Showing posts with label Keri Lake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keri Lake. Show all posts

Books That Didn't Make the Cut Pt.26

June 11, 2024


Hello hello! I'm back with some more books that didn't really work for me, but might be winners for you.

Let me know if you've read any of these or plan to. I'd love to know your thoughts :)


Master of Salt & Bones by Keri Lake


dual POV, dark romance

When I was a little girl, I dreamed a handsome knight would come and rescue me from my wretched mother. He'd ride up on his white steed and break the curse I've been fated to carry since the day I was born.

Funny how things changed over time. How the fairy tale twisted into something far more crooked, darker than I ever imagined.

In reality, my knight is scarred and broken, living alone in a castle of bones that overlooks the sea. He isn’t searching for me. He never was.

Lucian Blackthorne is as cursed as I am, and equally shunned by the locals, the fishers of men, who believe him to be the devil in the flesh.

Perhaps he is, with the way his amber eyes draw me in, ignite me like an infernal blaze. And the sins he whispers in my ear are as wickedly intoxicating as the man himself.

Yet, his touch is heaven and his will is my weakness.

He calls us forbidden, an unsalvageable tragedy, with no happy end. Maybe we are. But in this story, he’s the one who needs saving.

My Rating -

I've loved everything else I've read from this author and assumed that I'd love this book. It sounds so good, but actually being in it, I wasn't feeling it. Honestly, I wasn't feeling much of anything. I didn't care about anything, which is the strangest thing because I've got tons of books on my shelves, some even signed, by this author. Ah well, not every book will be a winner right? I'll try something else by her for sure.


Second Chance Baby by Natasha L. Black


In walks my past, hotter than ever.
I never could tell her no.

If Ava thinks she can walk back into my life
Thinks I’ll help her out when she’s desperate for a job,
If she thinks I’m going to lay awake wanting her back…
She’s right.

My first love, my first heartbreak, and now she needs me.
I’m not the kind of man who would walk away from her.
Loyal to the core, running my family’s bar and working sixteen hour days.

The next thing I know I’m working long nights with Ava
Feels like old times, and an old flame that never stopped burning
Is about to become an inferno.

All that desire, all those years apart
How could we make the same mistake again?
The one that cost us everything all those years ago
When we couldn’t get past what we’d lost.

Can we survive it this time, older, wiser, more in love than ever?
Or will it tear us apart just like it did back then?

My Rating -

This story was pretty basic, but sometimes you need some basic in your life. You know?

So I gave it a chance.

The heroine: boring
The hero: boring
The story: boring

But that's ok.

Until it wasn't.

I DNF'd at chapter 38 because I was too tired of the heroine's antics. She's pregnant, a man knocked her to the ground, the hero had just lost his dad and that anger fueled him in punching dude a bit, and she basically tells the hero no. Then yes. Then no. Then yes.


I couldn't even bring myself to read the remaining two chapters.


Fable of Happiness: Book One by Pepper Winters


A house hidden in the middle of nowhere.
A man who’s lived alone for a decade.
A woman who trespasses on his solitude.
A love full of hate as well as hunger.


The thing about my life is... I was never in control of it.
I just I thought I was.
I thought I had everything figured out—a good career, fun hobbies, a bright future, but everything changed when I found an ivy-cloaked house, tucked in a forgotten valley, hiding the man who would corrupt my world forever.
I thought I was successful, until he showed me fortune and happiness could be snatched away in an instant.
I believed I was blessed, but really, I was cursed.
Cursed to become a plaything for a monster.
Cursed to become a prisoner just because I trespassed.
Now, I know nothing.
I am nothing.
I’m just his.

My Rating -

I can't believe I'm doing this.
I love PW. Seriously lurve her work.
Her books line my shelves -- signed, sealed, delivered

So why did I have such a hard time with this book? Why did I not fall in love with its depravity?

I didn't care about Gemma AT ALL and Kassen didn't have strong enough appeal to keep me going.

Every book can't be a winner, right?

Review // Nightshade by Keri Lake

October 29, 2021

Nightshade by Keri Lake

You belong to me, Farryn. Should another man dare to lay so much as a finger on you, I will flay his hand and shine my boots with his skin.

