Shooting Scars by Karina Halle, Review & Giveaway!

Sometimes the right choice can be the deadliest.


When Ellie Watt made the ultimate sacrifice for Camden McQueen, she never thought it would be easy. But walking away with her ex-lover, Javier Bernal, in order to ensure Camden’s safety has brought a whole new set of dangers. With Javier’s plans for Ellie growing more secretive by the moment, Ellie must find a way to stay ahead of the game before her past swallows her whole.

Meanwhile, Camden’s new life is short-lived. Fueled by revenge and pursued by authorities, he teams up with an unlikely partner in order to save Ellie. But as Camden toes the line between love and retribution, he realizes that in order to get back the woman he loves, he may have to lose himself in the process. He might just turn into the very man he’s hunting.

 Rhonda & Holly Review 

Rhonda

Love

Lust

Lies

Loyalty

Betrayal

Deception

Heartbreak

Action

Adventure

This is what you will find in the pages of  Karina Halle’s  Shooting Scars!  For those of you that have been on pins & needles waiting for this installment, the wait is now over!  And let me say, the wait was so worth it!!  Karina Halle brought everything I expected to this installment.  There are still so many questions to be answered,  and conflicts to be resolved. This book is told in Ellie and Camden's alternate POV, which I loved!   

Once again, this was a crazy ride and the characters are so much fun to read.  Javier Bernal is bad!  He’s so very bad, but I constantly find it impossible to hate him even thought I probably should.  I’m going to take the opportunity now to say that if you haven’t read On Every Street which is not necessary to read before reading this, It is my  recommendation that you do.  It will give you all the deets on Ellie and Javier’s past, and I think it does add to the reading experience of this book.  Now, Back to Javier…  He is hot, sexy, a criminal and your not so average bad influence.  He is the dark and painful part of Ellie’s past come to reclaim her.  Only if it were that simple.  Javier always has his own agenda which is always the priority, but then he does something that makes me think that maybe he does have something good in that black heart of his.  

Ellie Watt….  Well I was mad at her, then found myself just as conflicted as she was.  But she is such a likable character, that I find it difficult to stay mad at her.  Ellie is ever the pawn, someone always waiting to use her for their own gain, their own agenda. Now there’s a new game and the stakes are higher than ever, and Ellie must make some very hard decisions, decisions that will put her life at risk.  Ellie has a good heart, even though she does bad things.  She will put those she loves above all else, even herself.  Ellie finally comes face to face with the man who scarred her life, and is responsible for who she has become.   Except maybe that person was lost in the light of Camden McQueen.  

Cam… Cam… Camden McQueen *sigh*  The tattoo artist.  

I can’t say enough about him.  I love him because he is real, he is crazy, he is intense,  he is dark and he is genuine in his love, he's a stand up guy,  and wears his heart on his sleeve.  He is the sexy, hot, muscley nerd, and he makes my heart flutter.  Cam is on the adventure of a life time to save the woman he loves from the evil villain Javier Bernal.  There is no limits to what he’ll do to get to her.  He also must face some difficult situations and heartbreaking choices.  Camden is definitely a swoon worthy hero who wields a wicked needle.  

This is such an exciting series, with so many twists and turns.  One helluva ride! 

To be continued…………..

Holly

You know, I can’t stress enough how much you should embrace the geek (or Goth queen in Camden’s case) – I mean seriously, that dorky kid that gets teased in school is likely to run the world. Or again, in Camden’s case grow up to be a gorgeous, tattooed bad boy just looking for the girl he fell in love with and never forgot!! Holy Shit did Camden grow up good!!

I said all that to say this, I LOVE CAMDEN!! I mean REALLY, REALLY love him. When I read the first book in this series, Sins & Needles, I loved the story but even in the end I wasn’t sure about the characters. I almost felt like I didn’t get to know them enough. That was probably just me but in this installment I was so emotionally invested my heart ached and I was in tears in a couple spots!!

This installment picks up right where we left off in Sins & Needles. Ellie sacrificed herself and left with Javier to save Camden and reunite him with his ex wife and son. That doesn’t go exactly as planned, to say the least, and Camden barely escapes with his life and is now wanted by the police for murder! He is having a REALLY bad day!!

Camden seeks out Ellie’s friend Gus and they set out to get Ellie back from Javier. 

