Wicked Lies by Karina Cooper Review & Release Day Tour
I was lucky enough to be asked to review Wicked Lies by Karina Cooper. I'll start by telling you that this is a M/M book. Going into this book I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the M/M part of the story. I've read a few and enjoyed some, but not the others. I'm happy to say that Cooper did a great job of giving us both a wonderful romantic story and a look at a M/M relationship. Happy reading!
Wicked
Lies
Dark
Mission Series #4.5
By:
Karina Cooper
Blurb
Jonas
Stone has been given his first independent operation: rescue the
insurrection leader's imprisoned grandson from the Mission. Getting
the job done means more than getting Danny Granger out-it means
staying with him while he heals. Staying too close, for way too
long.
Danny is everything Jonas isn't: confident, optimistic, honest--a man to be reckoned with. If only it didn't mean going against everything Jonas has planned. He's kept his secrets for years, hid behind a mask no one could see through...until now. Danny isn't the kind of man Jonas deserves. But he might be exactly the man he needs...
Danny is everything Jonas isn't: confident, optimistic, honest--a man to be reckoned with. If only it didn't mean going against everything Jonas has planned. He's kept his secrets for years, hid behind a mask no one could see through...until now. Danny isn't the kind of man Jonas deserves. But he might be exactly the man he needs...
Series
Recap:
The
streets of New Seattle have become a battleground between the Holy
Order's agents and the witches persecuted in the name of "keeping
of the peace". Battle-lines are shifting, good and evil not
nearly so clear-cut as witches and rogue hunters have banded together
in an uncertain alliance with rebels determined to peel back layers
of conspiracy that go back decades before the cataclysm that changed
the world forever. The Order has made it's move, overthrowing the
city government in a bloody coup, and present-viewer Jessie,
ex-hunter Silas, newly minted witch Naomi, the felon Phin Clarke,
seer Caleb and genetically enhanced witch Juliet are suddenly thrown
together with the displaced Mission Director Parker Adams and Simon,
a double-agent whose witch genes are slowly killing him. The rebels
need to gain some ground, get back their imprisoned people, or this
will be the shortest rebellion in history.
Excerpt:
For
my Uncle Stephen. You were the first man in my life who bravely came
out to me, and who paved the way for me to be myself. I loved you so
much before, and I love you just as much now. You are my inspiration.
And
for every gay, lesbian, bi-, trans-, queer, and questioning youth out
there. Life can be hard, sometimes it can get mean. There will be
days when you feel like it’s impossible, but I want you to know
that there are people like me out here who support you. I promise :
it gets better.
Chapter
One
A
blue-white light flickered in the dark. Sparks glinted off the tool
racks bolted to the wall across the shadowed room, reflected from the
metal braces left leaning against the desk. As silence—mind-numbingly
loud, thick as water, and twice as hard to breathe—filled the
narrow room, that blue-white light caught in the circular lenses of a
pair of glasses and threw a glare across the screen.
Jonas
Stone stirred. “It has to be now,” he said, his voice too loud in
the oppressive weight of the shadows behind him. He couldn’t look
away from the feed spilling its incandescent glow over his desk, his
keyboard.
His
conscience.
Because
the man framed in that digital feed—the kid
strapped to the chair dead center of the surveillance footage—wasn’t
the first suspected heretic to sit there. To sweat there.
To
bleed.
“Be
sure, Jonas. We get one shot at this.”
His
brain wanted to look at the comm unit beside his left hand. His body
refused to obey, every cell focused on the prisoner’s dark,
drooping head. Scarred fingers twitched, knuckles whitening, and
Jonas frowned as he realized his right hand had closed into a painful
fist.
It
had to be now. The kid wouldn’t last much longer.
“There’s
no alternative,” he replied. “We’re not going to get another
opening soon enough to . . .” He hesitated.
The
voice over the comm link didn’t waver. Not even a fracture. “Soon
enough to save him.”
