Carries Book Reviews

Slow Burn
Roxie Noir
Publication date: May 24th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

I was hired to protect her, not make her scream my name.

Me and danger are old friends. From dodging bullets in Afghanistan to working for the Secret Service when I got out of the Marines, I know danger pretty well.

Or I thought I did. That was before my latest assignment came with a whole new kind of danger.

Her name? Ruby.

She’s the gorgeous-as-hell, opinionated, spitfire rebel daughter of Senator Burgess. Her family’s beyond strict, but for girl who’s so innocent, she’s anything but sweet.

Wicked green eyes, curves that beg me to touch them, and a smile that makes me think dirty, dirty thoughts.

Her father’s a nightmare – a totalitarian husband and father who rules his family with an iron fist. He decides what his clothes his daughters wear, what books they read, where they can go – hell, who they marry.

Ruby can pretend with them, but she can’t pretend with me. I can tell there’s more to her than the demure southern belle she’s supposed to be in public.

But I’m a professional, hired to be her bodyguard. I know better than to fall for someone I’ve been hired to protect, but with every glance, every accidental touch, every word she says to me, I just want her more.

I want to tear away the innocent good girl veneer, and make the real Ruby scream my name as she rakes her nails down my back.

It’s f*cking dangerous. If we get caught, there will be hell to pay — and it’ll be even worse for her.

But I don’t think I can stay away.

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Author Bio:

I love writing sexy, alpha men and the headstrong women they fall for.

My weaknesses include: beards, whiskey, nice abs with treasure trails, sarcasm, cats, prowess in the kitchen, prowess in the bedroom, forearm tattoos, and gummi bears.

I live in California with my very own sexy, bearded, whiskey-loving husband and two hell-raising cats.

Get my romance novella Dirty Sweet FREE when you join my mailing list!
http://www.roxienoir.com/dirtysweetml

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Craving Bad: An Anthology of Bad Boys and Wicked Girls
Aj Norris, Amelia James, Bella J, Cora Kenborn, Genevieve Lynne, Jamie Zakian, Jennifer Loring, Kelsey McKnight, Kierston Modglin, Sarah Fischer, and Savannah Blevins
(Craving Series Book 1)
Publication date: May 23rd 2017
Genres: Adult, Romance

To take the bad with the good has never been this tempting…

We all need it. We all crave it. The unexpected. The freedom of letting all your inhibitions go. It’s the thrill of being led to the edge, testing the limits, wondering if and when you’ll be pushed over. It’s the rush of the unknown. The bittersweet of tasting the forbidden when you know it’s undeniably bad for you. It consumes you, possesses you, and seduces you with its decadence, the desire for wickedly bad things.

Eleven stories of sinfully seductive bad boys and scandalously wild bad girls—all ready to ignite your deepest desires by letting you experience the daring side of romance.

A blackmailing hacker. An infamous cage fighter. The Sergeant at Arms of a criminal MC. They’re breaking bad with shameless temptation…and they are downright irresistible.

Do you want to be taken to the edge? Do you ache for the thrill of experiencing how good bad can be?

Craving bad? Now’s your chance to indulge.

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Aiding the Dragon
Jessie Donovan
(Stonefire Dragons #9)
Publication date: May 25th 2017
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal

Teagan O’Shea is a rare female dragon-shifter leader. While her Irish clan has a tradition of female leaders, they have always had to hide behind a male face publicly to prevent the other clans from viewing them as weaker and then attacking. When the truth leaks, Teagan is faced with a choice—hand over the leadership to a male or invite the challengers to a leadership trial and earn her place. Out to prove having a penis isn’t required to be a leader, she picks the latter.

Aaron Caruso is sent to Ireland under the guise of repairing relations between two clans on the isle of Ireland. However, upon arrival he learns the truth. Determined to secure Teagan’s place so he can escape her alluring eyes and addicting personality, he busies himself with helping her any way he can. A female used him once and he’s not about to go through that again, no matter how much the Irish female tempts him.

