Giveaway & Review – Never Ever by Willow Rose @MadamWillowRose @SDSXXTours

Never Ever
Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Book 3
by Willow Rose
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

MY REVIEW

Willow Rose is a fabulous thriller author and when I saw this gorgeous cover, there was no doubt I had to have it. Human traffickers, terrorists and a cult abound and it’s hard to decipher who is doing what to who.

Someone took her daughter, Olivia, and Eva will stop at nothing to get her back. Her famous sister, Sydney is be her side as they hunt down the Iron Fist, a human trafficker. She walked away from her family and her lover, Matt, a cop who is trying his best to save her from Carter, a cop that will do anything to catch her and make a name for himself.

Time is precious and its running out for Olivia.

Has Eva crossed the line? Because of her treatment of the first trafficker Eva came across, there is a warrant out for her arrest and it’s all downhill from there. Eva’s friends will stick by her….no matter what. What has she done to earn their loyalty, admiration you will have to find out for yourself.

I think I see where Willow Rose is going with her dual storyline, both of which are horrendous and frightening and all too true in our current times. Truth is stranger than fiction and real life plays out on the pages as trafficking, gas attacks and the cult stories play out.

By the time I get to the halfway mark, the pace picks up and I begin to read faster.

Olivia..oh Olivia…my heart bleeds for you, yet I admire your courage, bravery, and determination to find your way home.

Matt, OMG, I cannot imagine the agony he goes through as he tries to save Eva from a ruthless cop, Carter, who is out to make a name for himself. Carter has tunnel vision and his sights are set on Eva. I think I see how she may survive and I am eager to find out if I am right.

Emma…what a fabulous surprise. Willow Rose does surprises well. The first surprise is quickly followed by a second. A villain is exposed and the surprises keep on coming. The twists and turns make my head spin.

Never Ever is the rawest writing I have read of Willow Rose’s and the first half didn’t ratchet up the suspense like the second half. For that reason I rated it a 4, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the rating went higher after the final edits.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of Never Ever by Willow Rose.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
4 Stars

Former FBI profiler Eva Rae Thomas returns in Willow Rose’s most hair-raising thriller yet.

Ex-agent Eva Rae Thomas is on the run. The past month she has done things she never knew she was capable of while hunting for her kidnapped daughter.
Eva Rae has risked everything,
-her career,
-her newfound love,
-her freedom.
She’s looking for the man they call the Iron Fist.
The trail has led her to Miami.
Meanwhile, Miami is under attack. Hundreds of passengers in the Metrorail are exposed to a deathly nerve gas on a peaceful Monday morning. When Eva Rae Thomas sees her daughter on the surveillance footage from the attack, she knows it is no coincidence. But by the time she uncovers the chilling truth of how it is all connected, it might be too late.
NEVER EVER is the third book in the Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Series and can be read as a standalone.
**Only 99cents 8/28 – 9/3!!**
The Queen of Scream aka Willow Rose is a #1 Amazon Best-selling Author and an Amazon ALL-star Author of more than 60 novels.
She writes Mystery, Thriller, Paranormal, Romance, Suspense, Horror, Supernatural thrillers, and Fantasy.
Willow’s books are fast-paced, nail-biting pageturners with twists you won’t see coming. Several of her books have reached the Kindle top 10 of ALL books in the US, UK, and Canada. She has sold more than three million books.
Willow lives on Florida’s Space Coast with her husband and two daughters. When she is not writing or reading, you will find her surfing and watch the dolphins play in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
Follow the tour HERE for exclusive content and a giveaway!

MY REVIEWS FOR WILLOW ROSE

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Giveaway – Strangers She Knows by Christina Dodd @ChristinaDodd @partnersincr1me

Strangers She Knows

by Christina Dodd

September 17, 2019

on Tour September 17 – October 1, 2019

Synopsis:

Strangers She Knows by Christina Dodd

Series STARRED reviews from Booklist

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Published by: HQN Books
Publication Date: September 17, 2019
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN: 1335468331 (ISBN13: 9781335468338)
Series: Cape Charade #3
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Yearning Sands Resort Washington’s Pacific Coast This Spring

Rae Di Luca stacked up her Level Three lesson books, opened the piano bench and put them away. She got out the Adult Course Level 1A book, opened it to “Silver Bells,” and put it on the music rack. “Mom, you have to practice.”

