About BOLD TRICKS:
The Faster They Live, the Harder They Fall . . .
Raised by con artists, Ellie
Watt has a lot of crazy childhood memories-but none crazier than being
scarred with acid by the demented crime boss Travis Raines. Now Ellie is
a full-grown woman who lives for revenge,
and Travis is a full-blown drug lord who kills for pleasure. The
sadistic bastard has kidnapped her good friend Gus as well as her
mother, whom he's been holding as prized possessions in his heavily
guarded lair. And Ellie has only one chance in hell of getting
them out alive-using two dangerous men who love her to death . . . One
is Camden McQueen, a talented tattoo artist who's made a permanent mark
on Ellie's heart. The other is Javier Bernal, her
fiery ex-lover who's busted more than a few heads in his time. From the
crime-ridden streets of Mexico City to the predatory jungles of
Honduras, this unlikely trio forms an uneasy alliance in the deadliest
game of all-a gun-blazing battle to the finish that
will pit enemy against enemy and lover against lover. And Ellie must
choose the right man to trust . . . or die.
About Karina Halle:
Karina Halle is a former
travel writer and music journalist and the USA Today Bestselling author
of Love, in English, The Artists Trilogy, and other wild and romantic
reads. She lives in a 1920s farmhouse on an island
off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup,
where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot
of books.
Karina’s SM:
Buy links:
Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/1BsL9zC
Books-A-Million: http://bit.
IndieBound: http://bit.ly/
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1z30DuP
For
anyone that has seen Joe vs. the Volcano, you may recognize this, "I
have no response to that." I'm just flabbergasted. I haven't decided
if that's a good thing or not. Regardless, this book demands 5♥'s.
It's dark, and somehow eloquent in the roughest way possible and just
engaging.
The entire book I was flip-flopping on how I felt about Camden and Ellie. I hated Ellie at first. Really hated her. *I still get a little shiver at my level of animosity.* Camden, hell with those tats and that specimen of manhood, I think my imagination ran away at his first page. I have a thing for tattoos, *sigh*. And then he pissed me off, like I wasn't sure he could be redeemed pissed me off. My middle finger was getting quite the workout from all the rude gestures to my kindle. And then the world shifted. *Boom* Suddenly I'm hip deep in their train wreck of events and rooting for them. Characters I hated (at one point at least for each) I was picking up my mental pom-poms and cheering. Strangest damn thing.
I mentioned it's dark, right? Like dark black velvet sky in the desert at night, it too has thousands and millions of sparkling points of light: hope, love, passion, obsession, revenge, regret, justification, acceptance. If you can look past and in between the dark, it has a raw beauty.
It has just plain addled my mind. "I have no response to that." I can't wrap my head around it and even decide if I liked it or not. But I want to read more, oh yes, definitely give me more.
From On Every Street by Dire Straits
"And even victory has a taste that's bittersweet."
Excerpt
BUZZ
I want to take a moment here to talk about just how much buzz this author has been getting. I have read Sins and Needles and the Devils books, and can I just say, I am smitten overall. Next thing is the fact that several (more than one) friends on Goodreads are practically obsessed with one series:
Experiment in Terror
Haven't read these yet, but I am intrigued! If you haven't had the opportunity to read one of Karina's books, I highly recommend picking one up. There is a little bit for everybody, or a book or series to nestle into any reading niche.
The entire book I was flip-flopping on how I felt about Camden and Ellie. I hated Ellie at first. Really hated her. *I still get a little shiver at my level of animosity.* Camden, hell with those tats and that specimen of manhood, I think my imagination ran away at his first page. I have a thing for tattoos, *sigh*. And then he pissed me off, like I wasn't sure he could be redeemed pissed me off. My middle finger was getting quite the workout from all the rude gestures to my kindle. And then the world shifted. *Boom* Suddenly I'm hip deep in their train wreck of events and rooting for them. Characters I hated (at one point at least for each) I was picking up my mental pom-poms and cheering. Strangest damn thing.
I mentioned it's dark, right? Like dark black velvet sky in the desert at night, it too has thousands and millions of sparkling points of light: hope, love, passion, obsession, revenge, regret, justification, acceptance. If you can look past and in between the dark, it has a raw beauty.
It has just plain addled my mind. "I have no response to that." I can't wrap my head around it and even decide if I liked it or not. But I want to read more, oh yes, definitely give me more.
From On Every Street by Dire Straits
"And even victory has a taste that's bittersweet."
Excerpt
The motel room was a lot nicer than the one we stayed at before. Sort of a Best Western, middle-ground quality of place. No roaches on the floors, no geckos on the wall. Shit mattresses, I discovered as I pounded my fist on the bed, but I didn’t care.
Camden had just put the final box on my bed, Violetta sprawled out on hers in a state of drug-induced euphoria, when I noticed Javier lingering at the doorway.
