PEACE LOVE BOOKS : Ramblings of a Book Dork: November 2014

Title: Flawed

Author: Francette Phal

Release Date: November 8. 2014

BLURB ~ Blood.

That's the only memory he carries from a childhood he does not remember. And now it is all he knows. Blood is his life.

Knox Bishop has done a lot of horrible things, all at the command of the man who holds his leash. It's a matter of loyalty for him. Allegiance to the man who saved his life when he was a child. So he goes where he is needed and does what he is told. He tortures. He kills. He kills. He tortures. It is an unrelenting cycle that he constantly craves and can never quite satisfy.

Until her.

Eighteen year old Lacey Barnes distributes her assets to fund her dreams. Medical school is the end game and she is determined to get there by any means necessary. But a family member's careless mistake derails her plans and now she must pay a price in order to save him.

She goes to Knox willingly offering him the only valuable thing she has. Herself. In doing so he allows her into his world, a world filled with darkness but rather than being scared it intrigues her. It lures her, calls to something in her that she hadn't known existed until he awakened it.

Every bit of his flaws is reflected in her and Knox will do anything to keep her in the darkness with him.

BUY LINKS

EXCERPT

Knox

I’m not what you would call normal. The word has no meaning to me. But I’ve been pretending to act normal. It’s something I’ve been practicing since I’ve been aware of the thrum and its significance in my life. I was seven when I first heard the lullaby. Second grade, just before recess. It happened in a squall. Nothing and then all at once. I remember everything about that day. The bell rang and the other children went to play. Not me. Never me. I always stayed behind, mostly by choice, but never contested because the other children thought I was weird. I think maybe they unconsciously knew that I was lacking something fundamental. Something they all had and I didn’t, and maybe even never had at all. Whatever it was, I was alienated, excluded from their games. But I couldn’t say it bothered me. I was indifferent to it. Katia would sometimes play with me. Yuri’s youngest daughter, my adoptive sister, kept me company when she wasn’t with her own friends. But she’d been home sick that day.

In the small classroom with its oversized, rainbow-colored letters hanging over the chalkboard and tiled number blocks littering the carpeted floor, I sat in the beanbag chair staring fixatedly at the class pet. Sweet Ms. Devon always stayed with me but she’d left for a moment. A moment to heat her lunch. A moment to speak to a fellow staff member in the teachers’ lounge. But it’d been a moment too long for me. The noise in my head had been too loud. The urge too strong. The pink-eyed little rabbit, Mr. Apples, and the yellow pair of scissors sitting blades down in Ms. Devon’s “Best Teacher” mug had been too much of a temptation for me to resist.

The pounding of my heart. The lullaby and the thrum. The latch had given way beneath my shaking fingers, soaked with apprehension and anticipation. The struggle. The frantic movement of something living, something warm, with the same accelerated heartbeat as mine grappling for life. Desperate for freedom even while knowing the inevitable hand of death loomed was intoxicating. The thrill, the excitement, the sweet seductive power. I swam in it. Like too much candy on Halloween. Too much ice cream in the summer. It had been a quick death for Mr. Apples. It had been crude. Amateurish. But ever so effective in quieting the discord of my mind.

Poor, sweet Ms. Devon came to find me on the floor of the overly-bright classroom. Huddled on the floor, covered in Mr. Apples. She’d been one to smile a lot. But I stole her smile that day and replaced it with horror instead. Her pretty features contorted like a Kabuki mask.

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About the Author

Francette lives in Massachusetts with her amazingly supportive husband of ten years and her darling two year old son. Reading amazing books has led her to writing and she’s dabbled in fan-fiction before self-publishing her own works. She’s constantly thinking up new stories to write and does her best work when music is playing in the background. Romance is where she’s most comfortable but she hopes to one day venture in mystery novels. She has a weakness for coffee ice cream, tropical fruits and a good glass of wine.

PEACE LOVE & HAPPY READING!!!

Title: Screw It (It #2)
Author: Nicki DeStasi
Release Date: October 24. 2014

Blurb ~ I’ve been screwed.

It started the day I was conceived.

When I was eleven, life crushed me into grotesque, mangled fragments. I glued the shards of myself into a mosaic fitting of a child. I learned one important thing from that experience.

Control.

