Hey my lovelies, welcome to this weeks review and it is of Pigeon Blood Red by Ed E. Duncan. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. 

Title: Pigeon Blood Red
Author: Ed E. Duncan
Genre: Crime Thriller
Publication Date: February 25th 2016
Publisher: Zharmae
Format: Paperback 
Pages: 238
Rating:4 stars
Goodreads Summary: For underworld enforcer Richard "Rico" Sanders, it seemed like an ordinary job. Retrieve his gangster boss's priceless pigeon-blood red ruby necklace and teach the double-dealing cheat who stole it a lesson. A job like a hundred before it. But the chase quickly goes sideways and takes Rico from the mean streets of Chicago to sunny Honolulu, where the hardened hit man finds himself in uncharted territory when a couple of innocent bystanders are accidentally embroiled in the crime.

As Rico pursues his new targets, the hunter and his prey develop an unlikely respect for one another and Rico is faced with a momentous decision: follow his orders to kill the couple whose courage and character have won his admiration, or refuse and endanger the life of the woman he loves?

Overview

You might be reading the title and thinking Pigeon Blood Red? What on earth is that about? Well it's actually about the consequences of  when rubies go missing and the domino effect that this one act has on others. Well that's my take on the story anyway. With a healthy dose of murder, affairs and hot weather thrown in there too. I'm not typically a fan of adult thriller books that aren't 'who dunnits?' but this was a refreshing change of pace for me and I actually enjoyed it.

Pigeon Blood Red has multiple point of views from the four main characters. 

Writing

At the beginning of the book I thought it was quite slow, but then gradually warmed up, causing me to be well in to the book by around 50 pages. A lot of the book did rely on internal monologue and there was also quite a few flashbacks chucked in there too. 

Characters

Evelyn is one of our main characters, she is a middle aged woman trapped in a loveless marriage, so her way to to make it or break it for her and her husband is a trip to Hawaii. She then gets wrapped up in a situation that she had no business in and gets swept into a world that she never even realised existed, let alone one where she is wanted dead. Evelyn is not the most interesting of characters, even her flashbacks seemed a bit limp for me, she chose Robert because he was the 'bad boy' and that didn't pan out, now only realising at middle aged how unhappy she is, sort of mid life crisis anyone?

The next main character is Robert, Evelyn's husband, whose an excessive gambler and alcoholic, who owes lots of various people money. Robert is basically to cut it short, an idiot, who I have no sympathy for. He makes stupid decisions and when push comes to shove he doesn't have the backbone, when then the threats start coming in. 

Unlike Rico, our next main character, Rico is an assassin working for Litvak a renowned loan shark. Ricoc is probably the most complex character, with his murderous ways, which we found out more about in the flashbacks. 

The fourth main character (I'm calling these main characters, because each of these have a point of view in the book) is Paul, to me, he was a bit of a wet wipe, I wasn't a huge fan of him until the end, when he finally started coming out of his shell more. 

And finally we have Litvak who is the loan shark with a missing stash of pigeon blood red rubies. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, I really enjoyed it and Rico was my favourite point of view by far. To me this was mainly setting up the series for the rest of the trilogy, as it did have action in it, but I expect it to really kick off in the next couple of books. A huge thanks to Ed E. Duncan and Kelsey and Taylor at Book Publicity Services. 

Recommend...

I would recommend this to anybody who likes adult thrillers with hints of organised crime. 

 Book Links

Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Author Links

Goodreads | Ed E. Duncan | Twitter 

Author Bio

Ed Duncan is a graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University Law School. He was a partner at a national law firm in Cleveland, Ohio for many years. He currently lives outside of Cleveland, OH and is at work on the second installment in the Pigeon-Blood Red trilogy.

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Hey my lovelies, welcome to this weeks book review and it is The F Student by Xyla Turner, this week I am taking part in 'The F Student' blog tour hosted by Xpresso Blog Tours. So a huge thank you to them for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The F Student
Author: Xyla Turner
Publisher: Azina Media
Pub. Date: January 10th 2017
Date Read: 6th February 2017
Pages:  92
Rating:3.6/5 stars
Summary: Cassius Rice, A.K.A., Cash has not been doing well in his classes for over a year. With one semester to go, his father cut him off, leaving Cash out of luck. With no other options, he took up an offer that he later regretted. Sleep with his professor and record it, then he would have the money to obtain his college degree. 
Simple enough for Cash. 
What he did not expect was the Professor’s Teaching Assistant to block his efforts nor did he expect the underground fighting world to be so lucrative. All he wanted was to accomplish his quest and graduate. 

