Showing posts with label Amanda Bonilla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amanda Bonilla. Show all posts

Friday, May 17, 2013

Three-Some Review: Sexy Shifters Shorts by Amanda Bonilla


Amanda Bonilla can write an amazing Urban Fantasy series with a great world and larger than life heroine. So I was curious when I saw she had written three shorts in the Paranormal Romance genre. And I jumped on them when she asked if I would be interesting in reading them. HELL YA.

All three shorts are connect in a way that a PNR series would be. Bonilla does a fantastic job of weaving the couples' story into one over all plot arc.

Even though each short is about 40 pages long, Bonilla has giving you what amounts to the cliff notes version of what could be three great full length novels.

In the first short, The Sweetest Torture, we meet the first couple, Cait and Logan. The two share a past that has stuck with them for the last 30 years. Both are weres that change into mountain lions. Cait has to go to Logan in order to help her father and pride. She has not forgiven Logan for his cheating on her all those years ago.

Logan hasn't had eyes for another female since Cait. He hasn't gotten over her not believing him when he tried to explain about that night 30 years ago. He has vowed to himself that once he gets Cait back in his life he will make her listen and understand.

Both Cait and Logan are strong and stubborn people. Both believe they are in the right. Both are still in love with the other person. It was fun watching the two come to turns with their past and what could be their future. And DAMN was there some smexy scenes.



The second short, The Sweetest Temptation, features Logan's brother, Andrew and a wood nympho, Erica.

The couple is thrown together by a BIG misunderstanding. Erica thinks that Andrew kidnapped her sister and had either harmed or killed her. Andrew has no clue to who Erica or her sister are.

After Erica uses her nymph magic on the local troopers, she kidnaps Andrew to find out where her sister is and if she is ok.

Things heat up between the two when Erica's nymph sexual nature takes over. They two heat up the pages while trying to piece together the mystery of Erica's missing sister.




The last and third short, The Sweetest Mercy, continues the story of Erica's missing sister, Keria and Carter.

Logan the alpha of the pride from the first short sends Carter to look for Keria and bring her home safely. Logan is a little more prepared for Keria's nymph background than Andrew was. But not by much.

Sure he knows that Keria is most likely in sexual need because of the full moon but he has no idea what kind of need she is going to put him in when they meet.

Carter does is job and then some saving Keria from the bad guy that helps thread the three stories together. Carter and his lion find their mate in the tiny and sexy nymph. But it's not just her sexy body that gets Carter's attention, its the fact that she is a strong female that can be his equal no matter how tiny she is.

I really enjoyed reading these shorts by Amanda Bonilla. All three could have easily been turned into full length novels. But Bonilla get a great job boiling down a long stories and making them very sweet treats for someone that needed a quick fix. If you are looking for some romance in bite size reads you should check out these Sexy Shifter shorts. But trust me you won't stop with one, you'll want to read them all back to back and you'll still have time left in your night to do other things. Maybe grab your sexy male and show him a few things that you read in Bonilla's smexy shorts about hot mountain lion shifters {wiggles brows}.















About the Author

Amanda Bonilla lives in rural Idaho with her husband and two kids. She’s a part-time pet wrangler, a full-time sun worshipper, and only goes out into the cold when coerced. She loves the outdoors, black clothes, pink appliances and thinks junk food should be a recognized food group. In the summer, she can be found sitting by the lake, enjoying the view from her dock.



Monday, February 18, 2013

Review: Shaedes of Gray by Amanda Bonilla



Shaedes of Gray 
(Shaede Assassin #1) 
by Amanda Bonilla 
Mass Market Paperback, 316 pages 
Published by Signet Eclipse


"I'd learned the hard way that love is nothing more than the sharpest blade, and it can easily be turned against you. I refused to let anyone have that kind of power over me ever again."

Darian has lived alone for almost a century in the shadows of the night. Made and abandoned by her former love, Darian is the last of her kind—an immortal Shaede who can slip into darkness as easily as breathing. With no one else to rely on, she has taught herself how to survive, using her unique skills to become a deadly assassin.

Darian finds herself struggling to keep her employer, Tyler, at arm's length, especially since his seductive smile makes her want to break her rules about love. The work he offers is necessary to protect the innocent—and a welcome distraction. But when Darian's next mark turns out to be Xander Peck, King of the Shaede Nation, her whole worldview is thrown into question. Darian begins to wonder if she has taken on more than her conscience will allow, but a good assassin never leaves a job unfinished.


One thing you must keep in mind when reading Shaedes of Gray is... Tyler never disappoints.

And nether does Amanda Bonilla writing skills. It's been a while since I stayed up past my bedtime to read a book. Bonilla has crafted an exciting world with all kinds of paranormal species. One being Shaedes, that can hide in the shadows of night and turn into a floating like mist during the night hours. But they are trapped in their human form during the day while their polar opposites the Lyhtans; can "poof" and be unseen in the daylight ours. But in the case of Shaedes of Gray, the light is not the good side.

So you have a good side and a bad side and a heroine Darian, that has no clue that this supernatural world exists. How can that be when she is a Shaede herself? She was lied to for years by her maker and slowly learns about the other supernatural beings along with her own race.

