Of Blood and Bone Tour

Thank you for visiting my stop on the Of Blood and Bone Tour hosted by Kismet Book Touring. Please check out my review as well as an excerpt from the novel. Also, a Thank You to Courtney Cole for providing the eARC for review.

Of Blood and Bone
The Minaldi Legacy, #1
by Courtney Cole
Published: September 16, 2012
Published by Lakehouse Press
Format Reviewed: eBook (eARC from book tour)

Synopsis:
Luca Minaldi is powerful, rich and mesmerizing. But he is also a reclusive enigma. He lives in Malta, a fairytale-like place filled with sunshine and sea, beauty and secrets. And Luca’s darkest of secrets is the best kept of them all.

Eva Talbot is spending the summer in Malta to finish up her doctoral dissertation. When she meets Luca, a mysterious and handsome shipping magnate, there is an instant attraction. He has a disturbing and beautiful energy that she has never felt before. But she senses the darkness that lives within him.

Eva is hired to care for his mother, a woman who suffers from dementia, but it is Luca who Eva will eventually risk everything to save. She desperately wants to reach inside of him and fix what is broken, while at the same time, she knows that she is falling for him. Her life becomes a swirling chaos of darkness and romance, of secrets and mystery. And the question that emerges will become the most important answer of all.

Can she save Luca from the darkness that plagues him without losing herself?

The answer is a matter of life or death.

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My Thoughts:

While spending the summer on the Island of Malta working to complete her dissertation in psychology, she meets Luca Minaldi. Actually, he happened upon her while she was screaming from an encounter with Malta's resident giant spiders (Ewww!). Her initial impression of Luca was that he is gorgeous, but that he was different - he radiates dark energy like an electrical storm. And one minute he is rational and then the next he is ruthless. She can't quite figure him out which is odd because that is what she does; she reads people based upon first impressions. But Luca is an enigma and Eva decides that she must get to know him. 

Eva spent some of her childhood years in Malta with her father and loves the people, the beauty of the island, and knows that this will be the perfect place to work on her doctoral work. Little did she know just how much she would learn. Luca's mother is a recluse and has been since her husband passed five years earlier. She has fits, hallucinations, and believes that her son is evil. Luca hires Eva to help his mother, even though she is not licenced to practice in Malta. However, once Eva starts working with Luca's mother, she finds out that there is more to Luca's wealthy family that meets the eye. They are cursed. But not all of them, just certain men, but Luca is, like his father and grandfather before him. Eva thinks that the idea is just the ranting of an old, paranoid woman. But after one night of rough sex that Luca can't remember Eva knows something isn't right. And more than that, Eva is falling for Luca and she wants to help. Most importantly she wants to find a rational, scientific reason for what is happening. 

Eva is Light to Luca's Darkness. When she is around his darkness dissipates. I love that she is a stubborn, independent woman and isn't easily swayed by anything. She is able to see people for what they are, a talent she learned while studying people's minds, and uses her intelligence to her advantage and doesn't play it down. Luca is dark and brooding and knows that he isn't normal and that he has blood on his hands. But he doesn't know why, only that he is cursed, but he doesn't know why or how it works. Adrian, Luca's friend and employee, is one of the only people to know of the curse outside the family. His family has worked for the Minaldis for years helping each generation's cursed one. 

Of Blood and Bone is Courtney Cole's debut adult novel. I haven't read any of her young adult novels yet, but this is decidedly different from anything that would be considered YA. The language is more mature as are the dark and sensual sex scenes which makes this an adult novel. The plot flows beautifully and each character you are introduced to, no matter how inconsequential, you feel a connection. I really liked that there wasn't too many flowery descriptions. Everything is very blunt and when something is expanded upon, it is because of the dark psychological workings of the mind. There are many difficult issues discussed in this book and may be hard for some to read.

When I first agreed to review this book, I had thought that it was going to be a Paranormal Romance, but I was wrong. It is more Psychological Thriller mixed with a taste of Gothic Mystery. I loved everything about this book. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down. I never would have guessed the ending, even though I tried! I can't wait to read the next installment in the series. Courtney Cole has written a dark tale of suspense and mystery that is bizarre yet enthralling. The way she brings the feeling of an old Gothic style romance and horror together is extraordinary. I recommend this novel to anyone who likes creepy, suspenseful mysteries. Definitely a perfect book for October!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Favorite Passage:

"We find her perched like a bird on a window sill, staring out over the estate. Her white filmy dressing gown hangs over the ledge and I can see from here that there is a beautiful view of the sea and moon form where she is sitting. But she isn't enjoying it. Her face, which is normally lovely I am sure, is twisted at the moment into something unrecognizable as a human. I can't help but suck in my breath at the eeriness of this situation."

FTC Advisory: I was given a copy of this book from the author for an honest review as part of a blog tour. No backroom deals or whispered promises were made.