The F Student wasn't exactly what I expected. When I first read the blurb I was interested (hence the reason for requesting to be put on the tour), however it wasn't really what I wanted the book to be. The book is from a male point of view, which I have never read a NA book from before, so I'm not really sure if it was just that, but then I wasn't really a big fan of the writing style to be honest. And especially with it being such a short novella really, I expected more, especially because of all the high class short novella's I have read in the last year.

The book follows Cash, an average student at college, however when his brother dies, his life completely changes, causing his only real passion to be his love of older women. And when his father see's his grades dropping, he cuts him off, causing him to have to find a quick way to pay the rest of $20,000 owed before the end of term in order to graduate. Whilst looking for ways to get this income, he is the offered the chance to receive all of the money in return for sleeping with one of his professors and filming it. However, he soon finds the professor's TA is exactly what he needs in his life.

Conclusion

Overall, I believe The F Sudent was an okay read, and if it was slightly longer, I believe it would have allowed us to  connect with the characters a lot more, and given them added depth. 

Recommend?

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading short NA novels, from a male point of view. Who enjoys incredibly short reads. 

Author Bio

Xyla Turner is a USA Today Bestselling and award-winning romance author. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and is a dedicated educator. Outside of reading, Xyla likes to spend time with her family and travel as much as her schedule permits. 

As a teenager, Xyla started to write short stories and essays that won awards and nation-wide competitions. She is from Brooklyn, NY, where she is an educator, innovator and entrepreneur.

Book Links

Goodreads | Amazon UK

Another huge thank you to Xpresso Book Tours for sending me The F Student in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for reading my lovelies, this is it for this week, if you would like to see more of what I am currently reading you can check me out on Goodreads,and Twitter. 

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Hey my lovelies, today's book review is of Mirror Image by Michele Pariza Wacek, which was provided to me thanks to Worldwind Book Tours and Michele Pariza Wacek.

Title: Mirror Image
Author: Michele Pariza Wacek
Publisher: Love-Based Publishing
Pub. Date: May 28th 2016
Date Read: Wednesday 8th June 2016
Pages: 272
Rating:4/5 stars
Goodreads Summary: Which would be worse, knowing that your dead sister has come back to life and is now a serial killer or that someone else is the killer….and that person is you? Six months after Linda's sister Elizabeth killed herself, Linda has finally gotten her life back to some semblance of normalcy. Until a killer appears who is stalking men ... a killer who resembles Elizabeth ... a killer who seems somehow familiar to Linda.  And, to make matters worse, Steve, her old high school crush and now a detective, is assigned to this case. He's asking Linda all sorts of questions, questions Linda couldn't possibly have an answer to. There's no reason for him to be investigating Linda. She couldn't possibly have anything to do with this. Could she?

Mirror Image follows our main character Linda, who is not exactly having the good life she hoped for. She came from an abusive home, and her sister, Elizabeth committed suicide earlier this year, leaving no body behind. Due to her sister’s death, part of her feels guilt for never noticing anything wrong, and also relief due to the trials and tribulations that she put her through as both a child and an adult. Due to all of this Linda’s health is on a downward spiral, causing her to significantly lose weight and for her mental health to decrease. Which cause her to have blackouts, where hours disappear, causing her to have no idea where she has been or what she has done.  And when men are getting murdered in her town and she starts seeing the dead men in her nightmares, she can’t help but freak out. And when a former friend turned detective arrives back in time and starts asking questions, which Linda doesn’t want to know the answers to, she can’t help but get more stressed.  

Mirror Image is not a long book, however it took me quite a while to get into it, however as soon as I was about 60% in, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. I loved the tension the book created, as it even left me guessing on what the genre really was. The writing was overall good, and I thought the point of view change on the chapters was quite refreshing, as the book was predominately in Linda’s point of view, however every few chapters there would be a character from different points in Elizabeth and Linda’s life, giving further insight into their lives and what Elizabeth really was like as a child. And another point is that I did not guess the plot twist at the very end, which recently I have been doing an awful lot of.  One of the only negatives I have for this book is that there was some unanswered questions at the end, these could be simply due to me missing the part or it was meant to be left open. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the book as I really enjoyed the writing and hopefully I shall be reading more of Michele Pariza Wacek's books in the future. 

About the Author

When Michele was 3 years old, she taught herself to read because she wanted to write stories so badly.

As you can imagine, writing has been a driving passion throughout her life. She became a professional copywriter (which is writing promotional materials for businesses), which led to her founding a copywriting and marketing company that serves clients all over the world.

Along with being a copywriter, she also writes novels (in fact, she just published her first novel, a psychological thriller/suspense/mystery called “The Stolen Twin” and her second novel “Mirror Image'” is set to be published in May 2016) plus, she is also the author of the “Love-Based Copy” books, which are a part of the “Love-Based Business” series and cover both business and personal development.

