Review: A Cage of Crimson by K.F. Breene

A Cage of Crimson
Deliciously Dark Fairytales #5
K.F. Breene
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication date: June 27, 2024
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:

★★★

Of all the people in the world, why her?

It was supposed to be find the drug maker. Find her, and drag her back to the dragons to deal with. She deserves death for what she's done.

For someone like Weston, the best alpha in the world, the one who shuts people up just by walking in the room, it would've been.

Until he learns what she is…

Finding a fated mate is nearly impossible. Very few are able to do it. But the call of their bond is unmistakable. Against all odds, and in the worst situation imaginable, he's found his true mate. Her.

Worse? If there could be anything worse than a true mate that has brought the world to its knees - she doesn't seem to realize what she is. Her animal is suppressed. Locked away, leaving her nearly without magic. She doesn't know what the feeling is, and she doesn't care. She claims innocence. She thinks he's the villain in this story, and she aims to kill him before he destroys her.

It doesn't change his duty. He must bring her in, nature be damned. Regardless of how much it hurts, he'll resist the sweet taste of her lips and the heaven between her thighs. She must pay for what she's done.

He just hopes he doesn't die inside for the part he's forced to play in the destruction of his true mate.

 

My thoughts...

This story is supposed to be a dark retelling of Red Riding Hood... and I suppose in some ways it is. However, after the initial capture, I completely forgot it was supposed to be a retelling and just viewed it as an erotic shifter romance. It wasn't until I started to write my review that I was reminded that this was a retelling.

I liked the idea of this story. I mean, when it comes to shifter stories, you can only tell it so many ways before they all become the same. This wasn't one that I had read before. Aurelia is viewed as being a dud because her wolf isn't present. Because of being a dud, she learned from a VERY young age just how dark and cruel the world could be. However, in comes this old lady named Granny who gives her "safe" haven in exchange for Aurelia to make some pretty awesome, but non-lethal drugs. During this time Aurelia is beaten, starved, and watched those around her suffer. However, she remains loyal to Granny. One night she's abducted by the "enemy" a pack of wolves set out to take her to their leader so justice can be served to the person making these deadly drugs circulating the lands. Confused would be an understatement on how Aurelia handles all of this. However, as their journey progresses she starts to view them as friends and they have a friendly comradery as they lead her back to their land.

Now that all sounds good and dandy. Except, Aurelia refuses to see what's going on around her. She falls into this "mate lust" and has hateful sex with her main captor who is the Alpha. When she is presented with a chance of her old life, she's torn.... TORN after she realizes that Granny was using her, altering her "product" to make it addictive and deadly, AND the village she called home was a ruse for Granny's business and everyone in it was a hostage. She knows these things, and yet still wants to live that life with Granny. I just, that just made me want to bash her upside the head.

Another thing that really got me about this story is the sex. I honestly didn't even read it. It comes out of left field without so much as a "hello" and it goes on for PAGES. All the "baby's" and "oh yes'" were just faaaar too much for me that I cringed as I flipped to the end of the scene so that I could get back to the story at hand.

I was really enjoying the story for the most part and enjoyed watching the convoy soften towards their prisoner and start to see that maybe she wasn't the one making the deadly drugs, maybe they were being altered. I had issues with the over the top sex scenes and the way that Aurelia was so quick to forget EVERYTHING she learned on this journey and have thoughts about going back to Granny. That just made it seem like there was conflict and drama there just so the author could end the book on a cliffhanger and maybe have that conflict carry over into the next book. I don't know, but it was stupid, in my opinion, and felt like a slap in the face to all the character growth that had been taking place.

Summer Sale on All Dragonfairy Press Books

For a limited time, all Dragonfairy Press ebook are on sale. All stand-alone and first-in-series books are only $0.99 and all later-in-series titles are $1.99!

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Hidden Gates
By: D.T. Dyllin
Genre: New Adult/Paranormal Romance

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For P.J. Stone, being a “Seer” who has never seen anything is less than fun. And P.J. isn’t known for her patience.

