Covers to Covet

Black Fallen

(Dark Ink Chronicles # 4)

by Elle Jasper

December 31, 2012

There’s only one thing more lethal than a vampire.
A Black Fallen. Rather, a fallen angel engulfed in the blackest of magic.

And three of the most dangerous have descended upon Edinburgh…

Tattoo artist, RILEY POE, has changed. After surviving the bites of three potent Strigoi, she has acquired traits from each that parallel those of the most lethal of vampires. Her strength, speed, hearing are unmatched. She’s a stick of dynamite, fuse lit. She’s about to put those unique powers to good use. And she’ll need them.

Now that the rogue bloodsuckers plaguing the Lowcountry are under control once more, and Riley, along with her guardian vampire, ELI DUPRE, Riley’s brother, SETH POE, and Eli’s brother, PHIN DUPRE, and Strigoi vampire VICTORIAN ARCOS agree to join JAKE ANDORRA’S elite WUP team. Worldwide Unexplained Phenomenon takes cases too powerful and dangerous for mere humans to handle. Comprised of vampires, humans with tendencies, immortal druids, werewolves and witches, there aren’t many situations the WUP members can’t handle. But there are unholy, lethal disturbances in the ancient city of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Riley and the others accept the mission.

Oath Bound

(Unbound # 3)

by Rachel Vincent

February 19, 2013

The Tower Syndicate will fall...

The secret daughter of the head of an infamous Skilled crime family, Sera Brandt has hidden her past, her potential and especially her powers. But when a tragedy strikes her other family, Sera needs justice. And the only way to get it is to reveal her heritage– including a rare Skill– and take the reins of the Tower Syndicate from her cunning and malicious aunt.

if he can figure out how...

Kristopher Daniels might have the answer. He's fought the syndicate to protect his sisters, but he'd never realized just how close to the new heir he needed to get....

And if they can survive.

Neither is used to trusting. But there's something between them that can't be ignored. And so Sera is on the run with a man she can't figure out, a target on her back and the new knowledge of just how powerful she really is...

The Mysterious Madam Morpho

(Blud # 1.5)

by Delilah S. Dawson

October 2, 2012

Taking place after Wicked as They Come, this original eBook features a mysterious lady and a reclusive mechanical genius who find love and danger in a traveling circus. An elusive woman arrives at Criminy’s doorstep with a steamer trunk, begging for a position in the caravan to perform her unique new act. She opens her trunk to reveal a menagerie of brilliantly colored butterflies. The woman, who calls herself Madam Morpho, is on the run from a dark past in London, where she was forced to leave her equipment behind and abscond with only her tiny performers. Playing a hunch, Criminy hires Madam Morpho on the spot. Taking her down to meet Mr. Murdoch, the reclusive talented engineer who keeps the carnival’s clockworks running, Criminy instructs them to work together to design and build a groundbreaking new circus for the butterflies. Amid the magical ambiance of the circus and the hint of danger from Madam Morpho’s pursuers, she and Mr. Murdoch soon find that their scientific collaboration has produced chemistry of a more romantic kind.

Wicked as She Wants

(Blud # 2)

by Delilah S. Dawson

April 30, 2013

The second book in the Blud series follows debauched musician Casper Sterling on his own romantic adventure with a vicious Blud princess.

ARC Review: Eventide by Elle Jasper

3.5 Feathers

Eventide

by Elle Jasper

(Dark Ink Chronicles # 3)

Riley is going through changes. Having been bitten by Victorian and Valerian, she has all that strigoi power in her and is starting to take over.

At first it's just dreams, then she's losing chunks of time. Her tendencies are becoming more evident and harder to fight. But of course, Riley thinks she can handle everything herself. Even when she's getting out of control.

The pace of this book was a bit slow, I think, and a lot of that is because we spend a lot of time in Riley's head and in her "dreams".

Eli is still just as sexy and as in love with Riley but she keeps him at a distance for most of this book. Him and most of the other characters are left on the outside while her bond with Victorian is strengthened.

There are many ups and downs, and we even get to meet Victorian's father. You'll probably enjoy Riley's new powers though. That is when the story started to get more interesting. She can now see something that happened in someone's life just by touching them.

By the end of the book I felt like this was more about setting up where the series will go from here since its taking them to a different place and with a whole new group of people.

I find the current setting of the series to be one of my favorite things in the series because it's that southern vampire type story I've always loved, so I'm a little skeptical as to how I'll deal with the fact that they'll be leaving there now. Nonetheless, I'm excited that there will be at least two more books in this series. I am curious to see how this new bond with Victorian will play into her relationship with Eli.

*ARC provided by publisher

Release date: March 6, 2012

Purchase Links: Amazon

Review: Everdark by Elle Jasper

Everdark

by Elle Jasper

(Dark Ink Chronicles # 2)

Paranormal Romance

Find it on GoodReads!

3.5 Feathers

This is a difficult book to review and even rate. There are things that I loved about it, and things that were, well... boring!

