CREW.............

Hello!

Oh my good grief I have been gone for so long. I am so sorry! Life just got away from me and between work and other commitments I don't know how it is 4 days into September already!

Right I am a week late with this, Tijan - one of my utmost favourites released her new novel for a new series on Monday 27th August - CREW is book 1 in a series of 3 and you can find it on Amazon UK here.

I absolutely love this book cover and I can categorically tell you I LOVED this book!

If you can't read the back the book blurb is as follows:

To survive where I live, you have two options.

You can be a Normal--a cheerleader, jock, member of the debate team, or on the yearbook committee. You pretend everything is normal.

Or you can be crew.
You insult us? We hurt you.
You hurt us? We really hurt you.
And if you screw with us, we will end you.

My name is Bren.
I'm the only female in the Wolf Crew--the best, fiercest, and most dangerous crew there is--and we have a rule: There's no falling in love.

Well... too late.

My Review:

So this book isn't about wannabe gangsters or gangs, it's about four friends who are termed a 'crew'. The story focuses on Bren the only girl in the crew and her relationship with the others.

Bren is a great character, she is tough  but also very vulnerable, the story is told from her perspective.  Tijan writes so very well, I love her writing style and she doesn't disappoint in this book either.

The three boys in the Crew are developed well, they have good characterisation and I dare you not to love Cross.

As the book blurb suggests, Bren has a romantic interest in one of her fellow Crew and the romance aspect of the book is written well - trust me you are going to be rooting for this relationship.

As with all Tijans books she doesn't do light and fluffy, CREW has the dark grittiness we need and expect from Tijan and it has it in spades.

I didn't expect to see characters in this book that we know from another well loved series of Tijan's and I liked how this rounded off the story even more and added more context to the storyline.

I would highly recommend this book - I'm just distressed that I have to wait for Spring 2019 for the next instalment.

Fab book - go get and become lost for a few hours in this book, because you WILL want to read it in one sitting. Trust me ;)

Til next time!

hugs

Eve x

Wyrd Blood - Review

Hi everyone!

I didn't mean to be gone for so long, please accept my apologies.

Today we are discussing a book by Donna Augustine - she is another one of my favourites and I have read everything she has produced.

The book today, is the start of a new series, and book one is called 'Wyrd Blood'. You can find it on Amazon UK here and Amazon US here. Amazon Australia you can click here.

Before I start chatting, I thought I would give you a brief overview of the author, which I basically lift right off of their websites - Donna Augustines website can be found here if you want to go look around.

Author Bio:

Donna Augustine’s lifelong ambition was to become the crazy cat lady. Unfortunately, when family allergies cut short her dream of living in a house full of furries, she turned her ambitions toward writing. Combining her love of fantasy, scifi, horror and romance, she tries to string together interesting twists on urban fantasy.

A native of New Jersey, when she isn’t writing or over dosing on caffeine, she can occasionally be spotted in disguise at the local dog park.

This book was released September 2017 so it's been out a while and the reason I am blogging it today is because Book 2 is out this September. The book cover also got revamped from the original and is soooo pretty now.

The book blurb is as follows:

Sometimes I wonder what life was like before magic burst into existence, before the Magical War of 810 destroyed our world. What it was like before there were Wyrd Blood, or we were forced into hiding.

And that's what I've been doing for years, hiding me and my crew. But that's about to end. My crew is starving and things are getting dire. When I get desperate enough to try and steal from Ryker, one of the toughest men in these parts, things go bad and my Wyrd Blood origins are outed.

But it's not all bad. Ryker can help keep me alive from the mysterious illness that's been plaguing me. He can also feed my crew. The only thing I have to do in return is start another war.

My Review

Our main character is called Bugs, she is in charge of a small 'crew' and it is her responsibility to look after her friends. Things are quite desperate for them all, so Bugs acts rashly and attempts to steal from one of the regions most notorious men.  As you can imagine things don't go well.

If you have read other Donna Augustine's books then you may recognise the main character, she is sassy, independent and slightly haphazard. Bugs did remind me of other of Donna's characters but she wasn't a carbon copy and to be honest, it's a character type I enjoy and don't generally have any issue with. She is a feisty character that is fiercely independent and I find very funny.

One of the main things I enjoy about the authors storytelling is her world building.  She always gives a great description and an original creative world with great attention to detail.   

