace and say back, ‘Big boy, you’re the prey’ 

 

Her brain said to kick him in the nads. Her body was rather loudly telling her brain to shut the hell up. They would need those nads when she tackled him to the nearest bed and did their best impersonation of what female Viagra could look like if someone cooked it up. Stupid body

 

 

 

4/5 Stars

 

 

 



4/5 Stars



 

 

 

.Waiting On Wednesday #15

Jill @ Breaking The Spine

My Wow this week features two books that are both YA, that are set to be released in 2013. Both are filled with Demons, Paranormal, Mystery, Fantasy so I'm definitely game for these two!
Leave a link to your wow and I'll come by and see what your waiting for. Thanks for stopping by!

Pretty Dark Nothing

By: Heather L. Reid

It’s been twenty three days since Quinn has slept for more than minutes at a time. Demons have invaded her dreams, stalking her, and whispering of her death. The lack of sleep and crippling fear are ruining her life. Energy drinks and caffeine pills don’t make a dent. When Quinn dozes off in the school hallway, Aaron, an amnesiac with a psychic ability, accidentally enters her nightmare. The demons are determined to keep them apart, and Aaron from discovering the secret locked away in his memory. Together, they could banish the darkness back to the underworld for good. That is, unless the demons kill them first...

Expected publication: April 2013 by Month9Books

Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

By: April Genevieve Tucholke

Violet’s grandmother had warned her about the Devil, had talked about him often, as though he were a best friend, or an old lover. But she never told Violet that the Devil could be real. She never told Violet that the Devil could be a dark-haired boy in vintage clothes who takes naps in the sun and likes old movies and vigilante justice.

River West is the seventeen-year old stranger renting the guesthouse behind the rotting mansion on the sea, where Violet lives. And as eerie things start happening in Violet’s town, she begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling, coffee-loving liar with rascally eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something else? Something...evil?

Violet’s already so knee-deep in love she can’t see straight.

And that’s just how River likes it.

Expected publication: August 2013 by Dial/Penguin

.Cover Reveal: Release by M.R. Merrick

Today on the blog, I have a fantastic cover reveal for M.R. Merrick's Protector's Series, Release #3.
Love the "storms" that seem to be brewing, on this cover. I own the first book, and really need to start this series. I've heard great things about it, and it sounds like it's right up my alley.





December 10, 2012



After uniting the shifters and calling in reinforcements, Chase has to face his toughest challenge yet: learning to control his emotions. But as tensions rise and his powers grow, controlling his emotions

becomes the least of his problems.

Terrorized by a multi-shifter who is hell-bent on turning him, Chase questions just how far he’s willing to go to stop his father. Meanwhile, Tiki’s virtuous nature has placed him in the middle of Vincent’s past, leaving Chase to oppose a senate of vampires and defend a demon he hates.

Trying to balance his friends, his enemies, and his inner demons, Chase is left searching for answers about the Mark, his destiny, and where he can find the next soul piece. Stopping Riley is his top priority, but as more obstacles arise, he finds himself doubting all the decisions he’s made - especially regarding Rayna.

One thing is for certain: Chase has finally realized that he doesn’t know anything. The light doesn’t always quell the darkness, the monsters don’t always stay in the shadows, and the past doesn’t always stay in the past - sometimes, the demons inside are the hardest to fight.

Links:



M.R. Merrick
Goodreads
Exiled (Protector #1)
Shift (Protector #2)

.Release Day Blitz: {Giveaway} The Star Child by Stephanie Keys

Today is the release of The Star Child by Stephanie Keys! Check out the trailer, giveaway, and don't forget to come back 9/28 when I post my review of The Star Child.

The world is about to be cloaked in darkness.

Only one can stop the night.

Kellen St. James has spent his entire life being overlooked as an unwanted, ordinary, slightly geeky kid. That is until a beautiful girl, one who has haunted his dreams for the past eleven years of his life, shows up spinning tales of a prophecy. Not just any old prophecy either, but one in which Kellen plays a key role.

Suddenly, Kellen finds himself on the run through a Celtic underworld of faeries and demons, angels and gods, not to mention a really ticked off pack of hellhounds, all in order to save the world from darkness. But will they make it in time?

Special Teaser Quote!

"Man, can’t this guy get over it already? People get dumped all the time.” Kellen on Cabhan, The Star Child












Stephanie Keyes is a wonderful voice for a new generation of YA readers. She has skilfully blended mythology and faerie-tale into an original and enthralling story. Pure magick! I'm looking forward to more. - Maya Snow, Author of Sisters Of The Snow




About the Author


Stephanie Keyes holds an undergraduate degree in Management Information Systems as well as a Master's in Education. A seasoned, facilitator, Mrs. Keyes worked in Training and Development for an international telecommunications corporation for twelve years; spending the first eight years of her career as a Software Trainer and Technical Writer and the last four working in Human Resources and Employee Development.

In May of 2012, Mrs. Keyes left the corporate world to focus on her family and her writing full-time. She also operates a freelance graphic and instructional design business, Sycamore Road Design.
Inkspell Publishing will release her first novel, The Star Child, on September 21, 2012. She is now currently at work on the second book in The Star Child Trilogy, The Fallen Stars.
Keyes lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, two children, and Riley the dog.

Contact Stephanie:

Website    Facebook     Twitter 



Want to read more of Kellen?
See the complete list of release day party hosts and enjoy the sweet tid-bits!






*EXCLUSIVE BOOK BIRTHDAY DISCOUNT!

Buy the book now at Inkspell Publishing Store and enjoy a special EXCLUSIVE 30% discount! Offer valid only till 30th Sep!


Also, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and The Book Depository amongst others.

Join the twitter party at 7:00 PM EST! - http://twtvite.com/thestarchild

• Paperback copy and posters are open to US, UK and Canada only.
•  Ebook giveaway is international.

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