This is where it gets into grey territory. Ellie absolutely does not want to be with Javier and Javier tells her she is free to go at any time, however, if she goes he can’t guarantee that Camden will stay safe…hello veiled threat! Javier has come a long way from the man I kinda fell in love with in On Every Street, he has lost whatever soul he had and is a big, bad scary drug lord now. He tells Ellie that he is giving her the opportunity to kill Travis Raines, the man who permanently scarred her and changed her life. Only now things have changed and she is scared and not sure that she wants that. 

Things between Ellie and Javier get complicated, as in they start having the sex again!! I know, this was kind of a WTF moment for me as well!!! She doesn’t love him anymore but she also has no idea Camden is trying to get her back and thinks he is back with his family and happy!

Camden goes a bit dark too, we start to see a dark and scary side of him too and when him and Gus finally get to Ellie and he has to see something that he will NEVER be able to unsee I was sobbing because I could literally feel his pain!! The ache you knew that was crippling him was too much, even for me!! 

Wow, just recapping is running me through the ringer again! I was all over the map in this book! I loved it, I think I said that already but really I did!! There was a bit of a cliffhanger, kinda like the first one where you know book three is going to pick up right where we left off! I for one can’t wait!! 

***Both copies were provided by Netgalley***

To celebrate release day, we are sponsoring a giveaway of 2 complete eBook sets of

Sins & Needles

On Every Street

&

Shooting Scars

This is a blog sponsored giveaway! 

These eBooks  will be gifted in Kindle only.
non-transferable  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Facade by Nyrae Dawn

No one knows who twenty-one year-old Adrian Westfall is behind his façade. After what he's done, he deserves to live alone with his pain, even if he'd do anything to forget. Anything for a moment of quiet without his past haunting him.

Eighteen year-old Delaney Cross wants nothing more than to absolve her family from her father's sins. To keep her suicidal mom off that ledge, and help her brother Maddox get the light back in his eyes. She thinks their road to freedom is through Adrian.

Adrian and Delaney are bound together by tragedy... Only Adrian doesn't know it. As their lives intertwine, they find a solace in each other they never knew existed. Laney knows she needs to tell him-to come out from behind her smoke screen, but to say the words could mean losing him.


Two people. Two disguises. True love. Will it be enough to save them when all secrets are bared?

Holly's Review:

I received this book from Netgalley and that spurred me to finally read book one Charade, which I have had on my Nook for a while now. I enjoyed book Charade, but I simply fell in love with Façade!

We got to meet Adrian in the first book and really I wouldn’t have given him much thought other than assuming he was just a pot smoking, partying secondary character but once you read his story, well you know what they say about assuming!! HOLY SHITBALLS! This book, Adrian himself, had me bawling like a baby!!

Let me just start by saying if this book had a theme song it would be Demons by Imagine Dragons! (Whom I love, btw) This song ran through my head the entire time I devoured this book!! All the characters in this book have so many demons your heart breaks constantly for them!

Nobody knows Adrian has demons at all, he is your basic fun loving, likes to get stoned and party type of guy. Always a good time, right? Not really. Adrian is haunted by the death of his nephew, which he firmly believes is his fault. The boy was killed by a car when it lost control and ran into the front yard where the boy was playing. Heartbreaking, right? Yeah, it gets worse.

Delany Cross is eighteen and has been living in her own kind of nightmare for the last few years. Her father was sent to jail for driving the car that killed Adrian’s nephew, and her mother hates her for some crazy reason and repeatedly attempts suicide while her older brother Maddox is just trying to keep it all together(I thing Maddox gets his own book next – YAY). Anyway, Delany moves to the town Adrian lives in to try to get some closure by finding him and apologizing for what her father has done. Only, of course that doesn’t work out because they fall hard for each other and she never really finds the right time to tell him.

You can see how this is all gonna blow up in their faces, right?? Yeah, you got it, it is not pretty and let me tell you I bawled my eyes out for a good portion of this book! Oh and there is a little twist at the end that will break your heart all over again! But, did I love it? Hell yeah I did and I can’t wait for the next installment!!

***This book was provided to me as an ARC by Netgalley

Losing Hope (Hopeless #2) by Colleen Hoover

In the follow-up to Colleen Hoover’s #1 New York Times bestseller Hopeless, the charming and irresistible Dean Holder tells the passionate story that has melted thousands of hearts.

In Hopeless, Sky left no secret unearthed, no feeling unshared, and no memory forgotten, but Holder’s past remained a mystery.