Ryker is fun, he is a very strong capable male and has the air of mystery around him we expect from Donna Augustine's male leads. I love the chemistry between the two of them and the wary trust that develops. 

This is a story about a world of magic, bonds between friendship, love, and trust. I am waiting patiently (so not patiently) to see how Bugs matures in the next book, to see how relationships develop and maybe unearth some of the hinted at darker secrets. 

I say pick it up, read it, love it (even if you only like it, it has great promise) and wait for book two in September. 

Thanks so much for joining me today, if you want you can follow me on Instagram or on my Facebook page.

Hugs

Eve x

Ryan's Bed.............Full Review

Hello

Thanks for stopping past.  Today I am sharing my thoughts and comments on the standalone novel from Tijan 'Ryan's Bed'.

You can find out more about Tijan here. I have included her bio for you below:

Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side. Tijan began writing later in life and once she started, she was hooked. She’s written multi-bestsellers including the Carter Reed Series, the Fallen Crest Series, and the Broken and Screwed Series among others. She is currently writing a new YA series along with so many more from north Minnesota where she lives with a man she couldn’t be without and an English Cocker she adores.

The book synopsis for this is as follows:

I crawled into Ryan Jensen’s bed that first night by accident. I barely knew him. I thought it was his sister’s bed—her room. It took seconds to realize my error, and I should've left... I didn’t.

I didn’t jump out.

I didn’t get embarrassed.

I relaxed.

And that night, in that moment, it was the only thing I craved. I asked to stay. He let me, and I slept. The truth? I never wanted to leave his bed. If I could've stayed forever, I would have.

He became my sanctuary. Because—four hours earlier—my twin sister killed herself.

** A stand-alone young adult novel.

My Review:

As always I do not like spoilers, so there will be no spoiler BUT I may give more detail than the above short, however, I will not spoil the story. I promise :) 

You can get the book on Amazon for Kindle, Paperback and there is an Audiobook too. Follow here for the UK link and here for the US link. The book released on 21 January 2018 and there is every chance that you have read it already, but if you haven't - sit back and read the rest of this post :) 

The heroine of this story is Mackenzie and she is a little broken, as you see her twin sister Willow kills herself and that is how the book begins. 

The story is about how Mackenzie carries on after the event. The family have just moved so she has no friends to fall back on for support and we learn very early on that her sister, Willow was the social butterfly and Mackenzie is happier in the background. 

On the day of the suicide, Mackenzie is the one to find her sister and is quite obviously traumatised. Herself and her little brother are put up in practically a strangers house and that's where she crawls into the wrong bed and falls asleep. She doesn't know Ryan and thinks the bed is his sisters. 

Ryan's Bed is about Mackenzie's story of self discovery, who she was with her sister and who she will be without. Her interaction with Ryan and her family are very important and the author portrays the very difficult subject matter so well. 

Suicide is a very sensitive subject and Tijan treats this with the utmost respect. She doesn't tackle the question of why and how, she tells a story of the family who have been left. 

I liked Mackenzie as a character she was strong, slightly misguided but given the events we meet her in, I let her off. I liked how dimensional she was :)  

My love of this book is Ryan. He was strong, supportive and understanding, a proper 'rock'. His maturity in the book was so much more than an average 18 year old and I think that lent itself well to the whole story. Their story is a good one and I think portrayed really well. 

From the first few chapters I was invested. Tijan is a fantastic author, she has a way of taking you along in the story and then wham - punches you in the face. That last page............man oh man, I just sat there in silence, whilst my head was reeling. 

I read this book on it's release day and even now, more than 7 months later, I still think about it. That's an epic achievement, especially when you find out how much I read!!

Another highly recommended read from one of my favourite authors. Check it out through the links provided at the top and don't forget to check out other books from Tijan on her page. 

Thanks so much for joining me today, if you want you can follow me on Instagram or on my Facebook page. 

See you soon

Eve x

I Am Grey - The Full Review...........

Hello!

Well hopefully you will have seen my earlier post with the promo info for the new book from Jane Washington 'I Am Grey' - but if you haven't go back one day in my blog and you will! I would encourage this if you haven't got the book yet and maybe don't want too many details - which this post may have.

There are NO SPOILERS in this post, but I may venture into more detail than just the book synopsis, without meaning to. You've been warned :)

 If you want you can check me out on Instagram at #evesbeenreading or my Facebook page Eve's Been Reading.

