They survived the arena, but the fight for their lives has just begun.

Takkar must free the imprisoned Sam and Steve, inflict maximum damage, and flee the sector before they become just another casualty in a never-ending broadcast.

Amidst explosions, desperate escapes, and the thrilling rush of defiance, the trio’s bonds deepen. This time, they’re writing their own script while being hunted by the galactic reality show that abducted and paraded them for entertainment to the elite who could afford to watch.

The producers who enslaved them want revenge, and they’ll stop at nothing to turn their escape into the most spectacular show ever.

The lines between predator and prey blur as they race toward their freedom. But with no homes to return to, their only refuge is each other. Can their fierce connection survive a galaxy determined to tear them apart?

My thoughts…

This story is primarily about them escaping the compound, regrouping, and coming up with a strategy to demolish this intergalactic trafficking ring. Having them out of the compound and getting their plan figured out allowed more world building. We are introduced to more characters, we see the trio strengthen their bond, and there’s some character development on Steve’s part.

Overall it was a good way to wrap up the story. Even though both books combined are only 240 pages, the author was able to fit a lot in and keep the story flowing.

Life had gotten comfortable for Amara Addison, maybe too comfortable. Fabulous job, great friends, even an amazing ex-boyfriend who was her ride or die for life. Then Zaide Rossi sauntered into her life and suddenly everything changed. But no matter how crazy life became, finding Zaide made every last moment of chaos worth it.

Excerpt

Meet the author

Kim was born and raised in a tiny town in the wilds of northern New York, a pretty, little college town called Potsdam. She grew up in a family of lawyers and teachers and bucked all the traditions. Before becoming a writer, she spent a lot of years wearing combat boots in the US Army. Kim spent most of my time in boots working as a Signals Intelligence Analyst (no jokes!) and a linguist. She also worked as a tech writer, an entirely different kind of writing, for Corning Glass Works. Now, she’s an Army wife and a mom to four sons.  Over the years, her Army life has taken her all over the place and she’s been lucky enough to work and live in some pretty amazing places.  Now her and her family lives in Hawaii, just minutes from the beach!

Kim is a writer who is thoroughly in love with words. Reading them, writing them… she loves that words can take you outside of your world and let the unimaginable become imaginable. When she’s not writing or lounging on the beach, she’s probably somewhere with her nose in a book.

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Giveaway

Finding Zaide Blitz

Post-divorce and buried in student loan debt, Claire Collins eagerly enters a spicy business agreement with an acquaintance who wants to explore his primal desires. The deal is simple—thirty days as his sexual prey, $30,000 in her bank account. All she has to do is give Shane Underwood the hunt of his life.

Claire’s a physical education teacher and perfectly happy to spend her summer having wild, kinky sex instead of working her usual serving job. But once they cross the tree line, she realizes how little she knows about the corporate lawyer paying her to be his prey.

Shane is different in the woods. Brutal. Devastating. Feral.

That’s okay with Claire—she is, too. And she’s sinking her teeth a little deeper into Shane’s heart every time he catches her.

 My thoughts…

This quick intro was really nice. It’s as if the author knows they got about 50 pages to snag the reader or suffer the fate of a DNF. Let’s be honest, nothing is more boring than an info dump right when you crack open a book. So, the fact that the author just plops you right into the story as if you were privy to the lead-up, was a nice change of pace. Plus, like I said, the author catches you up quickly without a drawn out explanation.

I will be honest, I’ve read a lot of romances, but this “hunting” kink is a new one for me. So, I liked that this story felt fresh and new with the stage that has been set. The fact that Claire would get a head start and was always strategizing how to beat him at the game and not be found was interesting to witness. Between hiding up in trees, and using a river to hide her tracks, it was very playful and fun. At no point did this feel stalker or like there was a line between consensual and serial killer.

I liked that we got a few side characters added into the mix. It’s obvious that they will have their own book, so them being there is kind of a set up for their book, but I still liked that it wasn’t JUST Claire and Shane the entire time. It allowed the reader to see a more down-to-earth side of Shane.

With that said, I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I was promised to a direwolf lord to secure peace for my pack.

I had three years to prepare myself to become a stranger’s bride. I left my home, crossed into enemy territory, and walked willingly into Thornbrook Keep—only for Lord Ethan to call me a tithe in borrowed cloth, turn his back on me, and cast me off.

