Reviewed: December 12th, 2021 Released: November 12th, 2021 Genre: MM Paranormal Fantasy
“And if I am a monster? Will you want me then?”
Ten days after the battle at Blackriver, Michael struggles with new forbidden desires, with his rampant Flame, and a deepening relationship with the taciturn werewolf, Commander Gabriel Flanagan.
Feeling responsible for their loss, Michael longs to rescue the students stolen by the manipulative vampire prince, Alexei Vasiliev. But the High Council refuses to free Michael from his chains. They fear the Whisperer — the half-breed who decimated an entire company of soldiers and came back from the dead. Yet, Michael still yearns for a future among the Guardians. For a place beside his Finnish, silver-eyed giant. For a home within the crazy supernatural world he’s now bound to.
But does Michael still have a future? He’s a descendent of the Warlock — from a bloodline that produces only monsters. If discovered, not even his protective lover can save him from certain execution. He may not want to.
Dark Fate is the second book in the Flame Born series. This MM urban fantasy/paranormal romance is action packed, featuring steaming hot scenes, a hunk of an alpha love interest, a chocolate-scented snarky vampire prince, a clever best friend who can kill a man with her little finger, and one too many shady characters to count. There is content through the series some readers may find distressing. Meant for mature audiences only. See inside for trigger warnings. Read My thoughts…
Reviewed: December 11th 2021 Released: November 6th, 2018 Genre: YA Science Fantasy
Spensa’s world has been under attack for hundreds of years. An alien race called the Krell leads onslaught after onslaught from the sky in a never-ending campaign to destroy humankind. Humanity’s only defense is to take to their ships and fight the enemy in the skies. Pilots have become the heroes of what’s left of the human race. Science Fantasy
Spensa has always dreamed of being one of them; of soaring above Earth and proving her bravery. But her fate is intertwined with her father’s – a pilot who was killed years ago when he abruptly deserted his team, placing Spensa’s chances of attending flight school somewhere between slim and none.
No one will let Spensa forget what her father did, but she is still determined to fly. And the Krell just made that a possibility. They’ve doubled their fleet, making Spensa’s world twice as dangerous . . . but their desperation to survive might just take her skyward . . . Read My thoughts…
Reviewed: December 7th 2021 Released: November 25th, 2020 Genre: MM Dark Fantasy
Book two of the Prince’s Assassin series
“Know your place, Nikolas.”
“Under the heel of your boot, Your Highness?”
After a terrible inferno destroys the Caville palace, and with the people of Loreen turned against him, Prince Vasili is left with no choice but to flee his ancestral home, leaving his brother Amir to proclaim himself King. But Vasili’s life isn’t the only one left in ashes. King Amir has not forgotten Nikolas Yazdan—a lord’s bastard son and Vasili’s favorite pet. With forbidden power in his veins, Amir has become more than Niko can fight alone.
Thrust together with Vasili once more, Niko must travel south, to a land of pirates and thieves, of mystery and magic. A land of opportunity for a manipulative prince and his reluctant assassin. But just as Nikolas begins to believe Vasili might be worth fighting for—that Loreen can be saved with Vasili on the throne—the dark flame trapped in the royal bloodline unravels its ancient bonds. One prince must control the unrelenting power desperate for its escape. The other must die.
Niko thought he knew which prince he could trust, but he’s been fooled before and as Vasili’s true motives are revealed, Niko finds himself at the mercy of Prince Vasili once more. Only this time, there’s more than love at stake. The fate of the world rests on Niko discovering the truth about the flame, about the cursed Cavilles, and his place in their doomed destiny.
***Reign of Darkness is the second book in the Prince’s Assassin series. The series should be read in order, beginning with King of the Dark.
Reviewed: December 5th, 2021 Released: July 10th, 2020 Genre: MM DarkFantasy
“Your love is worthless, it’s your hate I need.” ~ Prince Vasili Caville
When King Talos Caville surrendered the war to the elves, soldier Nikolas Yazdan vowed never to serve the royals again. He said the same to the prince who tried to buy his loyalty, and learned that the Caville princes don’t take no for an answer.
Whipped for his insolence, Nikolas is also forced into slavery in a palace full of vicious, brutal royals. Prince Vasili is the worst Caville of all. Malicious and cruel, the prince is more viperman, and someone inside the palace wants him dead. Nikolas would kill the prince himself if not for one thing: Julian, the prince’s personal guard and Niko’s light in the dark. If Nikolas doesn’t submit to Prince Vasili and discover who is plotting against him, Julian will suffer.
