One Last Song by S.K. Falls ~ #Review

One Last Song

by S.K. Falls

January 13th 2015

New Adult Contemporary Romance

Forever (Grand Central Publishing)

Complimentary copy for review through AToMR Promotions via Netgalley - Thank You! 

Synopsis

I was seven when I swallowed my first needle.

My mom freaked out and rushed me to the emergency room.

She stayed by my side all night.

I never wanted it to end.

When you spend your whole life feeling invisible - when your parents care more about deals and deadlines than they do about you - you find ways of making people take notice. Little things at first. Then bigger. It's scary how fast it grows. Then one day something happens that makes you want to stop. To get better. To be better. And for the first time, you understand what it's like to feel whole, happy...loved. For the first time, you love someone back. 

For me, that someone was Drew.   

One Last Song is a dark romance where a girl named Saylor pretends to be sick and falls in love with a guy who really is ill. Drew assumed she was there for a support group, but in actuality she was volunteering at the hospital. The problem is he doesn't know she's pretending, and she doesn't want to lose him so she keeps lying to him. 

She's been diagnosed with Munchhausen syndrome and borderline personality disorder. People with Munchhausen feign illness because they want attention and sympathy. From what I know about this syndrome (I have a B.A. in Psychology), Falls (the author, who has a degree in Psych, too) hits it on the mark with Saylor's symptoms. Saylor is written to be very knowledgeable about medical procedures and can cause herself to get sick enough to need long-term treatment at times. 

The role of patient is familiar and comforting to Saylor and fills a psychological need that she has, which is that her parents are emotionally unavailable to her. She has an awful relationship with her mom and dad - they both ignore her and go to painful lengths to do it. You wouldn't believe how much they don't pay attention to what she's doing, and they never show her love. I don't know how I would handle that situation if I were her. It's not something I want to think about.

I felt highly uncomfortable at times while reading One Last Song because I knew it was only a matter of time before her secret would come out. She kept putting it off, and I was dying inside a little bit more each time she had the opportunity to spill. I wanted to ask her why didn't she just tell the group, especially Drew, she wasn't there for the support group? But the disease had taken hold of her, and she felt that her behavior was all that was keeping her together. 

Falls has done the impossible and made me empathize and care about this girl. One Last Song takes a look at far more than this predicament this girl is in. This takes a look at life and death, and she sees that what she's been doing is child's play compared to what these teens actually facing death are looking at. 

About the Author

S.K. Falls likes to believe a degree in psychology qualifies her to emotionally torture her characters in an authentic fashion. Her books have won the gold medal in the 2014 IPPY awards, been featured on USA Today's book blog, and regularly appear on Amazon's various bestselling lists. When she isn't writing her twisted love stories, she can be found gallivanting around Charleston, SC with her family. 

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Ripped (REAL #5) by Katy Evans ~ Blog Tour: #Review

Happy Hump Day, lol. ;D I'm SO stoked to host a stop on the Ripped Blog Tour organized by AToMR Promotions!! Click here to follow along with the full tour schedule.

The fifth story in the new adult series that began with the New York Times bestseller REAL.   

Title: Ripped

Series: The REAL Series #5

Author: Katy Evans

Publication date: December 9th 2014

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 

Genre: New Adult Contemporary  

Source: Copy for review

Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound  

Every woman wants me - except the one I sing for. 

Seattle shakes with anticipation: they call it the concert of the year. They say girls are getting pregnant just thinking about my band being in town. 

But when you love a girl, you don't leave her with nothing but a ring and a promise. Any man with half a brain should know.

So what did I expect my girl would do when she saw me again?

Well, for starters, she loathes our music. Particularly the song I wrote about her. 

When I sing it, the stadium is in an uproar. Thousands of fans scream my name like I'm a god - but yeah, not her. Crystal clear: the girl's not happy to see me.

Black hair, black boots, a bad attitude, that's her - Pandora Stone is a freaking man-eater and she's out for my blood. 

That's alright.

Let her come at me. Because I'm out for her heart and, this time, there's no way she can stop me. 

When I found out I was approved for a copy of Ripped to review, I jumped up and down from sheer excitement. This book couldn't come out soon enough with that cover! That synopsis! And you know what? Katy Evans delivered! 

Ripped is an apt title for this novel - that's exactly how I felt while reading, as though I was ripped in half. I felt Pandora's pain intensely with the hopes and dreams she had for a future with Kenna that never happened. I desperately wanted the walls she had built up to come tumbling down.  

I loved how Ripped began with a prank by Pandora and her friend - it drew me into the story quickly and made me laugh. It was the perfect way to begin Pandora and Kenna's story, especially with the complicated history they share, because a lot of emotional heaviness came my way not long afterward. 

This wasn't a bad thing at all - they had a secret and super hot relationship that ended badly. There was bound to be a lot of hurt and pain left over. Their lives at home as teens weren't filled with happy memories, and they were like life preservers for each other back in those days. I wanted them to become life preservers for each other again. 

When they come back into each other's lives, things quickly heat up. You could light up the entire state of California with the electricity between them - it's as though time has stood still and the last six years never happened. I'm pretty sure I spent much of the book blushing, hoping no one would notice! 

I haven't read the first four books in this series, but this story was easy to follow and can read as a standalone. I do want to read the other books in the series to get to know Pandora's friends better as their stories are told before hers. Ripped was a humorous, emotional, and sexy read that I didn't want to end.    

My Rating: 

Katy Evans grew up with books and book-boyfriends until she found a real sexy boyfriend to love. They married and are now hard at work on their own happily ever after. Katy loves her family and friends, and she also loves reading, walking, baking, and being consumed by her characters until she reaches "The End." Which is, hopefully, only the beginning...

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Seeds of Iniquity by J.A. Redmerski ~ Release Day Launch: Excerpt, Guest Post, & Giveaway!

Welcome to the Release Day Launch for Seeds of Iniquity by J.A. Redmerski organized by AToMR PRomotions! 

Seeds of Iniquity sounds SO good! I love the cover, the synopsis, and wait until you read the excerpt below!! Plus, I have a guest post from J.A. Redmerski with five fun facts about her and five fun facts about In the Company of Killers. PLUS there's a giveaway!! 

Seeds of Iniquity

In the Company of Killers 

Book #4

by J.A. Redmerski

Adult Crime/Suspense/Mystery

Released October 1st 2014

The first book in the series, KILLING SARAI, will be on sale for a limited time for #1.99 (Kindle and Nook) starting October 1st.

IMPORTANT NOTE: SEEDS OF INIQUITY is NOT a prequel about Fredrik Gustavsson as previously stated. It is a brand new present day book.

*PURCHASE SEEDS OF INIQUITY*

Amazon | B&N | Kobo 

  

Victor Faust's new Order is growing. Business is good as there is no rest for the wicked in an underground world of hardcore criminals and contract killing. Relationships among the operatives have changed little over the past year - but things are about to change now, and all six high-ranking members of the new Order will be blindsided by an unlikely enemy.

Loved ones whose only ties to Victor's organization are their relationships with its members, are abducted. The price to get them back safely - the six must confess their deepest, darkest secret to this mysterious young woman named Nora, who is as deadly as she is beautiful, and who seems to know more about each of them than they know about each other. And although no one has any clue about who Nora really is, it becomes clear that she also isn't who she appears to be.

So much more is at stake than secrets and the lives of innocent loved ones; with each member that Nora forces to confess, the truth about their dark pasts and their present objectives will cast suspicion, pit some against each other, and may tear others apart. 

Before the game is over everyone will know who this woman is and why she is here, but the damage she will leave in her wake could be the beginning of the new Order's destruction. 

Whose dark secret will be the darkest of all? And can Victor's Order survive any of them?  

Something inside of me snaps, and my eyes spring open wildly in my face. I scream out something I can't even decipher and finally get my fingers between the chain and my throat. I pull it away with everything in me, spurred on by rage and vengeance and the will to live, until I overpower her and set my neck free, slamming her legs down against the floor. 

She starts to crawl away on her hands and knees in the direction of my overturned chair. I leap to my feet, pulling Pearl from my boot before I'm fully upright, and I'm standing over her with the blade against her throat and the back of her hair in my fist, pulling her neck back as far as it'll go without snapping.

"I'll cut off more than your finger, bitch!"

She freezes; her hips and pelvis and legs pressed against the floor; the whites of her eyes visible to me as I stand over her from behind. 

"Where is Dina?!" I yank on her scalp, pulling her neck back even farther; if she even flinches the wrong way the blade will break the skin and she knows it. "Fuck these games of yours! Tell me where you took her!" 

"Come closer and I'll tell you," she says with difficulty, her voice strained. 