He rejected me in front of his entire hall.

So I run.

Straight into the wilds.

And Fenn follows.

My brother’s most formidable warrior has guarded me for years. Silent. Brooding. Infuriatingly controlled. He escorted me toward a future neither of us wanted, never once giving me reason to suspect what he was hiding.

Fenn knew I was his fated mate.

For three years.

Now the treaty is broken, danger stalks the forest, and the wolf who once let me go is done with restraint.

He wants me running.

Caught.

Claimed.

And this time, Fenn has no intention of surrendering what fate made his.

My Thoughts

Ya know, as someone who isn’t a huge fan of novellas, this one served.

The problem I have with novellas is that there isn’t enough time to develop characters or expand upon a world. I usually feel like I’ve been thrown into a conversation that’s already underway, and I’m just sitting there politely smiling, but haven’t the faintest clue what the heck is going on. However, this story didn’t make me feel that way.

At just under 70 pages, I was able to get a feel for the characters and understand their sense of duty when it came to this pact marriage. At the same time, because the chapters are in both character’s POV, you know exactly what the other is thinking and get a sense of connection with them. Since this is a series, I could see the reader getting more immersed in the world and characters with each book.

A jaded grim reaper and a woman who wants another chance at life give ‘til death do us part a new meaning in this paranormal romance from bestselling author Jenna Levine.

Lucy McKenzie’s life has always been a disaster. So it should come as no surprise when one day she’s hit by an inconveniently-timed bus—and dies. Unfortunately for the handsome grim reaper who shows up to take her to the afterlife, Lucy is not about to go quietly.

Daniel is tired of his job collecting souls. While working for the Agency beats the heck out of going to Hell, he’s been doing this for literal ages. The drudgery has him yearning for more. Touched by Lucy’s plea for more time on earth, he convinces the Agency to make a Lucy can have six more weeks of life if Daniel can observe her and report back on humanity.

But as Lucy and Daniel navigate the chaos of life and afterlife together, they discover that a second chance at living might be their real chance at love.

My thoughts…

Sure there were fun parts like the bachelorette party, but her looming death was always at the forethought. So, when the romance kicks in, I was taken back. I mean, I knew that there would be romance, but I just didn’t feel that connection. There didn’t seem to be any real build up – it was just insta-love. The first half of the book was great because Lucy is coming to terms with her impending death, but once the romance came into play, I felt like the story shifted into this weird territory where two people were being forced together for the sake of some steamy scenes in a book. That organic connection just wasn’t there for these two, which in turn didn’t allow me to completely get on board with the story.

Since we do get some chapters from Daniel’s PoV, I was excited to see his world. However, the few times we get a glimpse, it’s very basic in what we experience. We don’t go with him to collect souls. We don’t really witness him interacting with the other reapers. I honestly would have liked to see more of who HE was rather than who he was when it came to protecting Lucy.

I enjoyed following along with Lucy while she tried to make the most of her remaining days with her sister. I wish the relationship between her and Daniel was more fleshed out because that was an important part of the storyline.

It was an enjoyable read, but I just wish it had more depth to it.

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Ranblings of a Coffee-Addicted Writer. The hop occurs weekly, featuring a specific book-related prompt each week. The main goal is to connect bloggers, encouraging them to follow each other, discover new titles, and grow their audience.

This week’s question is

Do you run more than one blog? If so, how do you manage your time?

Answer

I do actually have two blogs- Book Sniffers Anonymous and Holy Cannoli Recipes.

I started my food blog back in 2010. When I started it I was really young and still navigating the kitchen and learning how to cook delicious food at home. So, I decided to blog about the recipes I was trying. I would post photos of the dish and talk about my thoughts on making the dish and if I felt it was worth the time/effort, the things I changed, and things I would change in the future to make it better. In the end, it kind of became a food journal of sorts, showing my progression in cooking over the years. I slowly stopped posting on there when dinners became more of a “throw something together”, and less of a fun thing to do for my blog. I still occasionally post over on Holy Cannoli Recipes, but it’s not at the same capacity as it once was. Maybe one day I will get back into it.

Criminal lawyer Sam Connor woke up naked on an alien livestream.