Kellen didn’t look up from her book. “I know.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When are you going to do it?”

“I’m at the good part. Let me finish this chapter.”

“No, you have to practice now. You know it helps with your finger dexterity.”

When had their roles reversed, Kellen wondered? When had ten-year-old Rae become the sensible adult and Kellen become the balky child?

Oh yeah. When she had the brain surgery, her right hand refused to regain its former abilities, and the physical therapist suggested learning the piano. But there was a reason Kellen hadn’t learned to play the piano earlier in her life. She loved music—and she had no musical talent. That, added to the terrible atrophy that afflicted her fingers, made her lessons and practices an unsurpassed agony…for everyone.

She looked up, saw Rae standing, poised between coaxing and impatience, and the Rolodex in Kellen’s punctured, operated-on and much-abused brain clicked in:

RAE DI LUCA:

FEMALE, 10YO, 5‘0″, 95LBS. KELLEN’S DAUGHTER. HER MIRACLE. IN TRANSITION: GIRL TO WOMAN, BLOND HAIR TO BROWN, BROWN EYES LIGHTENING TO HAZEL. LONG LEGS; GAWKY. SKIN A COMBINATION OF HER ITALIAN HERITAGE FROM HER FATHER AND THE NATIVE AMERICAN BLOOD FROM KELLEN; FIRST PIMPLE ON HER CHIN. NEVER TEMPERAMENTAL. KIND, STRONG, INDEPENDENT.

Kellen loved this kid. The feeling was more than human. It was feral, too, and Kellen would do anything to protect Rae from threat—and had. “I know. I’m coming. It’s so much more fun to listen to you play than practice myself. You’re good and I’m…awful.”

“I’m not good. I’m just better than you.” Rae came over and wrapped her arms around Kellen’s neck, hugged and laughed. “But Luna is better than you.”

“Don’t talk to me about that dog. She howls every time I sit down at the piano. Sometimes she doesn’t even wait until I start playing. The traitor.” Kellen glared at the dog, and once again her brain—which had developed this ability after that shot to the head—sorted through the files of identity cards to read:

LUNA:

FEMALE, FULL-SIZED POODLE/AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG/AT LEAST ONE OTHER BREED, 50LBS, RED COAT, BROWN EYES, STRONGLY MUSCLED. RESCUED BY RAE AND MAX WHILE KELLEN RECOVERED FROM SURGERY. FAMILY MEMBER. RAE’S FRIEND, COMPANION, PROTECTOR. MUSIC LOVER.

Luna watched Kellen in return, head resting on her paws, waiting for her chance to sing a solo protest to Kellen’s inept rendition of “Silver Bells.”

“Everybody’s a critic.” Rae set the timer. “Come on. Ten minutes of scales, then you only have to practice for thirty minutes.”

“Why do I have to practice ‘Silver Bells’? Christmas isn’t for seven months.”

“So you’ll have mastered it by the time the season rolls around.”

“I used to like that song.”

“We all used to like that song.” Rae took Kellen’s left hand and tugged. “Mom, come on. You know you feel better afterward.”

Kellen allowed herself to be brought to her feet. “I’m going to do something wild and crazy. I’m going to start learning ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ It’s the next song in the book, and I like it.”

“You can learn anything you want after you practice your scales and work on ‘Silver Bells’ for fifteen minutes.”

No one wanted to be inside today, certainly not Rae Di Luca, certainly not Kellen Adams Di Luca, certainly not upstairs in their private quarters in the Yearning Sands Resort. Not when spring had come to the Washington state Pacific Coast. April and May’s drenching rains turned the world a soggy brown. Then, on the first of June, one day of blazing sunshine created green that spread across the coastal plain.

Kellen made her way through the ten minutes of scales—the dog remained quiescent for those—then began plunking out “Silver Bells.” 

As she struggled with the same passage, her right hand fingers responding only sporadically, Luna started with a slight whine that grew in intensity. At the first high howl, Kellen turned to the dog. 

“Look, this isn’t easy for me, either.”

Luna sat, head cocked, one ear up, one ear down, brown eyes pleading with her.

