Review: Flame by Brooke Cumberland

Flame by Brooke Cumberland

Series: Spark #3

Publication date: February 4th, 2014

Pages: 304

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):

FLAME is a companion novel in the Spark series, but can be read as a stand alone...

**An erotic romance--Mature audiences only 18+**

Carissa Wright doesn't do relationships.

Raised with a junkie mother and an alcoholic father, building relationships were far off her list. Rather, one night-stands were her usual.

Carissa has one constant in her life--her best friend Velaney.

Completely opposite of each other, yet they balance each other out.

Although Carissa admits to only wanting sex and nothing more, will she allow the one guy who wants to break down her walls or will she run out of fear for finally letting her guard down?

She is unfamiliar with these feelings and wants nothing more than to walk away without a shattered heart. Will she be able to find the courage in order to turn her flame into a long lasting relationship?

With walls built up & emotions turned off, can she learn to put her heart on the line?

Or will each guy just be another flame?

Drew Finlay is a foreign exchange student from London.

Studying abroad, he remains focused on school and football. It isn't until he meets Carissa that his consistent routine is interrupted. Knowing very well he'll be heading home in just a matter of months, Drew doesn't pressure Carissa into giving him more than she can give. However, once he falls for her... he isn't giving up.

Control, passion, and desperation.

He'll take her anyway he can have her...

Available at:

Review:

As I am often determined to finish a series as soon as I start it, it was not a stretch to determine my next read after Burn. I was curious about the character Carissa. She seemed like a great secondary character in Velaney's stories but I didn't get to know much about her or her past throughout the course of the first two books. I knew she had a troubled background much like Velaney's but I wasn't sure how deep that went.

Carissa is a self described whore. She sleeps around whenever the mood strikes. She has even had as many as three or four different partners on any given day. Her one-time policy has been her go-to from the moment she started having sex at eighteen. She doesn't do relationships. However, once she meets Drew she may be rethinking that stance on commitments. Drew seems to be different from all the one-nighters she has accumulated over the course of her life. She tries to keep a form grasp on her control and push him away as soon as she gets what she wants from him but Drew doesn't seem to want to just vanish like the rest of her bedmates. Strangely, Carissa may not want him to disappear as much as she thinks she does.

Drew is determined to show Carissa that she is worth more than what she assumes she is. She deserves happiness and that happiness cannot be found from frivolously bouncing from bed to bed. Can Drew convince Carissa that he can make her happier than she believes she is worthy of or will Carissa fall back into her old ways of debauchery when things get tough?

At the beginning of Flame I questioned whether I really liked Carissa at all. She seemed like such a stable confidant in the first two books that I never even thought that she was as messed up as she was portrayed in this book. I squirmed a little in my seat while reading about Carissa finding her way into sexual situations with incredibly unsavory characters. As I determined I was going to set the book aside for a while to clear my brain of all the depraved acts Carissa engages in, Drew enters her life. I find his determination not to play into her games intriguing and continued to read despite my reservations. Drew truly saved the story for me in the process of saving Carissa. He was very likable and I found myself rooting for him to change her for the better. Carissa seemed so shallow and transparent in the beginning of the story but as the story continued and she opened up to Drew, I saw a different side of her. She was not the shallow whore that she seemed so proud to call herself. There were emotional issues that caused that low self-esteem. As Drew was strong into the study of Psychology, it was interesting to see some of the techniques he used to coax Carissa from behind her fake facade of strength and force her to be vulnerable. As a Psychology major myself, it only served to make the story even greater than I had thought it was going to be.

Flame takes a seemingly vapid and shallow character and gives her depth. Through a combination of love, friendship, and much needed therapy the main protagonist transforms from a guarded, wounded caterpillar into a happy and vivacious butterfly.

Review: Spark by Brooke Cumberland

Spark by Brooke Cumberland

Series: Spark #1

Publication date: July 27th, 2013

Pages: 252

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):

When your past controls your future, how do you move forward?

Velaney Wills knows about that all too well.

Weak, powerless, and fearing the one person who has hurt her the most... can she overcome the barriers to move forward?

Being saved by a muscled Godsend was never on her agenda, but when firefighter, Eric Reilley comes into her life unexpectedly, everything changes.