As the pair work together on preparations for the leadership trial, both Aaron and Teagan start to see each other in a new light. Both have their own self-imposed loneliness and yearn for something they can’t have. Can Aaron and Teagan not only change tradition but also open their hearts? Or will they each be doomed to live alone to fight their inner battles?

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EXCERPT:

Twisting the knob, Teagan entered the small room. Aaron’s back was to her. While she appreciated his broad shoulders and his thick, dark hair, she

smiled at how he was tapping his fingers. He always did that when it came to meeting with her, either in person or via a video conference. “Just make sure not to wear down my table with your nails.”

Aaron’s movements stopped. He turned and Teagan hid her surprise. The male had grown a close-cut beard since the last time she’d seen him. The dark whiskers made him look wiser.

And maybe a wee bit sexier. Not that she’d ever tell him that.

Then he frowned and she banished that thought. Grumpy wasn’t what she needed, among many other things.

Aaron growled, “I wouldn’t have to tap my fingers in the first place if you were on time.”

Killian took a step toward Aaron, but Teagan put up a hand. “I’ll deal with him. Eliza is waiting for you. Go with her and search Sadie’s things. Update me on any developments.”

Her brother nodded and exited the room. Like most males in her clan, he obeyed her orders without question.

Aaron, on the other hand, leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the table. “Should I get comfortable whilst you use a power play to assert your dominance? Or are you actually going to tell me why I’m here?”

She walked up to his feet and pushed them off the table. “Keep your dirty bloody boots on the floor. Do that again, and I’ll make sure you always have a bucket and rag to clean up after yourself.”

His pupils flashed to slits and back, signaling he was talking to his dragon. “I’m not here to clean.”

She shrugged. “The way I understand it, you’re here to help me for the next few weeks. Bram didn’t say cleaning was off-limits.”

Aaron stood. His dark brown eyes met her green. They were exactly the same height, which was a nice change. Teagan was tall, even by female dragon-shifter standards.

She barely had time to note the flecks in his eyes when he spat out, “Cleaning is off-limits. As is babysitting or being assigned entry-level guard duty. I’m a trained Protector. If it’s not related to my job, then I’ll refuse to do it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And what? Disappoint your clan leader and destroy his hard work at trying to strengthen our alliance?”

“Bram would see it my way. Besides, you need this alliance more than we do. We already have Lochguard at our back. Who do you have?”

His words stung and her dragon stood at attention.

He was correct that she needed the alliance, but she wasn’t about to put up with bullshit to achieve it. That was the wrong message to send to Stonefire.

She had dealt with many a male acting like Aaron Caruso. She knew what to do.

Fisting his shirt, she pulled him close. For a split second, her dragon reveled in his scent and the heat of his body so close to theirs, but Teagan quickly pushed her beast to the back of her mind. As Aaron’s eyes flashed, she swept his legs with her own. Aaron lost his balance and Teagan guided him to the floor, face down. With his hands behind him and her knee in his lower back, she leaned down to his ear and whispered,

“Just because I’m female doesn’t mean you will treat me as any less of a clan leader, understood?”

He turned his head to meet her eyes. “I’m not doing it because you’re female. I’m doing it because you’re irritating.”

Resisting the urge to press a talon against his throat, she replied, “That just earned you guard duty. Maybe twenty-four hours without sleep will teach you a lesson in etiquette.”

She withdrew a key from her pocket and released Aaron. Before he could do more than rise to his hands and knees, she dashed out the sole door and locked it.

His voice was muffled through the door. “Let me out, bloody woman. This isn’t how you treat a guest.”

“Aye, you’re right. It’s how I treat a pest.”

Author Bio:

Sign up for Jessie’s newsletter and never miss a release or special: http://jessiedonovan.com/newsletter

Jessie Donovan wrote her first story at age five, and after discovering the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey in junior high, realized that people actually wanted to read stories like those floating around inside her head. From there on out, she was determined to tap into her over-active imagination and write a book someday.

After living abroad for five years and earning degrees in Japanese, Anthropology, and Secondary Education, she buckled down and finally wrote her first full-length book. While that story will never see the light of day, it laid the world-building groundwork of what would become her debut paranormal romance, Blaze of Secrets. In late 2014, she became a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author.