To make matters worse, she must choose a suitable mate to continue the Seer bloodline. Duty always comes before her heart…at least that’s what her parents taught her. When she finds herself wanting someone who is considered off-limits, P.J. is forced to question everything she believes.

As if navigating her love life isn’t complicated enough, P.J. finally receives a vision—of a threat to her world that only she can perceive. But no one will believe a fledgling Seer’s warnings. With nowhere else to turn, she may decide to trust a stranger with her life, her world, and maybe even her heart.

Feeling Death

By: D.T. Dyllin

Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance

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Samantha Bevans is having the best sex of her life—but it's not with her husband. Fortunately for her marriage, the affair is all in her mind. Isn't it? As an empath, she senses other people's emotions. But her connection to the man with the the chiseled face and haunting eyes seems so real.

There's no time for fantasies with a serial killer loose in Pittsburgh. The killer is targeting dancers at a strip club where Samantha used to bartend, back when drugs were the only cure for the torment of her abilities. As a member of a special task force, Samantha uses her talents to sense the victims’ final thoughts. Just when she thought the case was complex enough, she discovers one of the victims was thinking about her fantasy man when she died.

Who can Samantha trust when she can’t trust her own mind? An empath feels the emotional environment around her…and Samantha is surrounded by death.

Echo

By: Alicia Wright Brewster

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

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The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone's been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end.

Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans.

Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to suspect that the future of the world may depend on Ashara's death.

 Don't Call Me Angel

By: Alicia Wright Brewster

Genre: Paranormal YA 

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After crawling her way out of Hell, Six is ready to cast aside her angel wings and all the responsibilities that come with them. But Earth is not as peaceful as she imagined it. Demons, dark angels, and other hell-beasties escaped before her, and they're not as content as she is to live a quiet life on Earth. A fellow angel who escaped Hell with her commits a series of soul-murders, destroying human souls so they can't go to the afterlife. Although Six has conflicting feelings about humans, she goes after the other angel to keep their escape a secret from the one she fears most.

Fire Baptized

By: Kenya Wright

Genre: Urban Fantasy

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Since the 1970s humans have forced supernaturals to live in caged cities. Silver brands embedded in their foreheads identify them by species: a full moon for Vampires, a crescent moon for Shifters, a pair of wings for Fairies, and the list goes on, for each supernatural species has been tagged and categorized by humans.

Lanore Vesta is marked with a silver X, the brand of Mixbreeds, second-class citizens shunned by society. She stays to herself, revealing her ability to create fire only during emergencies. All she wants to do is graduate college and stop having to steal to survive. But when she stumbles upon a murder in progress, she catches the attention of a supernatural killer. Now all she wants is to stop finding dead bodies in her apartment.

Enlisting help from her Were-cheetah ex-boyfriend MeShack and a new mysterious friend named Zulu, she is steered through the habitat’s raunchy nightlife. But their presence sometimes proves to be more burden than help, as they fight for her attention.

While the corpses pile up, and the scent of blood fills the air, Lanore is left wondering: Will she find the psycho or die trying?

 Murder on Olympus

By: Robert B. Warren

Genre: Urban Fantasy

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At first glance, the Gods of Olympus are as different from one another as salt is from sugar. Despite their bickering, they share a universal bond, a thread of commonality that unites them.

They’re all jerks.

After a stint with the Olympic Bureau of Investigation, Plato Jones is through with the Gods and their political games. Against his protests, he's drawn into a murder investigation, where the murderer's targets are the Gods themselves.

Plato has cracked some tough cases: exposing cheating spouses, capturing treasonous heretics, hunting three-headed dogs. But this time he’s in over his head. How can he solve a crime that’s impossible to commit? And what chance does Plato—a mere mortal—have against something powerful enough to kill a God?

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Broken Gates

By: D.T. Dyllin

Genre: New Adult/Paranormal Romance 

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P.J. Stone is a Seer who saw too little, too late.

