Tag: Vampire

K Webster-Bond Deeper Than Blood

This story first appeared in the anthology E.V.I.E. Now that K has the rights back, she has put out Bond Deeper Than Blood on its own. So, if you didn’t get a chance to buy E.V.I.E. when it was available, you can now read this one.

When Calista was 5, she had a mother, a baby brother, and a stepfather she adored. In general, life was OK. Laurent, a musician, was trying to teach her to hear the music all around her. But instead of hearing the music all around them, they hear screams. Laurent tells Calista to get into a truck and locks her into it, because he knows what’s causing the screams. The next thing Calista knows, she hears vampires killing her mother and baby brother, and turning Laurent into a vampire, and just leaving him there to try to get her out of the chest.

Now, years later, Calista is a hunter. She’s out to kill vamps and other creatures that go bump in the night. Her overall goal is to find the twisted twins that killed her family and find Laurent so that she can kill him and give him mercy.

On the night that she finds the creepy evil twins and Laurent, things happen, and all of a sudden she has to handle a whole new world and all of her expectations and plans change.

I thought that Calista was really impressive. She has overcome a whole lot, and she’s still out there kicking ass and chewing bubble gum, and she’s all out of bubble gum. She has spent a lot of time working hard on her goal, and she’s going to do what she can to do it. That determination helps her, a lot. I think that it also hurts her some. Well, maybe. I think that she’s very focused on certain things and things outside that tend to fall by the wayside. I do like her, and I’d really like to see more of her in the future, because I think that there are going to be some really interesting things in her future and in the future of her particular world.

This is a short one, but the book is pretty short. Nothing under the picture here either. Go check it out! Happy reading!

Top 10 MM Books of 2020 pt. 1

I am persnickety on some things when I’m reading, but whether it’s MM or MF isn’t one of them. I will read MM, MF, FF, and everything in between, in whatever combinations and numbers possible. For me, it isn’t just about what parts go into which places, although that is nice, it’s also about the connection between the characters, and that connection doesn’t matter if you are male, female, trans, non-binary, or gender fluid. And technically, this should be classified as LGBT instead of MM, because one of the books has an NB character. But, the books on this particular list focus on the more male side, so I’m going to go with MM. So, in no particular order, let’s get to the first part of my list.

Susan Hawke-How to Forgive

How to Forgive (my post) is the 6th book in Susan Hawke’s Lovestrong series. This is Susi Hawke’s contemporary pen name, under Susi, she writes omegaverse. I would really put this book as a campanion book to How to Heal, which is book 5, more than just the next book in the series. It involves Grayson, who is non-binary, who has come home after college and is trying to build their life back up in their hometown. Gray finds their ideal job, but their bossis Clark, their old bully. I loved this because we really get to see Gray’s journey and what they have gone through. We’ve seen Clark’s and how he tried to change, so I loved seeing the other side, and how Gray works to build their relationship with the big bad biker. I love Susi’s books, no matter what name she’s writing under.

Piper Scott-Single Dad Sundays

Piper writes omegaverse, and one of her series is called the Single Dad Support Group. It’s a bunch of guys who were single dads who got together in an online forum and gave each other a lot of help. There are chats throughout each of the books, and on her page every Sunday, Piper would have a question that a reader asked, and the dads would all reply to it. Well, Piper pulled all those Sunday chats and turned them into this book. It’s funny as hell, and I will never see the word placenta in the same way again.

Kai Butler-The Earl and the Executive

This is a Regency romance. But it takes place in the future. In space. Yeah. You wouldn’t think that those 3 things fit together, but Kai made it work, and made it work well. You get an impoverished Earl who is looking for a wealthy spouse to marry. It’s a lot of fun, and you get to see spaceships set against the ton.

AJ Sherwood-How to Shield an Assassin

AJ writes some funny books while still keeping up some intense action, and that’s what she did here. This is the first book in a series, all focusing on different guys in this friend group. You see them all show up in each book, so you really have to read the books. This one is about Ari, who is an assassin, who is out doing his job when a little girl asks him to help her out with her step-dad. He takes care of the dude and then adopts Remi, as one does, you know.

Make sure to read the content warnings on this, because they are funny af.