Controlling your destiny keeps the vultures at bay. Control keeps my life from disintegrating. It keeps my life on the path to the woman I want to be.

Not who they say I am.

As time goes on, life hits and smashes and I take it. Every snide word, every crack in my heart, every self-righteous glance again and again.

Screw that.

I’m done.

It’s my turn to screw.

BUY LINKS

EXCERPT

For the next hour, we play hide-and-seek. When I was a kid, I used to play this game with my parents. These days, I do it with both Jed’s and my sister, Christy’s, kids, but I’ve never had this much fun. That’s because Becca plays the game with more excited enthusiasm than the kids. She’s a totally different woman—throwing her head back and laughing, joking teasing, tickling.

It dawns on me that she didn’t have this growing up. I don’t know her whole story, but the bit I know tells me that smiling, laughing, and tickling didn’t happen often. So, now, she’s soaking it all up and giving it right back to these kids. It’s a thing of beauty.

This doesn’t take into account that, after a while, she pulls me into her fold. She grabs my hand and laughs without abandon when I do something goofy for the kids. Christ, she doesn’t stop smiling once, and it’s nothing but genuine, even when aimed at me.

It’s not just a thing of beauty. It’s beautifully sweet.

My girl—pure sweet.

Now, it’s Nick’s turn to seek, and he’s a speed counter, so as he fires off numbers faster than he eats jelly beans, Becca and I rush around to hide the other three. I pop Ashley in the shower and tell her to be quiet as Becca hides the other two somewhere in the room the girls share.

Nick gets to eighteen when I get out of the bathroom just as Becca emerges from the bedroom. My blood is pumping, and I’m grinning from ear to ear. Becca giggles as our eyes dart around, looking for a spot to hide.

“Ready or not, here I come!”

I spot a closet door, open it, and grab Becca’s hand to drag her in with me before closing the door, shrouding us in darkness.

Seconds tick by with our breaths coming out in heavy pants, the excitement still pumping through my body, when I realize that this closet is way too small for both of us. Her body is plastered against mine. Her face is at my chest, her hot breath seeping through my shirt, and it’s killing me. It’s not because I don’t want her exactly where she is, but because I don’t think she’s ready for what it’s doing to me. I can’t see a fucking thing, so every exhale and every movement is amplified in a way that’s making my dick hard.

“Thanks for the hiding spot,” she whispers against my shirt, making me grit my teeth.

“Don’t mention it,” I whisper back.

She smells so damn good, the scent of oranges and lavender permeating the air around us. I suck in a breath when she slowly, hesitantly snakes her arms around my waist.

“It’s more comfortable than having them squished between us.” She tenses her arms, accentuating her words.

“Mmhmm,” I mumble.

After a few seconds, she says quietly, “I forgot how good you smell.”

Fucking Christ.

Maybe I was wrong about her not being ready. My heart hammers, and my semi-hard cock jerks.

Tits sliding across my chest, she lifts up and gives my collarbone a touch of her tongue.

Fuck.

The feel of her tongue is soft, hot, wet. My chubby grows harder, and it takes everything in me not to drive my hands into her soft hair and take her mouth.

“Sweets, you sure you’re ready to go there?”

“I just wanted to see if you taste as good as I remember.” She glides back down.

The disappointment moving through me does nothing to stop my dick from throbbing. “Fuck, Becca. Don’t do that again if you’re not ready for that shit. There’s only so much a man can take.”

She’s silent.

I try to ease my dick down, but it’s pressed against her hard stomach, and I know she can feel it. There’s no way she could miss it, and the idea that she’s aware of my dick is not helping me find my calm. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s been six years, but I know how good she tastes, how well she takes direction in bed, how fucking phenomenal her tight pussy sliding up and down my cock as I hold her hands looks and feels.

Without thinking, I tangle both my hands in her hair, which is longer than before but no less soft. When she sucks in air, my hips jut forward, my dick rubbing against her tight abs.

A moan catches in her throat, so I tilt her head up. I move my head downward at a snail’s pace, giving her time to push me away.

A half inch from her mouth, feeling her heavy breath against my lips, I ask, “You sure?”

As her answer, she closes the distance, and the instant her lips touch mine, fire sweeps through me, and I’m all over her. With my tongue devouring and my hands on her ass, I take everything, and she gives it. Her nails dig into my shoulders as she moans.