Excerpt:

“Evangeline,” he says softly, his dark eyes glued to mine. “I’m so sorry about the other night.  I wish I could remember.  I wish I could take it back.”
“I don’t,” I tell him honestly.  “I really don’t.”
He gazes out the window for a scant moment more, seemingly deep in thought, before he crosses the room to me.  He kneels in front of me and looks into my eyes.  In this moment, he is as vulnerable as I’ve ever seen him, as I’ve ever seen anyone. He’s completely open to me, hiding nothing.
I want so desperately to kiss him.
“I can’t,” I tell his dark eyes, praying that I don’t fall into them.  “I want to kiss you right now.  But I can’t. You’re my patient.  There are ethics…”
Luca shakes his head, his hands on my knees and his gaze upon mine.  “You aren’t my doctor, Evangeline.  You’re my friend.  I’m simply talking to a friend who wants to help me tonight.  You’re not licensed to practice medicine in Malta, remember?  So where does that leave your ethics?”
He smiles wolfishly and waits without moving.  He’s offering himself to me.  I know that.  And it is against his better judgment. He has told me that, as well.  Yet here he is, on his knees in front of me.
I suck in a breath and inhale the air that is so charged with everything that Luca is.
Whatever that is.
It is dangerous on many levels.  I know that.
I reach out unsure fingers and trace the top of his shoulders, moving over the contours.  They are so broad, yet so slender at once.  He’s perfectly built.  Strong, lithe and powerful.  I drop my head.  I know that I don’t want to resist him anymore.  For the first time in my life, I’m going to do something that my heart wants to do, not what my head tells me to do.
I grip him tighter with my fingers and pull him to me.  He folds in between my knees, pressing me to his chest.  I can hear his heart thumping rhythmically against mine as my fingers linger on his warm back.
He dips his head and presses his forehead to mine, staring into my eyes.  His are a smoldering and stormy black.
“I’m afraid to get close to you,” he tells me.  “I’m afraid for you.”
“I’m not,” I whisper.  “I’m not afraid of you.  Kiss me, Luca.”
Even I can hear the thick desire in my voice and Luca hears it too.
He groans and covers my mouth with his own, muffling the sound with my lips.  He is pressed so close that he seems to absorb me.  Every plane of his body is against every plane of mine.  I don’t know where he stops and where I start, but it doesn’t matter.  All that matters is him and me and this.

About the Author:

Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could.

She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. Every Last Kiss is her debut novel and she followed it with the rest of The Bloodstone Saga (Every Last Kiss, Fated, With My Last Breath and My Tattered Bonds).Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.

Courtney Cole's website | twitter | facebook | facebook fan page

Of Blood and Bone Release Week!

Of Blood and Bone
(The Minaldi Legacy, #1)
As a little boy, Luca Minaldi was told he was a monster.As an adult, he knows it is true.He lives in Malta, a fairytale-like place filled with sunshine and sea, beauty and secrets. And Luca’s darkest of secrets is the best kept of them all.Eva Talbot arrives in Malta for the summer to finish up her doctoral dissertation. When she meets Luca, a mysterious and handsome shipping tycoon, there is an instant attraction, a disturbing and beautiful energy that she has never felt before. But she senses the darkness that lives within him. Eva is hired to care for his mother, who suffers from dementia, but it is Luca who Eva will eventually risk everything to save. Her life becomes a swirling chaos of darkness and romance, of secrets and mystery. And the question that emerges will become the most important answer of all.Can she save Luca from the darkness that plagues him without losing herself?The answer is a matter of life or death.








Prologue (In its entirety!)

Luca is gone. 

I know it before I open my eyes.  The weight of his body next to me is absent, the scent of him gone from the air.  I sigh, reluctant to begin this day because I know what it holds for me.  I know that if Luca is truly gone, I will spend every hour frantically searching for him.

Gazing around, I find my large suite empty.  Everything is neat and tidy and exactly in place. Each lavish piece of furniture is polished with lemon oil, each extravagant painting on the wall carefully dusted.  Each expensive vase, each crystal lamp, each woven rug is perfectly aligned and exactly how I left it.  Something is different, though, somehow changed in this room that I fell asleep in last night.

My sleepy eyes do another quick sweep, and this time I notice the balcony doors standing wide open while the bright morning sun streams onto the mahogany floor and the white sheer curtains on either side flutter in the sea breeze. 

This is the difference and it slams into me like a concrete wall.  I didn’t fall asleep with those doors open. I would never do that now, not since I know what dangers lurk in the world, the darkness that can find me.

Immediately after I notice this inconsistency, I also see that across the room, my bedroom door is tightly closed and the bolt is still slid firmly in place.

Just as I left it last night.

My heart stutters as I realize what this means. 