Without even thinking about it I do, but I keep the blade against her throat as I sit down on her back. 

"Try anything and I'll kill you," I growl, my lips next to her ear. 

She doesn't try to fight back, but I'm not feeling defeat from her. It's something else. That confidence about her that I've grown to despise. Even though I'm the one sitting on top of her, the one with the knife pressed to her throat, I can't help feel like she' still the one in control. 

"Where is she?" I whisper harshly against the side of her face. 

"If you want Dina Gregory to live," she says, still in a whisper too low for the audio to pick up, "then you and I need to have a talk about the specifics of the relationship you had with Javier Ruiz."

It feels like an eternity that I sit on top of her, straddling her back, lost in some kind of stunned submission. I can't find words. Or my heartbeat. And my mind is running away from me. 

Then my knife hand begins to tremble and my breathing becomes unsteady. 

I slide the knife away from her throat, push her head down forcibly against the tile with the other hand, shoving myself angrily to my feet and off of her. I don't look at her when she gets up, struggling into a stand with her ankles bound. And I look only at the floor when she shuffles right past me, picking up her black heels along the way, and goes back over to her seat on the other side of the table. 

I keep my back to her, unable to move; my eyes beginning to burn from the angry tears pushing their way to the surface. My knife is gripped within my hand firmly, resting down at my side. I feel like using it on myself. 

"Shall we begin?" Nora says as calmly as ever, waiting for me at the table. 

~ Guest Post by J.A. Redmerski ~

Five Fun Facts about J.A. Redmerski -

1. I have such a strong sense of smell that I can smell the toxins and sickness coming off a person's body who is running a fever. Honestly, I'm surprised I've not been whisked away to a lab somewhere to be studied. 
2. My family has always called me 'Jessie'.
3. I'm a sucker for an emotional love story, but you would never guess it by the books I typically read and the movies and television shows I watch. Dexter, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones - and my all-time favorite movie is Fight Club!
4. I have a mild case of OCD and hypochondria.
5. Years ago, I used to have dreams about fires and if I ever had them three nights in a row, something close to me would catch fire on the fourth day!

Five Fun Facts about In the Company of Killers - 

1. Victor Faust speaks seven languages fluently: German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Hungarian, Arabic and English. 
2. I molded Victor Faust's character almost entirely from actor Michael Fassbender!
3. Izabel, when she was Sarai in Mexico, pulled one of her own wisdom teeth out with a pair of pliers because she had no way of getting dental care. 
4. One of my favorite characters in the entire series is Javier Ruiz. 
5. Niklas was supposed to die in book 1, but I liked him too much. 

J.A. Redmerski, New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas with her three children, two cats and a Maltese. She is a lover of television and books that push boundaries and is a huge fan of AMC's The Walking Dead.

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Forked (Frenched #2) by Melanie Harlow ~ Cover Reveal

Welcome to the Cover Reveal for Forked by Melanie Harlow! You may remember how much I loved the first book in this series, and I love the covers for Melanie's books so I wanted to share this with you guys! 

(Book 2 in the FRENCHED series)

by Melanie Harlow

A Sexy Adult Contemporary Romance

Expected Release: September 2014

Twenty-eight year old Coco Thomas knows the recipe for disaster:

1) Agree to plan last-minute engagement blowout for spoiled Mafia princess before you realize her choice of caterer is Nick Lupo, a despicably gorgeous young chef with a hot new restaurant in town, a reality TV show victory, and a romantic past with you - one that did not end well.

2) Strike a deal with Nick in which you agree to spend a weekend with him in exchange for his services, under the strict conditions there will be no talking about the past, no second chances, and definitely no sex.

3) Violate all three conditions within 24 hours and spend two glorious days remembering what made you fall for the sexy, egotistical bastard in the first place, and why it hurt so much when he broke your heart. 

Add one road trip, plenty of good scotch, and endless spoonfuls of chocolate cake batter drizzled over your body and licked off inch by oh-my-God-yes-right-there inch, then just admit it. 

You're totally FORKED. 

About the Author

Melanie Harlow likes her martinis dry, her lipstick red, and her history with the naughty bits left in. Her stories are inspired by a sense of place, an appreciation for the past, and unexpected pleasures in life - especially the romantic kind. She lifts her glass to readers and writers from her home near Detroit, MI, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

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Click here to read my review of the first book in the series, Frenched.  

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