Now she’s a contestant on the galaxy’s most brutal reality show, where the only way to survive is to kill or f*ck your way to victory. With alien technology enhancing her body and a blob creature, she named Steve, as her guide, Sam discovers she has a talent for violence that surprises everyone, including herself.

But when the final trial pairs her with Takar, a deadly alien warrior who claims she belongs to him, Sam must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice for survival.

In a game where only one contestant traditionally wins, choosing love might be the most dangerous gamble of all. Let the galaxy watch. Sam Connor is about to redefine what it means to be human.

My thoughts…

Well that was an interesting novella. I usually have a hard time with novella’s because they are too short to get a grasp on the story or the world that the author is creating. However, this story starts off with Sam already captured and gearing up to enter the intergalactic gladiator ring. There’s not a lot of build up as she’s told she’s going to have to fight to the death and hope to survive. Only, she’s a human against very strong alien species from across the galaxy, so her survival rate is low. With that said, we follow along as she does everything she can to survive the gauntlet of fights.

Now, this is an erotic romance. There are a lot of steamy scenes. Way more than I realized there would be. Basically, if Sam can utilize her hoohah, or sex appeal, she will. Apparently in the battle field you can mate before killing your prey. Since it’s all being watched and voted on, the more “entertaining” you are, the higher your ranking. If you rank too low, then you automatically die. So, yeah. There was a lot of alien sex going on.

Even though there were a lot of intimate scenes, I enjoyed the meat of the story and the characters that we meet.

Mercedes Thompson, aka Mercy, is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy’s next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy’s connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water…

My thoughts…

This book follows Mercy, who is a one-of-a-kind coyote shifter. She was “adopted” by the alpha of all werewolves, Bran. So, she’s well aware of the otherworldly things that surround us on a daily basis. Which is something we are faced with a lot in this book. We meet goblins, fae, witches, vampires, demons… you name it. This world is so rich with interconnecting characters of all shapes, sizes, and AGES that it was all immersive. Mercy doesn’t just hang out at her shop. No, she’s all over the city meeting vampire queens and solving murder mysteries.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I thought Mercy was a great character to read from. I enjoyed all the characters and even though they all have history, I never quite felt left out. At no point did this story drag or feel like it lost its way. Every scene had a purpose and built up to the bigger picture for the overall story arc.

This is most definitely a series I see myself continuing.

Once, Marella belonged to the sea.

She and her family were emissaries, not monsters, swimming the borders between sea and land, keeping peace between the merfolk and the human city of Rossaia. But when the humans turned on them, the mermaids sought salvation from The Stone Witch.

She kept her word, but she also damned them.

Now, Marella and her family exist trapped in stone at the heart of a dried-up city, freed only on the night of the new moon.

And with that freedom comes thirst. To survive, they must drink human blood before dawn seals them back into statues.

Garrett is living an unmoored life.

Looking for something to anchor him, he arrives in Rossaia haunted by emptiness. There, he joins the Fratelli di Sangue, an ancient brotherhood sworn to cleanse the city of the monsters haunting its streets.

Monsters like Marella.

When a chance encounter turns into a dangerous rescue on a moonless night, both hunter and hunted find their certainties unraveling. Drawn together by blood, secrets, and a forbidden pull neither can deny, they stand on opposite sides of a war older than memory, and to choose each other may mean betraying everything they believe in.

My thoughts…

Mermaid stories are not something I see all that often. So, when I heard about this book, I was excited to read it. I mean, mermaids that are cursed to become stone all but once a month, when they are released from their stone casings in order to drink the blood of humans to survive until the next new moon. Basically, cursed vampiric mermaids?! I was hooked.

The book starts out strong with the backstory of the merfolk and how they wound up cursed. Even though, for centuries, they had been encased in stone, nothing more than statues to everyone in the world, they are still alive inside. They can still see and feel everything that goes on around them. So, they are unfortunately fully aware of the time that passes. This part was really heart-wrenching to think about. It would be one thing if they just slept between the new moons, but they are stuck in this stasis of watching life go on around them while they remain frozen and helpless. Learning about their history may have been the best part of this story.

