I’d been called special before, but usually the tone indicated that my kind of special was a physical hazard to others. Yael and Leden weren’t talking about that kind of special, though. Their words made my heart a little light and my knees a little weak.

“You have more power against us than any other being in the worlds. It’s almost scary the things we would do for you, Willa.”

The Outcasts by Misty Hayes is the first book in the Blood Dagger Series and Holy Hell… I’m addicted. The story includes all elements, that to me make a book incredible. A fantasy/supernatural theme, badass fighting scenes, awesome characters, Romance, a mystery to solve and tons of secrets. All of this left my poor heart somersaulting through every chapter. SO WORTH IT!!

I’m going to start out with what I found truly amazing which was the individuality of the characters and how unique, subtle, and well-built they were. All had different personalities that grabbed my attention from the very start. Especially the bad guys, I admit..

Gabriel (The main bad guy) was amazingly evil, I still found myself falling for his snake-like charms in a heartbeat. He’s so smooth, yet so mean.  Vinson (my favorite) was a semi-good guy but so mysterious and although he didn’t say more than 10 words in the whole book, he grabbed my heart the second I saw him. Alastair (A love interest) was mysterious, sweet, and mean in a subtler way. At first, you couldn’t tell whether he was a good guy or bad making him really interesting!

“Nice shot by the way. You got Gabriel right in the neck.” He grunted again. This one I interpreted as, ‘But not good enough.’ I felt like I was getting fluent in speaking Vinson.

The book is action packed to the brim leaving you on edge the whole time. It’s one of those books that you can never get bored of because there’s always something happening that’s relevant to the story, and with all the secrets you’ll find throughout the chapters it keeps you hooked until the very last one.

The Paranormal element works so well. We get to know how vampires are created, how they work with the normal world, their weaknesses, strengths and all the quirks that come with being one. They also brought dangerous and darker elements to the book that made it even better.

This was my first book by this author and I can’t wait for more. It’s super-fast-paced, filled with action and amazing characters. If you love any of those things, this book will rock your world. 

** E-Book provided by author in exchange of honest review**

Pestilence, his crown perched upon his brow. War, with his steel blade held high. Famine, a scythe and scales at hand. And Death, blighted Death, his dark wings folded at his back, a torch of bilious smoke tight in his grip. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, come to claim the earth and lay waste to the mortals that dwelled within it.

“I am not here to please your every whim.” Pestilence’s voice is steady, unfeeling. “I am here to end the world.”

I’ve read quite a few books from this author and the amazing worldbuilding that she incorporates in each story still amazes and takes me by surprise. She creates this original world/stories that grab my attention until the very last word. Then, she describes them beautifully, setting the mood slowly. Every chapter grabbed my attention in Pestilence. The story maintains a super-fast pace, with stuff happening all the time that left me either angry, crying or super happy.

“What do you hope to gain by agreeing with me?” he asks. 

“You’re the one everyone calls Pestilence the Conqueror,” I say. “Can’t you even tell when you’ve won an argument?”

Pestilence frowns.

This book is all about mankind. The good and the bad it has to offer and whether it deserves mercy. Throughout the story there are some chapters where humankind is vile, whilst in other we see kindness, love and redemption. Those bad chapters were real hard to read, especially as you start to like the Horseman and Sara. There are moments where people try to shoot them, burn them, kill them and sometimes they succeed with the Horseman (He regenerates) and with Sara (she almost dies). I felt super sad they all these bad things were happening to them, as I really begun to love them.

The relationship between these two main characters starts out rather interesting (she tries to kill him) and gets better and better and deeper with each page. I loved how the author wrote a slow burn romance for them two, where they had to learn how to trust each other slowly and eventually love one another. They start out as enemies but end as soulmates. It's very interesting to read the development of their relationship.

“You want your people to live, but you’re unwilling for me to be harmed. I want your people to die, but I cannot harm you. Each of us is trapped between our minds and our hearts.”

Pestilence is one of the most original, cunning, heart-grabbing book I’ve read. The story is a unique and beautiful take on the apocalypse, that adds in a burning romance that took my breath away. I loved it, Cannot wait for the next one: WAR.

"Feline shifters didn’t back down and roll over, they got fucking even."

They’re likely trying to detect a lie or spot the manipulative web the evil vagina is weaving.

