nick – Z. Elizabeth

COVER REVEAL: Go With Me (#2) – Elyssa Patrick

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Z. Elizabeth

Go With Me by Elyssa Patrick
(With Me #2)
Publication date: July 19th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

New Adult/Contemporary Romance – Recommended for readers 17 and olderI, Daphne Fox, have a few things to confess:

1. I hate Nick Brady. Loathe. Abhor. Can’t stand him 95% of the time.
2. That other 5%? I’m not talking about that at all.
3. People think I’m lucky for surviving the car crash. I disagree.
4. Nick is the only guy who makes my nightmares go away.
5. I won’t love him, though. Love is not worth the pain.

I, Nick Brady, have a few confessions of my own:

1. I don’t hate Daphne Fox. At all.
2. I find her scar sexy. Just like the rest of her.
3. I may be her older brother’s best friend, but that’s not going to stop me.
4. I love her.
5. And I’m going to do everything I can to have her.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Elyssa Patrick is a former high school English teacher who left the classroom to write contemporary romances and New Adult. She is currently hard at work on her next novel.Want to know when Elyssa’s next book comes out? Sign up for her newsletter by just pasting the link in your browser’s address bar: bit.ly/1lYYvi9

She loves to hear from her readers! You can email her at elyssa@elyssapatrick.com.

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You can also connect with her at:

Website: elyssapatrick.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/ElyssaPatrickAuthor
Twitter: twitter.com/elyssapatrick

ARC: Bullet – Jade C. Jamison

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

An Epic Rock Star Novel

What if you discover the man you want is toxic?

She tasted a little bit of heaven with him, and now they’ve gone through hell and back, but can their relationship take anymore?

Valerie Quinn is a naïve college freshman when she meets on-the-rise rock star Ethan Richards. He’s an idealistic, handsome, reckless young man, but he’s captured her heart. She doesn’t give up on him and eventually his walls crumble down. By the time Valerie has given herself to him completely, she discovers he’s damaged and may be beyond help. Can she save Ethan and their relationship before he implodes, or will he self-destruct and take her with him?

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My Review

Valerie Quinn is a college freshman. Shes had little experience with guys so when she meets on-the-rise rock star and fellow student Ethan Richards, he’s instantly captured her heart.

But there is something about Ethan. Something damaged him from his childhood that he’s held onto all these years and Valerie tries to help him, eventually breaking down his walls. But when Valerie gives herself completely to him, that’s when she discovers he may be beyond help.

She’s determined to try and help Ethan and rebuild their relationship but Ethan is toxic and is leading towards a road of self-destruct. Down a road where it may be hard for Valerie to save him and save herself in the long haul.

Bullet begins in the present. I’m not going to tell you who Valerie is with, but it sets you up with the beginning of Val’s story and how she got to this point in the first place. The chapters are divided into past and present –more past than present but no less important as the present makes you think back over the past ‘past’ chapters to really see how she became to person she is now, in the present.

We meet Valerie in the ‘present’ as I’ve mentioned and shes got some huge news to share. She seems grown-up, mature and in love. When Jade introduces us to Valerie in the ‘past’, shes a virgin, she’s naive to all things sexual, but that’s only because of her up-bringing but she’s far from shy. She finds it easy to make friends.

The first real friend we see her make is Ethan. He’s in one of her classes and she decides that next class shes going to talk to him. I loved how they both had a passion for metal music, thus starting the beginning of their friendship. Although she only really hung out during class and their walk back to their dorms, they became friends fast and I found it refreshing that Val had someone with a common interest, unlike her bitchy roommate Charlotte, who I instantly took a dislike to.

Throughout her journey in the first year of college, she becomes closer to Ethan and his roommate/band member Zane and also becomes friends with the other two members of his band, who live back at home, Brad and Nick. They all welcomed her to their ’group’ with open arms. They cared about her.

The more time they all spent together, the more Val knew she wanted to be in their group and not return to college. She didn’t know what she wanted to major in, so she really thought there would be no point staying. Their group dynamic changed and I loved that having a girl in the band who also wrote the lyrics to their songs made them become even more popular than they were. It worked because she put so much effort and passion into making them work.

I thoroughly enjoyed the journey we had with Val and the band members. You see Valerie as an inexperienced, naive young woman who is hung up on her best friend – Ethan, bypassing any other guy who looks her way. Although she kind of knows they look at her, all she wants is Ethan. Over the course of the book, she grows up a lot, she grows into her sexuality, knowing how to flaunt it and use it and she seems to enjoy the fact that she’s matured and can hold her own around guys and on stage too, with engaging the audience. I loved reading her grow, albeit going back to Ethan all the time annoyed the heck out of me, but in between with the romances with Clay/Jet who was in another band that they toured with let her experience even more with her sexuality.