Still haunted by the little girl he let walk away, Holder has spent his entire life searching for her in an attempt to finally rid himself of the crushing guilt he has felt for years. But he could not have anticipated that the moment they reconnect, even greater remorse would overwhelm him…

Sometimes in life, if we wish to move forward, we must first dig deep into our past and make amends. In Losing Hope, bestselling author Colleen Hoover reveals what was going on inside Holder’s head during all those hopeless moments—and whether he can gain the peace he desperately needs.

Holly's Review

THIS BOOK IS AMAZING!! I MEAN ABSOLUTELY HEART WRENCHING, MAKE YOU UGLY CRY, AMAZING!!

Colleen Hoover does this to me with every one of the fan-fucking-tastic books that she writes, and I can't devour them fast enough!!

You know, even though I have read Hopeless (and needless to say ugly cried my eyes out there too) and knew the story it still wrecked me all over again!!

I love when a really good author writes a phenomenal story from the other persons POV - It is simply amazing! It's one thing to feel this story unfold with Sky in Hopeless, that was heartbreaking enough, but to now feel it unfold with Holder, who knew things all along that were just destroying him inside, OMG, I am getting teary just thinking about it again! 

Amazing Story Telling, did I say that already!! :)

Holder is just this incredible guy that is carrying so much baggage around with him you just ache for him. I loved the letters to Les and being with him while he worked his way through all of his guilt and anger and sadness. When you read Hopeless you are so caught up in the pain that Sky has you never really think about Holder since he was there to help her through it! But seriously, how can you not love and feel for a guy who says shit like this...

“I wonder if it's possible for people to fall in love with a person one characteristic at a time, or if you fall for the entire person at once.”

Right???

Oh, and I have to add that I LOVED the sweet little piece of Will and Layken that was slightly hidden in there!! Totally loved that!!!

Ok, for you newbies, you CANNOT read this without reading Hopeless first and if you haven't read Hopeless, well, I can't imagine what the hell you are waiting for!! GO GET IT!! 

I am not kidding when I say Collen Hoover stole my heart with Slammed and she has been an auto-buy for me ever since and I have not given even one of her books less than 5 stars!! YES!! THEY ROCK THAT HARD!!!


*****Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to Netgalley for providing me this ARC(Even though my hard copy has already been pre-ordered!!)

Entwined with You (Crossfire #3) by Sylvia Day

The worldwide phenomenon continues as Eva and Gideon face the demons of their pasts, and accept the consequences of their obsessive desires… 

From the moment I first met Gideon Cross, I recognized something in him that I needed. Something I couldn’t resist. I saw the dangerous and damaged soul inside–so much like my own. I was drawn to it. I needed him as surely as I needed my heart to beat.

No one knows how much he risked for me. How much I’d been threatened, or just how dark and desperate the shadow of our pasts would become.

Entwined by our secrets, we tried to defy the odds. We made our own rules and surrendered completely to the exquisite power of possession…

Holly's Review

Let me just start by saying I love everything about Gideon Cross!!!

“Honestly, Gideon Cross had been designed to fuck a woman right out of her mind.” 

However, this installment of this great series, that was only supposed to be a trilogy, was just meh for me. It just didn't feel like it had a huge amount of substance. Let me try to explain without giving spoilers if you have not read books one and two yet. We come off of book 2 with something pretty substantial happening to Gideon and Eva, enough to break them but they hang in there. Now, I expected us to move forward but this felt like a whole book full of standing still! Oh and massive amounts of smokin' hot sex!! That part of the book did not disappoint AT ALL!! But that even tended to get a little repetitive at times! Yeah, I said it! :)

“My domineering lover made no apologies for his caveman tendencies.” 

All of this whining aside, I am still madly in love with Eva and Gideon as well as Cary and whoever he may be loving at any given time and the whole Crossfire cast! I will happily and eagerly devour he next two installments of this series and enjoy every minute! 

“If souls could be mated with wishes, ours would be inextricably entwined.”

Eyes Wide Open (Blackstone Affair #3) by Raine Miller

The third part in The Blackstone Affair series: A love on the brink of being destroyed. The fight of a lifetime to keep it alive.

Big surprises are on the horizon for Ethan and Brynne as they struggle to adjust to what life has thrown at them. Demons from the past are threatening to destroy the passionate bond they’ve forged despite their vow that nothing will ever keep them apart. A truly devastating loss coupled with the promise of a new hope opens their eyes to what is most important, but is it possible for the lovers to move on from the painful histories that continue to haunt them? A stalker is still lurking in the shadows, plotting evil amidst the distraction of the 2012 Olympic games in London. Brynne and Ethan are on the cusp of losing everything as the stakes rise. Will they yield to circumstances beyond their control or will they give every ounce of fight they have left to save each other and win the ultimate prize of a life together?

