Sins & Needles Review and Giveaway

Sins & Needles by Karina Halle

Ellie Watt is used to starting over. The daughter of a grifting team, Ellie spent her childhood being used as a pawn in her parents' latest scam. Now she’s much older, wiser and ready to give her con artist life a rest. But returning to the dry desert town of Palm Valley, California means one more temptation than she bargained for – Camden McQueen. Once known as the high school weirdo, Camden is bigger and badder than the boy he used to be and a talented tattoo artist with his own thriving business. Ellie’s counting on Camden still being in love with her but what she’s not counting on is how easily unrequited love can turn into obsession over time. When Camden discovers Ellie’s plan to con him, he makes her a deal she doesn’t dare refuse, but her freedom comes with a price and it’s one that takes both Ellie and Camden down a dangerous road.

**The Artists Trilogy is a dark and sexy contemporary ride about three flawed individuals caught in a world where it's so easy to justify the bad things we do. This is a pure adult read (Not YA or NA).**



My Review

Wow.. Just WOW! Simply incredible.

I lost a few hours of sleep reading this book. I couldn't put it down. Never have I gone from completely hating the narrator of a book to.. well not really liking her, but understanding her. S&N crushed me in a way, glued the pieces back together, only to crush it again. Then, add in a thrilling cat and mouse chase and you Sins & Needles. This about sums up my expressions while reading..

Cover Love and Writing

The cover has to be one of my favourites as of late.. I love the razor blade necklace, the tattoo, the model. Its amazing! The writing was great. It was easy to read and relate to. The primary story is written in the Ellie Watts first person POV. Though there are other components, flashbacks that are written in the third person.

Main Character

Ellie is easily the most hate-able character ever. She is selfish and narcissistic, she has no grip of reality.. only self-preservation. As her life's hole gets deeper, she uses the only people that she could turn to. As the story unfolds, though, you get a better understanding of her. She has built walls, coping mechanisms to deal with her terrible past. By the end she seems to have gained a shred of decency.

Swoonworthy Points: 7
Those are seven overall points.. sometimes it less swoon and more hate/disgust. I totally loved Camden, though he had his moments in my book.. I loved his passion and sincerity. There were some very touching moments (and not the physical kind) that made me want to hug Camden and cry. Speaking of physical.. holy hell! I love me a tattooed bad boy! There are some very hot.. hot scenes!

I wish he'd made his mark everywhere. I wish everyone could see how much he'd imprinted  himself on my heart. (loc. 4700)

Click here for a swoony scene!

Overall, I really liked this book for several reasons (besides the smexy man and hot scenes). Not every story is a HEA.. this was a very true-life book. I felt like Halle wrote the book so well, that I could see it play out in front of me. I do have to warn that it's a bit cliffy, but for me I was okay with how it left off. I am dying to read the next book, but felt happy with the decisions that were made.

I freakin loved this book!!!

*ARC Provided by Karina Halle in exchange for an honest review.*

Giveaway!!
I was so impressed I wanted to share this amazing book with one lucky reader. Good luck and enjoy. If you don't happen to win.. still pick it up.. its awesome!!


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Swoon Thursday

A HAWT meme sponsored by YA Bound. From the book you’re currently reading, or one you just finished, tell us what made you SWOON. What got your heart pounding, your skin tingling, and your stomach fluttering.

Shout it out on Twitter with the hashtag #YABound, post it here in the comments, or grab the adorable button above and share it on your blog! We want to know :-)

Indigo Awakening Blog Tour and Awesome Giveaway

Indigo Awakening (The Hunted #1)

by Jordan Dane 

Release Date: 12/18/12

Paperback/e-book

304 pages

Because of what you are, the Believers will hunt you down.

Voices told Lucas Darby to run. Voices no one else can hear. He’s warned his sister not to look for him, but Rayne refuses to let her troubled brother vanish on the streets of LA. In her desperate search, she meets Gabriel Stewart, a runaway with mysterious powers and far too many secrets. Rayne can’t explain her crazy need to trust the strange yet compelling boy—to touch him—to protect him even though he scares her.