Clay/Jet was a few years older than Val and the boys. What I loved about him was that he had two different personas. Clay was the sweet, caring guy, who would cuddle you and Jet was his persona on stage and in bed. He’d make sure you had a great time in bed. After everything he and Val went through, I think the outcome for both of them was the right path to choose. Even if she did go back to Ethan once again.

I really liked Ethan at the start when we first meet him. He seems like a cool kid, someone who really cares for Val but won’t admit it, in turn staying true to his womanizing ways, which seems to hurt Val. He seemed jealous when guys gave her attention but he never did anything to prove his feelings to her. It was like he didn’t know how to, or he didn’t want to destroy her ‘purity’. She was his muse and he didn’t want to change that.

Throughout the years they spend together, either together or just as a band, I despised him bit by bit over his hurtful and painful actions towards Val. He didn’t know a good thing if it hit him in the face and it was like he was bi-polar. I had no idea what he was going to do. Drugs and alcohol seemed to be his void over his past but he just always took it too far, causing pain not only to Val but to Brad as well. All the things he did to Val over the course of the book, well I just wanted to punch him. Val loved him with everything and he put her through so much that she just didn’t know if she could handle that pain again.

There were parts when I thought he would change, but he never did. He’d change for a while then retreat back to his asshole state. I thought Valerie was so stupid for taking him back all the time, it got me so frustrated that I was shouting at her through my Kindle. I wanted her to say ‘Fuck you’ and stand up for herself when he acted like a douchebag. Although there are times she did say ‘fuck you’ to him, I suppose she kept going back because she thought he truly would change and she was so deeply in love with him that she just brushed over everything he did when he showed her some affection. He really was toxic.

Now Brad. I LOVE HIM!! I’d love to have him for myself please. He was such a sweetheart. The first time we meet him it’s obvious he and Val share this connection. She knows it and so does he but she’s hung up on Ethan and she tries to forget about it. He tells her that he knows she likes Ethan so nothing will happen while that card is on the table. I loved him for that because he was respecting her.

He was a worrier and really cared about the band when no one else seemed to give a rats arse about it. He was literally their band manager, tour manager; driver and he wrote music/lyrics, had a job so they could afford to live and drove to their concerts. I loved his dedication for the band, wanting to make them noticed so they could get signed. Music was his life and all he wanted to do and I really admired him that he was so passionate about following his dreams.

He and Val had a close friendship, even though there was some sort of sexual chemistry between them but he swore that he wouldn’t go there (again). He worried about her relationship with Ethan because of the toxicity that is Ethan, who was damaging her poor heart over his actions. Brad was the guy that Val should be with not Ethan!

Ohhh the ending! It was just perfect and Valerie really did end up with the right guy. I was rooting for them throughout the book and I was so glad it was the person who I REALLY wanted her to be with. They were just so right for each other and albeit, their journey was a long one, but it just proves that in the end, those who are meant to be together, will find their way to one another and this was the perfect way to end such an amazing book as Bullet.

Jade has done it once again and drawn me into the story of Valerie, much like she has with her other books and she makes it so hard to put her books down and actually get some sleep! It is longer than her other books, but it’s no less important or drawn out for the sake of it, no! it’s captivating and you really become engrossed in the plot and with the characters.

I’d like to thank Jade for sending me an ARC copy of Bullet. She’s such a brilliant person and author, so if you haven’t read any of her books – boo at you! Please download them or read my reviews under Jade C. Jamison in the category box, because her books will leave you wanting more.

NOW, if you’re looking for smoking hot Rockstars, smoking hot sex, love triangles and a metal rock band then Bullet will be and is the book for you. It’s about growing up, finding love, dealing with damaged souls, succeeding and finding true happiness. PLEASE buy this e-book when it comes out because you will be obsessed with the characters and story right from the beginning.

Suspense

Graveyard Games – Sheri Leigh

Posted on November 11, 2012August 16, 2013 by Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

Dusty has always been the hothead in the pair — her twin, Nick, he was the calm, cool and collected one. But now Nick is dead, found murdered in their local cemetery, and Dusty, on forced leave from her job as a Chicago police officer, goes back to her childhood home to attend the funeral.