Velaney has never felt loved or cared for, and her past prevents her from letting anyone in. Eric manages to break down her walls--despite the repercussions that come for them afterwards.

They have an undeniable spark--something she has never felt before, but will it be enough? Can love overcome all obstacles? Can they save each other to protect their love or will her past shatter everything she never knew she needed...?

**Spark is for mature audiences only--strong language, explicit sexual content, and sexual abuse are apparent.**

Available at:

Review:

For Christmas I recently acquired a new e-reader (an iPad Air 2) and as with most people who are given new toys I was anxious to see how the Kindle app compared to my Kindle Fire software. In doing so, of course I had to read some of the hundreds of books I have purchased and won over the years. I decided to go back to the beginning. Read some of the books that i have had the longest and who seem to have slipped through the cracks. Spark was one I have had for a while. I had won it from the author in a giveaway some time ago and never got around to reading it. Shame on me. Hunky firefighters and a troubled young girl with a traumatic past? Sounds like a good read to me just from that description alone.

Spark opens with Velaney being rescued from a fire in her apartment complex by her hunky firefighter neighbor who had just moved in a floor below her. Shy, introverted Velaney doesn't know what to make of the cocky man who seems to always be there when she needs him the most. She can't understand the draw she has to him and tries to combat her unexpected feelings for him by ignoring them completely. She has a troubling past that has caused her to swear off men entirely. If her past relationships are any indication she just is no good at the 'love' scene and will only end up hurting whoever she gets involved with. She is determined to keep Eric firmly rooted in the friend zone despite his determination to coax her to let them be more to each other.

As if her commitment issues aren't enough, the person responsible for Velaney's emotional and physical scars has started coming back around. She thought she was through with him and that she could finally attempt to have a happy life with her best friend and the sexy man determined to win her heart. Is Eric capable of saving Velaney from her past as well as her present?

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The cover was gorgeous and sometimes with a titillating cover comes a lackluster story. Instead, I found the story enticing and intriguing. I liked the way Velaney starts to transform from shy and chronically fearful victim to a strong and determined survivor. I found Velaney relatable and Eric to be droolworthy. The protagonists and even the antagonist were thrilling to watch interact. I was rooting for the couple to make it work and for the antagonist to get murdered in the most horrendous way possible. I'm not usually that blood thirsty.

Spark is a devastatingly beautiful story of survival and overcoming trauma through love and friendship.

Review: Burn by Brooke Cumberland

Burn by Brooke Cumberland

Series: Spark #2

Publication date: September 28th, 2013

Pages: 288

Synopsis (according to Goodreads):

*Contains Mature Adult Content. Recommended for 18+ Only*

Book 2 in the Spark Series

Just when Velaney thinks she is safe again... her worst nightmare comes back to haunt her.

Eric is dealing with his own insecurities as he tries to accept Velaney's decision to help the enemy... can he get past it? Will they be there for each other in the end?

Eric struggles to step aside and trust Velaney... but will his past keep him from doing so? Can he let go in order to move forward?

Velaney and Eric had their fair share of ups and downs in SPARK... their love was undeniable and intense. Just when you think they could get their happily ever after... pasts collide and merge together... will they fight for what they want?

Or will their love crash burn?

Available at:

Review:

Naturally after reading Spark and finding it so riveting I had to read the next book in the series. Spark does tend to leave off on a cliffhanger so I had to know what happened next. I devoured Burn in the matter of a single day.

Velaney is on her way to meet Eric's family for the first time in the great state of Texas. She has managed to win him back despite the ups and downs of their relationship to date. However, despite Velaney's confidence that her past will not rear it's ugly head, she starts to see Aiden everywhere she turns. She has to be hallucinating, right? There is no way that Aiden followed her all the way to Texas just to keep tabs on her and Eric. While in Texas, Velaney gets to see how a normal family functions and she starts to wonder what it would have been like to have what Eric grew up knowing. But little does she know that Eric's life was not as picture perfect as she thought it was. Eric has demons and they start to threaten his relationship with Velaney much the same as Velaney's did.

Velaney must once again find a way to combat an unusual amount of heartbreak while still keeping Eric, her savior, close at hand. But what if Eric is simply staying with her out of duty and not because he actually wants to be with her and her abundance of emotional baggage? Velaney once again has to deal with her insecurities or risk losing Eric forever.