In the past, her biggest worries were boys and school—but war has a way of changing things. Now, the alien Riders are trying to overrun the world. As the last of their kind, P.J. and her friends must find a way to save humanity before there’s nothing left to save.

After choosing a mate, P.J. hoped she'd have time to enjoy her love life. But with everything changing so quickly and major secrets revealed, who knows what the future will bring? 

 The Burning Bush

By: Kenya Wright

Genre: Urban Fantasy

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After Dante Bottelli’s slaughter of Vamp-owned Mixbreeds, Lanore and Zulu execute a well-planned attack that hits Dante where it hurts the most—his pockets. But their attack triggers a chain of unfortunate events, and allows Detective Rivera to blackmail Lanore.

Rivera forces Lanore to investigate his case, the Burning Bush Murders. Someone's been tying girls to bushes and setting them on fire. Lanore must find the killer, or Rivera goes public with his information.

Meanwhile, Dante won't take his defeat without a fight. He counterattacks and the Santeria habitat, as well as Lanore’s and Zulu’s lives, is changed forever. 

Making the Switch!

I've been going back and forth about switching from blogger to WordPress for months now. However, it wasn't until a bunch of blogs that I follow all of a sudden disappeared. There was a huge panic about their accounts being deleted because of breech of contract. Luckily they all got their sites back after they were able to get a hold of someone from blogger to verify that their site wasn't spam and wasn't violating the contract. But I couldn't imagine the panic of one day going to log into my blog to find out that it's been deleted. All the hard work, I put into it just *POOF* gone because some program decided it violated the contract. Well I luckily escaped that fate but I watched it all unfold and it made me start questioning the move again. And I've finally come to the decision to make the move.

I am very grateful to my followers who have been with me from the beginning and have followed through GFC. You've watched me fumble my way through the blogging universe while I got my bearings. Just because I'm leaving blogger (and ultimately GFC) there are still ways you can follow me. I will leave the buttons below.

Also, please bear with me while I make the transition over. I've no idea what I'm doing or what's in store for me. So if my site goes all wonky, don't worry, in due time it will be back to normal... I hope.

Excerpt & Giveaway: Mid-Life Love by Whitney G.

Mid-Life Love
By: Whitney G.
Publisher: Self-published
Published: June 28, 2013
Genre: Romance

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If you'd asked me what love was two years ago, I probably would've said, 'It's this amazing feeling that obsesses and possesses you; it's what me and my husband currently have.' If you ask me that same question today, I'll say, 'Please get the hell out of my face.’

Claire Gracen's life is picture perfect. Her career as a marketing director is on the brink of being legendary, and her marriage to her high school sweetheart has never been stronger. No, wait. It has. It used to be amazing and fulfilling, but one day Claire realizes that she's been living a lie and her best friend and husband have committed the ultimate betrayal.

Broken and depressed, Claire is in need of something new—new city, new job, new friends.

When she happens to attract the interest of the sexiest man she's ever met, a man significantly younger than her, she immediately turns him down—only to later discover that this man is Jonathan Statham, self-made billionaire and CEO of Statham Industries. Her boss.

Jonathan Statham is unlike any man she's met before. He's used to getting whatever he wants—whenever he wants, and he isn't about to take no for an answer. 

“How long have you been working here, Miss Gracen?” He placed subtle emphasis on the word ‘Miss’ and smiled.

“About four years.”

“Hmmm. I can’t believe I’m just now finding you.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you like it?”

There has to be a better word than “sexy” to describe you…

“Do I like what?”

“Your job, this company.”

“You want me to be completely honest?”

“That would be nice.”

“I absolutely hate it here, but the offices are decorated quite nicely. The interior designers did one hell of a job.”

“Good to know.” He laughed. “I take it that since you haven’t called, you’re not interested in going out with me?”

I nodded weakly. “Clearly.”

“May I ask why, Miss Gracen?”

He needs to stop saying my name like that…

“There are several reasons why.”