Darian has been working with Tyler, a human that acts as her middle man with her clients. He sets up the assassin jobs but he's more than just her "boss" that happens to have a crush on her.

Darian is like another of my favorite assassins (Gin Blanco from Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series) she has one rule, she doesn't assassin innocent people.

When Tyler sends Darian on her current assassin job her whole world is turned upside down, both business and personal wise.

If you are looking for a well written Urban Fantasy that delivers a great heroine that can only get better and secondary characters that will only help her come into her bad-assery then you MUST read Shaedes of Gray.

To get a taste, you can read the Chapter 1 at Amanda's website.






Next Books in Series:

  


Similar Heroines:
Gin Blanco - Elemental Assassins series by Jennifer Estep
Merit - Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill
Mac - Fever series by Karen Marie Moning



Wednesday, February 13, 2013

#AADSAV Amanda Bonilla Really Loves GOATS




Before Amanda gets into her love for farm animals.....
Here's a little info on her.





Amanda Bonilla lives in rural Idaho with her husband and two kids. She’s a part-time pet wrangler, a full-time sun worshipper, and only goes out into the cold when coerced. She loves the outdoors, black clothes, pink appliances and thinks junk food should be a recognized food group. In the summer, she can be found sitting by the lake, enjoying the view from her dock.

Facebook  -  Twitter  -  Website  -  Amazon






Goats! (Or the story behind my goats in trees calendar and many questionable farm animal tweets)
If you follow Amanda Carlson and me on Twitter, you may have seen some eyebrow raising tweets like this:


Or conversations like this:


So, you might be wondering just how these conversations got started. I mean, why the obsession with farm animals? And why do I have this calendar hanging on my wall:


Some of you might know that the hubs and I have a mini farm. Cats, dogs, bunnies, chickens, geese, and ducks. Well, last spring we had to buy a new goose because our gander was super lonely after his wifey had an unfortunate accident the previous fall. I’d never raised a lone baby goose before and let me tell you, they’re NEEDY. The only way we could get the poor thing to stop crying was to make a nest for her in a large stock pot and place it between our pillows at night. And even then she’d cry until I put my hand in there so she had something to cuddle up against. During the day, she’d cry until I took her out of her cage and she’d sit next to me while I worked.

So when my friend and fellow UF author Amanda Carlson got word of my newly adopted goose-baby, she demanded that I bring said baby into one of our Skype sessions. Which, of course, I did. What kind of a friend would I be if I denied her such cuteness?!? After “meeting” the new addition to my family, Amanda promptly named the new baby Gilly and the name stuck. Since then, I've made Amanda Carlson the official godmother to all of my farm animals, so she better hope nothing happens to me or her suburban neighborhood is in for a bit of a shock!

It didn't take long for our goose-related conversations to venture off into me contemplating what other farm animals I could acquire. Swans, ponies, dairy cows…Which brings us to the goats. I sort of stumbled across some videos of baby Nigerian Dwarf Goats. And O-M-G. I almost died of the cuteness. When they’re born, they’re about the size of a puppy or a medium-size cat. And when they’re adults, they’re still not much bigger than a medium-sized dog. They climb, jump, make cute little goaty noises, and they’ll even mow your lawn! Okay, so they don’t exactly push a mower around, but goats eat A LOT. They can eat down the grass in your lawn in a day. Plus, they fertilize as they eat! WIN!

How does this relate to the goat calendar, you ask? Well, besides wasting away the hours on Skype, the other activity Amanda Carlson and I engage in is word wars. Epic battles of word count that begin with bragging, shit-talk, and finally, bets. During one battle, we agreed that the loser had to buy the winner a gift from Amazon. I won that particular round, and not only did Amanda Carlson buy me the most excellent GOATS IN TREES calendar, but this bumper sticker:


Okay, so I didn't put it on my car, but I’m thinking I need to post some creative pics with this bumper sticker making a cameo appearance. You know, just to keep things interesting. I can only imagine what I’ll win in our next epic word-war battle!

What sends your cute-meter into the red? Babies dressed as fruit? Cats wearing sweaters? Dogs in capes? 









Crave the Darkness 
(Shaede Assassin #3) 
Publisher: Signet/Eclipse ISBN: 9780451239556

Nothing comes easy for Darian. Her heightened powers make her indispensable to the Shaede Nation, but dangerous missions have driven her lover, Tyler, to his breaking point. Darian must salvage their bond, but a new assignment to protect Anya—a fellow Shaede and the first of their kind to become pregnant in centuries—stands in their way.

It doesn’t help that the two Shaedes are longtime rivals and share nothing besides mutual hatred. But when it becomes clear that someone—or something—is bent on destroying the expectant mother and her unborn child, Darian must put her feelings aside and track down Anya’s would-be assassin.

As she probes into Anya’s past, Darian digs up long-buried secrets—and a connection between Tyler and the mission that could destroy everything between them…

Available at: Amazon | B & N | Book Depository | B-A-M | Chapters | IndieBound | Powells | VRoman’s