ARC REVIEW: Baby's Got Bite (Take it Like a Vamp #2) by Candace Havens

Title: Baby's Got Bite
Series: Take it Like a Vamp #2
Author: Candace Havens
Publisher: Entangled Covet
Published: July 28th 2015
Format: eARC | Pages: 166
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Romance
Source: Publisher
★★★✩ (3.5/5) Stars!

Candace Havens | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Some consequences bite . . . big time.

Bennett Langdon has a firm no-relationships policy. Still, it doesn't stop her from hooking up with a super-sexy bad boy at her best friend's wedding. After all, it's only one night—what harm could it do? Ten weeks later, a pregnant Bennett has her answer...

Linc Monahan can't believe it. This wasn't supposed to happen. He's a werewolf, and shouldn't be able to father a child with a human. Now Linc has to find some way to tell Bennett that not only do werewolves exist, but she's about to have a baby with one.

But when word of their surprise conception gets out, the fur hits the fan. There are people who don't want this baby to be born—even if it means killing. Now Bennett and Linc aren't just fighting each other . . . they're fighting for their lives.

I received a copy of this book, from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. In no way did this sway either my review or my rating.

Werewolves, and vampires, and accidental pregnancies oh my! Well the first book in this series, Take it Like a Vamp, has been sitting in my Kindle for what seems like forever. But when Baby's Got Bite came along, I knew after reading that blurb that I needed to put my procrastinating to an end and at least read this one. I had quite a bit of fun reading this book. Though most things did work well for me, I will say there were one or two that didn't.

This book basically had me from the very beginning. The opening was the perfect mixture of absolutely hilarious and deliciously steamy. Bennett and Linc have a really great antagonistic type of chemistry. The kind where it seems like the only thing they would ever agree on would be the undeniable attraction between them. Oh how I love relationships that start out like this!

Linc is every bit the alpha male you would expect from a werewolf/shifter. He's the fiercely protective lone wolf. I loved how he comes off as very upbeat and playful but when you dig beneath the layers there's also  a bit of sadness and loneliness to him as well. He was quite surprising and swoon worthy.

Bennett on the other hand I both liked and disliked. She had lots of moments when she was funny and sweet and adorable, the kind of chic I'd even love to be friends with. Then there were the things that bugged me. Like the fact that all the supernaturals in the book spoke in a very polished manner. I mean, I guess it's also from the fact that most of them have been around for hundreds of years, but it's the fact that the two "humans" in the story, Bennett and her best friend Casey who's from the first book, both came off as, well, less than polished. Sure, Bennett's "potty mouth" was part of her character and how she was trying to clean up her act now that she was pregnant. I thought that was actually cute and funny at first but when every thing was "eff off" or "shove it up your a" it got less funny. And Casey was nearly as bad. I just thought it reflected negative on the human aspect and, to me at least, it screamed humans were white trash compared to all the sups.

I think that my biggest complaint though, would have to be the fact that there was so much build up and alluding to danger for Linc, Bennett and the baby for very good and very intriguing reasons. Allusions that, sadly, went no where. I was practically on the edge of my seat waiting for something to happen. Almost craving something to happen but nothing really did. 

Regardless of those few disappointments, I'd have to say I still really enjoyed this book. I love how there's a huge mix of supernaturals in it. I'm talking shifters, vampires, fae, witches, etc. It definitely scratched the paranormal/supernatural itch that's been nagging at me for a while now. Can't wait to see what else is in store for this series!

Thanks to Entangled Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book!!

REVIEW: Shadow of Time by Jen MInkman

Title/Series: Shadow of Time
Author: Jen Minkman
Publisher: Jen Minkman
Published: December 14th 2012
Format: eBook | Pages: 401
Genre: YA, Paranormal, Romance
Source: Author in exchange for an honest review
★★★★ (4/5) Stars!

Jen Minkman | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

All Hannah needs is a nice and quiet vacation after her first year of teaching French at a high school. She joins her brother Ben for the summer in their mom’s log cabin in Arizona. There, she meets Josh again, Ben’s childhood friend from the Navajo reservation. The little boy from the rez has grown up fast, and Hannah can’t help but feeling more for him than just friendship.

But fate apparently has something else in store for her. And it’s not peace and quiet. Night after night, Hannah is plagued by strange nightmares about the past of Navajo Nation and terrifying shadows chasing her. They seem to come closer – and why is Josh always present in her dreams?

Sometimes, the past has a way of catching up with you.

I received this book from Jen Minkman in exchange for an honest review. It feels good to say this for a change but there was so much good in this book I'm not even sure where to begin. Starting with one of the biggest parts of this book, the Native American aspect. It was brilliant and you could really tell  Jen did her research. And the way she wrote the book it was like teaching you things about the Navajo and their culture in a way that didn't feel like you were being taught. If that makes sense? It was just woven into the story. It completely fascinated me, the Native American culture on a whole always has.