Eyes Wide Open is a passion-wrought story that shows us what pure love can achieve when tested and what the heart can accomplish despite danger and adversity.

Ethan and Brynn have had an emotional, sexy, roller coaster of a story! The conclusion of their wild, and did I mention SEXY ride was fantastic!

I really enjoyed this story, all three books, in fact, but this one really sucked me in! I don't know, maybe it was the mood I was in, but Ethan Blackstone rates right up there as one of the yummiest dirty talkers I have had the pleasure of enjoying!

In this final installment all kinds of shit happens!! Between all of the REALLY HOT SEX SCENES, there is seriously never a dull moment, I was a little exhausted at the end and loving it!!

There were a lot of things that I loved about this book - to name a few..

~The story is told from both the hero and heroine POV - I love this!
~Ethan is British...enough said!
~I love all of the British-isms!
~The sex was H.O.T!!
~I love that I laughed out loud one minute and my heart would be breaking in the next!
~Oh, and did I mention DIRTY TALKER?!?!?

Brynn and Ethan both have some serious demons but I was in awe of the love and devotion between these two. It seems as though there is nothing that they cannot overcome, and there is a lot of shit to overcome but Brynn is one tough and damaged chick and Ethan is an amazing broken man and they could not be more perfect for each other, they are exactly what the other needs to heal!!!

"Ethan possessed a skill set that combined hot, bad-boy sex god with mannerly, romantic gentleman; something so rare and captivating, I didn’t have a chance of resisting the pull." 

So, if you are new to this series, or like me you were patiently waiting for this book, I promise you won't be disappointed! It is bloody wonderful!

***This book was an ARC provided to me by Netgalley

Holly's Top reads of 2012

Holly's top 10... or so of 2012 
(depending on how you count them, LOL!)

We were asked to list our top ten books of 2012, well; I am going to have to alter that just a tad, simply because some of my favorites of this year were whole trilogies, or series. Not all but some, really in no particular order. So here we go….

The Sinners Series by Tiffany Reisz – Tiffany is a new author for me and she immediately became a must buy for me. She is an amazing writer and I still, even after finishing the first 3 in this series, tend to find myself waxing poetic about these books to anyone that will listen.

Captive in the Dark & Seduced in the Dark by CJ Roberts - This author was also a new one for me and holy crap more amazing writing! This dark tale is not for everyone but it was exactly the type of emotional ride that I love.

Anything and Everything Kristen Ashley – I discovered Kristen Ashley this year and I think I have to admit she has become my favorite author! I know, that is a bold statement but there is not even one of her books that I have not LOVED! Her heroes are fucking amazing and I am pretty sure I have loved every one of her kick ass heroines! I recommend her books to anyone that will listen and I can’t talk enough about them. One of my girlfriends said that KA had ruined her for all other authors, that is exactly how I feel every time I finish a KA book!

Slammed & Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover – Colleen Hoover was a new author for me and HOLY CRAP! I read both of these books in less than 24 hours and cried! OMG did I cry, it was a beautiful
journey and the kind of story where you wish you could forget it as soon as you finished so you could experience it all over again!

The Last Girl by Kitty Thomas – I think people either love or hate Kitty Thomas and I love her. She pushes you out of your comfort zone and this book is not my favorite of hers. It is fairly short, just over 100 pages but when you are finished these characters stay with you! I will say the last line was my favorite line in the book!

Risking it All by Jennifer Schmidt – This was another little gem that I picked up this year that I loved with all my heart. I am a huge sucker for a friends to lovers story and this was one that really sticks out in my head. I’m really not sure why. I just know that this was one of those stories where the characters made a significant impact and I loved them for that.

Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia – I don’t even know how to express the amount of love I have for this book! I recommended it to everyone I know that even remotely reads!! The hard copy has earned a permanent place on my keepers shelf so that I can revisit Blake and Livie whenever I need to spend some time with them.

Cowboy Casanova by Lorelei James – I have really enjoyed all of the Rough Riders series but this one rocketed to the top as soon as I got a look inside Ben McKay. Seriously, a smokin’ hot cowboy Dom?? Is this what Heaven is? I mean it, this entire series is a delicious ride but IMO none of them hold a candle to this McKay! They totally had me at hot cowboy and BDSM in the same sentence!