Book Blitz and Giveaway: The Swan and the Jackal by JA Redmerski

 

By
NYT Bestselling Author J.A. Redmerski

An
Adult Suspense/Crime/Thriller/Romantic
Suspense

Releasing
March 5, 2014

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| Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

KILLING
SARAI (Book, #1) is on sale for .99 cents for a limited time!

Fredrik Gustavsson never considered the possibility of love, or that anyone could ever understand or accept his dark and bloody lifestyle—until he met Seraphina, a
woman as vicious and blood-thirsty as Fredrik himself. They spent two short but
unforgettable years together, full of lust and killing and the darkest kind of
love that two people can share.

And then Seraphina was gone.

It’s been six years since Fredrik’s lover and sadistic partner in crime turned his world upside-down. Seraphina went into hiding and has eluded him ever since. Now, he’s getting closer to finding her, and an innocent woman named Cassia is the key to drawing Seraphina from the shadows. But Cassia—after sustaining injuries from a fire that Seraphina ignited—suffers from amnesia and can’t give Fredrik the information he desperately seeks. Having no other choice, Fredrik has been keeping Cassia locked in his basement as he not only tries to get her to recall her past—because she and Seraphina share it—but also to protect her from Seraphina,
who clearly wants her dead.

But Cassia is a light in the darkness hat Fredrik never believed existed. After a year subjected to her kindness and compassion, he finds himself struggling with his love for Seraphina, and his growing feelings for Cassia—because he knows that to love one, the other must die.

Will light win out over darkness, or will something more powerful than either further destroy an already tortured soul?

(Note: THE SWAN & THE JACKAL
is NOT a New Adult title.)

 Exclusive Release Excerpt

Cassia pushes herself closer when I thought she couldn’t get any closer and urges me
to look at her. Her right hand moves toward my face to console me, but I stop
it, holding it at the wrist and pushing it back down.

“The only one of us who should be talking about our past, is you,” I tell her.

Her doe-like eyes fall under a shroud of disappointment.

But she’s not going to give up so easily.

“You’ve asked so much of me, Fredrik,” she says with such kindness, “but when I ask anything of you, you turn me away. I only want to know this one thing. I don’t care anymore about Seraphina, or the history you have with her. I don’t even care
what I have to do with it.” Her soft hand ends up touching the side of my face anyway, and I’m not sure how she slipped it past my barrier. “All I care about anymore is you, Fredrik.” She peers deeply into my eyes and ensnares my gaze, her face full of heartbreak and longing. “What are your demons trying so hard to kill?”

I push her hand away more forcibly this time.

“Do you remember anything?” I ask, disregarding her question altogether.

“Stop,” she says with more intensity than I expected. “You’re going to give me this. 

Before you leave me alone down here another night, you’re going to tell me.”

The desperation in her eyes bores into me. I look away, only to look right back at her.

“Please…,” she says.

A lump moves down my throat and settles somewhere in my chest. All ten of my fingers spear through the top of my dark, messy hair and I let out a miserable sigh of defeat.

I never talk about my past to anyone. Ever. I try not to think about it, but on some days that is as futile as trying not to breathe. It wasn’t until I met Seraphina eight years ago that I learned to control it, that I became a much different man from the one who hunted shit stains like Dante Furlong, tortured and murdered them every other night, never feeling the satisfaction that I longed to feel with every kill. I was like a
drug addict, always looking for a fix but never really satisfied enough to stop. Never satisfied at all, because I only wanted to do it more and more.

Seraphina helped me control the perpetual urges. She showed me how to release the darkness within me with quieter, cleaner methods so that I didn’t leave a trail of bodies and evidence behind. But the biggest impact that Seraphina had on my life was making me feel like I had one. Because before her, I was just a speck of dust floating around in oblivion. I didn’t know the meaning of happiness, or understand the thrill of pleasure or the hunger for excitement. I was just a shell of a man who knew only darkness and death, who only felt the emotions of anger, and hatred, and rage and vengeance.

But Seraphina, she was my dark angel, who came into my life and showed me that there was so much more to living than I ever understood. Ever since she left me in that field the night she set my house ablaze, I’ve been slowly but surely succumbing to my old life again, and I need to find her before I fall too far.

If I haven’t already.

        

About the Author

Born November 25, 1975, J.A. (Jessica Ann) Redmerski is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas with her three children and a Maltese. She is a lover of television and books that push boundaries and is a huge fan of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

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Review: The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski

Goodreads Summary:

Sometimes life takes you off course . . .

THE EDGE OF NEVER

Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett thought she knew exactly where her life was going. But after a wild night at the hottest club in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, she shocks everyone-including herself-when she decides to leave the only life she's ever known and set out on her own. Grabbing her purse and her cell phone, Camryn boards a Greyhound bus ready to find herself. Instead, she finds Andrew Parrish.

Sexy and exciting, Andrew lives life like there is no tomorrow. He persuades Camryn to do things she never thought she would and shows her how to give in to her deepest, most forbidden desires. Soon he becomes the center of her daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But there is more to Andrew than Camryn realizes. Will his secret push them inseparably together-or destroy them forever?
Due to sexual content and language, this book is recommended for 17+ – Adult Contemporary Women’s – New Adult Fiction

Publication Date: November 15, 2012

This book drove me a little crazy if I’m being completely honest. There were parts I completely loved and then other sections where I had a few WTH moments. The book was intense and emotional and the author certainly kept me guessing about what direction the story was going.

The novel opens with Camryn having a falling out with her best friend. She’s also still reeling from the loss of her first love who died in a car accident. Feeling depressed and lost, she takes off on a bus with no exact destination in mind. Along the way, she meets Andrew, another lost soul of sorts, and they begin a relationship.

The first half of the novel was a little slow as Camryn and Andrew get to know each other on the bus trip. There’s a creepy guy on the bus with them and when Andrew comes to the rescue, they ended up growing closer. I liked Andrew from the get-go and Camryn was for the most part relatable. I enjoyed the dual POVs as well and thought it was sweet to see how natural their feelings developed for one another.

Spoilers Ahead

Although the first half was slow, I still liked it a lot and thought it was on the way to being a 4 or 5 star book for me. However, the second half went in an unexpected direction and I felt like I was reading a completely different novel. It wasn’t bad per se, but I felt like everything that happened was too much. In the second half, the couple falls in love, Andrew loses his father, Camryn discovers Andrew has terminal cancer, Andrew goes into a coma, Andrew survives and Camryn is pregnant.

I don’t mind sex in novels, but the explicit sexual content in this one felt like it came out of nowhere. I thought the whole dominant and submissive angle was also an odd choice.

End of Spoilers

This is a very popular book and highly rated on Goodreads and Amazon. Although some of the book didn’t work for me, I’d still recommend it to readers looking for a romantic new adult novel that features a memorable road trip.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars