Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label Susan Rae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susan Rae. Show all posts

Monday, May 6, 2013

Book Review: Ice Blue by Susan Rae

Title: Ice Blue (DeLuca Family 2)
Author: Susan Rae
Publisher: Musa Publishing

About the Book: When lives are on the line, sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing to do.

Born into a Chicago cop family, while her brothers get their rush from catching bad guys, paramedic Angela DeLuca gets hers from saving lives. A tough beauty with a heart perhaps too big, she champions the underdog because, as the youngest of six siblings, she often felt like one.

ICE Special Agent Troy Deavers became a cop to prove he wasn’t like his father—a southern politician who brought his family down with greed and corruption. He doesn’t suffer victims well. At first intrigued by Angela’s passion, he soon fears that the fire in Angela’s heart will be her undoing.

What happens when Troy falls in love with the lovely but infuriating Angela, the Chicago paramedic who insists on protecting a young witness and her unborn baby—a witness who could break his case wide open?

You met the DeLuca family in heartbeats, now come to know them even better in ICE blue.
--Even if you haven't read heartbeats, you can still enjoy ICE blue. Each book has it's own gritty suspense tale and is complete within itself.

 
Purchase Links
 
My thoughts: Don't be scared off by the fact that this is a second book in the series.  It is a great read all by itself.  The author does a good job of working background information in on Angela and her family, some of which I am assuming you would have learned if you read the first book, heartbeats.  But it reads as being very essential to the story, not like sometimes when you know you are being fed information from previous books.  Does that make sense?
 
Angela is a strong female lead (we need more of these!) and she follows her heart more than she follows the rules.  She isn't afraid to break some if it is going to help someone who might be in a bad situation.  Like with the baby that is left on her back porch.  She calls an EMT (seeing she is one herself) before she calls the police.  Then continues to check up on the little baby boy as he undergoes surgery just because he needs to have someone there for him.  This is just who she is and it shows in both her professional and personal life.
 
Troy, on the other hand, seems to play by the rules.  Even if bringing down the bad guys might uproot innocent <victims> lives, he is able to do his job without thinking of those consequences.  Somehow he and Angela continue to cross paths.  Troy is working on bringing down a human trafficking ring and unbeknownst to Angela, she is involved with some of the people on both sides of that ring. 
 
The pace of this story was just perfect, it was quick enough without seeming unrealistic.  Every chance I got I was picking this book up because I had to know how everything was going to tie together.  I also wanted to know if anything was going to develop between Angela and Troy!  I really really enjoyed this book and would not hesitate in picking up another one by Susan Rae.
 
If you would like to find out more about Susan Rae I had the opportunity to interview her here.
 
~I received a complimentary ecopy of Ice Blue from Reading Addiction Blog Tours in exchange for my unbiased review.~
 
Ice Blue
Publisher/Publication Date: Musa Publishing, Mar 2013
ISBN: 9781619373723
Word Count: 86,000
 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Book Review: Broken Faith by Brandy Nacole







Virtual Book Tour April 15 - May 12

April 15- Reading Addiction Blog Tours - Meet and Greet
April 16 - My Cozie Corner - PROMO
April 19 - Pieces of Whimsy - PROMO
April 21 - The LUV'N - Interview/PROMO
April 22 - Michelle's Paranormal Vault of Books - Review/Guest Post
April 23 - Noemi Betancourt - PROMO
April 27 - Wormy Hole - Interview/PROMO
April 29 -  Biaca2B - PROMO
April 30 - Addicted Readers - Review/Interview
May 1 - Books and Needlepoint - Review
May 2 - Love in a Book - Interview/PROMO
May 3 - Must Read Faster - Guest Post/PROMO
May 4 - Gimme the Scoop Reviews - PROMO
May 6 - Mythical Books - PROMO
May 7 - Faerie Tale Books - Review/Interview
May 9 - Pink Fluffy Hearts - Review
May 10 -
May 11 - 
May 12 - RABT Reviews - Review



Title: Broken Faith (Spirtual Discord #1)
Author: Brandy Nacole
Publisher: CreateSpace

About the Book: This was it. The moment Heaven and Hell would clash. But which unearthly being would win? The fallen angel or Hell's hounds? 
Overtaken by fear, I close my eyes. 

Kayson is a Fallen Angel who has spent decades running from the Hell Hounds while searching for something that no one else believes can be so, not even God. Kayson is determined to find a Blood Child. But when a hound finds Kayson first, he is sure his end has come. 

Falon, Alpha of the Hell Hounds, destroyer of the blood children, and devoted believer in his master’s plan, is bound and determined to drag Kayson back to Hell with him. 

Sabrina is a Vampire, a half-breed created from one of Lucifer’s original blood children. After years of hiding, Sabrina’s fate changes when she finds Kayson barely alive. Against her instincts, Sabrina saves him. Now she and Kayson are both marked by the Hell Hounds.

Emma is an ordinary human, whose only problem is making ends meet, and getting over the hurt caused by her untrustworthy brother. Her everyday problems become supernatural ones when she finds Kayson and Sabrina hiding in her parent’s backyard shed. Kayson, Sabrina and Emma are unlikely allies, thrown together by chance to fight against the most powerful creatures of the underworld in order to follow their world-changing quest. But will the broken faith of one break the faith of all?


