Struggling with a tormented past, undergraduate Olivia Winter once led a practical but isolated life. Then she met Professor Dean West, a brilliant scholar of medieval history who melted Liv's inhibitions and taught her the meaning of both love and erotic pleasure. But after three years of a blissful, lusty marriage, Liv and Dean now face a crisis that threatens everything they believe about each other. And when dark secrets and temptations rise to the surface, the fallout might break them apart forever.

Overview from Goodreads

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While most romances today are about some characters’ journey to happy ever after or in some cases, a happy never after, Arouse shows us how a couple tries to maintain their happy ending even when faced with hurdles that could possibly destroy even their marriage.

This story showed how the couple, Dean and Olivia, who started out great, faced different challenges in their union. How several issues could affect or worse, destroy even what people would call a “perfect marriage.”

For three years, Liv and Dean had a blissful married life. But after being frustrated with her career, Liv struggled to find a place for her life, a purpose. Which led her to think of the one thing both of them never considered having before: a baby. But then a secret from the past was unveiled, one problem turned to another, and Dean and Liv were struggling to fight for their marriage to work.

Their reactions were really realistic. Especially Liv’s. I was also amazed by how mature she was despite being younger than Dean for nine years. Dean annoyed me a little because I expected him to more mature since he was older and was supposed to have more wisdom when it came to relationships.

The writing was also suited for the kind of atmosphere the story was having: serious, intense, straight to the heart. The progress of the story was a little slow but it wasn’t that annoying for me.

Arouse was a really heart-felt story because it displayed that for a marriage to work, love was not always enough. Communication and trust were also important and even lies by omission were not good. Even if by doing it would protect your partner. You should not be afraid to bear yourself, all the good and bad, to your partner. You should not be scared that by doing so would lose him/her because you know that you love each other and that should be enough to scare all your fears away.

I’m looking forward on how Liv and Dean’s marriage would progress on the next book.

Sam Parker is a vampire with a gift so strong and substantial that she is invited to partake in a test for a place in the Grand High Master Vampire’s private army. She finds that not only has the army never included a woman, but it has never included a Sventé vampire; a breed that is regarded by the super strong Pagori breed and the hypnotically beautiful Keja breed to be too tame and human-like. Most refuse to take her seriously, especially a Pagori commander named Jared who she craves in spite of herself.

The Grand High Master, however, sees her potential and offers her the position of Jared’s co-commander to help train the newest squad in time for the impending attack on his home. Sam has to demonstrate to Jared and the squad of chauvinists why it is incredibly foolish to underestimate a wilful, temperamental, borderline-homicidal Sventé female.

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This book was an unexpected discovery. When I first came across it, I was lured by its title. It was really catchy. After reading a few reviews in Goodreads, I decided to give it a try. And I was totally blown away. I was literally unable to put down my e-reader not until I finished reading this.

Although I must say that the vampires in this book lacked the melancholic atmosphere that archetypical vampires had (they usually gain that after living for centuries or something), I still loved them. They were very lively…very human. Not that it was bad since most of them were still young vampires but it was refreshing to read vampires who were not angsty and stuff.

Sam was a really headstrong and stubborn, also homicidal heroine and she didn’t allow chauvinistic guys to underestimate her. Even if she had to prove it to them that she should be taken seriously even with her gender. Despite being able to kick ass, she was not annoying at all (which was good since that kind of heroines were rare.). She also had a very amusing sense of humor.

“You ever killed someone, sweetness?” His tone made it clear that he was expecting the answer ‘no’.

“Yes,” I answered honestly and with no guilt. They’d all had it coming – especially the bastards who kidnapped the little kids to sell as vessels, or even as consorts to those who were sick in the head. I hadn’t liked Victor making me an assassin, but one thing I could say for him was that he never gave me a mark that was innocent.

Dawson quickly rephrased, “You ever killed them purposely?”

“Yes.”

“How did that make you feel to kill in cold blood?” He clearly wasn’t happy about my answers so far.

“With all that adrenalin pumping away, I felt great.”

They were a few muffled giggles. Some were from Jared, Evan, and Sebastian, I noticed.

“Ever led a squad before?” he asked, grimacing.

“Yes.”

“Are you saying you—”

I growled. “God, give me strength,” I begged as I looked upwards. “I’m bored with Question Time now, Dickson.”

“It’s Dawson.”

“I know.”

There’s also Jared. Similar to Sam, he’s tenacious, stubborn and extremely overprotective. Still, I wanted strangle him after he offered that proposition to Sam, knowing what her situation was before. But through time, it became clear that only he could match Sam’s intensity. More like only he could make Sam listen.

“How could you think I look down on you?” I demanded, but I kissed her again before she could speak. “Whether you believe it or not, I admire you, I respect you and I care about you.” I held back the L word. Maybe there would come a time to tell her, but it wasn’t now. I sensed the shock she was feeling quickly give way to scepticism. Cutting off whatever she was about to say, I cupped her and zapped her clit. “It’s true. And I can’t stand the idea of anything happening to you.”

