Genre: Paranormal Romance
Heat level: mild
Publisher: StoryFront
Date of Publication: December 18, 2013
ASIN: B00GMTVZYI
Number of pages: 50
Word Count: approx. 15,000
Book
Description:
When Faith Garrity’s twin
sister died, she lost a part of herself. Unable to move past the pain, the
once-driven ornithologist is at risk of losing her career as well. To save her
job, she heads to the oil-ravaged wetlands of Louisiana. There, in the bayou
community of Chenoire, she encounters the handsome but guarded Zackary Préjean,
still suffering from a great loss of his own.
She’s drawn to Zack, but
soon finds that the Préjean family isn’t what it seems… They have dangerous
secrets—and deadly enemies. Caught up in a feud that threatens the area’s
uneasy truce, Faith and Zack must learn to trust each other. Survival will
require enormous sacrifice, but it just might also give them both a way to move
on.
Available
for purchase at Amazon
Excerpt:
Zack Préjean wiped the blood
from his skinning knife onto the faded blue bottom of the apron he wore,
scanning the bayou that backed up to his papa’s back porch. Something had drawn
his attention, but he couldn’t figure out what.
He’d been working on the
small gator for half an hour, figuring to take off enough fresh meat for dinner
and prep the rest to deal with later—it was too small for the skin to be worth
much. The calls and caws of the birds and cackles of swamp hens soothed him,
and God knew he needed soothing. Spending the whole month of gator season at
Chenoire wasn’t what he wanted to be doing. But Papa had asked him outright for
help, and he had to honor that.
Finally, he figured out what
had caught his attention; the bayou was too quiet. He wedged the knife through
his apron ties, covered the gator with a towel, and closed his eyes to focus on
what he could hear. Footsteps coming from the path leading down to the
house—heavy ones, stirring up a whiff of anger.
Zack tripped on his way
through the kitchen, catching his toe on the edge of a chair because he’d been
staring out the front window instead of watching where he was going. All this
family time must be getting to him, because for a moment he swore he’d seen not
a man on the path that angled toward the small circle of houses where the
Préjeans had lived for generations.
No, he thought he’d seen an
angel.
Except angels didn’t stomp
their feet, curse like sailors, and swat at bugs, which is what this one
appeared to be doing. What the hell was a woman doing on foot way out here at
dusk?
Crossing his arms over his
chest, Zack leaned against the frame of the front door, silent and still,
waiting to see what trouble she brought. She looked like a city woman, and city
women always brought trouble.
He couldn’t keep the grin
off his face. Whatever else she was, his citified swamp angel was pissed off and
dirty as sin. Bits of mud flaked off what might be a long, lean pair of legs
underneath the grime that covered her from her shoes to the bottom of her khaki
shorts—or maybe they were mud-covered black shorts. Hard to tell. Her hands
flew around her head, batting at what Zack knew were probably the armies of
tiny no-see-ums that swarmed near the small stand of trees this time of day.
Occasionally, she swatted at her own head, giving her short blond hair a
disheveled look he’d mistaken for a halo.
“Damned gnats. I’m gonna—”
The angel finally spotted him and stopped in her tracks, dark-blue eyes growing
wider as her gaze dropped from Zack’s face to the vicinity of the knife.
He cleared his throat and stifled the laugh
that threatened to escape. “You lost, Angel?”
Review by
Melissa Snark:
CHENOIRE is a contemporary paranormal romance set in the Louisiana wetlands. The author does a wonderful job of capturing the setting. Both speech and surroundings felt authentic and were well described. Although, I did find the writing style to be passive in places, the story is loaded with atmosphere.
Characterization was vivid and interesting. The heroine, Hope, is great with her "twenty-mule stare" and her never-say-die attitude. The hero, Zack, is the quiet, sexy sort. I loved the sections in his point of view, especially his description of the heroine as a "citified angel".
The plot is fairly simple and straight forward. When Hope finds herself stranded in the swamp, Zack comes to her aid and agrees to act as her guide. Along the way, he saves her from a swamp critter and reveals a spectacular secret about himself in the process. Of course, there are consequences to be dealt with but everything gets wrapped up in neat package pretty quickly.
The romance between the hero and heroine is sweet but not very well developed. I wanted more in depth characterization and to experience a more thorough exploration of their attraction.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Characterization was vivid and interesting. The heroine, Hope, is great with her "twenty-mule stare" and her never-say-die attitude. The hero, Zack, is the quiet, sexy sort. I loved the sections in his point of view, especially his description of the heroine as a "citified angel".
The plot is fairly simple and straight forward. When Hope finds herself stranded in the swamp, Zack comes to her aid and agrees to act as her guide. Along the way, he saves her from a swamp critter and reveals a spectacular secret about himself in the process. Of course, there are consequences to be dealt with but everything gets wrapped up in neat package pretty quickly.
The romance between the hero and heroine is sweet but not very well developed. I wanted more in depth characterization and to experience a more thorough exploration of their attraction.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
About the
Author:
Susannah Sandlin writes paranormal romance and
romantic thrillers from Auburn, Alabama, on top of a career in educational
publishing that has thus far spanned five states and six universities—including
both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual. She grew up in Winfield,
Alabama, but was also a longtime resident of New Orleans, so she has a highly
refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi
Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick. She’s the author of the
award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, a spinoff novel, Storm
Force, and a new romantic thriller beginning this month with Lovely, Dark, and
Deep. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, she also is the author of the Sentinels of
New Orleans urban fantasy series.
Connect with Susannah:
Tour giveaway
details
1 $25 Amazon gift card
2 $10 Amazon gift cards
2 Author swag packs- open to US Shipping
(books, swag)
Hi Susannah,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Snarkology! Thank you for sharing your story with my readers.