She holds a double major in English and Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently she lives in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona with her husband Paul and her border collie Nick and southern squirrel hunter Cassie.

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon  Instagram

Recommend...

I would recommend this to anyone who likes psychological thrillers with hints of the supernatural and a whole lot of suspense. 

Book Links

Amazon ~ Goodreads

Follow the entire MIRROR IMAGE Tour here

Brought to you by Worldwind Virtual Book Tours

Thank you to Michele Pariza Wacek and Worldwind Virtual Book Tours for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Thank you for reading my lovelies, this is it for this week, if you would like to see more of what I am currently reading you can check me out on Goodreads, Instagram and Twitter. 

Previous Book Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

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Hey my lovelies, the second book review of this week is Verge by Rebecca Bradford. Which I was luckily enough to receive for free in exchange for an honest review from Austin Macauley publishers, so a huge thank you to them.

Title: Verge
Author: Rebecca Bradford
Publisher: Austin Macauley
Pub. Date: March 31st 2016
Date Read: Sunday 8th May 2016
Pages:  147
Rating:3.5/5 stars
Goodreads Summary:On the eve of her 18th birthday, Ashleigh Palmer is preparing to celebrate like any other 17 year old. With a close circle of good friends, a loving family and a sparkling academic record, her life seems enviable and above all: normal. 
Suddenly, her world is turned upside down as she realises that she may not be the typical young woman she thought she was. To the dismay of her family, her boyfriend Todd and her best friend Emma, she begins to change against her will. Her abilities go from top-standard to prodigal. Her strength, anger and lust know no bounds. Then the inhuman cravings begin - what is happening to her? Her mother holds the secret to her history which will change her life forever, but how and when will it reveal itself? How will she cope, and will she have to leave everyone she loves behind? A world which was once pure fantasy has become real...

Overview

Verge was a strong 3.5 for me as I could not really get into the book at the beginning, but after that it did begin to flow nicely. The writing style read slightly basic and more like a middle grade novel than I expected, which is slightly strange considering there was a sex scene. And the sex scene, seemed to be written quite strange, as the way the characters involved went about it, did not seem very realistic, especially where it happened. The book was very bloody dramatic... get it bloody dramatic. Because of vampires, yeah. Everything in the novel seemed to go exceedingly fast, as I know the book is only 147 pages, but it seemed as if scenes and parts of scenes were cut to make it shorter, which for me sort of stunted the novel. There was a small amount of conflict towards the end of the novel, however this was resolved in a extremely short amount of time, which could have got more developed.

Characters

Ashleigh was our main character and she seemed very difficult. One minute she was fine, next she was angry, upset I take it that this is due to her transitioning, but she was also very blase about everything, because if your best friend was really telling you to dump your boyfriend who you are supposed to love, you are not going to have the best relationship. And yet they did. 

Emma was her best friend who disliked Ashleighs boyfriend, I presume at this point that she will have a more to do with the rest of the books in the series, but to be honest  I was not very impressed. 

Recommend

Personally, this book just didn't suit my tastes, but I would recommend it to people who like short vampire books. 

Book Links

Amazon UK ~ Amazon.com ~ WHSmith ~ Waterstones ~ Goodreads

Another huge thank you to Austin Macauley publishers for allowing me to read and receive this book in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you for reading my lovelies, this is it for this week, if you would like to see more of what I am currently reading you can check me out on Goodreads, Instagram and Twitter. 

Previous Book Review: Memories of a Mad Man by Don Spector

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Hey my lovelies, welcome to the first official review of 2016 and it is the Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker, the worst thing about this is I received this arc a few months ago, but i have only just gotten round to reading it. First of all I would like to state that I received this arc for free in exchange for a honest review. 

Title: The Witch Hunter

Author: Virginia Boecker

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Pub.Date:  2nd June 2015

Date Read:  16th December 2015 

Pages: 368

Rating: 4.6/5 stars

Goodreads Summary: Your greatest enemy isn't what you fight, but what you fear. Elizabeth Grey is one of the king's best witch hunters, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and doling out justice. But when she's accused of being a witch herself, Elizabeth is arrested and sentenced to burn at the stake. Salvation comes from a man she thought was her enemy. Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the kingdom, offers her a deal: he will save her from execution if she can break the deadly curse that's been laid upon him. But Nicholas and his followers know nothing of Elizabeth's witch hunting past--if they find out, the stake will be the least of her worries. And as she's thrust into the magical world of witches, ghosts, pirates, and one all-too-handsome healer, Elizabeth is forced to redefine her ideas of right and wrong, of friends and enemies, and of love and hate. Virginia Boecker weaves a riveting tale of magic, betrayal, and sacrifice in this unforgettable fantasy debut.

