Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (Maura DeLuca Trilogy) by Claudette Melanson @Bella623 #PNR #YA

The bell rang, and we all moved to take our trays to the dishwasher.  I was trying to imagine whether Caelyn would be happy or not about my intended gift, so I really wasn’t paying much attention to where I was walking, my eyes focused on the half brownie I’d left uneaten in the corner of the tray.  I jerked my head up as I crashed into the back of the boy in front of me.  I watched in horror as my opened, but untouched, milk carton tipped over to soak the back of his dark, blue shirt, from the middle of his back to his waist.  It would be my luck that Wendy was right across from me in the second line.  She doubled over with laughter, dropping her own tray to the ground with a resounding clatter.  Every head in the lunchroom turned in our direction.

My face was so hot I felt like my head might explode.  I wanted to run away…desperately.  But my feet remained frozen to the floor, my face a mask of horror, waiting for the wrath of the human in front of me to rain down on my head.  He turned around slowly, his large, brown eyes full of shock.  I’d seen him around the school.  A senior.  My heart bounced out palpitations of fear.

Despite that, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he was.

“Wow…that is cold!”  Not exactly what I was expecting, but he could have said way worse.

“I-I-Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I stammered.

He smiled…smiled…at me then.  It was one of those smiles that you know the person is putting their whole heart into.  His brown hair fell over his forehead, to one side, in careless bangs, the rest was long, tied into a ponytail that fell halfway down his back.  Before he’d turned around I hadn’t missed that the ends of it were also milksoaked, like his poor shirt.  He had full lips that were the perfect shade of pink, like the inside of a seashell.  They were spread wide in that cherubic smile of his.  Despite my terror, I was instantly smitten.

CHOSEN AS ONE OF 400 FOR THE SECOND ROUND OF THE AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD FOR 2014!!!

ARE YOU A FAN OF VAMPIRE ROMANCE?

Rising Tide will sink it's teeth into you, keeping you awake into the wee hours of the night

Maura's life just can't get any worse...or can it?

Isolated and sheltered by her lonely mother, Maura's never been the best at making friends. Unusually pale with a disease-like aversion to the sun, she seems to drive her classmates away, but why?

Even her own father deserted her, and her mother, before Maura was born. Bizarre physical changes her mother seems hell bent on ignoring, drive Maura to fear for her own life. And her luck just seems to get worse.

Life is about to become even more bewildering when her mother's abrupt...and unexplained...decision to move a country away sets off a chain of events that will change Maura forever. A cruel prank turned deadly, the discovery of love and friendship....and its loss, as well as a web of her own mother's lies, become obstacles in Maura's desperate search for a truth she was never prepared to uncover.

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Genre – YA Paranormal Romance

Rating – PG

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Website http://claudettemelanson.wix.com/author

Absolution (The #Vampire Alliance) by Angela Louise McGurk @Angela_McGurk #AmReading #PNR

Eve Blakethorn can barely remember what it was like to be unaware of the vampire world around her. Many years have passed since she met the stranger, the man who saved her life, gave her the world and promised her immortality. Unfortunately for Eve someone in power had not wanted her to have the world. Within days of her marriage her life is shattered. Everyone Eve cares for, vampire and human, is taken from her and she is left alone to fend for herself in a world she neither understands nor fits into.

How can she hope to survive her dark and lonely existence while still plagued by the horrors she witnessed when her husband died? How can she avoid becoming prey to the monster who stalks her footsteps, the devil she has long suspected to be the one who brought about her husband’s downfall?

Desperation drives her every move, leading her into the darkness where monsters wait. Can Eve discover the truth about how her world came to crumble and who was really responsible? Is there another stranger out there capable of bringing her some sense of peace? And just what is the vampire government, The Senate, hiding in the dark tunnels under the city?

Praise for Absolution*: 

“I enjoyed every chapter haven't stayed up so late for a book in so long I just couldn't put my phone down. Great book.”

“Wow! It's a nice change to read something in the vampire category with a more mature storyline. Your story was interesting and had me captivated from the beginning until the end. It was beautifully written, and falling in love with with the characters was easy. Great job absolutely loved it!”

“I have thoroughly enjoyed this book! I think this has been one of the most original, mature vampire stories I have ever read... The lives of your vampires are fully realised, their abilities are believable, and the twists in your story are sublime.”

*All comments are from readers.

