#BookTour: Never Broken by Everly Claire @RRBookTours1

Never Broken (The Unchained)

Publication Date: January 15, 2025

Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance in a Dystopian World

Forbidden Love

Dark Dystopian World

Rich Girl/Poor Boy

Enemies to Lovers

Morally Gray MMC

Us Against the World

Captivity

Forced Proximity

Touch Her and 💀

Hurt/Comfort

Spice in Secret

The rules say we can’t touch. The only solution? Burn them all ...

New North America, 2025

Louisa

My family name is an empire. I was destined for a fortune built on the bloodied backs of slaves.

But I’m one failed college course away from losing it all.

The only one who can help me is my father’s newest purchase: the golden-haired slave with eyes too sharp for hard labor, with hands that should be discovering universes, not locked in shackles. The one who just whispered something shocking as he passed me with the wheelbarrow.

The one I know is dangerous.

His words don’t matter. He’s here to clean gutters, not to teach me, not to save me, and definitely not to make me spiral with every stolen glance.

We’re forbidden. He shouldn’t look at me. He’s not allowed to touch me.

And I won’t let him. Not my hand, not my heart, not anything …

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A number. Not a name. That’s all I’ve ever been to them. I’ve been whipped, chained, beaten, and brutalized by everyone who’s ever owned me.

But never broken.

And now I’ve clawed and schemed my way through pain and grief to get to this manicured wasteland, find my sister, and kill those who stole her away. So what if one of them is my new master?

And If I have to use his spoiled brat daughter to do it, fine. I’ve spent my whole life playing their game, but this time, she’ll be a pawn in mine.

Except, okay, Louisa’s not spoiled. She’s brave, she’s learning, and she’s making me want things I’m not allowed to want. Things I won’t allow myself to want.

They stole everything else from me. I’ll never give my heart, too.

But here, just one broken rule can kill you, so we might just have to shatter all of them.

Starting with the ones we made for ourselves.

Never Broken is your first taste of an epic, twisty, us-against-the-world forbidden romance trilogy set in a chilling dystopia a little too much like ours. Although the world and themes are dark and potentially triggering, the romance has a soft side. This book ends with a combined happy-for-now and a cliffhanger that will make you gasp. And with Never Bound and Never Lost, you get a complete arc with a guaranteed happily-ever-after.

#BookReview: The Four by Ellie Keel

"I don’t regret what we did. And I would do it all again."

Each of the four had, for their own reasons, been desperate to come to High Realms. Marta, Rose, Sami, and Lloyd beat out thousands of applicants for spots at one of the most exclusive private schools in the UK, whose alumni can be found at the highest levels of society. As the only scholarship students in the class of 1999, the four form a crucial comradery as they navigate the school’s web of rivalries, honor, loyalty, and revenge.

Because within the maze of red brick buildings, between the stables and the vast old library, a sinister undercurrent of violence is brewing. And when one of the four reveals a devastating secret, each of the friends must wonder what risks they will take to remain at High Realms.

What follows is a hauntingly atmospheric and compulsively page-turning academic noir that explores the secretive world of elite institutions and the complex and often dangerous bonds of friendship.

A dark academia suspense debut perfect for fans of The Secret History and If We Were Villains, The Four follows a group of scholarship students whose dreams become a reality when they are accepted into an exclusive boarding school, but they are soon bound by a dark secret that could save one of them… or destroy them all.

#BookReview: Long Live Evil (Time of Iron #1) by Sarah Rees Brennan

A TALE FOR EVERYONE WHO’S EVER FALLEN FOR THE VILLAIN…

When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favourite fantasy series.

She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.

So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they're doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor's fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.

This adult epic fantasy debut from Sarah Rees Brennan puts the reader in the villain's shoes, for an adventure that is both 'brilliant' (Holly Black) and 'supremely satisfying' (Leigh Bardugo). Expect a rogue's gallery of villains including an axe wielding maid, a shining knight with dark moods, a homicidal bodyguard, and a playboy spymaster with a golden heart and a filthy reputation.

#BookBlitz: Surviving Karma by Mark Nistor @RABTBookTours

The Karma Series, Book 2

 

Literary Fiction, Mystery

Date Published: November 9, 2024

 

Officer Bella Streit's abduction has yet to make headlines. Her captor once again humiliates police by nabbing Captain Stark's protective detail from the precinct parking lot. Her predecessor, the third officer taken, adds to the comedic nature of embarrassing the police. Taken from the scene of an accident, Officer Tauron Sandoval's handling reflects the lengths at which Pin will go to feed his hunger. Now with Bella secured, Pin no longer needing Tauron leaves her to a fast moving hourglass of life. Her minimal sands flow as two other officers succumb.

Pin seeks revenge through torturing those he deems as old police. Detectives Rix and Jain work the case. They find a roadmap offering clues to the serial killer's endgame. The roadmap given to them by informants. However, unknown by the detectives is Pin also has informants feeding him information. Double agent informants play their roles as if trained spies. Both parties question the loyalties while traversing to the ultimate showdown.

Surviving Karma will require finding the common ingredient to their sandwiches of life.

#BookTour: Growing Up Girl Untethered by Caroline S. Fairless @RABTBookTours

Growing Up Girl, Book I

 

Fiction

Date Published: September 10, 2024

 

 

In Growing Up Girl: Book One, a young Bernadette Aller floats through her life - job to job, lover to lover, place to place. She is an untethered spirit trying to find her way in a world that's not been too kind.

Now, as she barrels toward her seventies, she wants to tell her story, not because it's hers alone, but because it's a surprisingly common story. It's a story much of which happens behind doors that display the word unspeakable. Bernadette hires Scully Trippe to ghost write, translating Bernadette's personal experience into the third person, in what might (or might not) be a misguided attempt to extend the story's reach.

The time frame is malleable, with the storytelling moving back and forth through several stages of Bernadette's life.

In this first book of the Growing Up Girl trilogy, BernadetteWorld is populated with Patience, her housekeeper; Maddie, a former lover and now a ghost; and Lucinda, a time traveler who drops in and out.

It's a quirky group.