Lauren Dawes : April 2015

Book Spotlight: "Ruby Rising" by Leah Cook

A coming of age debut novel where nobody is who they seem and everyone has an ulterior motive.

When Ruby De Grey moves to small town Primfield with her parents she had no idea what lay in store for her.

At first things seem good, she's made friends with a group who seem to be the popular kids, she has a new boyfriend and her relationship with her parents is back on track. But when weird things start to happen, like her window randomly exploding when she gets upset, Ruby needs to focus on who her friends are and who her enemies are.

For sometimes, they are one and the same.

Mikayla befriends her before the school year even starts and, despite her seemingly popular status, Ruby can't help but notice that she is on the odd side of weird. With her pure raven hair and emerald eyes Ruby at first ignores her instincts to run the other way and allows herself to be pulled under Mikayla's wing.

When Ruby discovers her mother's elemental ability she suddenly doesn't feel like she's that different. Maybe she has the same powers but just has realised yet.

Ruby quickly learns to pick her battles, for as fast as she's gaining her abilities, she gaining enemies twice as quick.
In the age old battle of good versus evil, will Ruby live long enough to become what destiny has in store?

Genre: Paranormal

Length: 215 pages

Where can I get my copy?

Smashwords | Amazon

About the author

I've been writing on and off for most of my life. As a child, like reading, writing allowed me to escape the realities of life, and as I've grown this is also been helpful!
I have a lot of unpublished stories and even more ideas in my 'writing journal' that I probably wont ever have time to get around to actually writing.

I living with my husband, my three amazing boys (Charlie (7), Alex (4) and Jaxon (3)) on 20 acres just outside of Kyneton, Victoria, Australia. We share with our two dogs, Bailee and Sarge, our cat, Azriel, Billy the goat, and a handful of chickens.

I work as an office administration assistant at an abattoirs, where my husband works as a supervisor. I don't touch the meat, just the paperwork.

I also have a charity, Woman Against Child Abuse Inc., which you can find on Facebook, please visit and see what we are all about.

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Book Spotlight: "Of Love and Secrets" by Margaret Lynette Sharp

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Book Review: "The Ultimate Killer" by Kimberley Clark

Brought back to life, Kira awoke to a world where she no longer belonged. She was one of them now…a mythlend, the scourge that she’d lived her entire life hunting. What was worse, she had become the species that she and a number of other mythlends had tried desperately to stop from being awoken…the Hunrati.

But they had failed.

By the time Kira had opened her eyes, the Hunrati were already living up to their reputation, torturing, massacring, burning cities to the ground like all indestructible killing machines do when they see themselves as gods; any resistance to their actions were therefore deemed futile within days of their first appearance.

Kira wanted to stop them, but she had become their prisoner when she attacked their Queen out of rage for what they had done, and as such, she was rendered incapable of using any of her abilities.

Trapped, alone, and not knowing what had happened to those she cared about, her only way out was to earn their trust. That meant getting close to the volatile and extremely attractive Pheres, and doing everything he instructed, regardless of how depraved it was.

But how close was she willing to allow such a dangerous creature when he wasn’t the man she loved?
Better yet…how far was she willing to go before she lost her humanity completely?

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Length: 472 pages

I finished reading Clark’s second installment in the Battles in the Dark series a few weeks ago, but needed a few more weeks to digest and reflect on it. I’ll just start by saying that you must, must, must read her first book The Species Within because The Ultimate Killer starts up just where the first book finishes. To read my review of book one, click here.

The Ultimate Killer follows the continued story of Kira after her widely-believed death. <Spoiler Alert> She sacrificed herself at the end of The Species Within, only to find that she’s awakened as one of the monsters she and the other vampire clans had been trying to stop. This book follows the direct aftermath of the Hunrati’s release into the human and mythlend world.

Kira is one of the protagonists in The Ultimate Killer. In the first book, I was really invested in the relationship she had with Emmerich—a vampire—and Kuron—an essence-eating creature called a Mooran; however, with this book, I found myself rooting for the “bad guy”. I really liked Pheres, the Hunrati who has been charged with looking after Kira and guiding her in all the ways of the Hunrati. I found myself wanting to get back to him and Kira whenever the plot deviated from their storyline.

Clark has a very natural ability to write fight scenes, which (as many authors would know) is a really difficult task. It takes choreography and skill, and the ability to ‘see’ the fight play out in your head then transfer the images to the paper is a real art form. My favourite battle scenes of the book occurred near the end where many of the mythlends (mythical creatures) were forced to battle one another.

In my opinion, The Ultimate Killer walks a fine line between urban fantasy and high fantasy. Primarily an urban fantasy novel (set in a modern city, all the characters are supernatural in nature) there are a lot of the finer details Clark that has written in where you can see how she has been influence by works of high fantasy. If I had to guess, I’d say Tolkien and George R. R. Martin were and still are sources of inspiration for her.

There was only one thing that didn’t really work for me with this book—and was true with book one too–and that had to do with the amount of terminology Clark uses. Thankfully she has listened to the fans and provided a glossary at the front of the book, but I’d still recommend you have a notepad handy while you’re reading (especially on a Kindle).

