Carries Book Reviews

Welcome to Your Life
Katrina Marie
Publication date: August 3rd 2017
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

Tonya discovers she’s pregnant a month after breaking up with her high school boyfriend, Jake. She can’t decide whether to tell Jake she’s pregnant when he sees her at the mall with a maternity bag.

Tonya struggles to adjust to working, attending the local community college, and pushing off Jake’s advances to get back together. When she’s paired with the good looking guy from her Art class, Reaf, she has to battle the confusing emotions swirling through her brain and heart.

Can she find love, herself, and become the parent she hopes to be while dealing with pregnancy hormones and drama?

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Author Bio:

Katrina Marie lives in the Dallas area with her husband, two children, and fur baby. She is a lover of all things geeky and Gryffindor for life. This is her debut novel and she hopes you enjoy reading it as much as she enjoyed writing it.

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Stonetree Trilogy
Ophelia Bell
(Black Mountain Bears #1-3)
Publication date: August 29th 2016
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance

Gaia save the Queen…

Emma Stonetree’s father is missing. Worse yet, her uncle’s gone too, leaving her and her two cousins, Jasper and Jade, floundering for an explanation.

All Emma can think of are their fathers’ stories—tall tales of magic, mystery, and a whole host of shifter races. Stories she might not have believed, if not for her own research into the matter—research that hardly prepares her for the trials of magic she and her cousins will endure as they set off that Midwinter’s night to discover their roots.

Nor does it prepare the three for what they find on the other side of the mystical portal their fathers disappeared into: the ursa, a fertility-focused race of bear shifters, with customs that defy their human sensibilities. Except the trio swiftly learn they aren’t really human either, and once inside the ursa Sanctuary, they are just as bound by ursa laws as the earth is bound by the seasons.

Emma and her cousins must make a choice: accept their legacies as ursa royalty, accept the love they find inside the sanctuary, or reject their passions and retreat to their safe, mundane lives, never to return to the realm they were meant to inherit.

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EXCERPT:

“Where am I now?”

“In the Sanctuary, Princess,” Green-Eyes said.

She sat up, scrubbing her hands over her face, then raked her fingers through her tangled hair. A warm breeze blew through, tickling across her skin, the sensation way too pleasant and intimate. She shivered, glancing down her body and realizing she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Her stomach lurched, her entire body growing intensely warm at the realization she was buck naked. She immediately clutched her knees to her chest and looked wildly around.

“Where the fuck are my clothes?”

Brown-Eyes chuckled. “You left quite the trail of breadcrumbs. It was fun watching the striptease you gave us on the way in.” He let out a pleased sigh. “Gorgeous, really.”

Emma stared at him, shocked at the appraising look he gave her and uncertain whether she should be offended or flattered. At least until she gave him a once-over and realized he was just as au naturel as she was. She raised an eyebrow, then turned to look at her other new companion. Yep. Green-Eyes was as bare as a newborn. He was also definitely all hard-bodied man and not the least bit shy about it.

Seeing his naked body made her forget about her own. How in the world could a man so perfect actually exist? So perfectly messy, really. His brown hair was short, but a little shaggy, sticking out in all directions like he’d worried it over and over. He was well-muscled without being bulky, with a long, lean torso, his chest covered in a luxuriant layer of hair. Just enough to make her want to run her fingers down his chest and stomach, but not so thick that she’d think of him as actually furry. The hair tapered past his navel, the natural growth a kind of arrow pointing southward, and her eyes followed.

A throat cleared, but Emma found it difficult to tear her eyes away from the slumbering beast that was nestled between the man’s legs. Jesus, he wasn’t even hard and he was that big?

“See something you like, Princess?”

Um, everything?

Author Bio:

Ophelia Bell loves a good bad-boy and especially strong women in her stories. Women who aren’t apologetic about enjoying sex and bad boys who don’t mind being with a woman who’s in charge, at least on the surface, because pretty much anything goes in the bedroom.

Ophelia grew up on a rural farm in North Carolina and now lives in Los Angeles with her own tattooed bad-boy husband and four attention-whoring cats.

If you’d like to receive regular updates on Ophelia’s publications, freebies, and discounts, please subscribe to her mailing list: http://opheliabell.com/subscribe/

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The Ice Maiden by B.D. Smith
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

A couple out on a snowmobile ride find a fox in the middle of the frozen lake appearing to be interested in something instead of running off when they approach. Curious as to what holds his attention the couple approach to find what looks to be human remains that the animals have gotten a hold of so they call in the police.