“I’m going to be meeting Dom in about twenty minutes,” Javier said to me. “Is that enough time for you to get ready?”
I frowned and he quickly added, “You know he’ll want you there, if this is going to get anywhere. I figured you might want to shower and look nice.”
He rapped his fingers along the doorframe, his mouth opening as if to say something else, then he turned and walked off.
Camden eyed me. “I’m going with you.”
“You might be kind of drunk, Camden,” I told him, though the determination in his voice warmed me like the finest cognac.
“I’ve never felt better,” he said, enunciating each word. His eyes, my god they were still such a clear fucking blue, even in the pallid light of the hotel room. They bore into me with such startling clarity, sending shivers down my back like trailing fingertips. He would be coming with me.
I wished he’d be coming in me. A vision of us in this hotel room, alone, him nailing me to the bed, the headboard banging, slammed into my head.
“Are you okay with that?” he asked.
I suppressed the thought, the flare of heat between my legs, and smiled quickly. “Yes, of course.”
Meanwhile Violetta’s head flopped to the side, her arm still bound to her stiffly in the sling, and started snoring lightly. I motioned to her. “Do you think it’s safe to leave her here?”
He watched her for a few moments, blinking a few times, before saying, “I think she needs to sleep it off.” He went and sat down on my bed. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
I grabbed my bag of clothes I had brought out of the car and brought it into the bathroom. I had a quick shower, trying to rub off all the grim – both real and imagined – with the flimsy hotel soap, then picked through my clothes. Everything that had been in my trunk was musty and wrinkled, some even dirty. I had a packet of unopened (and decidedly unsexy) Hanes underwear, a bra, another pair of jeans, a pair of gladiator sandals that I thought were dressy enough, a pair of Timberland hiking boots, a plain white tee shirt, a couple of wife-beaters, a coral-colored blouse, a plaid shirt, and a light blue tank dress that went to the ground. I wasn’t exactly known for my fashion sense and even with the cherry blossoms covering the scars on my leg, bringing me beauty that I didn’t have before, I didn’t see myself branching out anytime soon. Dressing up in my old clothes for Javier hadn’t exactly helped either.
I slipped on the tank dress, opting to go commando for the evening, and put on the sandals. I looked at myself in the mirror. Once again, I felt like a different person was staring back at me. This me, this Ellie, was tired and hardened. I rubbed the residue mascara away from under my eyes and applied a new coat. My skin was brown from the sun now and I didn’t need much else.
When I came out of the bathroom, Camden straightened up on the bed. I felt strangely shy in front of him, especially as his eyes trailed up and down the length of me.
“Do I look okay?” I asked him, feeling the need to say something. “I mean, if you can see me, that is.”
He bit his lip and stared, a multitude of emotions flashing through his eyes, too fast for me to pick up on each individual one. I thought I saw lust in there – maybe that’s what I wanted to see.
When he still didn’t say anything, I walked over to the dresser where I had my clutch purse left over from the other night at Travis’s and rifled through it for my lip stuff. His silence at my back was a heavy weight, laden with too many uncertainties between us. It was eating at me, burning through me, rendering me with a lead heart. There were so many things I had to focus on, to worry about, fucking impossible things, and yet I needed him to tell me I looked beautiful. I needed him to tell me I was something to him.
I heard him get off the bed and walk toward me, that heaviness, that warmth that he brought with his bones, teased at my back. He stopped, close enough to touch me, and I was about to turn around, perhaps to do something foolish, when he crouched down.
“How is my art?”
His hands found my leg, one of them lifting the hem of my dress, the other slowly moving over the cherry blossom tattoo. I sucked in my breath, holding completely still, trying to contain my nerves that were firing wildly as his fingers ran along the ridges of the ink. He touched me gently over every vine, leaf and petal, until I had to supress a shaky moan that that tried to escape from my lips.
“It feels fine,” I said softly when I found my voice.
“It looks beautiful,” he said.
“I had a beautiful artist,” I told him. I turned at the waist and look down at him, my blue dress glowing in his tanned hand, his other one placed firmly around my calf, his strong fingers imparting heat that sunk deep. He was looking up at me, lips parted slightly.
I couldn’t take a second more of this.
I turned and dropped to the ground, my knees rubbing against his.
I grabbed his face, his rough stubble pressing into my palms, and kissed him.
Hard.
There was surprise for a second, a hesitation, a pulse that refused to beat on. Then Camden kissed me back, his soft lips enveloping mine, his mouth opening to give me life. He put his hand behind my head, holding it there with power and control.
My heart was an elevator car, the cable suddenly snapped, and I was freefalling and falling and falling as his lips and tongue and hot, wet mouth took away every inch of my resolve. The more he kissed me, the deeper and longer we found each other, the thirstier I got for him. I felt like if we stopped, I would die, empty on the inside and forever longing.
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