Burn the Dark: The Elwood Legacy, Book 2, by Nicola Rose

Posted on by
Reply

Burn the Dark: The Elwood Legacy, Book 2, by Nicola Rose

Paranormal Romance.

4 Stars

A Darker, Grittier Continuation of a Dark and Gritty Romance.

One reckless girl and two vampire brothers – battling forces of love over lust, and light over dark.

Jess

All the years of therapy and labels, and it turned out the real reason for the chaos in my life was something none of us could have dreamed up.

Destiny and fate have grand plans for me. Apparently I’m supposed to play along, but what if I don’t want to? What if the lines got so blurred that I can no longer tell which way I’m supposed to turn? Whose arms I should fall into? And what if that question doesn’t even seem to matter anymore?

I’ve spent my life chasing down adrenalin-highs, but I didn’t see this coming. Something dark is brewing inside me… and maybe I like it.

Alex

She was only supposed to be part of the game.

Yes, I wanted her from the moment I saw her, but not for the right reasons. Not for love. Not for passion. I wanted her for my own agenda – bringing down Zachariah’s carefully erected walls. And maybe, just a little bit, because of the way her presence called out to me like a glimpse of something big, glowing on the horizon.

I should never have let that light grow. I should have squashed it when I had the chance. Now she’s under my skin and it’s all twisted. But this time, I won’t lose focus. I won’t lose her.

This time… I win.

Burn the Dark is a full-length paranormal romance/urban fantasy, intended for adult audiences. It contains coarse language and explicit scenes.

Book Two in the Elwood Legacy series. Book One – Taste the Dark – should be read first.

After a bit of a slow start, this book really delivers!

Jess’ strange talents and what they meant for the path of her life are explained in the beginning pages, and I especially enjoyed the addition of new characters that boost the supernatural world Nicola Rose has built. Along with the new, we get to know characters briefly introduced in book one which only adds to the excitement.

Throughout book one, I wanted to kill Jess. I hated Jess (see my review), but in Book 2, her temperament is easier to swallow which made the ride all the more fun. Verbal repartees with those BTD Coverwho would have others paralyzed in fear had me laughing while the suspense over how it would all play out got me turning pages without stop. And this was all in the first twenty percent of the book.

I love Alex. From Taste the Dark, this love only grew as Burn the Dark continued. His blunt, no-nonsense, I-don’t-give-a-crap attitude, added to his newfound angst made me love this story. Jess continues to fight her attraction which made for the perfect dynamic.

The way Nicola Rose weaves conversations and arguments from Book One into ammunition for Zac and Jess’ drama is superb. Reason that seemed sound for Jess’ actions are suddenly thrown into new light, and we all wonder whether she really is just some crazy bitch with a death wish. Jess’ struggle that finally is figured out when she accepts some things, discards others, and finds that everyone has a place to belong is one of my favorite points about this book.

Did I mention I love Alex? There’s so much more of him in this second book, its reason enough to read it.

I was pleasantly surprised by how everything comes together at the end. All my heart-strings were pulled, as well as getting the perfect dose of blood and carnage.

Book Three is sure to be a wild ride!

Happy Reading 🙂

Check out more of my reviews HERE.

 

Hell is Figuring Out Chapter One

Posted on by
Reply

How Should it Begin

Beginning’s are everything. Sometimes all we have is a sentence to capture a reader. I get it. There are so many books to read, how do we decide which ones are worth our time? The reader need to know their time won’t be wasted…

Five days from my deadline, I’m still working the first ten pages. This isn’t a deadline, like “oh- just give me another day and we’ll squeeze the timeline to make it work.” No. This is a hard “there is no more updates allowed” deadline set by Amazon. Yesterday, I was finished and this wasn’t a problem. Today, I’m freaking out.

See, I had cut these pages.

Since draft one, I’d struggled with the opening of Stumbling. Unable to find a solution (at the time), I scrapped it to start in the middle of the opening sequence. Jumping right into action is always fun, right?

This Really Isn’t Working Out

Then, I was getting feedback of confusion.

So, I put the beginning back in. It made sense to do this. I understood the complaint. After reading my own book eleventy-billion times, I couldn’t recognize there were details the reader needed to have taken away in these deleted pages.

But, these pages hadn’t been polished like the others and it showed. I think I went through twelve edits before I handed the book off to an editor to look at. Twelve edits these first pages were ignored.

Does this look like an edit-free proof?

So, these ten pages were not as ready as the rest. These ten pages were making me re-think this whole idea to let the world have access to my work. These ten pages were making me second-guess if I really was ready… even though I’d already committed to being ready.

Did I mention I was freaking out?

Rinse, repeat then again… and again

I still worry about those first sentences, even after having hit publish. But, this is a process of learning and growing and I know that putting my work out there can only help this process.

Thanks for reading!

  • What’s the best opening line of book like to you? Quote it in the comments 🙂