Alice Winters-How to Vex a Vampire

Alice is another writer like AJ. (my post) Her stuff is funny as hell, she writes outrageous characters, and you still get these intense stories that drag you in. This book is the first one in a series, and you have to read them in order. Each book is about a new couple, but you see everyone in every book. This series is an urban fantasy, and has vampires, both born and created, and focuses on a vampire police squad. I honestly want to just take Finn home and keep him.

This is another one where you should read the content warnings.

OK, that’s the first part of my Top Ten MM books from last year. Check back tomorrow for more. 🙂

Addison Cain-The Relic

Addison is back with a new book. The Relic is either the 2nd or 3rd book in this series, depending on how you want to look at it. It started with Pearl in Catacombs, then we had Jade in Cathedral, and now we have Pearl again, this time it’s with Vladislav. This is a real change from the other 2 books, and it was fucking amazing. I have so many, many, many things to say about this one.

So, we met Vlad in the last book. He came and dealt with his son, Darius, and set up his granddaughter, Jade. Vlad is basically the oldest living, or unliving, thing anywhere. Malcolm came to him and told him about Pearl, so Vlad went down and rescued her, his wife, his soul, from the crypt in which Darius had bricked her. So, now, he has to convince Pearl to love him again.

Pearl is… well, she’s not in good shape. She has a long, traumatic history before she even got to Darius and before he did what he did. She has all these triggers and all these damaged areas, plus her memory is all fucked up because of Darius. So, when she has this powerful creature telling her that he loves her, that she’s his wife, she, well, she just doesn’t do all that well. And, you have to remember that she was trapped by Darius in the 1920s, and now it’s 2020, so there’s all kinds of instant culture shock.

I absolutely adore Vlad. He’s incredibly powerful and incredibly ruthless. In fact, he’s so ruthless that I think that there needs to be a better description for it. He’s violent and might be just a wee bit psychopathic. In short, he just ain’t right. And I mean that in the best possible sense. He’s also got a really interesting sense of humor and is terrifying toward everyone but Pearl. There’s just something about him that’s just so visceral and that I like so much.

Pearl is so delicate, but at the same time, she’s not. She just has to find that bit that isn’t so delicate. I think that she hasn’t figured out that she has that strength, but she had to have had it so that she could handle everything that she was dealing with when it came to Darius, and then when it comes to everything else that she has to deal with. She will be utterly terrifying when she realizes all of her power, I think. I know that I don’t want to mess with her, because I think she’s rather terrifying now.

OK, here’s where we are going to get into my opions. It may be spoilery, so I’m going to put it all under the picture. Before I do that, I’m going to say that this isn’t tremendously dark, but it is definitely and Addison read.

So, go check it out! And see below for my opinions.

OK, so as I was reading this, I saw how much Vlad loved Pearl. And as I was reading it, I was just impressed with how tender this tremendouly terrifying demonic ancient creature was with this poor broken soul. Then, as I read more of Vlad’s back story and thought about the book after reading it, I started to wonder. And what I wondered was is it really love or is it obsession.

This is always one of the things that I think about when I’m reading Sigil’s story, because I have the same questions when it comes to how Sovereign feels about Sigil. I don’t doubt that Vlad has deep feelings for Pearl, it’s obvious by how he treats her. What I do doubt is that it’s love. Well, sort of. I think that he’s dangerously obsessed with her and it’s obsessive love. Which fits his personality and his back story perfectly.

Vlad is going to do anything he has to, ANYTHING, in order to make sure that Pearl is happy, even if it means that he has to mess with her mind or fuck her on the ground at her daughter’s wedding.

I would like to see a book set in the future, because I have a feeling that history may repeat itself.

Sara Fields-Thirst

Once upon a time, Sara wrote a story that went into a vampire anthology. Once she got the rights back, she took that story and reworked it and turned it into Thirst. This was a totally obscene, incredibly filthy, so fucking dirty story. And I hnestsly don’t think that I described how dirty it was appropriately. I mean, take how filthy you think it might be and then multiply it by 10,000, and you might get it right.