There was no angst or drama in this story (much to my happiness) but you’ll end up toppling over your chair because of Jared and Sam’s banter. The clash of their personalities was entertaining. And oh, did I mention that they were also very hot together? They were combusting when they were trying to fight the mutual attraction that they had. And when they finally had sex? I was breathless the entire time. So sexy, so graphic, so dirty. You’d end up panting yourself.

I still had a little concern. The story was narrated using Sam’s and Jared’s POVs. And like my previous reviews about novels using dual POVs, this novel failed to make really distinct differences between Sam and Jared’s thoughts. The usages of typical British slang words for Sam was not enough for me. Also, I’ve noticed some of Jared’s words lapsing into British when he was supposed to be American. This was what got this book a four.

I’m really finicky about dual POVs and I find that as something most authors overlook. I do hope they stumble upon my words and hear me out or something. It’s not always enough to see the way the story flows with your character’s eyes. I want to read a book that uses dual POV where I only need to read the first few thoughts of the character and realize who’s talking without looking at name at the start of every chapter.

Indigo is running, she has no other choice. She's done something bad, and the only way to escape it, is to flee her home, and her country. She sets out on a luxury Yacht, to take her to another country with her best friend Eric. But she runs into a problem.

The Yacht catches fire.

She ends up stranded in the ocean, terrified, and scared of the uncertain. Until they show up. The pirates. Terrified, Indigo and Eric have to face the reality that this might be the end for them. These are pirates, they are the criminals of the ocean. What chance have they got of surviving this nightmare?

Then she lays eyes on Hendrix. He's the Captain, he's gorgeous, rugged, and mean. He's planning on keeping her to repay his debt to another man, by selling her. Now Indigo has a crazy ex after her, as well as a pirate she can't seem to get out of her head.

Come on this heart wrenching, dark, angsty and dangerous adventure as two people so opposite, find something so beautiful.

Overview from Goodreads

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MY REVIEW OF WHERE THE DARKNESS LIES

ARC received via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review but it didn’t affect my opinion about this book.

Our heroine, Indigo Waters (cool name, so ocean-ish) was a victim of domestic violence and she decided she had enough of the constant abuse her boyfriend was giving her so she shot him when he attempted to take her life. Abusive boyfriend was incarcerated after that. Years later, Indigo’s ex-boyfriend was released and was threatening her life once again as vengeance for sending him to prison. She left the country, along with her best friend, for her safety and decided to rent a yacht to London so that she could also take a break even though she was on the run. But alas, the yacht she and her best friend were on sank thus leaving them on the sea for days.

Hendrix, the captain of the pirates, found both of them and took them as his captives. He decided to hand over Indigo to another pirate as a sex slave, payment of his debt to him. Indigo was determined to escape her situation but with Hendrix constantly threatening her best friend’s safety, she decided to trade her freedom for her best friend’s. In other words, she would willingly hand herself to the other pirate and no harm would come to her best friend. Still, Indigo wanted to be free but she didn’t know what to do. A suggestion from another friend told her to seduce her way to freedom and she took the risk. What she didn’t anticipate was to find herself harboring feelings that were more than sexual towards her captor.

Let me get this straight first: I don’t have any problems when it comes to characters with Stockholm syndrome. What doesn’t bode well with me is when instalove and Stockholm go together. No.

I found Indigo seriously annoying. Most of my facepalms while reading this book were because of her.

She and her best friend were captured and the first thing she described her captor was that he was breathtaking. She was faced with a life or death situation and the first thing she noticed about her abductor was his handsomeness.

She tripped a lot. I swear. And guess who always caught her? *drum roll* It’s Hendrix! Perhaps it was the ocean all around causing more gravity on her or some dark force constantly pushed her or something but she fell a lot it was ridiculous.

At some point she changed. Perhaps it was caused by mood swings because of the trauma she experienced but she sounded really different when she was rescued from Hendrix. She sounded like she was brainwashed.

I loved when her best friend finally expressed my thoughts:

We also had Hendrix who played the usual hot and cold scheme most captors do. Anyway he was like a fallen hero or something but I didn’t really have any problems with him except the fact that he actually considered selling Indigo as a sex slave. Knowing Hendrix as I read the story, I didn’t know he had it in him to do that. He was also somewhat romantic when he finally got together with Indigo.

Because you do something to me, right here,” he says, thumping his chest, right over his heart. “And one thing I’ve learned in my life is that when something affects your heart, you don’t let it go. There are only so many times in life that something can have that effect on a person.

The pace of the book in the last fifty pages got fast. Too fast. Hendrix’s past was revealed too quickly when I expected at least a little suspense on that. A lot of things happened on the last few chapters to the point that it looked like they were cramped.