“Says the guy who is centuries old. You could be my great grandparents’ great grandparent.” I grin as I add, “Burn.” More groans. Damn it, I thought that one was awesome. “It’s a good thing we don’t need your help insulting people,” Ezekiel says, patting my shoulder a little patronizingly.

Really liked where this book took us, cannot wait for the next one!!

Like everyone else, I have life goals. 

Goal #1: Become a real girl instead of this invisible ghost thing I currently am. 

Goal #2: Convince the four men I've been haunting for the past five years to pick me to be their new toy after goal one is complete. 

Goal #3: Figure out who/what I am and why I can't remember anything past the five years I've been haunting this quad. 

Goal #4: Eat popcorn. 

See? Perfectly normal. Sort of. 

Gotta start small, after all. 

It's not like anyone else is perfect either. 

 I’ve since perfected my own personal fantasy. Living. Watching. Learning. I know all four of them as if they’re my real life family. Well, not family. My people. There. But they have no clue I even exist.

I’m neither here nor there. Alive nor dead.

Fire and Bone
Rachel A. Marks

(Otherborn #1)
Publication date: February 20th 2018
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

“Gossip Girl meets Percy Jackson in the glitz and grit of L.A….” 

In Hollywood’s underworld of demigods, druids, and ancient bonds, one girl has a dangerous future.
Sage is eighteen, down on her luck, and struggling to survive on the streets of Los Angeles. Everything changes the night she’s invited to a party—one that turns out to be a trap.
Thrust into a magical world hidden within the City of Angels, Sage discovers that she’s the daughter of a Celtic goddess, with powers that are only in their infancy. Now that she is of age, she’s asked to pledge her service to one of the five deities, all keen on winning her favor by any means possible. She has to admit that she’s tempted—especially when this new life comes with spells, Hollywood glam, and a bodyguard with secrets of his own. Not to mention a prince whose proposal could boost her rank in the Otherworld.
As loyalties shift, and as the two men vie for her attention, Sage tries to figure out who to trust in a realm she doesn’t understand. One thing’s for sure: the trap she’s in has bigger claws than she thought. And it’s going to take a lot more than magic for this Celtic demigoddess to make it out alive.