We start with Ruby. Ruby has been trained for pretty much her entire life to be a demon hunter. She kills vampires, demons, and all manner of evil. She’s good at it and she takes great pride in being good at her work. She manages to get rid of all the various evil things she runs into until one night, when she runs into something she can’t kill. Turns out that it’s a demon who has been possessed by Cain. Yes, that Cain. The first vampire. And then it gets worse. Cain decides that he’s going to possess her. In, you know, a very different sense.

Turns out that Ruby bears the Mark of Cain, making her the one person in the world who is his perfect match. She is, quite literally, made for him. Once he finds that out, he makes some choices, including spanking her. A lot.

I like Ruby. She’s a little scary sometimes. She’s also a lot strong, both mentally and physically, except for maybe when it comes to Cain, but she’s going to do everything she can to fight him and deal with that. She’s stubborn. She’s determined, and I can respect the hell out of all those things. I think that she has a very black and white view of the world in the beginning, and the world is more like endless shades of grey. It may be because she was raised as a hunter and to fight evil. It’s hard to get past that, I think. It would take a major world shift to stop seeing everything in those stark blacks and whites.

Cain is a very interesting character. I am almost neutral on him, if that makes sense. I neither like or dislike him. I am interested in him and I think that there is a lot more to him than we see or learn. The entire story is in Ruby’s head, so we never really get to know Cain in the same way that we do her. All of our interpretations and opinions of Cain are focused through Ruby and her interactions, thoughts, and feelings about him, so they are very subjective. I don’t think that I would care for it in most books, but I think that it works really well here, and it really lets us see Ruby’s journey through the entire book.

The full info about the sacrifice, wow.

OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!

Cassandra Faye-One Crazy Bite

Jennifer Bene’s magical alter ego Cassandra Faye is back with a new book, One Crazy Bite. You would think with a title like that this book would be a romcom. It is a total romcom type title, right? Well, if you looked at the author’s name, you can probably guess that this isn’t a romcom. There are some rather amusing moments in it though. And it is romantic, in places. But nope, still not a romcom. As a side note, do you know that when you type “romcom” a bunch of times, it starts to look really weird? Also, Grammarly doesn’t like it and keeps trying to autocorrect it.

Anyway, enough about that, let’s talk about the story. We start with Grace. She’s on the way to meet with a friend for lunch. As happy as she is to see her friend, she is slightly frustrated by the fact that she’s running a little late. They arrange to meet in front of the museum, and while Grace is waiting, she looks at pictures for an exhibit that the museum is running, featuring monstrous statuary. A week later, Grace is back at the museum, once again waiting for her perpetually late friend. This time, she is drawn into the exhibit, where she sees a huge demonic statue with an enormous schwanstucker. First thing she does is to take a pic of said member to her friend, and then take a selfie with the entire statue, which she touches.

Then we have Nicomachus. He’s been a statue for hundreds and hundreds of years. A statue with a ginormous schwanstucker, to be precise. He’s alive and aware in there, but can’t do anything about it. Then, all of a sudden, he senses his other half. She’s only there for a moment or two before he loses her. After some time, she comes back and he uses his powers to draw her to him, where he manipulates him into touching him and breaking his curse.

Grace seems to be very nice and I tend to like her. I say seems because for a good part of it, she’s pretty sure that she’s having a psychotic break, and I don’t blame her. I totally would be positive I was too, if I had a naked invisible man just pop up in front of me at work and then disappear into nothingness. She’s positive that she’s hallucinating, and for the evidence that she’s got, it seems like a perfectly reasonable conclusion, you know? I think that she is pretty strong, because she manages to keep going, even while she thinks she might be in a padded cell somewhere. I think that she needs to be strong in order to balance Nic.

I love Nicomachus. He makes me laugh. I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to be my reaction to him, but it is. I think that he’s funny. Dangerous, but funny. There’s just ways that he says things that tickle my funny bone. I also think that he’s amoral, but that’s probably because of the length of time he’s lived and the time he spent trapped in a statue. That’s got to do something to you, you know?

OK, no spoilers today. Go check it out! Happy reading!

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Tabitha Black-Her Vampire Addiction

It’s Tabitha’s turn to join the world of the Midnight Doms with Her Vampire Addiction. As you may have guessed by Tabitha’s title, this is a vampire book with a kinkeriffic twist, you know, a Midnight kind of Dom. There are several books that go into this world, which is a spinoff from Lee Savino and Renee Rose’s shifter books. So, let’s talk about Tabby’s book, shall we?

