Spiders in the Grove || Book Review

Title: Spiders in the Grove

Author: J.A. Redmerski
Series: In the Company of Killers

Publication Date: February 13, 2018

Publisher: Self-published
Links: Goodreads || Amazon

Rating: ★★★★

Synopsis via Goodreads: Izabel and Naeva find themselves right where they wanted to be in Mexico: captured and held in the slave compounds owned by the Ruiz family. But the two are soon separated and forced into very different—but equally dangerous—situations. Izabel spends the next three weeks playing a role she never expected she would get the opportunity to play, but her luck runs out when Naeva’s life hangs in the balance, and only Izabel can save her. But at a terrible cost. If Izabel chooses to help Naeva, it will expose a lie she has been carrying on her shoulders since she met Victor Faust. A lie that will not only potentially make everyone in Victor’s Order distrust her going forward, but one that will also blow her carefully constructed cover In Mexico, and that could get her killed.

Fredrik, still looking for his serial killer, does not have to look long—the killer finds him. And Niklas’s past catches up to him when an old enemy comes back for revenge. But it will be Victor’s actions that shake up those left in his Order, and ultimately, be its downfall.

The next installment to my ALL-TIME FAVORITE SERIES is finally here!

It's been months since Behind the Hands That Kill left me in a state of shookethness because of all the tea that was spilt. With all the events that went down in the sixth book, I was very curious to see where things would go next...ESPECIALLY WITH VICTOR AND IZZY BECAUSE I WAS NOT FUCKING WILLING TO LET THIS SHIP SINK! I had my theories written down for every possible plot twist I could think of. I legit re-read all the books just so I could make sure I didn't miss anything. I thought my ass was ready for the fuckery that was about to go down. That was my first mistake...I thought.

Spiders in the Grove picks up right where the Behind the Hands That Kill left off. Izabel and Naeva are off to Mexico to get their revenge on the Ruiz Empire. They plan to tear town the empire from the inside by getting themselves captured, although things don't go end up going exactly the way they planned. Meanwhile, the rest of Victor's Order are all on their own personal missions and what happens next may end up tearing them apart. 

Spiders in the Grove started off a bit slow for me. I felt like a good chunk of this book was more so a filler because nothing too exciting really goes down. Although, that it not necessarily a bad thing because the story builds up to one hell of an explosive ending so I can't be too bothered by this slow pacing. One other thing that did bother me for sure were the length of the chapters. They were rather short and I felt that hardly left any room for the side stories to fully develop. I know this book was more so focused on Izzy's revenge, but I have so many unanswered questions about these side missions and I need answers NOW!  

I really loved the fact that everyone's POVs were included in this book. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that this is the first book where all of the main character's POVs are included and they're on the same timeline. There's not that one POV that's being told in the past or that one character who only gets one chapter at the very end. Also, the writing was a little different in this book, more specifically, the tone for some of these POVs were more on the lighter side. Fredrik who will forever be my dark knight and Niklas who is will forever be my moody bastard actually made me laugh quite a few times. Their internal dialogues were just too funny and I'm honestly surprised because who the fuck knew that these two had this other side to them??  

THE FUCKERY WAS REAL DURING THE LAST 30% OF THIS BOOK! LIKE WTF EVEN ARE THESE PLOT TWISTS AND HOW DID I NOT SEE THEM COMING?! I'm still shook by Izzy's confession because even though Redmerski warned us that there would be a betrayal, I didn't expect it to be something like this. I feel personally attacked. I feel betrayed. I can't trust any of these characters anymore. Everything I thought I knew is now a lie and I don't know what to do with myself.   

I don't even have the ability to form a coherent thought about my feelings on Izzy and Victor's relationship status. I know Niklas and Izzy shippers may be rejoicing but honestly y'all need to calm yo tits because it's never gonna happen. IZZY AND VICTOR ARE MEANT TO BE AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.

 

Spiders in the Grove was not at all what I was expecting and I honestly don't know what to expect next. I'm not even going to make any attempts at guessing what's to come because I done know Redmerski is gonna throw us for a loop. I just hope the wait for the next book won't be as long as this one was.

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Keep Her Safe || Book Review

Title: Keep Her Safe

Author: K.A. Tucker

Publication Date: January 23, 2018

Publisher: Atria Books
Links: Goodreads || Amazon

Rating: ★★★★

Synopsis via Goodreads: Making a Murderer meets Scandal in this story of police corruption, family secrets, and illicit affairs from bestselling author K.A. Tucker, celebrated for her “propulsive plot twists and searing seduction” (USA TODAY).

Noah Marshall has known a privileged and comfortable life thanks to his mother, the highly decorated chief of the Austin Police Department. But all that changes the night she reveals a skeleton that's been rattling in her closet for years, and succumbs to the guilt of destroying an innocent family's life. Reeling with grief, Noah is forced to carry the burden of this shocking secret.