But there’s more wrong in the palace than just the prince. The king is on his deathbed, the ferocious elves are creeping closer to the great city of Loreen, and madness stalks the hallways. There’s poison in the Caville court, and if Nikolas doesn’t discover the real reason Prince Vasili tried to buy him with a bag of coin, the palace, the city, and everything he loves, will be lost forever. Read My thoughts…
Reviewed: December 4th, 2021 Released: December 26th, 2019 Genre: Historical Fantasy
Imagine you could erase grief. Imagine you could remove pain. Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret. Forever.
Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a bookbinder–a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community, but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.
For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, the bookbinder Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to handcraft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one, they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under Seredith’s workshop, rows upon rows of books filled with memories are meticulously stored.
But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesmen, who use their talents for dark ends. And just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: there is a book with his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten.
An unforgettable novel of enchantment, mystery, memory, and forbidden love, The Binding is a beautiful homage to the allure and life-changing power of books–and a reminder to us all that knowledge can be its own kind of magic. Read My thoughts…
Reviewed: December 1st, 2021 Released: January 30th, 2020 Genre: Historical Fiction
If you love rich and complex historical stories then Full Circle is the book for you. Set in the 1700’s Daisy introduces us to a family with a tangled history, lots of mystery and powerful characters.
The year is 1786 and in the quiet countryside of Mere in Wiltshire sits ‘The Willows’. It has been the family’s home for three generations and Elizabeth Hamilton, the present owner; and her son, Stewart, lived alone until a cousin, Alexander, came when Stewart was 12.
For the last 21 years, the house has held a secret from the past which has been kept safely hidden even from Stewart. Only after Stewart marries are their lives turned into chaos, as it initiates a succession of vengeance against him and his family that lasts for over three years.
life changing, but it is how they reveal themselves that transforms the lives of many people irrevocably… Read My thoughts…
Reviewed: November 28th, 2021 Released: July 23rd, 2021 Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
A heart is a dangerous thing to steal.
Brie would do anything before making a deal with the Fae; death is better than their vicious schemes. But when her sister is taken by the sadistic king of the Unseelie court, there is nothing Brie wouldn’t do to get her back-including making a deal with the king himself to steal three magical relics from the rival Seelie court.
Gaining unfettered access to the Seelie court is easier said than done. Brie’s only choice is to pose as a potential bride for the Seelie Prince, Ronan-a prince who’s not quite as wicked as she once thought. Unwilling to let her heart distract her, she accepts help from a band of Unseelie misfits with their own secret agenda. But as Brie spends time with their mysterious leader, Finn, she finds herself struggling to resist his seductive charm.
Caught between two dangerous courts, Brie must decide who to trust with her loyalty . . . and with her heart. Read My thoughts…
Reviewed: November 26th, 2021 Released: March 23rd, 2021 Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Warrior for good. Slayer of demons. This petite guardian may look like an angel, but she is pure wrath.
Heaven and Hell collide at a quaint inn nestled in the Shenandoah Mountains. Despite plans of a relaxing vacation after 450 years of saving humans, a guardian angel is put to the ultimate test. Pure unadulterated evil, in the form of a sexy dark guardian and Hell’s most lethal weapon, is on the scene and he means to misbehave.
An unlikely alliance binds eternal enemies together in a quest to unravel a prophecy so deadly that Heaven refused to write it down.
Rekindled Prophecy is an epic paranormal romance full of adventure, mystery, and a passion that burns stronger than the flames of Hell. Read My thoughts…
Today we meet contemporary romance author husband and wife team, R & C Christiansen, who write tough love, emotionally powerful novels, not always with a happy ending.
Helen: I am so excited to chat with you about your Tainted Love series. You have been sharing such great snippets of your books on instagram recently that I can’t wait to dive in. I haven’t read them yet, I’ve been holding off, knowing these are going to be an emotional rollercoaster, which I’m not sure I am quite ready for but well worth the read. Tell us about your series.
R & C Christiansen: My latest release, Hush, is part of a five book collection called the Tainted Love Series. The first three books were originally a trilogy that is now rolled into one book with three parts titled Tainted Love: The Complete Trilogy. It’s dark romance, friends to lovers, and the storyline gets deeper and darker with each book eventually ending with a HEA.
Then there is Whisper: A Tainted Love Story which is a tragic non-HEA love story that’s set around two side characters from the original series. It depicts a couple who struggle to come to terms with their past as they push forward in a world they don’t seem to belong in.
Last, I wrote Hush: The Final Tainted Story, about the younger brother of the MC in Whisper. He is a mute man who can’t read or write, and his story ends tragically also as we learn that he is in love with his brother’s wife and has no way to express nor act on it. Again, it is non-HEA and is bound to cause a variety of emotions as Cliff’s struggles are heart-breaking. I do have a trigger warning across the entire series because the subject matter demands it, but in truth, I wrote each book delicately knowing there is a thin line between dark romance and outright darkness.