Purchase Links

~Amazon~     ~Barnes & Noble~     

My thoughts: Thinking back, I am not sure that I have ever read a story about fallen angels AND vampire.  Definitely makes for an interesting premise.

I like Kayson, Sabrina, and Emma and their questionable friendship.  First off we have Kayson and Sabrina - though one is a fallen angel and the other a vampire - it doesn't stop the sparks from flying between.  

What I really like though, was that they did not let their labels (vampire, fallen angel) effect them.  Through out the book, they continued to just be themselves and not fall into the roles of vampire or fallen angel that others of their kind did.  Guess you could say it was just another way to break the rules.  Even though Kayson and Sabrina meet face to face in the beginning of the story, he had actually been tracking her movements for awhile.  She influenced him greatly in the choices that he made for his own life. 

This isn't a book that I would normally pick up - my daughter Tori was actually supposed to review it, but didn't get it read. I did enjoy reading it though.  

~I received a complimentary ecopy of Broken Faith from Reading Addiction Blog Tours in exchange for my unbiased review.~

About the author: Brandy Nacole resides in Arkansas where her imagination runs wild. Her obsession is reading but her  passion is writing. She put her dream of becoming a writer on the back burner and went to college to become a psychologist. Three years after endless classes in a field she only felt half satisfied with, Brandy picked up her pen once again and wrote the outline to Uniquely Unwelcome. She finished out her degree in psychology but traded her dream of writing for the degree and put psychology on the back burner. Whenever she’s not reading or writing, Brandy is spending time with her family and friends, throwing around crazy ideas, and laughing through the crazy moments.

~Facebook~     ~Blog~     ~Goodreads~







Broken Faith
Publisher/Publication Date; Create Space, 
ISBN: 9781300852094


Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Book Promo and Interview: Ice Blue by Susan Rae


Ice Blue
by Susan Rae

When lives are on the line, sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing to do. 

Born into a Chicago cop family, while her brothers get their rush from catching bad guys, paramedic Angela DeLuca gets hers from saving lives. A tough beauty with a heart perhaps too big, she champions the underdog because, as the youngest of six siblings, she often felt like one.

ICE Special Agent Troy Deavers became a cop to prove he wasn’t like his father—a southern politician who brought his family down with greed and corruption. He doesn’t suffer victims well. At first intrigued by Angela’s passion, he soon fears that the fire in Angela’s heart will be her undoing.

What happens when Troy falls in love with the lovely but infuriating Angela, the Chicago paramedic who insists on protecting a young witness and her unborn baby—a witness who could break his case wide open?

You met the DeLuca family in heartbeats, now come to know them even better in ICE blue.
--Even if you haven't read heartbeats, you can still enjoy ICE blue. Each book has it's own gritty suspense tale and is complete within itself.


PLEASE COME BACK TOMORROW FOR MY REVIEW!



Follow Along With This Tour:

April 13 - Laurie's Thoughts and Reviews - Interview/PROMO
April 16 - Taking it One Page at a Time - Review
April 18 - Read Your Writes - Guest Post/PROMO
April 22 - Book Reviews By Dee - Guest Post/PROMO
April 23 - Gimme the Scoop Reviews - PROMO
April 25 My Cozie Corner - Review
April 26 - Beth Art From the Heart - Review
April 30 - Books and Needlepoint - Review/Interview
May 1 - My Reading Addiction - Review
May 2 - Enchanting Reads - Guest Post/PROMO
May 6 - My Devotional Thoughts - Guest Post/PROMO
May 8 - Total Book Geek - Review/Interview
May 9 - Author Ever Leigh - Review
May 10 - My Pathway to Books - Review
May 13 - Book Referees - Guest Post/PROMO
May 15 - The Canon - Review
May 16 - Texas Book Nook - Review
May 17 - Andi's Book Reviews - Interview/PROMO
May 20 - Busy Mom Book Reviews - Review
May 21 - Wormy Hole - Review/Interview
May 22 - The Must Unleashed - Review
May 23 - The World as I See It - Review
May 24 - RABT Reviews - Review


Susan took some time to answer some questions for me over the weekend.  Please enjoy the following interview:  


How do you typically write?  Do you plot it all out beforehand or do you just let the story pour out?

I am a plotter—to a point. Because I write romantic suspense, I have to have a pretty good idea of where I’m going and how the characters are going to get there.  Once I get an idea for a story and who the main characters are, I get my notebook out and start brainstorming.  Most times I already have the beginning and end in my head, so I start jotting down the other main beats of the storyline—those scenes that move the story in another direction.  At some point though, I have to just sit down and start writing.  And that’s when the magic happens—the surprises—as the characters start taking over and things happen that I never thought of originally!

How long do you think about a story before starting to write the book?