This was another one of those books for me that secondary characters really make or break books and also another case of them making it. I loved pretty much every character that made it's way onto the pages. I mean don't get me wrong Hannah and Josh by themselves were pretty amazing but the people around them made them even better. I loved the closeness and the bond between Hannah and her brother Ben. They really cared for each other and it was sweet to read. Even better was the way that the circle of people bonded together and became something more than just friends. Even three people who they meet at the beginning of the summer. The way they all took each other in and watched out for one another. It makes you long to have a tight knit group like that.

Can we talk sexual tension for a moment? Because holy crap, the build up with the sexual tension between Hannah and Josh was insane. Every time I thought something was finally going to happen something would come along and interrupt it. Either another person or misunderstood signals would stop them or one of them snapping back to reality and holding back. I wanted to scream! (All in a good way I swear) So finally, when it happened I was cheering like crazy. Actually one line from one of her friends when she was telling her about it the next day totally summed up what I was thinking:

"Oh my God! Finally! That's awesome, I'm so excited for you!"

I totally fell in love with Josh and Hannah's romance. My heart fluttered every time hers did, it broke and I felt the emptiness when things were bad. I was 100% emotionally invested in the two of them. And it was an awesome and emotional ride that I loved every second of.

If the love story part doesn't have you hooked then the rest of the storyline will. The revelation of the nightmares and the part they played in the story was just brilliant. I couldn't even begin to guess what was going on there. Any suspicions I had were completely wrong and until the story came out I had no clue. It was such a fun and exciting adventure. If any of this sparks a bit of interest I highly recommend it.

Thank you again Jen for sending me this book and I can't wait to read more!! :)

ARC REVIEW: Buried by Gerilyn Marin

Title/Series: Buried | Buried #1 (?)
Author: Gerilyn Marin
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Published: March 19th 2013
Format: eBook | Pages: 232
Genre: YA, Paranormal
Source: NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
★★★ (3/5) Stars!

Gerilyn Marin | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Like every resident of Fane’s Cove, Cadence McKenna knows her town is, well, odd. And yet, they’re accustomed to the near-daily supernatural happenings- so accustomed, in fact, that when Grey Addison moves to town and stays, she is shocked to find that she’s the only one who insists that there must be something strange about him.

With her life-long- if minor- psychic sensitivity handed down from her grandmother, she knows that what she feels isn’t simple paranoia. After all, how many normal guys pay no mind to random poltergeist activity occurring right in front of them?

Cadence can’t blame anyone for wanting to ignore that there might be more to his presence there- perhaps if he is a normal guy, it’s just the first sign that whatever it is about the town that drives visitors away is fading. She might have even grudgingly let it go, but then she sees Grey acting very suspiciously and knows that she can’t dismiss her feelings until she understands why he’s in Fane’s Cove. Even if it means sticking her neck out by pretending to get close to him . . . and learning more about her town’s history than anyone would ever want to know.

I found this book to be enjoyable enough. Well enough to keep me reading to the end. Was I wowed? Eh, not really. At times I felt like it was trying to do too much. Even for a paranormal some of it was just kind of... out there you know? And characters emotions ran all over the place. Overly dramatic. It felt soap opera-ish at times. Instead of "He ate a cookie." It was "He ate a cookie!" I know, my example is awesome. I mean it's AWESOME! Ha...anyway.

The somewhat confusing romance between Cadence and Grey almost seemed pointless at times and I had to wonder...does it really need to be here? And this is coming from a person who refused to read anything but romance novels for years! I mean the situation became quite annoying. You have two people who obviously are into each other. One, Grey, being more obvious about it and doesn't really care if she or anyone else knows about it. And the other, Cadence, hating the fact that she does likes him deep down, so every time she feels something for him she's mentally disgusted or disappointed in herself, which gets real old, real fast.

In order to not seem "suspicious" that she's spending time with him to investigate all the weirdness she is constantly "having to tell people" (friends, family, etc) that she's dating him. But then she gets mad at him because she's lying to everyone...because she doesn't want people to think they're dating...but she sorta likes him too...but...you see what I mean by annoying and confusing? And to top it off they're constantly either to themselves or to each other's faces talking about how "he/she is lucky their cute because they're stupid." Always with the stupid comments. I felt like we were 8 on the playground and at any minute Grey was going to pull her pigtail and push her to the ground. *Sigh* At one point, SHE gets mad at HIM and starts going off on him in the hallways at school because, and this makes SO much sense, she finds out something about her own family history and because he, a relative stranger to the town, didn't pick up on the connection and tell her about it. Hold on I need to find a pencil to jab into my brain so maybe I can make sense of that...