We have Sabina, who has just broken up with a douchebag, and now she’s waiting in line to go into Club Toxic. Her ex told her to stay away from it, but she doesn’t have to listen to him, and she wants to go, so go she will. Plus, she heard that there might be a kink club in the basement, and as a masochist, she needs some playtime. So, as she’s standing there in line, just waiting and waiting and waiting, some guy invites her to go in with him. He introduces himself as Ethan, buys her a drink, and suddenly invites her to go downstairs with him. She does, and things start happening, things that she doesn’t want. She hollers for help, and lo, help appears.

Maximus is a 1600 year old vampire. He comes by his Roman name legitimately. He was a centurion in Rome back in the day. Now he works at Club Toxic as a DM and does what Lucius and Selene, the king and his queen, tell him to do. When he hears a woman screaming for help, he rushes over to the private booth and finds another vampire who has a woman trapped in the booth and appears to have her under his spell, literally. Maximus makes Ethan leave and leave her alone, and he takes over the care of Sabina.

Sabina is prickly, and she is very much independent. She wants to handle everything on her own, and she probably can manage to do it too, most of the time. She doesn’t want help, she just wants it to be done. I don’t blame her, and in fact, I can probably really relate to that. I, like her, had to really take care of my sibs, and I ended up not wanting to ask for any kind of help or easily take any help that is offered, so I totally get Sabina acting like that. I totally relate. I think that she could’ve bent a little on that because, well, reasons.

I like Maximus. I think that he is a very good man, for a vampire, lol. I think that he has a code of honor that he sticks with and it makes him happy. Or at least, sort of happy. Content-ish, at any rate. I think that he mostly thinks he’s happy, and probably he is, but he has really kind of cut part of himself out, which would make it really hard to be completely happy, I think.

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I understand Sabina’s freakout.

OK, that’s all for today. GO check it out! Happy reading!

Nicolina Martin-Her Vampire Hero

Renee Rose and Lee Savino created a world with their Bad Boy Alpha books. These books are about shifters in AZ. The books start out with werewolves, but we branch out to lions, bears, and vampires. Renee and Lee opened up their world to other writers, and Nicolina was one of the authors to jump all over that. And guess what she wrote about? Well, with a title like Her Vampire Hero, you can be sure that it’s all about unicorn shifters.

Anyway, here’s our story. We have Lou, who is a vampire who has been around for a long fucking time. He doesn’t remember anything about himself before he became a vampire. All he knows is his name is Lou. He’s been run out of Baton Rouge, because the king of Baton Rouge didn’t want another old master vamp hanging around. So Lou, who has itchy feet anyway, moves on from Louisiana to Tucson. The problem is that the asshole in Baton Rouge isn’t about to forget about him. He has Lou attacked by werecoyotes, which ends up with him being taken to the hospital as a corpse. Which, well, he kinda really is, but you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, we have Kat. She’s a doc at the hospital and happens to be working the night that Lou is brought in. Even though she’s told that he’s dead, she goes to check on him anyway. And she mourns the fact that he is dead, even though she’s never met the man before. But as she’s standing there, mourning a dead man, she notices that he has signs of life. Of course, as a doctor, she’s going to do something about it, so she pumps a whole lot of blood into him, and he ends up in ICU. Luckily for him, Lou wakes up in enough time to escape before the sun comes up. Just barely in enough time, because he ends up having to sleep in the sewer. Kat sees him escape, but he can’t really make her forget him. That, of course, leads to problems, because it wouldn’t be an exciting story if there weren’t any problems.

I like Kat. She has a very caring heart. I mean, how many people would stand there and be sad over the fact that a man she’d never even seen before came into the hospital dead? It was that caring that saved Lou in the beginning, I think. I think that caring heart also woke up a part of Lou that hadn’t been awake for a long time. I mean, yeah, he talked about having other lovers, but, there’s just something different about Kat.

I went back and forth on Lou. There are times when I really like him. There are times when I really, really didn’t like him one little bit. I think that one of the parts I disliked him at I could’ve liked him more if he hadn’t made the choices that he had made. I don’t want to blame him for what happened, because everyone involved had choices, but he’s also not completely blameless in the situation.