It’s funny that you ask that.  Some books are in my head for years before I start writing them.  Some I start writing and never finish (or rather, haven’t finished--yet J).  The idea for my current novel, ICE blue, came about a year after heartbeats was first published,  however it is a very involved book and although I started it shortly afterward and had one-hundred and fifty pages done, I didn’t finish it until last December.  But I think that’s a good thing.  Because I grew from both mine and my family and friends experiences during that time, the book is so much stronger for it.   

Do you have much say in the title or covers of you books?

I do!  Because I am with MUSA Publishing now, I work very closely with the art director on my covers.  In this on-line era, it is more important than ever that a book cover reflects what the story is about.  I want mine to say sophisticated romance and suspense.  I think ICE blue’s cover does this well, along with the other two covers Musa has done for me.  What do you think?
              
 I think Ice Blue is very fitting!  I am guessing that is the Chicago skyline in the picture as well?

Was there anything (or anyone) while growing up which helped you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Actually, when I was very young, I wanted to be a doctor—a pediatrician. But, as an avid reader, I found myself gravitating more and more to the written word. I penned my first melodrama in fifth grade, complete with hero, heroine, and dastardly villain—not so different really than the romantic suspense I write now.  In eighth grade I played the role of Jo in Little Women. By then, I felt it was type casting. When the words still don’t come so nicely onto the page, I often recite Jo’s words, “If father were here, he’d tell me to throw it in the fire!” It puts a smile on my face. Now, even though I am not a doctor, I enjoy writing one J. (Elizabeth in heartbeats and ICE blue). 

Do you have a favorite quote?

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant–
 Success in Circuit lies… ~~Emily Dickenson
When I read this little poem in college, I realized how true it was.  I try to follow Dickinson’s advice in my writing, in how I approach my characters and plots.  With romance, telling someone that “Love conquers all,” just doesn’t do it, and it isn’t always exactly true.  But creating full, well-rounded characters, making them as real as possible, putting them in difficult but believable situations and seeing how through their grit and determination they get through those situations, often overcoming desperate odds—that’s telling the truth and hopefully giving the reader something they will enjoy reading.

What does a day look like in the life of your main character?

Angela, the main character in ICE blue is a Chicago paramedic.  I had the opportunity to interview a former Chicago paramedic for the novel.  Her twenty-four hour shift was very hectic.  I am slightly amused now when I see the paramedics on the TV show Chicago Fire just hanging out at the station house with the firefighters.  My paramedic said they rarely had time to hang out.  They often squeezed twenty to twenty-three runs into a twenty-four hour shift.  That left very little down time!

What time of day do you like to write?

I “write” (actually sitting down at the computer and getting words into the draft) best between the hours of eleven a.m. and six p.m.  However, I am brainstorming and thinking about a novel almost constantly when I get close to starting a book and during the first draft.  Especially annoying are those four-thirty a.m. wakeups when I can’t get back to sleep because my hero and heroine had a fight and I’m trying to figure out how to get them back together!

What is the most you have written in one day? 

 Twenty pages, or about 5,000 words.  

What themes do you love to read or write about?  

 Love, trust, overcoming difficult situations, and murder most foul!

What is your favorite way to promote a book?   

I do a lot on-line, but I love meeting readers face to face.

If your book was made into a TV series or movie, what actors would you like to see playing your characters?

 The hero for ICE blue is easy, Matthew McConaughey.  Sexy, suave. Can be comical, but also quite serious.  Check out this link for some eye candy! http://www.matthewmcconaughey.com/photos/193087


If you could have a superpower, what would it be? 

 Flying, definitely!

Favorite season?

 Spring.  Renewal and all that.

Favorite sport?   

Participitation?  Golf, swimming, canoeing.  Watching?  Tennis and Football.

Favorite music?   

Very eclectic.  Hard and soft rock, to blues and Broadway musicals.

Talk or text?   

Yes!  Depends on the situation.  Mostly talk.

Cat or dog?   

Dog.  You can meet Half-pint in ICE blue who is patterned off of my own dog, Nikute.

Nikute is so adorable!  I am so ready to get a puppy!

Coffee or tea?   

Tea.  I collect teapots.

I found a great teapot last summer at a garage sale - it is Eeyore!

If you could live in a literary world  - what world would that be and why?

Middle Earth.  It’d be cool to experience wizards, ents, elfs, and all, once the fighting was over!

Favorite gadget?   

Can opener.  At least after the apocalypse I could open a can.

I must say - this is a gadget I would not have thought of!

Ebooks, paperbacks or hardcovers?   

YES!  Did I mention I love to read? Anything, anywhere, anytime!

Is there anything else that you would like my readers to know?

Only that I love a good sexy romance with a gritty suspense story, and that’s what I try to give readers with my novels. A try to bring a plot with a lot of meat to it and well developed characters that will bring joy, fear, laughter, and even tears to readers while possibly raising their awareness of things outside their normal everyday life. ICE blue is billed as DeLuca Family 2, but don’t let that throw you off.  Even if you haven’t read heartbeats, the first book in the series, you can enjoy ICE blue.  Each novel has its own hero and heroine and gritty suspense storyline that is complete within the novel.

Thank you Kristi for having me and thank you, readers, for taking the time to visit with me today.  For more information on my books and my writing, please visit me at www.susanrae.com

Happy Reading!



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