A fanatical church secretly hunts psychic kids—gifted “Indigo” teens feared to be the next evolution of mankind—for reasons only “the Believers” know. Now Rayne’s only hope is Gabe, who is haunted by an awakening power—a force darker than either of them imagine—that could doom them all.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Entice Review

Entice by Ella Frank
Expected publication: February 1st 2013

What if everything you think you want isn't what you actually need...

Dr. Shelly Monroe is a woman who doesn't shy away from going after what she wants, but lately good sex has been hard to find. Shelly's become increasingly frustrated with the men she's been dating and the men she believes are the right choice.

Joshua Daniels is certainly not even close to the right choice. In fact he is exactly the wrong choice. For one thing, he's Mason Langley's best friend and best man. Second he's too much of a risky complication for Shelly to even consider.

Then why can't she stop thinking about how delicious he looked that first night she met him at Exquisite? Why is it so imperative to keep her lusty desire for a man that doesn’t meet her preconceived mold hidden from Lena and Mason, her trusted friends?

It seems unreasonable that being with a man completely wrong in theory could somehow feel so right. Then why is it the more she sees him the more enticing he becomes?

My Review

Entice was both heart-warming and gut-wrenching at the same time. The ever uncertain relationship between Shelly and Josh had me pulling my hair out! I wanted to shake her! Though, I tended to like Mason/Lena's snarky up and down relationship, over Shelly/Josh's yes-no-maybe so relationship. I loved to get the look into Mason and Leah's relationship.. and also Rachel's potential relationship. I think that story will be the best yet.

Cover Love/ Writing style
I am still not a fan of this cover. It's better than both Exquisite covers. Ella Frank is a wonderful writer! The book is written in the third person narrative from both Josh and Shelly's POV. You can't even tell that it's in third person.. that's how good she is!! BTW.. I LOVE THE TRAILER to this book!


Main character
Shelly Monroe has Daddy issues, her father is an overbearing womanizer. She can never do right in his eyes. Shelly creates this tough exterior to deal with that pain. She would rather push any feelings or people aside than to deal with them. It's easier, but less satisfying. I can relate to her pain. BUT gosh.. make up your freakin mind!

Setting
I actually love the addition of setting in this book. I live very close to Chicago and visit often, so it's nothing special to me. The trip to Georgia was special (an HAWT!!) I was so swooned by those chapters.

Swoonworthy scale: 7.5
Um yeah, see below for my casting pics.. Josh is a studmuffin! A sweetheart that can lay it down in the hay and grass and against the counter. Lol. Once he knows what he wants, he refuses to give in to Shelly's Maneating ways!

Bonus Points: +1
Granted I'll have to wait until the next book, but I'm totally excited about Rachel's possible relationship status! It'll be the hottest book of this series :D

He is very pounceable. Is that even a word? Probably not, but if it was, it would be made for that man.

Outside in the parking lot now. I'm ready to seal the deal.

Um Yeah...

Definitely an awesome read!!

If you haven't started this series yet.. what the crap are you waiting for?!?! Here's my review of Exquisite and the buy link on Amazon:




This ARC was provided very graciously by Ella Frank, in exchange for an honest review (after some light stalking on my behalf.)

Leopard Moon Book Blast & Guest Post

To help spread the word about the fact that Jeanette Battista's LEOPARD MOON, the first book in the Moon series, is available for free at Amazon for the Kindle until the end of the month we've invited the author to the blog to share a guest post about her experience writing the book.

The Moon series consists of four books - LEOPARD MOON, JACKAL MOON, HYENA MOON and HUNTER MOON - and is a series author Melissa Marr says, "... is filled with action and romance, shape shifters and strong heroines."

To check out all the books in the series on Goodreads, CLICK HERE.

The guest post follows below, but first here's some information about the awesome book and author and places you can find them both online!