────── ♔ ──────


Nightshade by Keri Lake

Nightshade by Keri Lake


Hopefully book 1
Release - October 29, 2021
Genre - Dark Paranormal Gothic romance / fated mates
Multiple POV - 1st and 3rd person
Heat Level - 3.5 / slow slow slow burn and a few scenes
Format/Source - eARC provided by the author (Thank you @ Give Me Books PR)
Page Count - 664
Publisher - Indie

A love so forbidden, it would shake the heavens ...

My father called them messengers.
He once told me they walked among us, and that somewhere in this dark and godless city, there shined a faint sliver of hope. I had only to look for the signs.

Well, I’ve spent my whole life investigating the inexplicable, and all I've found are the unsettling vestiges of iniquity - the evidence of another world shrouded by the obscure. Purgatory to some, where depravity hides in shadows, and girls like me are little more than delicious bites of temptation.

Others call it Nightshade.

This peculiar place is where I first met the cold and callous recluse living in a decaying cliffside cathedral. Jericho Van Croix is the epitome of everything I’ve been told to fear. A raven-winged harbinger who wears intrigue like a warm black cloak. An enigma that I’m determined to unravel – even if it means getting closer than I should.

One touch is forbidden. Even so much as a kiss would be my demise. But the sin on his lips burns me up like a wild flame, and his growing infatuation weakens my resolve.

Giving him what he wants, though, will mean no chance for redemption, or escape. What's worse is, the signs I’ve followed yet failed to see all these years begin to unmask a terrifying reality:

That falling may be my only saving grace.

Purchase Links

Amazon CA * Amazon US * Amazon UK * Amazon AU
Free to read with Kindle Unlimited

Nightshade by Keri Lake

My Two Cents

This read exactly as advertised! Just hearing about this story in the Vigilante Vixens group had me hungry... and I'm still ravenous because I want more Jericho Van Croix!!

Standing across from me, with the bolts of lightning at his back, the storm that still raged around us never once ruffling the feathers of his wings, he was sublime. Chaotic. Dissonance in the flesh. Both terrifying and incredible at the same time.


Nightshade was dark and depraved. Gothic and gruesome. Dirty and a bit disgusting. Nightshade was utterly delicious!!

Who knew reading over 600 pages of gothic PNR would be just what I needed?

I can't even give you anything about the plot or characters without giving some vital piece of this story away. Know that Jericho is an immortal who would make any woman want to be deserving of him. I love my soul, but... And Farryn was as annoying as any almost virginal, somewhat pure female would be, but she had a knack for hitting all of the right notes with me. So while she frustrated me, she made me cheer her on. While she had me rolling my eyes hard, she also made me smile and hope and dream.

I could have done without the extremely slow build, but then again, this story probably wouldn't have worked as well as it did if it were any faster. The world building was seriously on point!

Guessing the truth is easy, but knowing the truth, living the truth, understanding the truth... I'm still unsure what the truth really is. I'm kinda loving this opaque bubble I'm living in right now.

I want more.
I need more.
GIVE ME MORE!!
The end?

Nightshade by Keri Lake
Nightshade by Keri Lake

Excerpt

“It’s supposed to storm tonight. I’ve been told it’s dangerous up here when there’s lightning.” Hand in his, I let him guide me up the tower’s narrow, stone stairwell, lit only by the few flickering lamps that hung from the brackets on the wall.
Grip tightening as if I might try to get away, he glanced over his shoulder at me. “You’ve nothing to worry about.”
The stairwell opened up to beams and scaffolds, moving gears and the tired sounds they made. We hit a magnificent landing en route toward the bell at the tower's pinnacle, where the back end of the clock’s enormous hands ticked off the seconds in mocking. Counting down the end of innocence. I’d heard the vague rumors of the things that happened to girls in the bell tower. The utter depravity held mostly secret by its ancient walls.
“How can you be so sure?” I asked, stalling at a window, through which a cloud of lightning gave an ominous flicker over the black sea below.
His firm hand gripped me possessively, and before I even realized he’d changed direction, he backed me into the wall. Capricious as the wind that rapped against the window, he fixed his attentions on me, the chilled stones at my back a reminder that there was no escaping him.
The gentle brush of his knuckles down my cheek belied the shadow of malice that slipped behind his otherwise cold, inscrutable eye. “Because I’m so unreasonably rapacious when it comes to you, Miss Ravenshaw, that not even a bolt of lightning should dare touch your skin without consequence.”
In that moment, the thunder seemed more distant, somehow, or perhaps it was the incessant thump of my heart drowning it out.
“You’re jealous of lightning?”
He leaned in closer, the delicious scent of bergamot and licorice as intoxicating as the warm absinthe still pulsing through my veins. His lips traced a featherlight path along my jaw. Teeth grazed my earlobe, breath hot against my neck, as he whispered, “I’m jealous of anything that occupies your mind so unremittingly when you’re with me.”