Hey my lovelies, today's review is of Like Candy by the lovely Debra Doxer. I received this novel thanks to netgalley, Debra Doxer and it's publishers for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book, a lot more than what I was expecting. Which is why I rated it a full five stars on Goodreads.

Title: Like Candy

Author: Debra Doxer

Publisher: Not Known

Pub.Date:  28th July 2015

Date Read:  6th August 2015 

Pages: 299

Rating: 5/5 stars

Goodreads Summary: Revenge is sweet, just like candy.

Candy Seaborne knows she’s badass. She takes after her father, an assassin and possibly a spy, although he won’t admit to either. She idolizes him. Her dream is to follow in his footsteps. But first, she has to finish high school.
Biding her time, waiting for real life to begin, Candy craves drama and isn’t above manufacturing some. If you’re a classmate who wronged her or a boyfriend who cheated, watch your back. She’s no pushover, and revenge may be her favorite pastime. 
Jonah Bryson is the senior class heartthrob who breaks all the stereotypes. He’s a jock, but he isn’t the typical player. He’s moody and antisocial. No girl has gotten anywhere with him since his last girlfriend broke his heart.
Candy sees Jonah as a challenge and the perfect distraction. But she may be in over her head because unlike everyone else, Jonah isn’t buying her tough act. He sees the lost, lonely girl inside. He sees too much. When he looks at her that way, she wants to let her guard down and be vulnerable. But that’s the last thing she should do because her father’s world is spilling over into hers, and life is about to get real much sooner than Candy expected

Hey my lovelies, today's review is Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten. I received this book as an ARC, thanks to net-galley for an honest review. I surprisingly really enjoyed this book, it was exactly what I wanted to read at the time and I am so glad, I was approved for it, which was why I rated it 4/5 stars on Goodreads. 

Title: Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls

Author: Lynn Weingarten

Publisher: Simon Pulse & Electric Monkey

Pub.Date: 2nd July 2015 

Date Read: 23rd June 2015 

Pages: 320

Rating: 4/5

Goodreads Summary:Pitched as Gone Girl meets Thirteen Reasons Why

June barely has time to mourn the death of her best friend Delia, before Delia's ex-boyfriend convinces her Delia was murdered, and June is swept into a tangle of lies, deceit, and conspiracy.

The reason this book isn't the full five stars is due to the fact it took me the first 75 pages to finally get into the book, for me the start was very slow paced and it just took me awhile to become engrossed and not want to put it down to do other things. But when reading, whatever you do don't put it down as then it really kicks in and you become hooked.

 Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls is about a 17/18 year old girl called June, whose ex-best friend commits suicide. Hearing this she doesn't believe her ex-best friend would do something like this, which leads her onto a hunt of her best friends killer. Along the way there are various plot twists and suspects a long the way, with the biggest plot twist just around half way through the book. How far would you go to stop your friends and families enemies? This seems to be an underlying theme throughout the novel. 

After finishing reading it you definitely understand why it was compared to Gone Girl, as I would class this as a psychological thriller on that sort of pedestal. Due to this being an arc I have received there is no spoilers in this review and I personally would recommend it. 

The ending is a cliffhanger, with an answer that I doubt we will ever learn. Unless there is a sequel... Nevertheless I really enjoyed this book and when it does come out, I will be picking it up to add the my collection. Thanks again to Netgalley and Lynn Weingarten for providing me with the book for this review. All opinions in this review are completely my own and are in no way, shape or form biased.

To keep more up to date with what I am reading, you can check out my Twitter, Goodreads andInstagram. 

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Hey my lovelies, todays review is The Sham by Ellen Allen. On a added note I received this ebook for an honest review. Sadly, I did not enjoy this book, It had all the makings of being in my top books, but sadly lacked a few key things for me. This is why on Goodreads, I rated this a measly 2/5 stars.

Title: The Sham
Author: Ellen Allen
Publisher: BookBaby
Pub. Date: September 7th 2014
Date Read: June 22nd 2015
Pages: 248
Rating: 2/5 stars
Goodreads Summary: When love leads to death, be careful who you trust…
Eighteen-year-old Emily Heath would love to leave her dead-end town, known locally as "The Sham", with her boyfriend, Jack, but he's very, very sick; his body is failing and his brain is shutting down. He's also in hiding, under suspicion of murder. Six months' ago, strange signs were painted across town in a dialect no one has spoken for decades and one of Emily's classmates washed up in the local floods. 
Emily has never trusted her instincts and now they're pulling her towards Jack, who the police think is a sham himself, someone else entirely. As the town wakes to discover new signs plastered across its walls, Emily must decide who and what she trusts, and fast: local vigilantes are hunting Jack; the floods, the police, and her parents are blocking her path; and the town doesn’t need another dead body