“Name the best ones.” He stepped in front of me and looked deep into my eyes. “But your age and the fact that you have kids aren’t good enough reasons for me.”

Poker face…Poker face… “Well, as I’m sure you already know, it’s against company policy.”

“I can have that rewritten by the end of the week.”

“It’s also completely immoral and highly inappropriate.”

“That’s…debatable.” He reached out and pushed a strand of hair away from my face. “Is that all?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.

I was too busy getting lost in his incredible eyes. I realized that they weren’t entirely blue; his irises were outlined in a wispy cloud of charcoal gray and there were speckles of emerald green gleaming within them.

“Miss Gracen? Are there any other excuses?” He inched even closer to me, slightly rubbing his nose against mine.

Why am I so turned on right now? I shouldn’t be feeling this way…He’s way too young for me, way too young for me…

“I’m not attracted to you.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Oh really?”

A self diagnosed candy addict, travel junkie, and hypochondriac, Whitney Gracia Williams LOVES to write about characters that make you laugh, cry, and want to (in the case of Selena Ross) reach through your Kindle and slap them.

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Excerpt, Guest Post & Giveaway: Dangerous Proposition by Jessica Lauryn

Dangerous Proposition
By: Jessica Lauryn
Publisher: Siren Publishing
Published: June 25, 2013
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Goodreads

When Julia Dyson learns her father has been abducted, she believes his hidden profession may be to blame. But when she discovers a man’s name in her dad's caller history, a man suspected of shady business activity and also her teenage crush, she decides to take matters into her own hands. She confronts her father's presumed abductor, resulting in an unforgettable kiss.

In the course of one disastrous evening, diamond smuggling kingpin Colin Westwood learns that his best recruit is missing in action, and that the man has been keeping a secret for years—he has a twenty-six-year-old daughter. Determined to protect his identity, Colin vows to find the young woman, and keep her silent at any cost. Later intrigued to learn that she is actually the attractive woman he kissed, he makes Julia an offer. Come to New York City with him to search for her missing father…as his mistress.

Keeping Julia firmly within the groove of his arm, Colin stepped inside the hotel room and flicked on the light switch. After shutting the door, he double-bolted it behind them.

Short of a pale complexion, Julia didn’t appear to be injured. At least, it didn’t look as though she had any bruises. But he knew he wouldn’t feel better until he saw this for himself. Though it was completely unethical, he had half a mind to give her a physical. And if he actually believed he could perform one on her and control himself, he would do just that.

He led a trembling Julia to the bed. Looking into her tearful eyes, he knelt beside her, cupping her cheek. It killed him seeing her like this, killed him even more knowing that he was completely to blame.

Speaking as gently as he could manage, he said, “You’re safe now. It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re safe. I’m right here—no one’s coming after us. No one’s going to hurt you ever again.”

Julia nodded, but she said nothing, causing him to have a horrifying realization. Maybe something had happened between her and Dylan Rossler in that room. She’d been dressed when he found her, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t put her clothes back on afterward, or that Rossler had bothered to remove them at all.

Feeling as though he were on the brink of an explosion, Colin said, “Did that guy—I mean—Dylan Rossler didn’t…you and he didn’t—”

“Of course not! Holy crap, Westwood. What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“One who clearly has a death wish,” Colin muttered under his breath.

“Me?” Julia exclaimed. “I went over there to save your ass. Not the other way around.”

“Which you were obviously doing a phenomenal job with while you were locked inside that bedroom.”

Her chin squared. “You may have been the one to kick the door down, but I would have gotten out of that room with or without your help.”

“If you really believe that, Julia, then you really are naïve. Do you realize what Dylan Rossler would have done if I hadn’t gotten there when I did? Allow me to clue you in, since you’re obviously not aware. Because it’s the same thing every other red-blooded bastard at that party wanted to do to you!”

“You mean”—she bit her lip—“that he—”

“Was planning on having sex with you? Of course, Julia. Of course those guys thought you were sexy, of course Dylan Rossler wanted to have sex with you! I’m not blind. I can see what’s right in front of me. Any man at that party who didn’t want you was either gay or in a drunken coma!”