The door swings open, and the light is blinding, even behind closed lids.

“Found you!”

3.5 Conflicting Stars

Copy provided During tour for Review

November 16. 2014

I’m conflicted on how to write this review without making it overly obvious how much I hated the Hero-Zach. He is a pompous bossy asshole and I felt as if he slowly killed every good part of this book when he would enter a scene or open his fool mouth.

When we first meet Becca she is trying to unsuccessfully kick her booty call out of her apartment. Things get a bit crazy when he throws out words like relationship that make Becca’s head spin. Due to her sad and what she sees as a tainted childhood, Becca does not do relationships or emotions. Having cared mostly for herself and her mother as a child and then finding her mother dead has hardened Becca and even at 28 she still bears the scars she did as a child.

After his brother was shot, playboy Zach decided it was time to change his ways and for the past six years he’s been on the lookout for the one, ready to start a family and head towards a HEA like that of his parents. Unfortunately for Zach, if he wants that, that perfect relationship with Becca he needs to not only redeem himself, but prove that he’s worth it, after he broke her years ago. Zach is the one man Becca ever had a relationship with and after that ended disastrously she took a cue from his life and lived freely using sex for pleasure and leaving emotions at the door.

There are many things I enjoyed about the story including Becca. She was a kick ass character who has continually struggled through her life and even when she slips up, she gets back up more than determined to conquer her dreams than ever before. She works enough hours she barely has time to breathe let alone sleep but she’ll do anything to prove to herself and to everyone she’s not her mother. With Zach back in her life and showing no signs of leaving, Becca sees only one thing to do; she has to screw him, literally and figuratively.

When it comes to Zach I have nothing good to say, I hated him. Becca often calls him a dick and she’s not wrong. He barges into her life and like a bug, is constantly buzzing in the background. He’s bossy and often unreasonable especially given how solitary and closed up Becca is. They fought so much that it became a bit too much and though it was realistic I just wanted her to knee him in the balls and walk away.

The story itself was very well written and I enjoyed the brief snippets of Jed and Anna from Worth It. I also really enjoyed Becca’s salvation/brother Matt. He was the first on the scene when her mother died and years later the two are as close as siblings. It was a wonderful addition to see Becca welcomed into Matt’s family as she really sheltered herself from everyone else, no other friends or family, just a nagging girl named Kim who has hated Becca for as long as she can remember. It’s easy to hate Kim early on and I thought the twist at the end was a bit of a shocker.

I found Screw It worked more as a romantic suspense than Worth It. Once again the sex scenes are tame and often cut so a dirty imagination is certainly required. This was another great addition from Nicki DeStasi and I can’t wait to read more, hopefully the next hero will be more up my alley. J

Book #1 Info

Anna lives every day the best she can while struggling against the demons that threaten to consume her and drag her back into the darkness of her very troubled past. The last thing she needs right now is a guy, especially one as sweet and sexy as Jed. When the attraction becomes too strong to resist, she gives into it. Even when she knows it’ll only end in disaster and leave her even more her scared and broken than she was before.

Jed wants to find the right woman and he’s drawn to Anna by carnal magnetism, but she also brings out an Alpha side of him that he’s never known. When his alpha rears its head, it triggers memories in Anna and her carefully crafted wall of protection begins to show cracks.

When fate and misunderstandings threaten the already delicate relationship, can they survive? When Anna’s demons threaten to be unearthed and Jed’s inner alpha only seem to make them worse, can they overcome?

Is it even worth it?

Warning: This book contains graphic violence, sex, and adult language

Author Info

Nicki DeStasi was raised in a small town in Massachusetts. She attended Fitchburg State College and studied Early Childhood Education. As a child, she enjoyed reading, but only recently began doing it again. She has always had an inventive imagination and finally decided to put those ideas on paper for others to enjoy. Worth It was Nicki’s first self-published book. A few personal facts: Sloth from The Goonies is her third cousin, she acted and stared in several plays throughout high school and college, and she can play four different instruments. Nicki’s philosophy is to appreciate the good things in life. If we didn’t make mistakes and have bad things happen then we wouldn’t know how truly wonderful the good things are. No matter how difficult life is sometimes, if we look to the people that love us, then we can get through them and on to the good stuff.