And ok, I lied. No unicorn shifters. Sorry.

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I have to admit that there was one point where I really wanted to smack Kat around. She did something incredibly stupid, and I just was like, my dude, really? She kinda cut off her nose to spite her face.

OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!

 

Addison Cain-Cathedral

You all know that I am sooo down for any Addison Cain book, right? I mean, jump on it up and down with both feet kind of down for it. So, when I heard that she was coming out with Cathedral, I may have squee’d, just a little bit. In a totally dignified manner, of course. This book is the extended version of story that showed up in the anthology, Bite Me, which is now no longer available.

This is the story of Jade and Malcolm. Jade is the daughter of Darius, the ancient King of Vampires in the Americas. He’s not a nice guy. In fact, he fucks with Jade’s memory on the regular, he tortures her, he says that she needs to be seeded every day so that she can get pregnant and give him a grandchild. Jade is sure that he killed her mother. For Darius, Jade is nothing more than a tool. The only thing he wants from her is grandchildren, grandchildren who will also be daywalkers, and he will also be able to use to control things, just like he uses Jade.

Malcolm is another old vampire. How old? Well, he was a Pict. The Picts were a tribe in Scotland who scared the fuck out the invading Romans. Ever hear of Hadrian’s Wall? The one that the Romans built to keep the northern barbarians out of their conquered land and the one that the Romans said it was death to go north of? Yeah, totally because of the Picts. So, when I say that Malcolm is an old vampire warrior, believe me.

Malcolm has spent every second of every day since Jade was born watching out for her. Darius put her in Malcolm’s arms, pretty much fresh from the uterus. He was banned from courting Jade, but he’s not really let that stop him. He’s done everything he can while still flying under the radar and just brushing up against the line.

Oh my, oh my, oh my. This was a serious wow. I fell in love with Jade and Malcolm way back when we first met them and I couldn’t wait to get to know them more. And I really, really, really, want more of them. Jade is in that absolutely bugfuck crazy heroine category that I like. There’s that whole fragile, vulnerable, strong, powerful, sexy vibe that Jade has. There aren’t a lot of authors who can do that really well, but it’s something that Addison seems to specialize in. Her heroines walk that really fine line, very carefully. One inch too far one way or the other, and the heroines just don’t work, and Jade works.

I was fascinated by Malcolm. At first, I thought that he might just be a typical protective, strong, dominant kind of male character, but he really isn’t. I mean, yeah, he’s that, but there’s more to him too, I think. There’s something more to him. I feel like he has a different goal, more than just to have Jade. I mean, yeah, there is that goal too, but it’s a different way, I think. There’s just a whole different feel. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but I feel it.

I need so much more in this world, and I am pretty sure that I know that if we were to ask if and when there would be another one, the answer would be sooooooon. So, I will be sitting and waiting to see what happens.

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I want to know what’s up with V. And I’m assuming that the woman he was with was Pearl. I guess I’ll just have to wait, patiently, to see what happens next.

OK, that’s all I have to say about this one. Addison took it wide, so you can find it anywhere you buy your favorite ebooks. So, go check it out. Happy reading!

 

Renee Rose & Lee Savino-Alpha’s Blood

Every. fucking. time. Every fucking time these two come out with another book in the series, I swear it’s the best one evah. Then, they write the next one. And the cycle starts all over again. I’ll bet that Alpha’s Blood is going to be hard to beat though. Now watch them make me eat my words. Because you know that they will try.

Lucius is the King of Tucson, when it comes to vampires. The centuries old vampire is the one in control of the area and he keeps all the vamps to the rules that he makes, and if they start to screw up, then he will do what needs to be done. He has something that isn’t quite an alliance with the werewolves in the area, maybe it’s more that they exist in a perpetual state of detente. Both sides recognize the authority of the other and that they both need to exist, and they will even work together toward a common goal, but in general, they really, really don’t like each other.

Lucius’ biggest curse is his sired. They all turn against them at some point. And he knows that they are up to something now. That means that he’s going to have to figure out what it is so that he can thwart it and punish the ones doing it. And for thwart, read kill. So, when he gets a sudden invite to a shifter auction, he knows that something is definitely up. Then he sees her. Selene.

