tumbas lek: royal house of shadows

Sunday, January 22, 2012

eARC Review: Lord of the Abyss by Nalini Singh

LORD OF THE ABYSS by Nalini Singh
FORMAT: eBook via Netgalley
GENRE: Paranormal
MASS MARKET PAPERBACK: 288 pages
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Nocturne (November 15, 2011)
ISBN: 9780373618729

Once upon a time…the Blood Sorcerer vanquished the kingdom of Elden. To save their children, the queen scattered them to safety and the king filled them with vengeance. Only a magical timepiece connects the four royal heirs…and time is running out.…

As the dark Lord who condemns souls to damnation in the Abyss, Micah is nothing but a feared monster wrapped in impenetrable black armor. He has no idea he is the last heir of Elden, its last hope. Only one woman knows—the daughter of his enemy.

Liliana is nothing like her father, the Blood Sorcerer who’d cursed Micah. She sees past Micah’s armor to the prince inside. A prince whose sinful touch she craves. But first she has to brave his dark, dangerous lair and help him remember. Because they only have till midnight to save Elden.

I really liked it

Other Books in Series(click on covers for more):

available now

REVIEW & Book Trailer:

Gah! I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a little bit of The Ugly Duckling meets Romeo and Juliet meets 1001 Arabian Nights.

It goes something like this:

Girl is the guide for boy who is the Guardian of the Abyss
Boy is angry with girl
Girl becomes cook and prisoner at boys castle after bribing him to tell him stories
Boy is slightly attracted to girl and is confused by feelings for girl
Girl is slightly attracted to boy even though he wears a black suit of impenetrable armor and is quite testy
Boy is a prince of a kingdom taken over by evil sorcerer
Girl is the daughter of said evil sorcerer
Girl must get boy back to kingdom to fight evil sorcerer with the help of his siblings
Boy and girl make The Sexy and everything changes
Girl tells boy stories of his kingdom but boy doesn't know it's his kingdom
Boy gets flashes of his past and soon begins to remember
Girl knows she must sacrifice her life so boy can defeat her father
Boy finds out girl has been lying to him and gets angry
Boy and girl must travel to his kingdom to defeat evil sorcerer once and for all
Boy and girl face dangerous obstacles along the way
Boy and girl must decide whether their giant misunderstanding is worth putting aside and living Happily Ever After

The End.

FAVORITE QUOTE:

A prince, regardless of his position in line for the throne, was expected to marry a certain kind of woman, a woman with an unsullied past, one who could carry the crown of princess with elegance and beauty.
Everything Liliana was not.
You could be his mistress.The sly suggestion came from the part of her that had no honor where Micah was concerned. She was sure she would do any terrible thing to be with him---but she didn't think she could stand to share him, to know that another woman had the right the bear his name and is children, to love him and hold him. It would break her.

OVERALL: I loved the fact that this was a fast paced read. Danger, betrayal, secrets, adventure, love, laughter and a dangerously sexy man. *sigh* Everything I look for in a great story. The ending wasn't was epic as I thought it would be but it still brought a tear to my eye and a smile to my face. I will be reading more books from Nalini Singh. Well, after I get this monster of a TBR pile down.

***review copy from Netgalley***

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

eARC Review: Lord of the Wolfyn by Jessica Andersen

LORD OF THE WOLFYN by Jessica Andersen
FORMAT: eBook via Netgalley
GENRE: Paranormal
MASS MARKET PAPERBACK: 288 pages
PUBLISHER: Harlequin (October 18,2011)
ISBN: 9780373618700

Practical cop Reda Weston didn't understand how reading a sexy version of “Little Red Riding Hood” catapulted her into another realm—face-to-fang with the legendary wolf-creature who seduced women. A wolf who transformed into a dark, virile man . . .

Dayn cursed the Sorcerer that damned him to a lonely fate. As a beast, he mated with women to gain the strength he needed to rescue his royal palace. But as a man, he craved Reda’s touch. With little time left, Dayn had to either embrace his wolf to safe his kingdom…or fight to save his woman. (source)

I loved it!

Other Books in Series (click on covers to learn more/read an excerpt):

available now

coming 11/22/11

REVIEW:

Well, what a ride. A magical realm with a prince that looks like the woodsman from Red Riding Hood, shapeshifting wolfyn who enthrall and use women for their own pleasure, some sort of magical roofie, a cop who froze when her partner needed her the most and another realm that must be saved from an evil sorcerer before it's too late. Four days to get back to Castle Island, which sounds like it either belongs in a Super Mario game or a horror flick, once a guide is provided. Some vortex hopping, a little bow chicka wow wow along the trail. Hey! I don't remember that part in Red Riding Hood. Okay, so it's not the Disneyfied version you remember as a child.

Once upon a time... in a realm far, far away lived three brothers and a sister with their King father and Queen mother. They were a happy little group. One day, an evil sorcerer decides that it was time to take over the kingdom at the cost of death and destruction. The King and the Queen scatter their children off to different worlds to one day finally get the call to take back the kingdom from the evil sorcerer. Legend has it, once a guide is provided for them, the siblings only have four days to get back to their kingdom.

Prince Dayn has spend twenty years in the realm of the wolfyn, spending once a year with a lady wolfyn to satiate his needs as well as hers. It's a mutual arrangement and she is one of two of his only allies in that world. He is a blood drinker a.k.a. vampire but he keeps it hidden from the wolfyn by using Jedi-like mind tricks.

Reda Weston is a former cop, freezing when her partner needed her the most. She is in search of a book that her mother gave her as a child. When she finally finds it in a little shop, she realizes it's not another copy of the book her mother gave her but the book, complete with her name inscripted. Opening it up, she flashes back to her childhood and as she stares at the picture of the woodsman, something shifts and she wakes up in a field.

Dayn is at first wondering what this human is doing not only to his self control but what in the world she's doing appearing in the realm through a vortex. She couldn't possibly be his guide! Reda recognizes Dayn as the exact replica of the woodsman in her book and thinks she's having a dream. Sorry Reda, no dream, all man. A very hot man.

She is immediately attracted to him and he to her, at least physically. It could be the magical roofies. When the wolfyn find out that Dayn isn't one of them but a vampire, they start to close in. With the help of the woman he's been spending once a year with satiating his needs and hers, Reda and Dayn get away. As the path gets more dangerous, the touches get sexier and hotter, and their time together gets shorter as they near the vortex portal, Reda and Dayn must figure out how they really feel about each other and if they are willing to sacrifice anything to remain together.

FAVORITE QUOTE: "She traced the raised lettering. Rutakoppchen. A version of Red Riding Hood with the wolf as both sinner and seducer, the woodsman as the hero who saves the girl and takes her away from her old life to a new, better one." (***quote subject to change in finished copy***)

OVERALL: This story surprised me, in a very good way. From the first page until the last, it enthralled me like the wolfyn found within the pages of this story. The world that Jessica Andersen has created with three of her fellow authors is amazing! Dayn and Reda's journey towards the arch that will take them back to their respective worlds is cinematic worthy: the scary woods, the open fields, wide angle shots of the lake and castle as Dayn approaches it, the shifting of the wolfyn into human form and back and the fighting that breaks out. A note for readers: I suggest you read the books in order. I tore into this book like a pack of rabid wolves but was left wanting in the end. I felt like I might have missed something from the previous books but don't know what. I've got Lord of the Abyss from Netgalley loaded on the Kindle and am ready to make that final journey towards an EPIC conclusion.

***requested off Netgalley***