I felt like things were "dumbed down" for me too. Example: Cadence is going over a list and she says "a knife-though, this is Sarah, so the word used is athame" now I'm no stranger to the world of paranormal. The two people in the scene at the moment are no stranger to the world of the paranormal. So if you're having your main character explain something to me that, even if this was my first time reading something like this, I could take two seconds to look up what it means. Having your characters dumb it down for me is just a tiny bit insulting.

I know from all my complaints that it must seem sort of like "why did you keep going then?" Here's the thing, there were flaws. It took a while for things to all connect together and once they started too some stuff became a bit predictable. But the characters were likeable and it had its moments where it made me laugh or feel something. Bottom line is, would I read this book again? Honestly no. Probably not. But since there was a...hello! Major cliffhanger...ugh, I will more than likely be reading the sequel because I'm interested enough to find out what happens next.

ARC REVIEW: School Spirits (School Spirits #1) by Rachel Hawkins

Title/Series: School Spirits | School Spirits #1
Author: Rachel Hawkins
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Expected Publication: May 14th 2013
Format: eBook | Pages: 306
Genre: YA, Paranormal
Source: NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
★★★✩ (3.5/5) Stars!

Rachel Hawkins | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy's older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy's mom decides they need to take a break. 

Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it's not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who's always been on her own, it's strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush. Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt? 

Rachel Hawkins' delightful spin-off brings the same wit and charm as the New York Times best-selling Hex Hall series. Get ready for more magic, mystery and romance!

So I gather this is a spinoff of the Hex Hall series, I realize the covers are the same design but I've seen plenty of authors whose covers all had similar themes (I've always loved these ones) but, anyway. I've only read the first book in the Hex Hall series at this point and if Izzy was in the first one I don't remember. It has been a long time since I've read it though. And it's not that I didn't want to finish the series I just, until now, haven't bought the other two books yet. Though I'm a bit more motivated to get on it after this!

I did find some of the dialogue in this book a bit cheesy and sort of, I don't know..awkward maybe...at times (if you've read this already or what have you I'm not talking about anything Torin says. I realize that's how he's supposed to talk.) More or less a few random phrases here or there that just felt out of place. But aside from that, the book was a lot of fun and there are some great characters in it. I immediately loved Dex. He's just so odd and quirky it's hard not to love him. And funny oh my lord is he funny. This spoils nothing but it just goes to show his humor:

"Bats live in caves," I reminded him. "And where there are bats, there's bat poop. Lots of it. Did you know there's a cave in Mexico where they have a whole mountain made of guano?"

Dex leveled a fake-sultry gaze at me. "Are you coming on to me?"

Seriously love that boy!

The end was a little bit, weird? Or unexpected maybe? Not sure how I felt about it. But all in all I enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. I'd definitely like to find out what happens next for Izzy and Dex both. I found it very much worth the read!

A big thanks to Disney Hyperion and NetGalley for approving me for this!

REVIEW: Bittersweet Blood (The Order #1) by Nina Croft

Title/Series: Bittersweet Blood | The Order #1
Author: Nina Croft
Publisher: Entangled Edge
Published: February 17th 2013
Format: eBook | Pages: 300
Genre: Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Source: NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
★★★★ (4/5) Stars!

Nina Croft | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Tara Collins just wants to be normal. Everyone else wants her dead.

Tara’s eccentric aunt raised her to be fearful of the world and follow the rules. But after her aunt’s death, Tara is ready to take control and experience life for the first time. But she quickly discovers that everything she’s been told is a web of lies. Determined to solve the mystery of who she is truly, she hires private investigator to help her uncover the truth.

Christian Roth is more than your average PI. A vampire and ex-demon hunter, Christian lives among the humans, trying to be “normal.” But recently, things seem to be falling apart. There’s a crazed demon hell-bent on revenge hunting him down, and a fae assassin on the loose with an unknown target. And the Order he abandoned desperately needs his help.

As the secrets of Tara’s past collide with the problems in Christian’s present, she finds herself fighting her attraction to the dark and mysterious investigator. Falling in love does not fit into her plans at all, but Tara soon learns that some rules are meant to be broken.

My reading interests are normally more geared toward the Young Adult and New Adult categories. That's not to say that I never branch out, like now. I received an email from NetGalley about Entangled Edge, a new branch of the Entangled publishing team, and there were a few books suggested. Bittersweet Blood being one of them. The description had me very interested so I sent in a request. The world of vampires is very intriguing to me. I've generally stayed in the very tame and shallow end of the vampire world. And this was definitely not that. This was darker, more sensual. And highly addicting.