While I slept, Luca must have climbed from my balcony ledge to escape.  But the drop is well over thirty feet and there are sharp rocks at the base of the house.  There are gardens directly behind, but beyond that, there is a cliff with a hundred foot drop to the sea below.  

I leap naked from bed and rush to the balcony’s edge.  My bare breasts press against the cold railing as I peer down at both the gardens and what I can see of the pristine sand beyond that.  Luca is not lying broken and bleeding there, so I try to still my racing heart.  I search the beaches and craggy landscape on both sides of my periphery and I still do not see him.

He somehow survived the fall.

A hundred different things run through my mind, but the one that stands out in the forefront is the image, the possibility, that he managed to drag himself, broken and bleeding, to a different location, somewhere where he is even now waiting for me to help him. 

Because I promised. 

I promised him that I would help him, that I would keep him from the darkness that plagues him, that I would heal him. 

That I would save him.

I swallow hard and as I do, I realize that my throat is tender from Luca’s hands last night. I know that if I look into a mirror, there will be a bruise in the perfect formation of his long fingers around my neck. 

As I softly touch it, I remember his face from the night before.  It was shadowed in the moonlight and like always, he was beautiful.  Luca is handsome in a very classic and beautiful way, dark hair and cut cheekbones.  His bangs are long and almost hide his magnificent dark eyes until he shakes his hair away.  And when he does, the sadness that dwells there is apparent to anyone who knows him.

But last night, I didn’t need to look into his eyes to see that his darkness had returned.  I knew it from the moment he stepped into my room.

I can always see it.  It changes everything about him, even the way he walks and moves.  The way he stands.  The way he speaks.  The way he feels. 

He is an entirely different person when the darkness comes. 

These are the moments that he dreads with every breath when he is himself; the moments when he is no longer Luca.  In these moments, he is filled with thoughts that are no longer his own. 

He cannot help it, he cannot control it, he cannot stop it.

But I promised him that I would.

And I have failed him.

I scramble to my wardrobe and pull on clothing, choosing a shirt with a collar, hoping to somewhat hide the bruise on my neck.  The only other people here at Chessarae are servants, except for Luca’s mother in her lonely wing.  But she is locked in so she never comes into the main part of the house.  No one will see me but the staff.  And they are used to seeing strange things.

I rush through the house, through the extravagant corridors and over the marble floors, the rich and polished surroundings that I would never have dreamed I would find myself in.  I don’t notice it now though.  It has faded into an insignificant corner of my mind.  All that matters now is Luca.

 I make my way out the back of the house, through the gardens, through the English maze that is perfectly manicured and challenging to maneuver.  I manage it with ease, however.  I memorized its twists and turns on a happier day.

The weather is stormy today and the normally cheerful and bright Maltese sky is gray and thunderous. I can feel the electricity in the air, snapping the ends of my long hair with static.  This day looks as foreboding as I feel, which I hope is not a sign.

I search through the maze.  I search the beaches as my feet sink into the cool sand.  I search the gardens with their exotic and sweet-smelling blooms and then I search the garage.  His car, a shiny black Jaguar, is still in its slot and its hood is cool to the touch.  Luca has not driven it today.  I search the front lawns and the back.  And just when I begin to panic, to fear that he has not returned to Chessarae after all, I search the stables.

As I walk through the heavy wooden doors, the smells of the horses and the hay and the saddle-soap and leather assail my nose and I breathe them in.  I’ve always loved this place.  It is peaceful here.  And I suddenly know, because I can feel it, that Luca is here. 

I walk quietly down the main corridor, staring into each stall as I pass.

And finally, finally, when I come to the very last stall on the left, Luca is there and my breath hitches in my chest, freezing on my lips.

Luca is slumped on the ground, in the corner, his expression desolate. He is beautiful even here, even in this condition, and I cannot help but stare down at him as tears fill my eyes.   

He is dirty and his clothing is torn.  There are smears of blood on his shirt, dried now to a rusty dark brown.  I swallow hard, trying not to imagine where the blood has come from. 

Luca’s face is tortured as he stares up at me, his head in his hands.  There is blood on his fingers. 

“It happened again.”

His words are low and husky and rough, yet elegant at the same time.  He is always refined, always perfect, always Luca. 

His self-loathe is apparent and it breaks my heart. 

I nod mutely because there are no words for this moment.  I bend to help him to his feet.  At 6’3”, he towers above me.  He is slender and strong and masculine.  He is lithe and powerful, beautiful and graceful.

And sometimes, on his very darkest days, he is a depraved killer.

But I have gotten ahead of myself.  I should begin at the beginning.  If I don’t, you will never understand.  

About Courtney Cole

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Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could.
She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. Every Last Kiss is her debut novel and she followed it with the rest of The Bloodstone Saga (Every Last Kiss, Fated, With My Last Breath and My Tattered Bonds).Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.