Shattered Bonds by Faith Hunter (Spotlight, excerpt, review, and GIVEAWAY) LTP

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Happy Halloween!

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 Shattered Bonds

by

Faith Hunter

BLURB

Jane Yellowrock must dig deep and find strength within herself if she is to survive in the latest novel in this New York Times bestselling series.

Jane Yellowrock is vampire-killer-for-hire, but her last battle with an ancient arcane enemy has brought her low. She seeks retreat in the Appalachian Mountains to grieve the loss of her friends, and to heal—or to die—from the disease brought on by her magic.

But malevolent elements in the paranormal community still seek to destroy Jane, and a terrifying foe stalks her, even into the safety of the hills. With nowhere to run and her body failing, the rogue-vampire hunter and her inner Beast must discover a way to defeat this new threat, and find a form that gives her a chance to fight another day.

Mass Market Paperback

400 pages

$7.99

Published by Ace, Oct. 29, 2019

ISBN 9780399587986

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SHATTERED BONDS 
by Faith Hunter
copyright Faith Hunter


Excerpt Eleven

Beast and I sat beside his chair and wrapped her long tail around our feet. The tail was warm with strong blood flow, thick, deeply furred, heavy, and cozy on our paws.

Alex leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. That made us eye-to-eye level, and brought his scent strongly to our nose. He smelled of testosterone and garlic and coffee and after-shave and worry. Beast butted his hands, which were laced and hanging between his knees in a posture that was very Eli-like. Alex’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile and he scratched Beast behind her ears. “I’ve been in facetime conversation with Grégoire. Things have been happening fast in France, and there’re things Grégoire hasn’t told us, not wanting to worry you.”

Beast snarled. So did I. Blondie knew I was sick. Blondie had been keeping secrets.

“Ed,” Alex said gently, scratching, smoothing our lips back over our teeth. He looked into our eyes as if he was about to break my heart, “was stolen from his lair in France at midday, five days ago.”

My heart stuttered.

Ed? Beast asked.

Eli’s lips twitched. On another man it would have been a scowl like thunderclouds. “We weren’t notified,” Eli said. “Why?”

“There was a fight,” Alex said, even more gently, “in a farmhouse in the wine country of France. Four of Ed’s people were killed. The house where they were laired burned to the ground.”

“Ed?” our lips moved but no sound came out. Our eyes burned. But Alex didn’t appear to be grieved or as if he was about to tell me—

“His surviving people thought Ed had burrowed under the hearth, into a small safe-room lair, with three others. His vamps had been sharing blood and so they knew he was alive, but that was all they knew until they got the safe-room excavated.” Alex sounded so grown up. So adult. So much like Eli in his delivery, but with his own touch, that gentleness I would never have expected when I first met him. His fingers scratched deep and Beast closed our eyes in bliss. “Because of the heat of the fire and the presence of the local law,” he said, “that rescue took place only a few hours past. Ed wasn’t in the safe room. Grégoire now assumes that Ed was taken by the attackers the day of the assault.”

Ed in cage? Beast thought, opening our eyes.

“Once his people started looking, they discovered that Pellissier Clan’s Bombardier Learjet 85 flew out of Paris four days ago with Ed and four other vampires aboard—none of them Ed’s. The aircraft landed in the Bahamas and Ed’s passport was marked. Then he disappeared. They were getting ready to inform us when I called them first.”

Beast hissed deep inside me.

Purchase links

Amazon 

Barnes & Noble

The Book Depository

Indiebound

Audible

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Faith's books:


Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series is a dark urban fantasy. Jane is a full blooded Cherokee skinwalker and hunter of rogue-vampires in a world of weres, witches, vampires, and other supernats.

Her Rogue Mage novels—Bloodring, Seraphs, Host, and the RPG Rogue Mage—feature Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage in a post-apocalyptic alternate reality.

The Soulwood series is a dark-urban fantasy / paranormal police procedural /para-thriller series featuring Nell Nicholson Ingram, an earth magic user and Special gent of PsyLED.


Author Bio and links:

Faith writes full-time, tries to keep house, and is a workaholic. She gave up cooking for lent one year and the oven hasn’t been turned on since. Okay – that’s a joke. She does still make cold cereal and sandwiches. Occasionally, she remembers to turn on Roomba (that she named Duma$$ because it fell down the stairs once.)