“I would love to stop,” Kellen told her and turned back to the piano. “How about a different tune? Let’s try ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’”

She played the first few notes and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the dog subside. Then, as she worked on a tricky passage, made the same mistake, time after time, the dog sat up again, lifted her nose and howled in mourning for the slaughter of the song.

Rae giggled, and when her mother glowered, the child controlled herself. “Come on, Luna, I’ll take you outside.”

The dog didn’t budge.

“She thinks she’s helping you,” Rae explained. “Come on, Luna. Come on!” She coaxed her out the door, turned back to Kellen and said sternly, “Twenty more minutes!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kellen struggled on, trying to make her recalcitrant fingers do her bidding. Even when she finally got the notes right, it wasn’t a piano tune so much as jack-in-the-box music. When at last the timer went off, she slumped over the keyboard and stared at the fingers of her right hand.

They were trying to atrophy, to curl in and refuse to do her bidding ever again. But the physical therapists assured her she could combat this. She had to create new nerve ways, train another part of her brain to handle the work, and since two hands were better than one and her right hand was her dominant hand, the battle was worth fighting. But every day, the forty minutes at the keyboard left her drained and discouraged. 

Behind her, Max said, “Turn around and let me rub your hands.”

She noticed he did not say, That was good. Or even, That was better.

Max didn’t tell lies.

Kellen sighed and swiveled on the piano bench. Again that Rolodex in her brain clicked in:

MAX DI LUCA:

MALE, 38YO, 6’5″, 220LBS, ITALIAN-AMERICAN, FORMER FOOTBALL PLAYER. HANDSOME, TANNED, CURLY BLACK HAIR, BROWN EYES SURROUNDED BY LONG BLACK LASHES. ONCE HIGH UP IN THE DI LUCA FAMILY CORPORATION, STEPPED DOWN TO RAISE HIS DAUGHTER, NOW DIRECTOR OF THE FAMILY’S YEARNING SANDS RESORT ON THE WASHINGTON COAST. KIND, GENEROUS, RESPONSIBLE, LOVING. A STICKLER FOR DUTY. FAR TOO MUCH WILLPOWER, WHICH WAS IRRITATING TO KELLEN IN MATTERS RELATING TO THEIR MARITAL STATE.

He took her right hand gently in both of his and, starting at the wrist, he massaged her palm, her thumb, her fingers. He used a lavender-scented oil, and stretched and worked the muscles and bones while she moaned with pleasure.

He listened with a slight smile, and when she looked into his face, she realized his lips looked fuller, he had a dark flush over his cheekbones and his nostrils flared as he breathed. She looked down at his jeans, leaned close and whispered, “Max, I’m done with practice. Why don’t we wander up to our bedroom and I’ll rub your…hand, too.”

He met her eyes. He stopped his massage. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, he was frozen in that pose of incipient passion.

Then he sat back and sighed. “Doctor says no.”

“Doctor said be careful.” 

“Woman, if I could be careful, I would. As it is, nothing is best.”

“I am torn between being flattered and frustrated.” She thought about it. “Mostly frustrated.”

I’m just fine.” Max didn’t usually resort to sarcasm, so that told her a lot. Married almost two years and no sex. He was a good man, but he was coming to the end of his patience.

“If we’re refraining because we’re worried I’m going to pop a blood vessel while in the throes of passion, I’d like to point out there are solutions that you might enjoy.”

“That isn’t fair to you.”

“You’re massaging my hand. That’s pretty wonderful.”

“Not the same.” Again he took her tired hand and went to work.

Bitterly she said, “Kellen’s Brain. It’s like a bad sci-fi fantasy.”

He laughed. “It’s improving all the time.” When he had made her hand relax and Kellen relax with it, he said, “I’ve been thinking—the Di Luca family owns Isla Paraíso off the coast of Northern California. The family bought the island seventy years ago with the idea of placing a resort on the island, but now that doesn’t seem likely. Someone needs to go there, look things over, make decisions about its fate.”

Kellen nodded. “You want to go there? See what you think?”

“Actually, I thought we should all go there.”

He was still working her hand, but with a little too much forcefulness and concentration.

“Ouch,” she said softly.

He pulled away, horrified. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not at all. Except that you’re treating me like a child.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not telling me what’s really going on. Why do you want to go to this island?”

“I told you—”

“I don’t doubt that what you told me is the truth. But it’s not all the truth. Max, what’s wrong?”

