Power of the Moon series; this is book #2
Dark contemporary/paranormal romance
Blurb/Book Description:
Mia Starr is now a full agent working for Sector 13, a secret division of the FBI, which monitors and controls all paranormal activity. Her main objective: keep humans safe and the paranormal hidden. Fresh out of human training, Mia is looking forward to learning all things paranormal and working with Cole, her deadly and sexy vampire lover. Before she has a chance to settle into her new life, she’s abducted. With her powers unfolding, an ancient enemy is revealed, and a powerful lineage to rival all others.
Cole Barnett will stop at nothing to get Mia back. Pushed to his breaking point when old ties surface, the vampire within him claws at his restraint leaving him with one choice—let it rage! Cole leaves a trail of blood and broken rules he’ll have to answer for in his wake to find Mia. Once he does, he also uncovers a connection between them that could shift the world of the undead. Now the one he covets is the one he needs to let go—her survival depends on it. But his stubborn human has set out to prove him wrong in a battle for love and her own life.
Sometimes you have to unleash the beast…
Excerpt
John’s decision to come to the turnpike station first had Cole’s fangs edging out. “We should go to the scene, to confirm—” He couldn’t finish the thought. Without his blood inside Mia, he couldn’t be sure, and his entire body was conflicted with doubt. His jaw tightened, and the tip of his fangs poked at the inside of his lip. Removing his clip from his belt, he flicked his thumb underneath the first bullet and ejected it from the clip into his palm. He closed his eyes as the silver burned its shape into his flesh and eased the glow he felt creeping into his eyes. Taking a calming breath, he slid the bullet into his pocket and reattached the clip to his belt.
“Stay calm,” John said, as they walked through the doors to the turnpike substation. Cole responded in a low growl that put John on alert, making his jaw muscle tick.
A young man leaning back in his chair with his feet propped on the table looked up from a set of monitors. “Can I help you?”
“Do you get pictures from the road cameras?” John asked.
“Naw, that’s illegal. The whole “Big Brother” argument. We only monitor them. We get an alert from the radar units on the other poles when a vehicle’s speed registers too low or high and then we check the monitors for trouble.” He smacked his gum with an open mouth chew and turned his attention to Cole as he walked behind the counter. “Sir, you can’t come back here,” he said.
“Are these today’s turnpike tickets?” Cole asked, his jaw set in a tight line.
“You can’t just come back here…”
“Answer the question.”
“I-I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The young man stammered as he reached toward the phone. Cole’s hand covered his, quickly replacing the phone in its cradle.
“We’re going to have a problem if you don’t answer my question,” Cole said, filling in the space between them. He leveled an assertive gaze at the man.
“Barnett. Back off,” John commanded.
“You-you need some type of warrant or authority to come back here.”
Cole ignored the man and grabbed the tin box from the counter. Pulling out a stack of tickets, he held them to his nose. With a frustrated growl, he threw the stack down and grabbed more from the box. With each stack, he grew more agitated. Picking up the fifth stack, he paused as a familiar scent reached his nose. He breathed deeper and tore through the tickets to pull out the one with Mia’s aroma. It was faint, but it was her scent.
“I need the license plate and the photo of the driver this came from.” Cole held out the ticket to man.
“I can’t do that. I need permission and—”
“Now!”
“Sir, you don’t have the authority…”
Cole snatched his badge from his belt and slammed it on the table in front of the man. “How’s this? No?” Arching a brow at the man’s hesitation his gun followed, slamming down with the same force as the badge. “How about this?”
The man locked into Cole’s deadly gaze. When his eyes widened, Cole knew it was from the glow that had started to appear from behind his irises.
“Still not enough authority for you? How about this!” Cole’s fangs jetted out like a switchblade.
“Holy shit! What kind of cops are you?”
Excerpt 2
“Did you love her?” she blurted out the question that had been burning inside her.
“No.” Cole stalked toward the couch. As the music started, he picked up a remote, pressed a button, and the ceiling opened. A large sheet of glass separated them from the moon, stars, and the night’s glow shone down on them inside Cole’s spacious and luxurious log cabin. “I’ve only loved one.”
“Oh.” Her breath caught as his hand reached over the back of the couch toward her.
“Dance with me.”
Cole folded his fingers around Mia’s hand. Arching their arms, he guided her around the couch and pulled her into his embrace. Folding her hand into his chest, he entwined their limbs and placed them between their bodies. His free hand traveled down her back and came to rest in the dip above her waist as he pulled her closer. “I had hopes to share a nice shower after we’d talked but it turned into wet solitude. I need to be close to you, Mia.”
When he placed his thigh between her legs, her breath hitched. Mia’s eyes traveled across his bare skin, up, until she met his gaze with a shy smile. The anxiety from moments ago was fading with each tiny sway of his hips. When the music entered her ears, a petite giggle escaped. She hadn’t expected Etta James, although, At Last was one of her favorite songs.
“Are you laughing at me, Agent Starr?” The corner of his mouth crinkled with his smile.
“A vampire that likes the blues?”
“We are sad creatures, aren’t we?”
“You’re a good man, Detective.” Her tone was serious, and she squeezed him with reassurance.
“Am I?” He leaned closer to her lips, hovering just above them, making her breath quiver from his nearness.
“Yes.”