It becomes quickly apparent to Dusty that the local authorities aren’t being straight with her, or anyone else, about what’s been going on in the little Midwestern town she grew up in. The detective in her kicks in and she decides to find out what–or who–has killed her brother, so she moves in temporarily with her father and stepmother, takes a job in a local bar, and starts asking questions.

Her focus soon fixes on Shane, her brother’s best friend–the town bad boy and bad seed. The tension between the two of them has always been palpable, and nothing has changed. Sparks fly as they collide, and while Dusty finds herself sinking in deeper with Shane, the mystery of what happened to her brother–and an ever growing list of victims–grows even stranger.

Dusty finds her past haunting her everywhere she goes as she continues to dig deeper into the circumstances of her brother’s death, and her future looms large as her fate as a police officer is about to be determined back in Chicago. With everything coming to a head, she focuses on one thing: What happened the night her brother was killed in the cemetery? She’s sure Shane knows… something… and she’s determined to find out what it is, one way or another.

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My Review

This book was free on Amazon, and as I’ve said before, I love reading the free books because many of them turn out to be such a good read and this was…at the 80% mark.

Graveyard Games starts off pretty fast, with Dusty, attending her twin brother Nick’s funeral, rewinding on some parts of a conversation between the two of them the night before he died, as he had moved back to their hometown after being ‘fired’ from his job.

Dusty has been suspended from her job in Chicago and so when she comes back to her childhood town, she’s determined to find out who or what has killed her brother, not believing the story that the local police and the local newspaper are running about an animal being the main suspect in the vicious deaths of not only Nick, but other people as well, people she was close to when she was younger.

After the funeral, it does start to become a little slow, not much happens apart from Dusty getting a job in the local bar, befriending a guy called Sam, who, as the book states ‘is a little slow’, has a plan to ‘get with’ her brother’s best friend Shane, whom she allegedly hates so she can get the truth about Nick’s death from him – as she doesn’t believe he doesn’t know what happened, as Nick told her the night before he died he was going out with Shane and their friends.

To be honest, it only really got exciting from about 80% onwards as Shane tells Dusty what killed Nick and they get a gang of them together to go hunt this ‘creature’ down in the cemetery and that’s when all the action happened and I was sitting up straight, gasping over what was happening and hoping that none of them died. I actually had an inkling over who the creature was, and although it wasn’t the person I thought it was, they were still related to that person.

This book – albeit – sounds like a thriller, it’s not a thriller at all. I don’t really read horror books, as I get scared easily when the author describes the deaths in details, what the body looks etc, but in this book, sure, Nick is described in Dusty’s dream, but I could handle the little amount of description of his messed-up body.

I actually had no idea how old the characters were, because they still acted like teenagers, drinking in the woods, making bonfires, and some of the characters are married with kids, so forgive me if I was a little confused over why they were acting immature nearly every night. Searching for their ages, I think they were in their mid twenties? Anyway, as I said, they were acting like they were still in school.

I did love the scenes between Shane and Dusty as Dusty was convinced she hated him from a young age although she had loved him and he her, since they were younger but Nick had stopped Shane from inviting her anywhere with them because Nick had a big secret that you find out when Shane tells Dusty how he died. Although she was only planning to be with Shane to get information, they both slipped back into being in love with each other and when everything happened in the Graveyard at the end, I was on knifes edge wondering who was going to die and who was going to live.

Anyway, if you want a thriller/horror, this probably isn’t the book for you, but as it was free, I can’t complain about it because it ‘eased’ me into wanting to read more books like this, albeit, not the gory kind but we’ll see if I get to that stage eventually.

Romance

She’s Gotta Be Mine – Jennifer Skully

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

Dumped? For her husband’s high school sweetheart he hasn’t seen in twenty years? Roberta Jones Spivey isn’t going to lay down for that. Instead, she reinvents herself and the new Bobbie Jones—new haircut, new name, new attitude—follows her soon-to-be ex to the small Northern California town of Cottonmouth.

What better way to show him—and his sweetheart—what he’s missing in the brand new Bobbie Jones than taking up with the town’s local bad boy—who’s also reputed to be a serial killer. Nick Angel is devilishly handsome and sexy as all get-out. In a word, perfect.

It’s all going exactly according to plan…until a real murder rocks the little town of Cottonmouth. Of course, Nick didn’t do it…did he?

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My Review

Roberta Jones Spivey has been dumped by her husband for his high school sweetheart whom is hadn’t seen in twenty years. Really? No, Roberta isn’t going to let that one slid.