Right, let's get on with this shall we? So the BRAND NEW book from Jane Washington is out TODAY.

Now for starters those of you who may not have come across this author, here is her official bio:

Author Bio: Jane Washington:

Jane is a quarter-century old caffeine-addicted manic, stuffed into the body of a passably-functioning human being. She lives in Australia, with a few potted plants and a miniature dachshund [see: dictator]. She writes borderline unconventional romance books … and then tells everyone not to read them.

Isn't that one of the best bio's? Makes me laugh every time. 

Also for those of you who may not have seen it, this is the synopsis for the book, those of you that were here yesterday, you can scroll down past this bit to the amazingly clever title of My Review (it's even underlined):

I Am Grey by Jane Washington

Release Date: 31st July 2018

Genre: Contemporary New Adult/ Psychological Romance

“Me and you. It’ll never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not five years from now. Not when some idiot breaks your heart, or when you realise what your little sundresses do to everyone. Not when you’re thirty, not when you’re fifty. I’m going to push your limits, break you down, make you cry, and in the end … I’ll save you.”

Some people exist in the blessed light of day, but I'm not one of those people. I exist in the bleak grey of a post-twilight world, where the warmth is sucked from the air and the weightless shadows come out to play. I will never be free, because I have a demon. It wasn’t always with me, but something happened, something bad. I lost a year of my life, and now here I am, just me and my demon.

Maybe the demon is him: Nicholai Fell. He exists in the horrible darkness of a moonless night: quiet, full of mystery, completely unreachable. He might be in the profession of saving people, but it isn’t going to work this time. Not even when he starts to break all of his own rules.

Because maybe …

Just maybe ...

My demon is me.

This is a full, standalone novel, over 90,000 words.

My Review:

I flat out categorically undoubtedly LOVED this book. I read it in one sitting. Well as you will learn over the course of this blog, I have a tendency to read books in one sitting. I am a tad greedy when it comes to a new book. However, my glutinous behavior in this instance was because this book was SO DAMN GOOD!

Yeah, I know, shouty capitals. Sorry. Not sorry.

Our heroine is Mika Grey - there's been a debate about how you pronounce this in social media, Jane has informed us that it is Me-Ka. I read the book as MY-Ka but in the long run how you pronounce your vowels is up to you :) 

We learn very early on that something horrible has happened to Mika, plus it's hinted at in the synopsis. I'm not going to tell you what, it's not really a spoiler if I do, but I want you to be as invested in this book as I am. This event has resulted in Mika having to have some counselling. Enter Nicholai Fell. Start epic journey. 

I am not going to apologise for gushing over this book. I could not put it down. There were parts where I couldn't even breath. 

So the book is the simple story of Mika and Nicholai right? Not quite. The book has so much more!

Mika is quite frankly lost and there are times as you travel through the story that you will want to slap her, throttle her and hug her. It was not uncommon for me to feel all these emotions and more all at the same time. I quite often was caught saying 'no no Mika don't' or 'c'mon Mika.....really?'. Yeah she made an impression on me that's for sure. 

Nicholai Fell is a complex man and hides his own turmoil well. For example his uncluttered office is the perfect mask that is the unrest of his own life. He's not your typical 'hero' and I think that's what his appeal is. Plus the fact that the author describes him as hot as hell may help ;) Nicholai also had me muttering out loud, one scene in particular where I was just shouting 'No no no what are you THINKING!?' There was me again with the emotions and the shouting! 

Early on in the story we are introduced to two other characters, Marcus and Duke. One you will like and think a companion novel may be nice and the other will stir up an emotion of loathing. However, in a way I felt that loathing was also as a result of one of the main characters actions and when I think about it, I think I am mad at Jane Washington for making me feel that way. 

There are two other highly important characters and again they play their own important parts that I don't want to dig into without risking telling you too much, or having to give you too much context.

Needless to say by the time you get to the end of this book, whatever emotion the author has made you feel, Jane leaves you feeling SOMETHING and you cannot help but feel raw at times. It truly amazes me that great writers can make you live an emotion just through their writing skills and Jane Washington is one of those writers. 

As I said I read this book in one sitting and in that time I lived this book. I was sad, I was happy, I was scared, I was INVESTED, by the end I was absolutely drained, it is beautifully written. 