Jessie loves to interact with readers. When not reading a book or traipsing around some foreign country on a shoestring, can often be found on Facebook.

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Darkest Days
N W Harris
(The Last Orphans, #4)
Publication date: May 22nd 2017
Genres: Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Young Adult

The ancient slave mongers who killed the adults and enslaved the children have angered a more advanced species of aliens. Composed of pure energy, this superior race has attacked the Anunnaki home world and is now setting a course for Earth.

The energy-based aliens believe in a system of trial by battle. They seek to push Shane and his friends into the arena with the ones who killed their parents. The results will determine if humans deserve to live, or if they should be made extinct as well. It’s up to Shane to keep his friends—and an army of kids who look up to him—alive. They’ll be fighting not just for their own lives, but for the fate of the entire human race. Can the enemy of Shane’s enemy be his friend, or is this just another species determined to exploit and destroy them?

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GUEST POST BY N.W. HARRIS:

What would I tell a new author?

What to tell a new author, hmmm… There is so much to tell, though every writer’s journey is different. First off, I’d tell them to write for themselves. If one writes just to get published and make money, I think they’ll go mad and/or quit before they ever get close. Why? It takes years to polish one’s craft enough to be published by a creditable

publisher. I think writing has to be looked at as a hobby that could become a career. A writer has to want to write because there is something that is inside them that needs to get out. Write for a creative outlet. Write like it doesn’t matter if anyone besides you ever reads it. Write almost everyday, but it is important to take days off too.

Much of the education for the profession comes from practical experience. Sure, a writer draws from their experiences and traditional education. My educational background is mostly based in science, biology and anthropology, and it provides a volume of information to draw upon. But, I had to learn the craft of writing by trial and error. Every writer has to find his or her voice. That can take years, and it can only be discovered by hard work.

I’d tell them to persist. It’s my favorite word. You have to write a novel. Destroy it. Rewrite it. Invest countless hours and sometimes even years. Then you have to be willing to let all that work go because it was just the classroom where you polished your craft. You have to swallow rejection after rejection and keep fighting. When you get criticism, you have to listen to it. I’m not saying a budding writer should try to oblige every critic, but growth is critical and growth comes from taking in criticism. Deal with any pain it might cause quickly, and then get into the game again by applying what you’ve learned.

Author Bio:

Born at the end of the Vietnam war and raised on a horse farm near small town north Georgia, his imagination evolved under the swaying pines surrounding his family’s log home. On summer days that were too hot, winter days that were too cold, and every night into the wee morning hours, he read books. He lives in sunny southern California with his beautiful wife and two perfect children.

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Into Aether: A Teen Steampunk Novel by L.M. Fry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Theo has been alone for about a week when her mother should be returning from a business trip but doesn’t show up at her expected time. Worried that something has happened Theo starts to get a bit frantic when a strange note shows up from her mother telling that Theo and her Aunt Grace should follow the included instructions and travel to meet her.

After going home to pack Theo is startled when two men break into her house before she can get her suitcase together. On the run now trying to get to her mother she and her aunt find themselves being followed by men looking for a key Theo knows nothing about and upon following the instructions from her mother Theo finds herself boarding a strange airship to a strange land full of automatons and even stranger people.

Ino Aether by L.M. Fry is the first book in the Trinity Key Trilogy. The series is a young adult read that features a bit of a mix of steampunk/sci-fi and fantasy along with the almost mandatory in young adult books bit of romance.

Reading this first book of this series I honestly felt like I picked up two different books due to the pacing of this story. The first half seemed a bit slower with the build up of the story but saying that is slightly wrong too as the steampunk world isn’t even really explained and introduced until the second half. Once you really get into that world the story even picked up the pace rather quickly having a lot more action going on.

In the end I felt this was just an alight read, it felt it could have used a bit of work pulling the whole thing together a bit better to keep my attention and interest all throughout. Also, while it’s not bad it still felt as the usual young adult story buried in a new steampunk world, I wouldn’t have minded skipping the he’s got great eyes and focusing more on the mystery of the keys and things along the line.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.