Max sighed, an understatement of a sigh, as if he dreaded what he was about to say. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I gathered that.”

“Mitch Nyugen.”

“What about him? He’s dead.” She remembered she couldn’t always trust Kellen’s Brain. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes. He was buried in the Cape Charade cemetery.”

Was buried?” Unease stirred in her belly.

“This week, his widow arrived from Wyoming.”

“He wasn’t married.” That brain thing. “Was he?”

“No.” Max was as sure as Kellen was not. “Yet the woman who claimed to be his widow had all the necessary paperwork to have his body exhumed.”

“Oh, no.”

“She had the coffin placed in the chapel. Last night, the undertaker, Arthur Earthman, found her there, with the coffin open. She murdered him, and almost killed his wife, Cynthia. The widow escaped ahead of the sheriff, and she left her calling card.”

Kellen knew. She knew what Max was going to say. “She cut off Mitch’s hands.”

“And took them.” Max looked up at her, his brown eyes wretched with fear. “Mara Philippi is back. And she’s here.”

***

Excerpt from Strangers She Knows by Christina Dodd. Copyright 2019 by Christina Dodd. Reproduced with permission from HQN Books. All rights reserved.

 

 

Author Bio:

Christina Dodd

New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd writes “edge-of-the-seat suspense” (Iris Johansen) with “brilliantly etched characters, polished writing, and unexpected flashes of sharp humor that are pure Dodd” (ALA Booklist). Her fifty-eight books have been called “scary, sexy, and smartly written” by Booklist and, much to her mother’s delight, Dodd was once a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle.

Enter Christina’s worlds and join her mailing list at:
christinadodd.com, Goodreads, BookBub, Twitter, Instagram, & Facebook!

 

Book Blast Participants:



 

 

Book Blast Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Christina Dodd and HQN Books. There will be one (1) winner. The winner will receive an Amazon.com Gift Card. The giveaway begins on September 17, 2019 and runs through September 26, 2019. Void where prohibited.

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Giveaway – Merged by Jim and Stephanie Kroepfl @jimnstephbooks @XpressoTours

Merged
Jim and Stephanie Kroepfl
Published by: Month9Books
Publication date: September 17th 2019
Genres: Romance, Science Fiction, Young Adult

Seven of our country’s most gifted teens will become Nobels, hosts for the implantation of brilliant Mentor minds, in an effort to accelerate human progress.

But as the line between what’s possible and what’s right, draws ever blurrier, the teens discover everything has a cost.

Scientists have created an evolved form of living known as Merged Consciousness, and sixteen-year-old Lake finds herself unable to merge with her Mentor.

Lake, the Nobel for Chemistry and Orfyn, the Nobel for Art, are two from among the inaugural class of Nobels, and with the best intent and motivation. But when Stryker, the Nobel for Peace, makes them question the motivation of the scientists behind the program, their world begins to unravel.

As the Nobels work to uncover the dark secrets of the program’s origins, everyone’s a suspect and no one can be trusted, not even the other Nobels.

As the Mentors begin to take over the bodies and minds of the Nobels, Lake and Orfyn must find a way to regain control before they lose all semblance or memory of their former selves.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play

EXCERPT:

Depending on your point of view, I’m either famous or infamous. I’m called by many names: Ward of the State, Orphaned, Foofool (only by Sister Mo), and Kevin. That last one makes me feel like I’m wearing someone else’s clothes. Tight and loose in all the wrong places. So, I came up with my own name, though no one has ever connected it to me. The identity of street artists should never be revealed.

I flick turpentine at a rat that’s getting a little too curious about my brushes. The alley smells like something died, making me wonder if there’s a body in the dumpster. Michelangelo cut up dead people to better understand how we’re built. If he was willing to do that for his art, I can endure this stink for one night. I breathe through my mouth and get back to work.

After four straight hours, the painting is coming along great, and I know I can finish it before people start heading out for their nine-to-five jobs. I paint madly, getting lost in the scene, moving from figure to figure, jersey to jersey. It’s my best work yet, and I want this one to last.

At least, for a few days.

Author Bio:

Jim and Stephanie Kroepfl are a husband-and-wife team who write YA novels and stories of mystery and adventure from their cabin in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Their debut novel, Merged, will be released by Month9Books on September 17, 2019.

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