Only
through recent experience did Jonas know that the raspy,
lifetime-pack-a-day voice coming out of the secure line belonged to a
woman named May. Leader of a rebellion that had saved Jonas’s life,
and the perpetrator behind a string of hacking jobs that left Jonas
seriously reconsidering a career shift before the Church had made
that choice for him.
The
fact that she was very, very
good was all that kept him from throwing in the towel now.
But
he’d never met her in person. Hell, he’d never met the prisoner
now struggling to raise his head in Jonas’s feed, either. Instead,
all he had was a picture in a box, a hacked security feed, and too
many hours spent staring at the incandescent screen until his
eyeballs throbbed and the vicious curl of helplessness inside him
turned to a spiraling ache.
That
boy didn’t belong in that kind of interrogation room.
A
single light, faded blue, gleamed over shoulders broader than
Jonas’s, but not by much. The prisoner was athletically lean where
Jonas was simply skinny. The narrowly defined muscles of his chest
were outlined by the stained remains of a thin, long-sleeve shirt.
Blood and sweat had turned it nearly brown. His slumped shoulders
strained against the restraints confining him to the hard metal
chair, a position not just awkward but painful as hell. Jonas hadn’t
seen his face for over an hour.
He
didn’t have to. He knew what he’d see when—if—the kid raised
his chin again.
Blood
caked into a ridged scab across the fine slash of his upper lip,
under his broad nose and over a determinedly sculpted chin. He’d
see the blackened stains of it dried into the man’s ears, blending
into his dark brown hair. Even now, that greasy fringe flopped over
his forehead, long since sweating off the gel that had held it into
its fashionable spikes. The longest of the textured strands would
slide into one swollen eye, if it ever opened again.
The
prisoner had eyes the color of the computer-lit confines of the
places Jonas preferred to inhabit. Almost black, even without pain
stripping them to an endless void. When open, those eyes all but
crackled with an intensity that could take a lesser man’s
objectivity away in a single glance. Like a hungry kid or a kicked
puppy.
Or
a man on the edge of desperation.
Jonas’s
chest kicked.
“Let
me know when your people are ready.” He didn’t bother hiding the
raw regret in his voice. He’d felt a lot of it, lately. After all,
he used to be the man who helped put people into rooms just like
that.
“Fine.”
May’s voice cracked. Flattened. “I’m trusting you, Jonas.”
“I
know.” They always did. “Let me try. I’m positive I can get him
out. They won’t expect it this soon.”
Buy
links
Author
Info:
Born
from the genetic mash-up of lesser royalty, storytellers, wanderers
and dreamers, KARINA COOPER was destined to be a creative genius. As
a child, she moved all over the country like some kind of waifish
blonde gypsy and thrived in the new cultures her family settled in.
When she (finally) grew up, she skipped the whole genius part and
fell in love with writing because, really, who doesn’t love making
things up for a living?
One part romance fanatic, one part total dork, and all imagination, she writes dark and sexy paranormal romance and urban fantasy. When she isn’t writing, Karina is an airship captain’s wife and Steampunk fashionista. She lives in the beautiful and rainy Pacific Northwest with a husband, four cats, two rabbits, the fantasy of a dog, and a passel of adopted gamer geeks.Links:
One part romance fanatic, one part total dork, and all imagination, she writes dark and sexy paranormal romance and urban fantasy. When she isn’t writing, Karina is an airship captain’s wife and Steampunk fashionista. She lives in the beautiful and rainy Pacific Northwest with a husband, four cats, two rabbits, the fantasy of a dog, and a passel of adopted gamer geeks.Links:
@karinacooper
/https://twitter.com/karinacooper
Here are the other stops on the blog tour. Stop by and visit them.
March 27th- Paranormal Book Club
March 28th- Books and Buttaflies
March 29th- Toots Book Reviews
March 28th- Books and Buttaflies
March 29th- Toots Book Reviews
thank you for hosting!
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