About the Author

Keri Lake is a dark romance writer who specializes in demon wrangling, vengeance dealing and wicked twists. Her stories are gritty, with antiheroes that walk the line of good and bad, and feisty heroines who bring them to their knees. When not penning books, she enjoys spending time with her husband, daughters, and their rebellious Labrador (who doesn’t retrieve a damn thing). She runs on strong coffee and alternative music, loves a good red wine, and has a slight addiction to dark chocolate.

God of Monsters by Keri Lake

November 03, 2020

God of Monsters by Keri Lake
"The love I feel for you is endless.
Infinite.
Unbreakable."
God of Monsters by Keri Lake

God of Monsters by Keri Lake


Juniper Unraveling #4
Release: September 22, 2020
Genre: Apocalyptic Dystopian Romance
Dual POV: 1st person
Heat: 4
Format/Source: ebook borrowed through KU
Length: 477 pages

I've heard stories about the Alphas. Violent soldiers, bred to kill both humans and mutations, whose sole purpose was to balance our survival against the infected.

Until they turned on their masters.

Held as subjects of the Calico research facility, they were forced to endure the gruesome experiments that transformed them into callous savages with hearts as impenetrable as their defenses. More terrifying than the monsters that decimated our world with disease and famine.

In the aftermath of Calico's collapse, many of the Alphas fled, only to be hunted by our own Legion army. And in their absence, the balance has shifted.

Kings of Carrion by Keri Lake

November 02, 2020

Kings of Carrion by Keri Lake
He's still the scarred boy who touched my heart. And I'm the wounded little bird,whose wings he made fly again. - Wren, about Six
Kings of Carrion by Keri Lake

Kings of Carrion by Keri Lake


Juniper Unraveling #3
Release: December 3, 2019
Genre: Apocalyptic Dystopian Romance
Multiple POV: primarily 1st person
Heat: 4
Format/Source: ebook borrowed through KU
Length: 317 pages

Decades have passed since our world was decimated by the Dredge. Some say it was an act of God. Others believe the devil himself breached the gates of hell and turned the masses into the mindless infected with an appetite for carnage.

Those of us who’ve survived the Calico experiments know the only thing more terrifying than the monsters that seek to ravage what’s left of us, are the men who created them. Ones too capable of hiding their true form, and burying their darkest secrets.

Somewhere beneath the facility lies the answers, a cure for our suffering. To reach it, we’ll have to open the haunting tomb, where man’s deadliest mistakes, the most violent mutations, lie trapped within its tunnels, waiting to be set free.

Our only hope in surviving them are the very Alphas who were designed to hunt us down. The titans forged by cruelty and pain.

Calico Descending by Keri Lake

October 30, 2020

Calico Descending by Keri Lake
Time and love are criminals who spare no one -- not even the most desiring. Time is the thief who comes in the night, silently chipping away at the present.
And love is the killer of hearts.

Calico Descending by Keri Lake

Calico Descending by Keri Lake


Juniper Unraveling #2
Release: October 29, 2019
Genre: Apocalyptic Dystopian Romance
Single POV: Heroine - 1st person
Heat: 4
Format/Source: ebook borrowed through KU
Length: 300 pages

I was fourteen when I was sold to the men in black uniforms. Too young to understand I served a purpose beyond that of the other girls they’d taken.

For the greater good.

Now, after four years in Calico, I’ve seen more death and suffering than during my days of surviving out in the Deadlands against the threat of Ragers and famine. I didn’t think this world could get any bleaker. Didn’t think it could take any more from me than it already had.