Gracie Richards wasn't born in a trailer park, but after fourteen years of learning how to survive in The Hollow, it's all she knows anymore. At least here people don't care that her dad was a corrupt Austin cop, murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. Here, she and her mother are just another family struggling to survive...until a man who clearly doesn't belong shows up on her doorstep.

Despite their differences, Noah and Gracie are searching for answers to the same questions, and together, they set out to uncover the truth about the Austin Police Department's dark and messy past. But the scandal that emerges is bigger than they bargained for, and goes far higher up than they ever imagined.

Complex, gritty, sexy, and thrilling, Keep Her Safe solidifies K.A. Tucker's reputation as one of today's most talented new voices in romantic suspense.

K.A. Tucker is back at it again with yet another romantic suspense novel that will have you at the edge of your seats! I went into Keep Her Safe having no idea what this story was about but I've been a long time fan of Tucker's books and she hasn't let me down yet, so I had no doubts when it came to her latest release.

Keep her Safe is a story filled with lies, secrets, corruption and murder. Jackie Marshall has been haunted by secrets from the past and her overwhelming guilt leads her to taking her own life. But not before she confesses these secrets to her son, Noah, who now must piece together the clues his mother left behind to find out the truth. His search for the truth will lead him reconnect with someone from his past, the daughter of the man his mother betrayed. Together, they will have to separate fact from fiction and what they discover may end up changing both their lives forever.

Keep Her Safe starts off slow...very slow. The story is told from four POVs: Noah Marshall, Gracie Richards, Abe Wilkes and Jackie Marshall. Noah and Gracie's POVs are told from the present while Abe and Jackie's POVs are from the past. The first half of the story is basically just a set up for all the fuckery that will be revealed in the second half of the story. I wasn't completely invested in this story until the 40% mark because I honestly was lost for a good chunk of this book. 

BASICALLY ME

Tucker does a great job at keeping readers on their toes with numerous twists and turns and even though it was a slow start, I eventually was dying to know what really happened to Abe. Just when I thought I had the case figured out, Tucker would throw us for a loop and it was back to the drawing board. Literally, a plot twist was thrown in at the last 5% of the book and I was shook! Patience is a definite must for this one so grab your popcorn and your thinking caps because you will need them! 

DO NOT TRUST NO MOTHERFUCKER WHILE READING THIS BOOK! Except for Gracie of course since she is just like us and is putting together pieces of the truth as more secrets are revealed. But seriously, most of these characters aren't reliable at all. The whole Austin Police Department is corrupt. Hell, the whole town in corrupt with the way some of them kept their lips zipped about what they saw and heard. Even Abe and Jackie's POVs are a little off because you're only getting bits of the past and never the full story. It's so hard to trust anyone in book which is why I was so on edge for a good majority of the book.

Gracie is definitely my favorite character. She's had to fight for most of her life after the towns people turned their backs on her and her mother after her father was labeled as a corrupt cop. She lost so much at a young age and yet she still does her best to keep moving forward. I especially admired her patience and her love for her mother. She's still got a big heart despite all the hell she's been through. I have a love hate relationship with Noah. I thought he was so shady for the first half of the book and I really wasn't sure if he was okay with throwing his own mother under the bus if it meant clearing Abe's name. Like Gracie, I did eventually warm up to Noah and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

While this is categorized as romantic suspense, the romance doesn't really play a huge role in the story. It's kind of weaved in here and there and I actually liked that there was not a lot of sexy time. It's definitely  a slow-burning romance which is a good considering Noah and Gracie don't really remember much about each other from their childhood. Also, this is an interracial romance. Gracie is biracial and Noah is white. Tucker even touches upon privilege and racism in this book, two topics that play a significant role throughout this story.

While I've done a lot of raving so far about this book, it's not without it's faults. I'm gonna throw some shade for a minute because this was something that irritated the hell out of me and I can't let it go. As I mentioned, Gracie is biracial. She's got a head full of thick curls, brown skin and green eyes YET THERE'S A WHOLE ASS WHITE GIRL ON THE COVER??!!

Like come the fuck on Atria, how y'all gonna do it like that? I know Gracie got some white in her, but the way Tucker described her features in the book makes it sounds like her black traits are more predominant and it would've been nice to see a brown girl on the cover. I mean, I went into this book thinking that the heroine was white so color me shook af when I found out that this was not the case. No other reviews I read made it known that Gracie was biracial so that cover really ain't helping anyone. *shrugs*     

Despite my little snarky remarks, I did very much enjoy Tucker's latest release. Keep Her Safe may be my favorite suspense book by Tucker to date and I would definitely recommend everyone give it a read. I honestly don't know how she will top this book, but whatever Tucker has in stores for us next you bet your ass I'm ready for it!