As for the main characters, I liked Marella. Sure, she was cutthroat and didn’t seem to have remorse for killing people, but she did what she had to do. She found the predators in the area and took care of them. So, while killing is obviously a big no-no, at least she was killing with morals… right? Then you have Garrett, who is essentially in Italy to find and exterminate her kind. Not too much goes into him or his “brotherhood,” other than the fact that they will take anyone who signs up to help exterminate the monsters of the city. From the sounds of it, Garrett is just there because he needed a change of scenery and was feeling like he was adrift in life. So, his heart wasn’t really in it. Again, I didn’t really get a good sense of Garrett, even though the book was half in his POV.

I liked that the romance wasn’t all-encompassing when it came to the story. The stone witch tells her that she needs to make a man fall in love with her in a week, and I got nervous. Lust? Sure, that can be done. But actual, real love… people do not fall in love in 7 days. So, I was a bit worried when this became the answer to breaking their centuries-long curse. Thankfully, that didn’t become a thing.

One thing I did have a little bit of an issue with was missing pieces throughout the book. There’s this brotherhood, but you only ever see Garrett and his partner, Lucas. They all live together, and yet you never see them. At one point, Marella spots one of her sisters, but it’s not during the new moon. This isn’t really explained. I wanted to know how and why she’s running around, and whether or not her other family members are “awake.” What deal did she make with the stone witch, and HOW did she make a deal if she was in stone? Or did she make this deal during the last new moon and has been running around this entire time? Then there is a part in the book where a person is completely relocated from a basement location to being out on the street. No explanation. Just a “I don’t know how I got here” response.

Now, I get it. I can suspend my sense of reality and believe that there are not only mermaids, but that statues could, in fact, be vampiric creatures that were cursed to stone by an evil witch. However, what I cannot fall in line with is people popping about in random locations without any sort of explanation. Apparently, that is where I draw the line.

This was a quick and enjoyable read. I liked the spin on mermaids that the author took. I liked their writing style and the way they told the story. For a novella, it had a lot of meat to the story that I wasn’t expecting. I could have easily sat down and read another 200 pages without blinking. I think, for what the author was setting up in this book, it would have been better as a full-length novel. There were a lot of pieces being juggled and not enough time to fully execute it all.

This post is linked to Sunday Post, Staking the Shelves, Sunday Salon, and #IMWAYR

September was probably one of the better months of the year for me.

Life slowed down a bit. I was no longer going to the vet every week with my rescue foster. A cat, whom I’ve had since March and has needed a lot of hands on care. Since his health finally started to improve and we got into a rhythm,  I was able to relax a bit more.

September is my birthday month, so I celebrated turning 40. Gah! That is still something I’m coming to terms with. I don’t feel 40, and I definitely don’t think that I act 40. I don’t even have my crap together most days. I still feel like a teenager playing house with my boyfriend. Anyway, I would like to say I did something awesome for my birthday, but I didn’t. I went to a nearby coffee shop, and enjoyed a cup of coffee and then the Mister and I got conveyor belt sushi for dinner. I’m a real hard girl to please. Ha! Even though my actual birthday was low-key, I did decide to treat myself all month. And by that I mean I said yes to a bunch of things.

One of the women I know out here asked me to go to the beach with her and some friends. Usually groups of people I don’t know isn’t my thing, but I told myself to soak in the month. So, I said yes and got to experience a gorgeous beach that I have never been to before.

My local area put on their annual eisa festival. Eisa is an Okinawan street procession where dancers move to the booming rhythms of taiko drums and the catchy tune of the three-stringed sanshin. It’s a celebration of Okinawan culture.

I also got to attend a local sanshin institute’s first recital. Other than a couple of them taking a deep breath before their performance, you would never know that they were performing in front of people for the first time. Min-yo is Okinawa’s traditional folk music, and it is everywhere here on the island. The heart of the performance is the sanshin which is this beautiful three-string lute that has this distinct, plucky, rhythmic sound (almost like a banjo, but deeper in it’s resonance). When you pair that with the soulful, almost chanting style of Min-yo vocals, you get a super raw, and emotional performance.
I wasn’t able to get any photos of the recital since no photos were allowed. However, the photo included is the institutes founder, who is a well-known artist here in Okinawa.

I’m really trying to get out an explore so that I don’t have any regrets when we do eventually have to leave Japan.

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