Selene is the lone survivor of the massacre of her pack. She was saved from the foster system by a vampire named Xavier, who spent all her formative teen years being trained to kill Lucius, because Xavier showed her proof that he was the one who killed her pack. Now, after all the years of pain and training that she’s gone through, it’s time for the ultimate payoff. She’s standing on the stage at the shifter auction waiting to be sold, and the plan is that Lucius will buy her, because she’s perfect for him. And of course, Lucius does. Because our story would be so short otherwise.

I’ve respected Lucius every time we’ve seen him in other books. He seems like he’s as benevolent a king as he can be. I don’t think that benevolent is quite the right word, but he’s not a complete tyrant or anything. He doesn’t necessarily rule by fear, and he does give his sired and the vampiric citizens of his kingdom free will and enough rope to hang themselves by, but he also isn’t going to let them run willy-nilly over him. He’s willing to work with other supernatural types, as necessary. He’s ruthless when he needs to be, and rather pragmatic, I think. I really enjoyed getting to know more about him and about his history. Overall, it made me respect him even more, and definitely like him a whole lot.

I like Selene. I think that she’s a fantastic character. I also think that she started out the book a little emotionally stunted, but that’s pretty natural, considering what happened to her and the fact that Xavier wasn’t there to make sure that she was emotionally mature. He just wanted a fighter and he wanted a fighter who believed in what he believed in, and that’s what he got. I like the journey and the growth that we get to see in her over the book. It’s not easy for her, and I don’t think it was ever going to be easy for her, but it was a fantastic journey to read.

I can’t wait to see what Renee and Lee come up with next. I think that Lucius and Selene, and how perfect is that name for a werewolf, are going to be really hard to beat.

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The whole electrical scene? I’m pretty sure that my Kindle melted down after that one for a little while.

Also, I think that Selene and Lucius are going to be so fucking great at their roles.

OK, that’s all for this one. Go check them all out! Happy reading!

 

Sara Fields-Consumed

Oh sweet baby fuck. Consumed was sooooooo good. And damn, just damn. Sara went to the dark side, way into the dark side, and invited us to come play with her, but she didn’t offer us cookies. Instead, she offered us Markos. I’m not sure if Markos is better than cookies. I guess it depends on the cookies.

Kassandra is an Interpol agent working deep cover. She’s pretending to be arm candy for a Mafia leader, and has been brought to a part in Mykonos, Greece, at Markos’ house. Markos isn’t her target, the Mafia dude she’s with is, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to take him down as well. There’s something about him that makes her curious. And we all know what curiosity did to the cat, right?

Markos’ men find Kassandra hiding in the room with all his archives. They drag her into his office and drop her in front of Markos, who then goes on to fuck Kassandra in every way possible, and maybe a few that I didn’t realize were possible yet. And that’s only after he took his belt to her ass. And that’s just the start of Markos fucking Kassandra.

Generally, when you think about Sara’s books, you don’t think about dark and twisted. Well, scratch that. Some dark and some twisted. But this is DARK and TWISTED. I was seriously so drug into the story that I could barely catch my breath sometimes, it was that engrossing. Consumed is a really good name for it, because it truly consumed me. In fact, it helped to contribute to the worst book hangover I have ever had in my life. I mean, I looked at all my books, and that’s a huuuuuuuge number of books and nothing worked right. I ended up playing a game which lets me unleash a plague on the world in order to get over it.

Markos is a devious bastard. I mean, if you look up devious in the dictionary, it has a picture of his face. And well, when you meet him, you’ll totally understand the bastard part.

Kassandra was harder for me to get a read on. I still haven’t quite decided how I feel about her. Sometimes I liked her, sometimes I felt sorry for her. Sometimes, I was outright terrified for her. I think that she was definitely in so far over her head that it wasn’t even funny.

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This was one of the most epic mindfucks I’ve ever read, from almost beginning to end, just a total mindfuck. I very honestly did not expect anything that happened, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from moment to moment.

OK, that’s all I have to say on this one. Seriously, it’s a great read, so go check it out. Happy reading!

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