All in all, The Ultimate Killer is a great read. It leads into the third book well, although I believe we have to wait a little longer until that will be available to purchase. If you love loads of different mythical creatures—some well-known and other which are more obscure—and getting immersed in different worlds, then you don’t want to miss this series. It’s gritty. It’s sexy. It’s a good read and a great series to get in to.

Book 1: The Species Within

Kira, a huntress plagued by dreams of fire and pain has worked tirelessly to rid her city of the scourge that has nearly destroyed it…nostvores, mythlend creatures with dark and vast appetites for blood and sex. She does this not only because they had killed so many people in her life, but also because she has an edge that no other human had…she has their abilities. The problem was, these abilities were killing her and she feared time was no longer on her side.

So the moment she found out that Darius, a nostvore leader was threatening to awaken an indestructible species to help him enslave all humans and mythlends, and that she may be the key to his plan, she knew her only choice was to risk her life with the little time that she had left and join her enemy to find out why, and to make sure his plan failed.

If that wasn’t dangerous enough, the more time she spends with the Vanatre nostvore Emmerich, and the mooran Kuron, who she brings with her for protection, the less she wants to kill them. Instead, she feels an unexplainable attraction towards them both, and she fears surrendering to such desire with either is a deadly game to play, for she would not only be risking her life, but quite possibly her heart.

Kimberley lives by the idea that everyone should have a bucket list of things they want to accomplish in life, but not only to have a list, but attempt to mark off as many items as possible.

One goal that was high on hers was writing a novel and having it published. This idea of writing a novel wasn't new to her, but an inevitability, as her love of reading books and watching movies inspired her to create her own stories.

When the day came that she finally did start to write, she realized that this was going to be something that she wanted to do more than once, emphasized by the fact that her first novel was to be book 1 of a trilogy, and that there are many more stories waiting inside her head ready to be created.

Her hope is that not only for people to enjoy hers books, but that people are inspired by them as others have inspired her.
Kimberley was born in Sydney, Australia, and currently resides in the Gold Coast hinterland.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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Guest Post: A. Finlay talking about "Blinding Darkness"

Someone once told me that the characters in your dreams are all a projection of you. The same is true in writing. For anyone who has read my books, I’ll understand if you’re a little concerned. One of my favourite characters to write is my bad guy. Lucifer. I hear ya, he’s been written to death, snort, eye roll, groan all of that, but as my last post states, I’m basing characters and storylines on research that I’ve done, so making up all my characters wouldn’t really work.

In saying that, I’m not one for the typical evil guy. Luci isn’t going to fly at you, arms outstretched and murder you in some brutal manner. He’s going to wait until you’re not home, sneak into your house and eat all of your cheese. Because you love cheese and it will confuse you.

The worst type of baddies are those who aren’t openly evil. They butter you up, wear you down and then make you think you’re losing your marbles. But they’ve commandeered your marbles. They’re stroking them softly and then flicking them off the overpass. This is why Lucifer is fun to write.

So if my meanies have sass, what about my mainies?

This is where it became a little more difficult. I think when one writes material that contains religious content, there’s an expectation for the protagonists to be one dimensional good guys. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure those types of people exist, but they’re sitting in an immaculate room, sipping herbal tea and watching Little House on the Prairie. Not fighting demons.

This might be the reason my first book was rejected from a few (not all) Christian bookstores. I’ll never forget the time one of my review copies was returned to me by a little old lady who ran small Christian bookstore. She was sweet as sugar and said she read the whole thing but it just wasn’t something she was willing to stock. When I sat in my car and inspected the book, I saw that it was tattered and covered in candle wax. Candle wax! What on earth could have gone on while she ploughed through the pages? Bless her wooly moccasons, I think I may have traumatised the poor woman.

My point was to highlight that my characters aren’t perfect, but now all I can think about is little old ladies throwing cups of tea at baddies. It could work. I really shouldn’t rule it out.

Binding Darkness, the second book in the Shadows of Light series, follows on from the first. Aaliya has mastered many of her angel abilities, her life is a straight path of friendship and fun, but she’s complacent.

It’s the story after the happy ending where the true depths of the characters are revealed. Just because she was born into a life, does not make her worthy of it. Like seeping darkness that closes in on the day, Aaliya’s world changes before her. She is under attack, but it’s not her life that he wants. The most dangerous battle she will fight is that of her mind.

Did you like how I told you about the book without actually telling you anything about the book? I can’t spoil the first in the series by blurting out everything about the second.

So it’s back to writing for me, I’ve only a few chapters until I’ve finished “Afterglow”. I’m so excited I’m about to lose the plot entirely (I really need my plot) and I’m sure you’re anxious to get back to your cheese. You might want to check it’s still in your fridge. (gasp).

As Aaliya and her friends are thrown into the public eye, her world falls apart;  Arael is called to duty, Daniel leaves with no explanation and Sophia is strangely calm about it. 

A new friend named Sariah enters her life, but is violently taken from her.  As Aaliya searches for Sariah, the world grows darker; bats swarm the skies, crows appear in odd places and shadow-like spirits lurk in broad daylight. 

Aaliya is vulnerable, alone and doesn't trust the most important people in her life. To overcome the darkness, Aaliya must first fight her most dangerous battle.  

The battle of her mind.

Where can I get my copy?

Amazon