Burn had twice as many pitfalls for our protagonists as the first book. It got to the point where I was screaming at my iPad. "How much more are you going to throw at the poor girl, Brooke?!" It got to the point where it was almost painful to watch how many horrible situations could be heaped upon Velaney. To avoid spoilers I won't go into detail about what those situations are but let's just say if you can dream up a situation you would never want to experience, Velaney went through it. Then, of course, add to the mix Eric having his own issues that weren't addressed in the first book...

I ugly cried throughout most of the book. I am not ashamed to admit it. It usually takes quite a bit for me to sob when reading a book; this one did it. It sucked me in, put me through a meat grinder, and spat me out the other side feeling a bit scarred just from witnessing such horrors through a fictional character's eyes... I loved it. I loved having Velaney and Eric get so far under m skin that I felt beaten and bloody at the end of the book. It's not everyday that an author can make their characters that real to their readers. I applaud you, Brooke!

Burn is life changing and will make it's readers truly appreciate the strength it takes to overcome the odds to find their happy ending.

Review: Hot Rock by Annie Seaton @annieseaton26

 

Hot Rock by Annie Seaton

Series: Love Across Time #1

Publication date: February 24th, 2014

Pages: 200

Synopsis:

Megan Miller is on a dream trip to research her doctoral thesis at a rock festival in England. When she arrives in town she's stubbed that her temporary neighbor is the spitting image of her 70's rock idol, too bad he's also a world-class jerk. So why can't she stop thinking about him?

Seventies rock star Davy Morgan is a man with a secret: rockin' in one time and living in another. He holds his privacy close to his heart, so when a beautiful girl who not only loves but truly understands his music moves in next door, he works overtime to keep her at a distance. Easier said than done.

Megan follows Davy to the rock festival, but it's not what or when it seems. The lure of the music draws them closer, but can their newfound love span across the decades, or will it get lost in time?

Available at:

Review:

I received an e-copy of this book from the publishers on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have been in a reading rut the last few months and wasn't sure I was ever going to find my way out of it. I felt like I read the same thing over and over again just from different authors with different character names. It seemed all the physical books I had accumulated all ran together so in an attempt to break my exceedingly tedious span of "same old, same old" I turned to the vast amount of e-books I had gathered in my kindle cloud. This little gem was among them and it was purely through random selection that I decided to give it a gander. I am grateful that I did as my rut finally came to an end. 

Megan has longed to visit the site of a music festival that has been going on since the early 70's. As a doctorate student focused on the cultural and societal differences of music festivals through the ages, it was fated that Megan finally get a chance to visit one of the most famous ones to date. However, issues at home start to plague Megan and cause her to question whether she should remain in England and live her dream or venture home and try to save her comfortable future. In the process of deciding she meets her gorgeous neighbor that seems to bear an unusual resemblance to one of her favorite 70s musicians. 

David reveled in his solitude. The last thing he needed was an attractive woman coming around and threatening that. He needed to keep the vixen at arms length and if that meant acting the part of the stereotypical big-headed musician, he could do that. Well... he hoped he could do that. It seemed Megan was bound and determined to get under his skin and become a woman the likes of which he had never before met in either time he frequented. What future could the two have with David spending half his time in 2014 and the other half of his time rocking the stage in the 1970s? 

Finally, a book that got me out of my rut. I have to admit, I didn't really have high hopes for the book. I had not read any books by Annie Seaton and was worried it'd be a bit to "indie-fied" for my liking. I was certainly wrong. The chemistry between David and Megan was palpable. Where the time travel angle could have caused confusion and disharmony within the storyline, it seemed to flow rather easily, a feat not easily achieved even by extremely skilled authors. 

Although I did have one issue with the book. A relatively small one, but one none-the-less. There were some issues that the female protagonist experienced with the time traveling that I would have liked an explanation to. There was no real reasoning behind the physical symptoms she endured and I started to wonder why it was even included in the first place. But, that did not effect the overall appeal of the book so I can live without the whys of it. 

This book is Diana Gabaldon meets rocker fiction. It's a fun mix that would appeal to those who like sexy rocker men who can also time travel. Groupies and time travel capabilities, talk about a man who has it all.