Faith researches in great detail, and tries most everything her characters do. Research led to her life’s passions – jewelry making, orchids, bones, travel, white-water kayaking, and writing.

Jewelry-making was the occupation of two of her characters: Thorn St. Croix, the Rogue Mage, and the main character of BloodStone, written by her pen name, Gwen Hunter. She fell in love with the art form. Faith makes, wears, and sometimes gives away her jewelry as promo items to fans and as prizes in contests. See her FaceBook Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/official.faith.hunter for pics. She works with stones, pearls, crystal, and glass, wire wrapping larger, undrilled, focal stones. Labradorite, Amazonite, apatite, aquamarine, and prehnite are her favorite stones.


Faith loves orchids. Her favorite time of year is when several are blooming. Pictures can be seen at her FaceBook page. And yes, she collects bones and skulls. Many of her orchid pics are juxtaposed with bones and skulls —a fox, cat, dog, cow skull, goat, and deer skull, (that is, unfortunately, falling apart) and the jawbone of an ass. She just received a boar skull, and the skull of a mountain lion (legally purchased from a US tannery) killed in the wild.

She and her husband RV, traveling to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

And that leads Faith to kayaking – her very favorite sport. Faith discovered whitewater paddling when she was researching her (Gwen Hunter) mystery book, Rapid Descent. She took a lesson and—after a bout of panic attacks from fear of drowning—discovered she loved the sport.

Faith is one of the founders and a participant at the now defunct and archived www.MagicalWords.net, an online writing forum geared to helping writers. And she is a voracious reader.

Under other pen names, notably, Gwen Hunter, she writes action adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Gwen, she is a winner of the WH Smith Literary Award for Fresh Talent in 1995 in the UK, and won a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award in 2008. As Faith, her books have been on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists, been nominated for various awards and won an Audie Award with Khristine Hvam. Under all her pen names, she has more than 40 books, anthologies, and complications in print in 30 countries.


For more, including a list of her books, see www.faithhunter.net, www.gwenhunter.com, and www.magicalwords.net. To keep up with her daily, join her fan pages at Facebook


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GIVEAWAY





a Rafflecopter giveaway



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My review:

4.75 out of 5 stars

Shattered Bonds by Faith Hunter is part of the ‘Jane Yellowrock’ paranormal/urban fantasy series. Jane is still dealing with life-threatening complications, but her multiple roles require direct intervention, especially when her enemies strike close to home. She and Beast will have to discern whether some of her allies are friends or foes, and any mistakes may be deadly.

I enjoy books that feature kick-butt heroines, and this series definitely showcases its unique heroine who is not only a take-charge and opinionated female, but whose dual nature adds an entertaining perspective. I think it would be difficult for those who are not familiar with the series to appreciate all of the nuances, particularly given the number of different types of entities who have cameos or pivotal roles, but even if one doesn’t understand the alliances and maneuverings or the events that have led up to the situations Jane is dealing with, I suspect that newbies to the series will be impressed by the depth and vividness of the world-building and the intense connections between Jane and those around her.

There are wonderfully dramatic scenes, fascinating characters, gory fights, and beautiful demonstrations of the loving connections Jane has developed despite herself. Just when emotions seem in danger of overwhelming the reader, Beast provides a pithy comment or observation and lightens things a bit. I am in awe that many of the characters continue to evolve and deepen the reader’s connection to them and I admit to rereading the beautiful ending several times, sorry to see the story end.

The books in this series are enthralling and I always find myself racing through, desperate to discover how things turn out, and then I go back and revisit sections to better appreciate the nuances. This story was no exception, and I’ve read through multiple scenes over and over, especially those that contrast the savage side of this feisty heroine and her loving attachment to the youngsters she’s determined to keep safe, no matter what the cost. Above all, this book highlights faithfulness and faith, and I finished with a delighted, “aww,” even though I immediately wanted to have more of Jane’s adventures. Fans of the series will have fun with this addition; those new to the delights in store will undoubtedly want to start at the beginning (Skinwalker). Enjoy!

A copy of this title was provided to me for review