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Pennies - Book Review

Title: Pennies

Author: Pepper Winters

Publication Date: July 18, 2016

My Rating: ★★★★.75

"I'm not the hero in this story, girl. You'd do best to remember that."

Once upon a time, I was an eighteen year old psychology student.
Now, I’m a man’s property.
Stolen and sold, I’ve been decorated in bruises since the day my world changed two years ago.
I suffer in silence, I crave freedom, but I never break.
I can’t.
Until he arrives.
Elder Prest, the only man to look at me and see me. The only man more ruthless than my owner.
He wants me for reasons I don’t understand.
He claims me for one night then leaves and never looks back.
Until he returns.
And life becomes much more complicated.

Links: 

|| Amazon || Barnes & Noble || Goodreads || 



Tasmin died the night she was kidnapped

Sold into sex slavery and now known as Pimlico, she struggles to come to terms with her new life that she didn't choose. After shes purchased by a vile, horrible man she has to come to terms with even worse.

So much is taken from her by him without her permission, even more is taken by his friends without her permission

Even though so much is taken from her she makes a vow to hold on to the one thing he can never get. Her voice.

 Pim makes a vow that no matter what vile things happen to her she'll hold on to her voice and never speak again. At first this is just a promise she makes to remain stubborn and anger her captor, but after a few years go by, it's the only thing that keeps her sanity. In the never ending cycle of abuse and neglect keeping her words inside is what keeps her holding on by a fine thread. 

Enter Elder Prest. The mysterious man comes and shakes things up for Pim in the best and worst ways. She doesn't know how to take him, and he feels the same about her. She knows enough in her new life to know that she can never trust people so easily ever again. Yet, that tends to be somewhat hard with him. 

Elder isn't a good man. He'll tell you himself. When he meets Pim he's only around to conduct business, nothing more, nothing less. But for some reason he's drawn to the captive girl with the weak body, and desolate look in her eyes. He can have any woman he wants with a snap of his fingers, a women who isn't half dead and silent. But for some reason she intrigues him in the worst way.

The events that happen when these two meet are more than even they could imagine, but is that a good thing or not?

Pepper Winters is an authors that is known for creating some of the best dark romances around.. I've had plenty of her books on my tbr, and on my kindle for the longest now, and I finally decided the other week that it was time to crack open one of her books. I now want to slap myself for waiting so long to do so!! Her writing is darkly good, and I was hooked from the very first page!! I had to stop a few times to just take in the story because it was hard to take in one go at times, and because I just wanted to absorb her words. 

Now be warned that this is a dark romance and it's not pretty or easy to take in at times. If you're already a fan of the dark reads then you'll probably be prepared and ready to dive into this one. If you're not use to reading darker books then you should definitely proceed with caution or read spoiler reviews to gauge your comfort levels.

I myself don't mind dark reads if they're done well. I feel like lately a lot of "dark" romances are just waaaayyyy to OTT and not in a good way. The stories either read super cheesy and too try hard, or they're just entirely too damn much. It's like a lot of authors are trying to "outdark" one another by one upping everything they write. If one author does one OTT, the next has to go completely left and top that for whatever reason, and if you can't tell this trend really annoys me. Sorry not sorry but that's how I feel about a majority of things in the genre. I say all of this to say that I never once got that vibe with this book. Even though the book was dark and maybe hard to read at times there was still something, dare I say hauntingly beautiful about the writing. You can tell that a lot of thought, planning, and care went into this story to make it something that can still be fulfilling for the reader. 

The characterization in this book was so spot on, I hated the obvious evil character, and I loved reading about Pim. She had this resiliency even in her situation and even though she was in some bad shit I still rooted for her to get something better. Her story broke my heart, and she definitely didn't deserve everything thrown her way.

Elder was such a mystery and I didn't know if I should root for him or try to beat him up lol. I definitely feel that as a reader we feel the same emotions towards him that Pim did, and I think that makes the story even more interesting to read.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the rest of the series, and if I'm not mistaken the last book recently released which means I can binge and get my life!! After that ending in this book I have soooooo many questions regarding Pim and if there's any more reasons of how she got in her situation, and of course more about Elder. I think this series is shaping up to be something really great so I'm super pumped to see how it all unravels!! And I definitely need to get on to more of Winters' other books because I've heard nothing but amazing things!!

If you're a dark romance lover looking for your next fix and have yet to try out Pepper Winters, or if you're a fan and just haven't started this series yet then you should definitely hop on!! I think Pennies is a solid start to a dark, yet highly addicting series that will keep everyone hooked from beginning to end!!