Helen: This series is about tough love in tough situations. What made you write it?
R & C Christiansen: In the beginning, I had wanted to create a realistic dark romance that centered around real everyday issues people face. I wanted to show that love isn’t always perfect. It can be messy, painful, unpredictable even, but it’s something worth fighting for if two people are meant to be together. The trilogy itself represents all that and more. It’s the story of a couple (Whiskey & Vixen) who battle each other’s demons together and for each other, yet they both come from opposite sides of the spectrum. In the end, it was my fans that asked me to write the other side of the story when it came to the side characters who had no way out of the ‘darkness’ and that is how both Whisper and Hush came about.
Helen: You have such powerful characters in your series, who was your favourite character to write?
R & C Christiansen: That’s a hard question to answer because each character is so unique and strong in their own right. I’d have to go with Ken from Whisper, only because he’s more villain than hero, yet his love for his wife and brother is unparalleled when it comes to the other characters.
Helen: Tell us about your writing process. Do you listen to music or do you prefer silence when you are writing?
R & C Christiansen: Hell yes! I find music is a huge part of writing, it can inspire the feelings I need to harness in order to create the emotion I’m aiming for. Each of my books have playlists in Spotify, and both Whisper and Hush have a playlist included in the book. My current inspirations have been In This Moment, Creed, Palaye Royale, and Linkin Park. My favorite of the bands has to be In This Moment because my God, Maria Brink’s voice is out of this world. If I could compare her to one of my characters, she’d be Vixen from The Tainted Love Trilogy. She’s absolutely incredible.
Helen: I must admit I have certain albums I listen to when writing. And then of course, afterwards I always think of the charcters when I hear the songs. Do you find it easier to plan what you write, or are you a pantser, and let the book go where it will?
R & C Christiansen: I’m a pantser all the way. My novels are mainly written in first person, present tense, so I have the ability to jump inside my character’s minds and act out their scenes on paper. I let them take the lead and tell me where the story is going. My husband and co-writer says the characters are my alternate personalities and sometimes I think he’s right.
Helen: I must adnmit I am the same. I don’t write first person, but I do get into my characters heads to see what they see. I love the immersive aspect. Most writers are great readers; who is your favourite author?
R & C Christiansen: If we are talking traditionally published, I’d have to go with Tara Sue Me. Her Submissive series was phenomenal and I own every one of her books in paperback. If we are talking about my favorite Indie author, I’d have to go with two. One being Janet Olson who is a YA romance author and her series, New Beginnings is incredible. The second I would mention is Monique Edenwood, her Black Oak dark romance series has it all and I’ve read all of her books to date and am in awe.
Helen: Thank you so much for joining me today, just to close us out can you share some of your favourite books?
R & C Christiansen: Oof! That’s a long list. But to keep it short, I’d have to go with Jayne Lockwood’s Closer Than Blood series and Nicci Harris’s Our Thing/Cosa Nostra/ Her Way series. Both series are dark romance, the first being slightly taboo and the other leaning into the mafia world.
About the Author:
R&C Christiansen is a proud Canadian husband and wife team, although Mrs. Christiansen does the majority of the authoring and Mr. C does the mentoring & proofreading. Together they write dark/erotic romance novels and enjoy reading the same genres when they have time. When the Mrs., is not busy authoring, mothering, or wife-ing, she likes to indulge in a glass of wine, kick back, and think dirty thoughts hoping to inspire the next story within.
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If you enjoy fantasybooks then you will love my books which are available in eBook, paperback or hardcover: Book One: Sentinals Awaken. Book Two: Sentinals Rising. Book Three: Sentinals Justice. Sign up to my newsletter and download a free novella called Sentinals Stirring and get notified when my next book releases.
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Reviewed: November 24th, 2021 Released: September 5th, 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction
A legend buried for 2000 years. A woman compelled to uncover the truth.
210 BCE, CHINA. The most powerful emperor China has ever known is on the brink of death. In desperation, he sends his most gifted alchemist and sorcerer on a quest for the mythical elixir of life.
His fleet never returned….
NOW, world-renowned archaeologist Georgia Lee is compelled to hunt for a mysterious man who may hold the secret to the greatest discovery in human history.
Her search takes her on a thrilling journey from an ancient tomb in China, through traditional Japan, to the blistering Australian outback, and the dizzying heights of verdant mountains in tropical Taiwan. But what begins as an investigation into an archaeological riddle turns into something very sinister. Georgia starts to suspect that perhaps she is the one being hunted instead….
Meticulously researched, this is a tale interwoven with rich historical facts to recreate all the drama, intrigue and mystery of East Asian culture. Read My thoughts…
Helen Garraway 