Detective Anne Quinn out of the Piscataquis County sheriff’s office and Detective Douglas Bateman with the Major Crimes Unit of the Maine State Police find themselves teamed up to investigate when the body is determine to be that of a young woman. When more victims are found the detectives find themselves in pursuit of a serial killer that seems to be very familiar with the area and it’s residents.

The Ice Maiden is one of those books that simply turned out to be not really up my alley when I began reading this story but having a review copy I felt I would still see how the story turned out. In the end it was simply the style of the writing that has me rating this book at 2.5 stars and not the plot contained within or the actual writing itself, I’m just not a fan of the overly descriptive plot driven story the author came up with.

There were so many instances in this book I really wished the author would have just let the characters tell their story instead of describing every little thing in so much detail. For instance they are out to dinner one night and instead of a conversation flow between characters we get the author describing everything that would/could of been being said between them. Details down to the speed limit on the roads and the color of everything really don’t need to be included for a story to be told in my opinion.

However, with all of that being said about the style of the book there was still a decent thriller of a story with a serial killer on the loose buried in there. To me this was just too slow paced without enough connection to the actual characters but I’m sure the style would be a perfect fit for other readers out there so if it sounds interesting to you I’d still suggest giving it a try.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

The Coven by Chrissy Lessey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After her recent divorce Stevie Lewis is only concerned with seeing that her young son is taken care of after his diagnosis of autism. Stevie has no clue that those surrounding her are actually witches and that she is a descendant herself until she picks up a strange necklace in her mother’s home triggering visions of the past.

Vanessa, a ruthless dark witch has come back to town seeking revenge upon Stevie’s closest friends and family. The coven that Stevie has not known her family was even a part of bound Vanessa’s mother’s powers and tried to do the same to her and now Vanessa has come back to free her mother. When Stevie’s son’s life is threatened her powers emerge and she finds herself more powerful than the rest of the coven.

The Coven is the first book in the new Crystal Coast series by Chrissy Lessey. The story is an adult fantasy read starting 300 years in the past with a coven of witches that were threatened then and now in the present their descendants are at battle with one another.

One thing I found nice about this one was including a young mother struggling to understand her autistic child. Witches and magic aside just including this little bit in the read made it feel very current and very real as autism is on the rise and very tough for many parents dealing with trying to understand just what makes their child tick and how to communicate and bond with them.

Now as far as the fantasy aspect and the witches, magic and long line of family secrets the story was also a nice read. With Stevie not knowing at all the world in which she had been born since she hadn’t developed her powers it was as if while she was learning I was also learning that world with her. Definitely would continue reading this series just to see where the author takes the characters next.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Shades of the Gods
Erin Hayes
(Elysium Legacies #1)
Publication date: September 27th 2013
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Mythology

Caught between life and death, all Callie wants is to live again.

Homicide detective Callie Saunders knows that death isn’t all pearly gates and angels. After being hit by a bus, she finds that it’s the ancient gods and goddesses of Greek mythology who are in charge of everything.

So when Hades offers her a deal, she accepts. If she wants to be brought back to life, she’ll have to figure out who is trying to kill his son. But if she fails, both her soul and the world will be destroyed.

With the odds mounting against her, it’ll take everything she has within her to wake up from death. But the rules are constantly changing. And someone wants her to stay dead.

(This book was formerly titled Death is but a Dream. The covers and titles have changed for The Elysium Legacies, but the content is still the same.)

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EXCERPT:

“You’re blackmailing me,” I sneered at him, fury raging within me at the realization. “You want me to do something in return before you allow me to wake up.”

He raised his hand in a gesture of supplication. “Not blackmail,” he assured. “I’m looking to employ you for a time.”

I recoiled. “Employ me? As what? Muscle? Is this the Underworld’s version of the Mafia?” Now that I thought about it, Hades did remind me of a mob boss. He even looked like some I knew. “I don’t play that, sorry.”

Hades grinned. “I want to make a deal with you, Callista. You find out who is trying to kill my son. Give me a name and a motive. And I’ll restore you to life.”

Author Bio:

Sci-fi junkie, video game nerd, and wannabe manga artist Erin Hayes writes a lot of things. Sometimes she writes books.

She works as an advertising copywriter by day, and she’s an award-winning New York Times Bestselling Author by night. She has lived in New Zealand, Hawaii, Texas, Alabama, and now San Francisco with her husband, cat, and a growing collection of geek paraphernalia.

You can reach her at erinhayesbooks@gmail.com and she’ll be happy to chat. Especially if you want to debate Star Wars.

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