Changing her name to Bobbie Jones, she transforms herself and gets a new attitude before deciding to follow her soon-to-be-ex husband to a small town called Cottonmouth in North California to let him know what he’s now missing.

Settling into her new home, Bobbie decides that only way to show what her ex is missing is by finding herself a new man and her neighbour and resident bad boy Nick Angel is the perfect guy. He may be handsome but as rumours have it, he’s supposedly a serial killer but that doesn’t stop Bobbie wanting to get to know him.

While the town gossips about them and people freak out when they see Nick, a real murder soon occurs in Cottonmouth and fingers are wagging at Nick.

As Bobbie questions whether Nick did it or not, she decides to play investigator which leaves her ending up in more trouble that it was worth and its Nick who comes to the rescue and saves her.

I loved this story, and it kept me hanging on page by page, especially when her ex-husband spots her working as a waitress in the only pub in the small town and sees the transformation, wondering why on earth she is here.

Nick – he was hot in a mysterious way. People of the town thought he was a serial killer – of animals I must say – and kept well away and well, he mocked them and played up to his status whenever he was out in public. He was such a great character and I loved the romance between him and Bobbie – who worked hard to get him in her bed although he kept resisting, much to his dismay as he wanted her too.

It’s a nice little romance/mystery book to read and laugh out loud to.

Romance, YA

When Summer Ends – Isabelle Rae

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

Chloe Henderson has never been one to break the rules or push the boundaries… but during her summer break, she and her friends use fake IDs to sneak into a club. It’s there that she meets handsome and alluring bartender, Will Morris. The pair hit it off immediately, growing closer with every passing day. But as with every summer, it has to end sometime.

Chloe’s senior year approaches and there’s a shock in store when she returns to do her final year at school. Will is there too, but he’s not one of her fellow students…

A tale of forbidden love, broken hearts, friendship, and rivalry.

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My Review

As a Fan of Pretty Little Liars and a massive fan of Ezra and Aria – A teacher and pupil – i do, in fact, love the whole forbidden (thanks mum for the word) relationships. It’s a kind of thrill to read them as i would have never thought to get into a relationship with a teacher, let alone thought about it. But the way Ezra and Aria and Chloe and Will got together were similar and both guys didn’t know how old the other were until they inevitable happens and they become the girl’s teacher’s.

Chloe and Will meet in a bar, as she uses a fake ID to get in and he is a bartender. They hit it off immediately and spent every day together. Will (22) thought Chloe (17) was college age and never questioned it and Chloe thought Will was just a bartender. The more time they spent together, the more they seemed to fall for one another.

Meeting Will’s parents on the second day they knew each other, his parents and brother took an instant liking to her, so when the day of school came around, and everyone was on about the new maths teacher, it came as a massive shock for both Chloe and Will to find out she was a minor and in his maths class. So of course, Will has to break up with her.

Throughout her break up, so regularly went on ‘dates’ with Will’s brother Sam, much to Wills dismay. But Chloe finds a great friend in Sam throughout her heartbreak over Will and Sam knows that Will is feeling the same way.

Trying to make Will jealous, Chloe begins to go out her classmate Oliver, whom she has no feelings for and his possessiveness over the amount of boy friends she has pushes her over the limit especially as her ex- boyfriend turned best friend Nick, needs her during the time of year his mum died.

During the course of the book, Will and Chloe learn to be friends – I think I’d say, although the attraction for one another is still there and it all comes together when during one detention over Oliver fondling her on school property, Will buys her Malteasers and they both throw them in the air, trying to get them in their mouths. Because of this and trying to act normal around each other, when they go on a school trip paint balling, Chloe accidentally shoots Will on the shoulder when they are waiting to start, which makes me shot her on the bum.

She gets stranded from Nick during the game and Will finds her. They begin to talk and end up kissing, Will confessing his true feelings for Chloe and they get together once again.

Although they have to be super careful over their relationship, big trouble occurs for them both and Sam comes to the rescue, to solve the problem and sort it all out so his brother and Chloe don’t get in trouble.

I was actually on edge for most of the book, waiting for something extremely big to happen, which of course something did, but thanks to Sam it was all okay.

Although it’s a forbidden romance, you can’t help getting sucked in and I actually thought 5 years wasn’t that big a deal, as Will kept reminding her that she was a minor.

What he did for her 18^th though, super cute and I really want someone to do that for me.

The epilogue was a great way to end the book, especially the last sentence.

A definite recommendation for this book as it has everything. Fun characters, forbidden romance, heartache and big laughs. You will instantly fall in love with Will, Sam and Nick! I guarantee.