About the Book

Title: LEOPARD MOON (Moon Series #1)

Author: Jeanette Battista

Publisher: CreateSpace

Release date: March 7, 2012

Pages: 204

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Find it: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble



***Find it on Amazon here: Leopard Moon (Moon Series)***

Description:

How do you disappear when you come from a family of predators?

A wereleopard, Kess is forced to flee her home and family in Miami once her brother's obsession with her turns violent. She runs from city to city, trying to stay one step ahead of the investigators her family has dispatched to bring her home. Kess ends up in the mountains of North Carolina and attracts the attention of Cormac, a young man with a secret of his own. As she attempts to live as normal a life as her were-nature allows, her brother Sek continues to hunt for her. He believes she is the key to revitalizing their weakened clan and is driven to extreme measures to ensure their continued existence. As Kess' relationship with Cormac deepens, Sek closes in, threatening Cormac's life and Kess' freedom.

When the moon rises, the hunt is on….

Dimitri Williams Photography
Source: Author's website

About the Author

Jeanette Battista graduated with an English degree with a concentration in medieval literature which explains her possibly unhealthy fixation on edged weapons and cathedral architecture. She spent a summer in England and Scotland studying the historical King Arthur, which did nothing to curb her obsession. To satisfy her adrenaline cravings—since sword fighting is not widely accepted in these modern times—she rode a motorcycle at ridiculously high speeds, got some tattoos, and took kickboxing and boxing classes. She gave up the bike when her daughter came along, although she still gets pummeled at the gym on a regular basis.

When she’s not writing or working, Jeanette spends time with family, hikes, reads, makes decadent brownies, buys killer boots, and plays Pocket Frogs. She wishes there were more hours in the day so she could actually do more of these things. She lives with her daughter and their ancient, ill-tempered cat in North Carolina.

Find her: Goodreads | Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook

I'll be honest--I wasn't planning to write a book like Leopard Moon. I had an entirely different story in my head at the time, but it just wasn't coming into clear focus. That's the funny way writing works though: there I am, sitting at a red light on my way to meet my friends for a birthday martini and pedicure, listening to Florence + the Machine and WHAM! The song Howl comes on and this whole lovely scene just starts unfolding in my head. There was Kess, running through the woods, ripping off of her clothes as she triggered a change into a black leopard. And there was Cormac, standing in a different part of the woods being beaten mercilessly by the villain. I didn't know Sek was going to turn out to be Kess' brother, but I did know who he was as a character and what he wanted.

It was truly a gift: the entire final fight scene just unspooled itself along with the song lyrics. Each beat of the song matched a key point in the fight. The more I listened, the more I realized that the lyrics could apply to all of the characters in the main triangle at some point in the story I suddenly wanted to tell. And I wanted that story to be more than just boy meeting girl--I wanted that story to be about girl saving boy, but more importantly about girl saving herself. The song Howl gave me Kess first and Sekhmet second, so a lot of what I tried to do with them was to show them as two halves of a whole, two sides of a coin. Howl, at least to me, wasn't a love song at all--it was a song about possession and obsession and all of those things that show up in our animal drives. that we'd like to forget exists.




So when I began to craft Kess and Sek, Howl played on a continuous loop. And though the song speaks of wolves, I knew these two had to be cats. Wolves have a more social nature and are more easily understood by us--I think it comes from them being a a precursor to our beloved dogs. Cats are an unknown quantity, strange and separate, even if they choose to share space with us. I wanted real darkness there, not just a brief bit of danger that would be easily resolved. Obsession and mental illness gave Sek that scariness, but also--I hope--a bit of sympathy. He really does love his sister and wants what is best for her and his clan. I never intended to excuse his behavior, but I did want to try and understand it.

Just like the song made me understand that narrator of that story. I can only hope I did half so well.

***

To meet Kess, Cormac and Sek in this first book in the Moon series, head over to Amazon to download the Kindle eBook for free until January 31st.

It can be found HERE!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey.
Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!