This book picks up kinda where the last one left off. Riley was bitten by both Arcos brothers and she now has to deal with having strigoi tendencies. She is experiencing a sort of "detox" period and is taken by the Dupres to Da Island. She has some times of lucidity and times where she goes crazy and wants to take a bite out of everyone. So up until now I was enjoying the book alright. But this kept going on and on.

First of all, let me pause here for a minute to daydream. Eli is HAWT! He has come to terms with the fact that he is in love with Riley. For the first time in his whole existence. And he has no problem showing her just how much she belongs to him. Tell me what girl can resist him? Of course Riley doesn't and she just has to jump his bones at every opportunity. Which was fine with me ;) As a couple they are great. These are the parts of the book that worked for me. Their chemistry, their interactions, their connection. Loved it.

OK, back to reality. When Riley finally tries to go back to a normal life after she's been reunited with her brother, who only has tendencies as well, and they both been properly trained in their new abilities and the proper way of fighting and killing vampires. After there are a bunch of vampire newlings running around. But then Victorian starts showing up in Riley's head again. And the bitch won't tell Eli!

OK, I'll admit I actually started having a bit of a soft spot for Victorian. He is obsessed, a bit psycho, but he's tender! LOL

Except that's not the only visions/visits Riley has. Someone else is inside of her head. She starts seeing a vampire continuously raping and killing human females. She has to feel everything that he was feeling, and seeing the terror in the victims faces as if she was there. But she can't do anything about it. It's as if she's trapped in the killers conscience. But how can that be possible? The only other possible candidate for getting in her head is Valerian, and he's dead. Isn't he?

So they are dealing with stopping a monster that's killing humans, finding Victorian, a group of newling vampires that's going crazy around town and surrounding areas. But with all that going on the pace of the book seemed slow to me. I can't quite put my finger on the why.

Onto something else I liked. New character alert: Noah!!! I think he's adorable! Dreads and all! Especially every time he calls Eli a "Lucky fuck!". Luc is another favorite of mine, I'm glad we get to see plenty of him in this book, and I hope he gets together with Nyx in the last book of the trilogy. They'd make the cutest couple.

I love that this author does the accents for Preacher, Estelle and Garr. Those bits where always so much fun to read, refreshing at times.

However, the ending? Why? What a mess! For a smart, kick ass, usually pretty level-headed girl, Riley made a mistake going at this alone and putting her trust in a certain someone. Eli is going to be majorly pissed!!!! Oh well... I guess we'll just have to wait for the spectacular make up sex then! LOL 

Review: Afterlight by Elle Jasper

Afterlight

by Elle Jasper

(Dark Ink Chronicles # 1)

Paranormal Romance

Find it on GoodReads! 

3.5 Feathers

Riley Poe is pretty kick ass! She has turned her life around and gone from being a junkie and being completely in with the wrong crowd and doing the wrong things, to going to college, owning a tattoo shop and being a well known artist in Savannah. This in big part thanks to Preacher and his wife who took her and her brother Seth in and helped her along just a bit so she could find her way after her mother was killed.

The premise for this book is Riley's brother, Seth and his buddies apparently release two brother vampires who were captured centuries ago. While doing that these vampires make the teenagers into their minions, and they slowly begin a transformation to becoming vampires which will be complete when they make their first kill in about a month's time.

Riley never knew these creatures of the Afterlight existed but as she sees the changes in her brother and worries about him, Preacher takes her to meet the Dupres. The local family of vampires, who centuries ago made a pact with the locals they wouldn't drink from a human or harm a human as long as they were supplied blood by other means (i.e. blood bank bags). Preacher also confesses that she has a rare blood type, which is like a magnet and a drug to vampires, and that he has been giving her special herbs her whole life to mask that blood so no vampires would be attracted to her and killer her.

The Dupres assign their oldest son Eli to watch over Riley while she helps them infiltrate in Savannah's underground, which she used to be a part of, in order to recapture these two rogue vampires before the full moon so that her brother can be saved and not turned.

Except the magnetism and attraction Eli and Riley feel for each other has nothing to do with her blood and everything to do with her.

It took a while for me to get into this book. I had a bit of an issue with all "Twilight" type references. I felt like I was reading an adult (and at times, very adult, much to my liking) version of the Twilight book. To list a few:

• Riley's blood being a drug to vampires, which they can scent and have to show a lot of restraint not to drink from her.
• The pact between the Dupres and the locals and if they were to bite anyone (even Riley, and no, biting doesn't automatically change them into vampires) they would break the pact and they would be executed.
• Josie is the weird, quirky younger sister, and her personality, comments, actions are almost too much like Alice. Almost the whole Dupre family could be characterized with the Cullens.
• The ending still leaves us with Riley being wanted by one of the bad vampires and he's coming back for her. Sounded too much like Victoria.

All of that aside, I will read the second book in this trilogy, I want to see where the story goes from here. This could've been a much better story had the author worked out all the similarities and just made up some other ways to fill in those details, since those things didn't really make the story. My rating might've been different then as the book and the story were not too bad after about halfway through, and I really like the hero and heroine.