Not until I finally learned my purpose.

Juniper Unraveling by Keri Lake

October 21, 2020

Juniper Unraveling by Keri Lake
There is no monster more terrifying than the human being who lacks compassion.
Juniper Unraveling by Keri Lake

Juniper Unraveling by Keri Lake


Juniper Unraveling #1
Release: October 31, 2017
Genre: Apocalyptic Dystopian Romance
Heroine POV: 1st person
Heat: 3
Format/Source: ebook borrowed through KU

Papa says everyone has a story that deserves to be told.

Most begin years ago, after the second bomb hit, unearthing a deadly contagion that divided the population into the pure, the infected, and the Ragers.

Many recount the moment we rose up from the ashes and started anew.

Others tell of the day we built a wall to keep them out.

For some, they’re nothing more than the vestiges left behind—a simple name carved into the knotty bark of a Juniper tree.

My story begins with a boy. A mute, from the other side of the wall, known only as Six, who touched my heart in ways that words never could, and gave me the courage to face my darkest truth.

Warning: This book contains explicit sexual content, and violent scenes that some readers may find disturbing.

BALLISTIC by Keri Lake

October 11, 2019

BALLISTIC by Keri Lake
"Ballistic is a delicious twisty, dark and unputdownable book. Keri has ended this series of standalone books with a BALLISTIC bang." -Kathy Coopmans, USA Today Bestselling Author

Find your copy of Ballistic here:
Goodreads | Amazon
FREE with Kindle Unlimited

BACKFIRE by Keri Lake

October 05, 2019

Dark and intense, Backfire is a read that doesn't disappoint!
Goodreads | Amazon
FREE with Kindle Unlimited

RICOCHET by Keri Lake

October 01, 2019


I found a new anti-hero to add to my harem!
Goodreads
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK
FREE with Kindle Unlimited

REQUIEM & REVERIE by Keri Lake

May 07, 2019

It takes a killer to catch a killer.

And no one understands the motives of ruthless murderer, The Sandman, quite like Rhett Voss.

Having spent his childhood in the shadows of the deranged lunatic, he’s become an expert on the topic. Killing is in his blood, and as a hitman for hire, Voss maintains a steady diet of carnage, himself.

Except lately, it’s lost its appeal. Until he’s enticed to track down the clever Sandman who has his sights set on Nola Tensley.

The stunning single mom is a distraction Voss can’t afford, but to catch his elusive kin, he needs to watch the next victim closely. Consequently, stalking her soon becomes a dangerous obsession, turning a friendly game of cat and mouse into more than he bargained for, when someone close to Nola goes missing.

Suddenly, it’s no longer an old vendetta fueling Voss’s need to hunt down his enemy, but new stakes that are sure to mean more bloodshed. Voss knows better than anyone, though: to draw a killer out of hiding, one must have the right bait.

And both of them want Nola.

Add to Goodreads
#OneClick on Amazon
FREE in Kindle Unlimited

Nocturnes & Nightmares by Keri Lake

April 22, 2019

Nocturnes & Nightmares by Keri Lake
The most terrifying monsters aren’t found in dreams …

Four young socialites have gone missing in the Chicago area. Two found dead, bearing the signature marks of a brutal serial killer. With the kind of tragedy that mars Nola Tensley’s past, she should be concerned, but without a pot to piss in, all the struggling single mom cares about is making a normal life for her son.

After all, she’s clearly not the murderer’s type.
Or is she?

When Rhett Voss, an enigmatic and handsome stranger, answers her ad for the outdated in-law suite at the back of her property, offering double her asking price, Nola really can’t refuse. Even though the supposed Wall Street Wolf seems better suited for a high-rise downtown—a suspicion that quickly turns into hindsight once she submits to the flirtations of her charming new tenant, and consequently, unearths a series of disturbing revelations.

Her curiosities lead her down the path of a madman, whose moniker, The Sandman, only hints at the grisly nature of his crimes. He’s smart. Evasive. A cunning psychopath with a twisted method of disposing his victims.

And his hunting grounds are hitting too close to home.

Author note: This book contains scenes of graphic sex and violence that some readers may find disturbing.