A rollercoaster of emotions is a description that I have read in many of the book reviews and it really is. As I sat on my couch (well after midnight on a work night), my overall reaction was 'wow'.

This is really what my review is, just 'wow'. I will read this book many more times and I will experience it as I did the first time because the pure emotive storytelling will enrapture me all over again. 

I shall leave you with some reviews;

"I Am Grey is absolutely, hands down, one of my favorites.", "So beautifully written, I dare you not to love it.", "This book is an absolute work of art."

That second review is mine and I stand by it - I dare you not to love it. 

Thank you so much for joining me today, now go follow the links to get this book into your life. Available on Kindle Unlimited too so even better. I've linked to Amazon in the UK and US, other countries, you get the gist :)

Amazon UK

Amazon US 

Books to Read 

Feel free to comment on this below, please note that I have comment moderation on, but please don't be put off from commenting - no spoilers though! Or as I said at the top of this post come find me and say 'Hi' on Facebook and/or Instagram. 

See you soon! 

Hugs 

Eve x

I Am Grey...........

Hello

As promised I am here with some promotional teasers of the wonderful new book from Jane Washington - find her here http://www.janewashington.com/

The book is available NOW for preorder at Amazon.  Below a wee snippet to wet your tastebuds!

I Am Grey by Jane Washington

Release Date: 31st July 2018

Genre: Contemporary New Adult/ Psychological Romance

“Me and you. It’ll never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not five years from now. Not when some idiot breaks your heart, or when you realise what your little sundresses do to everyone. Not when you’re thirty, not when you’re fifty. I’m going to push your limits, break you down, make you cry, and in the end … I’ll save you.”

Some people exist in the blessed light of day, but I'm not one of those people. I exist in the bleak grey of a post-twilight world, where the warmth is sucked from the air and the weightless shadows come out to play. I will never be free, because I have a demon. It wasn’t always with me, but something happened, something bad. I lost a year of my life, and now here I am, just me and my demon.
Maybe the demon is him: Nicholai Fell. He exists in the horrible darkness of a moonless night: quiet, full of mystery, completely unreachable. He might be in the profession of saving people, but it isn’t going to work this time. Not even when he starts to break all of his own rules.
Because maybe …
Just maybe ...
My demon is me.

This is a full, standalone novel, over 90,000 words.

AVAILABLE HERE: https://books2read.com/u/mYoxyp

GoodReads: https://bit.ly/2lnTN22

I mean seriously, this is SO good, I have never been so invested in a story. My heart was racing during this novel, it was a full rollercoaster of emotion. Preorder now - I'll be back tomorrow to discuss in length!

Hugs 

Eve x

The blog layout is complete!

Hello!

Well, after more tweaking and adding - the layout is now complete! I like it, it's girly and it has absolutely no book connotations at all, except the title of the blog! I probably should be more IT aware and have coffee and book images falling all over the place. Alas I am not, so you have my efforts from digidesigner software instead.

Plus I like it, which I am sure is the main thing?

I have added onto the left sidebar 4 book images and the links for them in Amazon. Now these are the first four I am going to review. I do have to apologise to Annette Marie, I do not hold her book 'Red Winter' in less esteem than the others, I just am not tech savvy enough to make the picture the same size! Sorry!

They are also my fav four authors, so Jane Washington, Tijan, Donna Augustine and Annette Marie. I have read everything these ladies have produced, so over the course of the days to follow - I'm going to chat to you about them.

Jane Washington will be up first, with her new stand alone masterpiece 'I Am Grey'. I am very lucky to be on Jane's ARC and I have read this already. Honestly, I can not WAIT to share my thoughts on this.......

It is available to preorder now and it goes live on 31 July. I'll be back on the 30th to talk some more about it.

See you then!

Eve x

Hello!

Hi everyone

Welcome to my new blog. I love to read and I read a lot! I thought I would share my love of books with you all, whether they be old ones, brand new off the shelf or out for a few months.

I read mainly fantasy/supernatural, but I have been known to dip into the romance genre too. I really love the YA (young adult) market even though I haven't been a young adult for a long time.

The first thing I did was set up this blog, I wanted my own background theme. I hope you like it, this literally took me hours, I know. Refer above to not being a young adult........

So now that I have the platform, I will be back very soon with my first review!

Thank you so much for visiting.

Eve x