Her blue eyes narrowed, and Colin bit his tongue. He hadn’t intended to say all that out loud. Hadn’t intended to say any of it, in fact. But he was glad it had happened because he was done holding back.

There was something between him and Julia. A need that ran deep and had been building since that night in his bed. Sometimes it seemed as if it had been longer, particularly at moments such as this when he wanted nothing more than to toss her onto the bed, rip off that damned cocktail dress she was wearing, and sample every last inch of her skin.

He’d wanted to keep his desires to himself, wanted to keep things simple between them. The complications they were risking were great, and God knew he hated the idea that he might be taking advantage of Julia when her father was missing. But right now, he couldn’t seem to think about those things. And after everything they’d been through tonight, he was no longer sure that holding back was going to be possible.

“Does ‘every other red-blooded bastard’ include you?” Julia asked, blinking her blue eyes furiously.

Colin took a staggered breath. Narrowing his gaze, he approached her with two hastened steps. “If you didn’t want me to behave like a red-blooded bastard, Julia,” he whispered, “then, you shouldn’t have worn this dress.”

A great book can do wonders for the soul. It’s there for you when you need a friend, or a distraction. It can serve as an escape, or a fantasy in which to indulge. Books comfort us, and they take us to places and times we’d otherwise never know. There’s only one thing I love more than a great book. That is, a great series.

When I was an adolescent, I loved reading Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High. Twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth served as the perfect contrast to one another. One is introverted, smart, and studious, while the other is the life of the party. At the age of 12, I had no idea why I was so drawn to the duo, other than the obvious fact that I wanted to be living the life of a teenage girl myself. But looking back, I realize the draw actually stemmed from something much deeper than that.

Series writing can take on a life of its own. In a romance series, the author creates her very own world. She starts with a setting: a time, a place in which her characters will exist in. Then, she gets to work building. Hero and heroine’s story is told in book 1. And in book 2, a new couple typically takes center stage. I think the most exciting part of doing this, for me, the author, is figuring out how I will connect the characters from one book to the next. They don’t necessarily need to know one another, but I’ve found it can be a lot more fun when they do. Writing a series is very different from writing a stand-along book because you have a lot more time and space to play around with. You (the reader) get to see how a family, a group of friends, maybe even an entire town affects the lives of the people around them, possibly for years to come.

My debut series, The Pinnacles of Power, was never supposed to be a series. While I was writing what eventually became my second release, Dangerous Proposal, I was creating what I intended to be the one and only book of its kind. I was, as writers do, spending hours inside the characters’ heads, trying to get to know them. Something I wasn’t expecting struck me while I was doing this. That was, there were several characters in the story besides my hero and heroine who had a story to tell. I already had a setting I loved (several settings, actually), and I had characters who had the potential to become couples, lovers, and soul-mates. They were screaming for me to tell their stories, and so I began doing just that. Barely realizing what I was doing, a series was soon born.

Reading book 1 in a series may not feel much different than reading a stand-alone novel. Doing so, you’ll discover a plot, characters, conflict, and, as is the way with romance novels, a happily ever after. The real fun (at least, for me) comes in book 2, when you already know something about the authors’ world. In books 3 and 4, you know even more, and you’re likely to recognize the main characters as well. You may feel as though you sort-of know them as people, and the setting and time have become all-too familiar to you. This is when your imagination can really take over, because you can completely immerse yourself in the author’s fantasy world—the greatest thing a reader can experience!

I love books. But given the choice, I prefer that they be part of a series. The imagination is one of the greatest things in existence. And I find it easier to put that machine to use when there is a world of stories and characters crafted and bound for my reading enjoyment! 

 An author of Contemporary Romantic Suspense, Jessica Lauryn is most intrigued by dark heroes, who have many demons to conquer…but little trouble enticing female companions into their beds! She feels that the best romances are those where the hero is already seducing the heroine from that first point of contact. 

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