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Genre - Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance

Rating – R

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Connect with Angela Louise McGurk on Facebook & Twitter

Blog http://angelamcgurk.blogspot.co.uk/

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The Curse Giver by Dora Machado @DoraMachado

Chapter Five

THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE LOST to Lusielle. Her life was a jumbled sequence of snippets, blurry images breaking up long periods of dense darkness, triggered by a sudden jostle or a twinge of pain, cold, heat or thirst. She spotted glimpses of a gray sky, spitting out rain, and campfires burning deep in the woods. There was more rain, and a face—his face—hovering just beyond reach.

Occasionally, sound trickled into her muffled world from a distant place. The wind rustled through the trees. The horses’ hooves pounded on dirt, gravel, and mud. Men spoke, snorted, muttered and snored. A low, measured voice—his voice—echoed very near, urging her to drink, eat or sleep, accompanied by the pervasive masculine scent that was her constant companion.

There were times when she came to just enough to realize that she existed in the world in-between, where gods and mortals met in dreams, where dreams and reality were one and the same. In those moments, she realized that she survived only because of someone else’s will, that if she wanted a future, she had to wake up and seize it. She kept trying, even though it required great effort, like swimming against a colossal tide.

“This way,” the voice said.

She felt listless as a corpse, but she grabbed on to that voice and followed it to a semblance of consciousness. Fighting her heavy eyelids, she managed to glimpse the man’s stern face, outlined against a background of pewter clouds.

Brennus.

She rode with him on his horse, wrapped in an oiled mantle, mostly protected from the rain. His strong arms kept her from slipping off the massive beast. His armored chest offered a hard but steady pillow. The beat of his heart echoed through the copper plates, strong, vibrant, and enthralling.

He must have realized that she was awake, because his stare swooped down on her like a hawk on the prowl, even though his voice was gentle. “Hush,” he said. “We won’t be too much longer on the road today.”

His eyes were lined with worry and exhaustion. So were the faces of the other men who rode with him. All of them were wet, tired and miserable, picking their way up a steep mountain track as the relentless rain continued to pelt them. That same rain was dripping from Brennus’s face, drenching his hair and trickling down his neck.

“The rain,” she whispered. “It’s making you wet.” She reached out to dry the water from his face, but the wound on her back protested with a pang of pain.

He caught her hand and tucked it back into the blanket. “It’s no use,” he said. “You can’t keep me dry.”

“One can try,” she said.

And he actually smiled.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“South of nowhere and north of wherever,” he said. “Far from the usual routes. We’re seven days out.”

Seven days was an awful long time to be senseless among strangers.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Riva’s not going to find us.”

She winced when the horse missed a step.

“Hato!” Brennus called.

Why was he barking like that?

There was splashing, the sound of hooves clattering and then, “My lord?”

“We’ve got to stop. The fever’s back and she’s hurting again.”

“No place to stop around here, my lord,” the other man said.

“Send Severo and Cirillo ahead,” he said. “Tell them to find a decent camp and get a fire going. She’s got to rest.”

“My lord,” he said, “we have pressing business. We can’t slow down to accommodate her comfort—”

“Do you want her alive or not?”

The other man sighed. “As you wish, my lord.” He rode away.

She tried to tell him that she was fine, but ended up whimpering instead.

“Shush,” he whispered in her ear. “You need to sleep.”

And by the Thousand Gods, off she went, at his command, into the darkness again, following his heart’s steady rhythm as it sang a lullaby to her heart.

Award-Winning Finalist in the fantasy category of The 2013 USA Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News

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Genre – Fantasy/Dark Fantasy

Rating – PG-18

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Website http://www.doramachado.com/

The Curse Giver by Dora Machado @DoraMachado

Lusielle’s bleak but orderly life as a remedy mixer is shattered when she is sentenced to die for a crime she didn’t commit. She’s on the pyre, about to be burned, when a stranger breaks through the crowd and rescues her from the flames. Brennus, Lord of Laonia is the last of his line. He is caught in the grip of a mysterious curse that has murdered his kin, doomed his people and embittered his life. To defeat the curse, he must hunt a birthmark and kill the woman who bears it in the foulest of ways. Lusielle bears such a mark. Stalked by intrigue and confounded by the forbidden passion flaring between them, predator and prey must come together to defeat not only the vile curse, but also the curse giver who has already conjured their demise.

Award-Winning Finalist in the fantasy category of The 2013 USA Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Fantasy/Dark Fantasy

Rating – PG-18

More details about the author

Connect with Dora Machado on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.doramachado.com/