“I think I have a few more dances with the devil before I can reclaim my soul and be considered a good man.” His hand slid over her cheek, holding her in place with a heated stare. “But…” At this moment, everything was perfect. He seemed just as affected with her nearness as they stood there listening to the song come to a close. “I’d sell my soul all over again just to have your smile against my lips—for you are mine at last.” He sang the last words in a whisper against her mouth.
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I'm sometimes a little leery of vampire paranormal romances. I love them, don't get me wrong. But when they are bad novels, they are really bad usually. Funny how that works. I'm not even too terribly picky, I don't think. I don't mind overdone ideas as long as the characters feel original, the storyline feels original around the overdone idea, and it's ends somewhere in the realm of decent. I just like vampire novels.
Power of the Moon (Book 1) Review - 3.5 Stars!
I'm sometimes a little leery of vampire paranormal romances. I love them, don't get me wrong. But when they are bad novels, they are really bad usually. Funny how that works. I'm not even too terribly picky, I don't think. I don't mind overdone ideas as long as the characters feel original, the storyline feels original around the overdone idea, and it's ends somewhere in the realm of decent. I just like vampire novels.
So I do love the idea of the paranormal police, human girl, even the bride thing. All perfectly fine. I just started out the novel nervous, so at first, I didn't exactly enjoy myself. After I started getting into the novel though, thats when the good (and the slightly not-so-good) came out for me. I did love the idea of blue handcuffs, by the way. That is the best detail about the book, I think, that really does set it apart in my mind from the million other vampire novels out there. That is what makes this novel.
Firstly, paranormal cops, yes. That is a bit overdone nowadays, but it's always a good read if done right. Vampires, woot! Human psychic-like girl was needed. And because this is not really a series of stand alone books, the romance did have to be a bit on the slow side building up and yet fast enough the reader isn't going to abandon the book in disgust. All of that was pretty well done. The plot that was devised was nice, there were surprises so I didn't feel like I knew what was going to happen when it did, so I wanted to find out what happens next.
Characterwise, I really do love Cole. He's my favorite. He's a vampire, he's fun, and I like vampires that are supposed to have control don't. So it was fun. I especially liked how Cole would force Mia into getting angry in some of their interactions to help with the dangerous situations they were in.
Now.... not a huge fan of Mia. She has hangups. That's usually good. But this girl's hangups have even BIGGER hangups. That isn't so good. She ends up pissing me off a lot because she does some seriously dumb stuff in situations that shouldn't have happened. I can understand some, heck, romances always have the girl doing something - or a few things - that aren't so bright while they fight the attraction of a man. That's usually great fun. I even like vulnerable, or damaged, women too. (I love damaged men more though). But I just felt that Mia made nearly every situation worse. I mean, yeah she's supposed to be Cole's weakness a bit, but to seriously make everything worse nearly all the time? Or it felt that way to me. Admittedly, yeah, she's got power and she does help in a lot of ways, but dang, the girl is new at all of the stuff going on in her life and she spends so much time either trying to prove herself capable or prove that she's INcapable and she can't even make up her mind which. Erm, yeah, sorry. That was a rant. I am not a huge fan of Mia in this book much.
The chemistry, though, is OFF the charts hot. It was nicely done how much they want each other, although with Mia's hangups, I usually feel Cole's want a lot more than Mia's.
Now, writing wise, it was well done in all things grammar and spelling and such. I did feel though the dialog - especially in the beginning of the novel - was a bit weird, and some situations seemed to be really forced. I don't know, it feels like either the author normally writes from an outline and didn't, or normally doesn't write from an outline and DID, trying to force situations where in some odd spots. However, that was actually only like the first half of the book. The second half of the book was much better done and felt a LOT smoother.
So overall, rocky start, and I only really like half of the main couple in the book, so 3.5 stars!
Covet the Moon (Book 2) Review - 4 Stars!
I rather liked the second installment of the Power of the Moon series. The storyline of the second novel I liked even though it almost felt like two novels instead of one. There were two story arcs in the novel and I think if both were expanded a bit more and made into two novels it would have fit better. That being said, the way it was was just fine except half way through the book I thought I was near the end. A bit confusing, but overall plot wise, it did end up fitting together by the end, and that's all that matters.
Again, I love Cole - even if he did something I rather didn't like in this one - so he's still my favorite character. He's seems a lot more developed than anyone else as well. But I did like Mia more in this novel than the previous book. She seems a bit more put together and less like an annoying hindering influence for Cole to me. She of course is also more powerful and considering her trauma - a lot more was revealed here - its understandable that she has so many issues. Of course, I'm a little iffy on her having had SOOO many traumas of course. But she handled things a lot better in this novel and almost came into her own.
Also mysterious vampire Mia met towards the end of the book means more drama for our main couple as well the activities of Velvet throughout this novel. Her obsession with Cole seemed out of no where at first, though. Some of the subtext in the novel is a bit confusing because you're not really sure if it's supposed to be a bit clearer before the end of the book. But we'll see on next installments.
Writing was good and the dialog was much better second book around. I actually finished this in a couple sittings (in one day though as there was a sending mix-up), and I enjoyed the ride. I am looking forward for book three to come out! 4 stars!
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If you haven’t read Power of the Moon, book 1 in the Power of the Moon series, you can download if NOW for a limited time at 0.99!!!
Cover Artist: Tincar Creations
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