Christian Roth.  When I say that name in my head, it's even said with a sigh in there. He is everything you could possibly want a vampire to be. Tall, pale, moves like a predator and oh so sexy. Well, if you're into 500 year old guys with fangs. (Yes, please!) Tara is great too. Going from being sheltered and controlled, in a loving protective sort of way, to being thrown into a world of the supernatural and paranormal all she wants is a normal life. But as they uncover who she really is, normal just doesn't seem possible.

This book was so good. I couldn't put it down. It had a little bit of everything. Vampires, demons, fae, werewolves, shifters, hellhounds. I mean it was paranormal reader heaven. There were times it left me breathless, sometimes with surprised shock, sometimes with laughter, sometimes from the anticipation of the dangerous situation and of course sometimes from the very passionate encounters between Tara and Christian. A bit more descriptive than I'm used to, so it was kind of like...whoa *fans self*. But it was written tastefully.

As my first time reading a book by Nina Croft, I very much enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of her work in the future!

REVIEW: Shattered Promises (Shattered Promises #1) by Jessica Sorensen

Title/Series: Shattered Promises | Shattered Promises #1
Author: Jessica Sorensen
Publisher: Jessica Sorensen
Published: February 26th 2013
Format: eBook | Pages: 210
Genre: NA, Paranormal, Romance
Source: Purchased B&N

★★★★★ (5/5) Stars!
  
Jessica Sorensen | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

For twenty-one year-old Gemma, life has never been normal. She knows nothing about her past and has been haunted by the same monsters in her nightmares for the last few months. Unemotional and numb to life, she feels disconnected from everyone. Until the very first day she cries. After that, nothing in her life is the same.

Her emotions slowly surface and she starts experiencing love, happiness, and anger, feelings she never knew existed. But they leave her confused and she doesn’t know whether to embrace them or run away from them.

Her life only gets more complicated when she meets Alex. Sexy, arrogant, and secretive, Alex can get under Gemma’s skin like no one can. Yet she’s drawn to him by an invisible connection she has no control over. She’s also seen him before. In her nightmares.

Every part of Gemma’s mind is screaming at her to stay away from Alex, but every other part of her is begging to get close to him. But the closer she gets, the more she realizes Alex knows more about her than he originally let on.

As secrets about her past unravel, Gemma’s life becomes threatened. She needs to figure out what’s going on, before she winds up dead. But the only person she can turn to for answers is the one person she isn’t sure she can trust.

**Mature Content Warning** 17+ for language and sexual content.

(A re-imagining of The Fallen Star told as a New Adult Paranormal)

 

As it states this is a reimagining of her YA series  The Fallen Star. I absolutely love the fact that she's started doing this for a couple of her YA series. While I'm not saying that there's something wrong with them I really enjoy those for the genre that they're in. They're great! But it's also just as fun to hear these stories on a bit of a higher level. Instead of being in high school, they're in college so the age level is different. The situations are different. More mature. Some parts are the same along with the dialogue which is cool but there is still quite a bit of a difference between the two enough to make it feel like a different series. (To me..)

I love the characters. They're so full of life and emotions, struggles, wants, needs, desires. Gemma just struggles with emotions in general having not felt a thing for 17 years. Nothing. No happiness, sorrow, anger...anything. And her reactions to situations are very fitting for someone in her position. She really grows emotionally as the story goes on, with everything she has to deal with. And Alex, as he is described by Gemma in the book as being hot one minute and cold the next, as if he were bipolar, it's kind of how I feel about him. There are times I'm rooting for him and times when I just wanna scream at Gemma to just run! *sigh* and then of course I have a major soft spot in my heart for Laylen :) Maybe it's the whole  vampire thing, but I simply adore him.

This book has the perfect ending. I know if you've read it you're probably saying to yourself right now "what on earth is she talking about?!" Trust me I'm right there with you. Cliffhangers suck! They drive me crazy. All this build up and then you're left at the end thinking, "are you kidding me? You stop there???" But that's just the point. It leaves me dying for the next book. Which I so very much am. And the thing that sucks is... this one JUST CAME OUT. Fractured Souls, the next book in the series is expected to publish in June...that's like...SO LONG. *Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh* Oh well that just gives me extra motivation to finish the YA version of this story line :D

Truth be told, the whole reason I started reading the Fallen Star series was due to a teaser that Jessica Sorensen put up from this book back around the beginning of February, you can find that teaser here to avoid spoilers if you don't want them, but it was the first teaser I had seen for Shattered Promises and I was quite literally needing to fan myself after seeing that. I had Fallen Star in my NOOK already for a while, but other books kept getting put in front of it...it kept getting shoved to the back of my pile. But once I read that teaser, even though it was going to be a YA version and a bit tamer than this one, I immediately started reading it. And even though I haven't finished, yet, I'm totally loving both of these series. I mean I know basically they're the same thing plot wise but they're both told in a very different way and are equally satisfying. June cannot get here fast enough!!