LILY
I try to hide my shivering as I wait before the altar, in my position as the Bonding begins. Around me, shadows dance over the cairn walls from the restless flames licking up the ram’s body—the sacrifice on the pyre behind me—and the smell of sweat and burnt flesh smother the smoky air.
The King of Ravens paints an alarming image, standing almost naked across from me on the other side of the blood circle. He wears the corona radiata, the golden laurel-leafed crown, on his head of onyx hair. His short beard is neatly trimmed, combed with lavender oil for the ceremony. His sharp silver eyes study me beneath a heavy brow.
I try not to think about the past. Or future. I try not to think about what those hard hands will feel like on my skin when he seals this Bond.
I study the stone floor rather than look in those metallic eyes. I feel them on me, though, the same way they have been for the fortnight I’ve been here preparing for the ceremony. He hasn’t touched me; he’s only brought me gifts and insisted I sit with him beside the greatfire in the evening before he goes out for his hunt. Sometimes I smell him in the hallway outside my rooms. But he never comes in, thank the goddess. The scent of blood is heavy on him in those moments. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if he’d attempted anything.
After this is done, it won’t matter. My bed will be his. As will my life.
A druid walks back and forth behind me, tossing rosemary and lavender onto the pyre after each stanza of his spell. He calls to the wind from the east, he calls to the waters in the west, and he pulls the spirit of flame and earth into the cairn with us, asking the Penta to approve the Bond set to be made between the two most powerful Houses, as he pleads for a blessing from our mothers, Brighid and Morrígan, and thanks the Cast for their permission to seal the Bond between the two very different powers.
A female druid comes to my side with bowl and brush, beginning to paint my skin in blue woad, tracing patterns of knots and runes across my back, then baring my chest and continuing.
The king’s gaze follows the woman’s strokes, and when she’s finished, he raises his chin at me in approval but says nothing. What does he see when he looks at me? My wild copper hair? My simple features? The awkward birthmark just above my heart? I’m round of cheek and hips and not much of a beauty. But however I look to him, I will belong to him.
Determination is set in hard lines on his face, and I wonder if the torque on his neck is working properly. I can see his dark energy lifting in silver and black curls over his shoulders now. It should be tight inside his skin, as mine is. The iron shackle should be holding it in place so that we don’t harm each other in the first merging, before we can get used to the feel of each other’s powers.
The female druid moves to the king next and begins painting the woad in circles over his torso. The druid chanting behind me recites the final section of his spell, walking the ram’s-blood circle painted on the floor. He holds a rowan stick aloft, flicking rosewater over the king and then me as he passes by, mumbling, “A price paid, a covenant sealed, in earth and blood and ash, in spirit and flesh and fire.”
The price is my will, my soul, in payment for the life of the human prince that I took.
In the center of the circle, between the king and me, is an altar with two bowls set atop, one full of salt, one full of rye.
The iron union dagger rests between them.
I stare at it, imagining the blade cutting into my flesh. And I can’t help when my gaze moves to the king. I want to blink and make this moment a dream, perhaps find myself in the thicket with Lailoken, among the bluebells in the Caledonian wood.
I should run from this son of Morrígan, deny him, deny our mothers, and let the world burn. But my heart twists at the thought. I was running from duty when fate took my heart from me, when the prince succumbed to my fire’s will. It was the childish notion of freedom that tore him from me.
Now it’s time to accept my punishment for allowing the humans to glimpse our world. Time to atone.
The druid’s voice fills the room again. “When moon gives birth to stars,” he says, in a droning hum, flicking more rosewater over us with the rowan stick, “let this Bond be sealed in blood.”
My skin prickles with fear as the king takes the cue, reaching out to pick up the ceremonial dagger by the leather-wrapped hilt. I focus on not moving, not making a sound, as I watch him bring the blade to his chest, tip pricking his left breast. A drop of crimson pearls up at the spot.
With a slow hiss of breath, he cuts across.
Dark blood slides down his abdomen in a thick swath of red. “My blood with yours,” he says. And he turns the knife, holding out the hilt for me.
My hands clench into fists at my side, and I force my shaking limbs to still.
I breathe in slowly again. Then I reach out, taking the ceremonial dagger from him, careful not to touch his fingers.
I pretend not to care about the cage I’m about to be locked in. About the pain in my soul from loss, from the goddess Brighid abandoning me to this darkness, pain from the reality of everything in front of me.
I press the tip of the blade to the center of my chest, the point breaking the skin. I look into the silver eyes of the king in front of me. And consider my fate.
One deep plunge to the heart and the pain will end. One plunge.
One.


Author Bio:

Rachel A. Marks is a cancer survivor, a writer and artist, a surfer and dirt-bike rider, chocolate lover and keeper of faerie secrets. Her four kids and amazing hubby put up with her nerdiness with tremendous grace, even when she makes them watch Buffy or Smallville re-runs for days on end. She was voted: Most Likely To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse, but hopes she'll never have to test the theory.

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Nikolaj Konstantinos has chosen to be the Alpha of the Totems for one reason and one reason only. To get revenge on the Immortals, that murdered his mother. Now that the truce between the races has ended he will stop at nothing to destroy the Immortals.

Friends are lost and gained as brother and sister face off. But there is more than war brewing on the island of Seychatka and when Nika’s past comes back to haunt her she struggles to keep the memories at bay. Will she be able to overcome this new obstacle or will it prove to much for her to survive?

A manipulative dragon shifter. A sexy phaetyn prince. Me? I shouldn’t even exist. 

With peace established in Verald, I should be free; Lord Tyrrik is liberated from his blood oath, after all. But the freedom in Verald is an illusion. If I remain, destruction will surely follow. 

As soon as I come into my powers, the blood-thirsty emperor of Draecon will know. Even now, he is hunting me. 

When a Phaetyn prince arrives promising safety, the solution seems perfect. A little too perfect. 

Who do you trust when everyone has lied to you? 

Should I listen with my head – or my heart? 

I might not get a choice

You’ll tell me you don’t… but you already think you know what my story’s about.

They’re judging me as I sit in the front row, my eyes drawn to the man on trial.

If I’d known it was going to end like this, I never would have gone home with him.

But he’s the type of man I just can’t say no to.

I wanted to feel his lips kiss down my neck.

I dreamed of running my fingers along the rough stubble on his jaw.

I craved his hands on me, pinning me down.

I needed to whisper his name in the dark, late at night.

You still think you know what happened? You don’t.

He’s innocent and I enjoyed every second I was with him.

Let me tell you my story, all about how I asked for it.

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