You’ll want to read them all! ~ The Adelheid Series ~ Reviews and Giveaway

Posted: February 18, 2015 in Blog Tour, giveaways, Paranormal or fantasy, reviews, suspense
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I am so excited to share my reviews for The Adelheid Series.

Please bear with me as the post is a bit long! LOL

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Titles: Cameron’s Law / When Forever Died / Voracious / Written All Over Her / Disposable People
Series: Welcome to Adelheid
Author: Mia Darien
Genre: Paranormal Suspense
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Cameron’s Law
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My Review
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Right from the start you are thrust into the action.Her name is Sadie Stanton and she owns the Stanton Agency, where she serves all things preternatural. When Cameron’s Law was passed, making all supernatural beings citizens, Sadie saw the opportunity and offered her services for paranormal investigations. She’s perfect for the job, after all, she’s a vampire. While helping a client in the graveyard, a crazed woman runs up and stakes Sadie. As quickly as she appeared, she ran away.  Lucky for Sadie, the woman didn’t know her anatomy. It hurt like hell, but healed quickly. And the night is still young. Following proper procedures, she files a complaint and has the bad luck to have her complaint taken by Detective Johnston, a shifter. There is no love lost between these species and he is being a jerk, or is she just reading him wrong. He definitely gets under her skin, and as her receptionist, Madison, said, “He was tugging on her pigtails.” Soon enough, Sadie has to deal with Johnston again. It appears that young vampires are attacking werewolves and this could have an adverse affect on the new law.  Sadie wants to avoid that at all costs and begins to work closely with Detective Johnston. They need to see who or what is behind this before there is an all out war between the vampires and the werewolves.There are so many awesome characters in this book. Each one, even the ones with only small roles, stand out as individuals and their voices are strongly written.My favorites are Sadie and Dakota. Can’t wait for you to meet Dakota. If you think Sadie is tough, wait until to see Dakota in action. She is a hunter and even Sadie isn’t sure of just what she is, maybe something shifty or fae.The author left me wondering about that in this first book.I also really liked the view of Sadie’s everyday life while being a vampire, her normalness.“It was a standard evening. I showered and dressed, had breakfast and checked to see if I had any messages. After that, I ran a few errands, which were ultimately very banal. Just like all the other myths, being a vampire did not automatically make your life exciting or glamorous, and you didn’t come equipped with servants. Vampires still had to do things like go to the bank, buy food and do their laundry.”Of course, her breakfast must have been some type of blood and her day started after dark. I wonder what the grocery stores are like, having to stock edibles for all types of supernatural beings.There are more attacks and the race is on to solve this case before all hell breaks loose.You’ll meet some very interesting characters, good and bad.

You’ll get to see how Sadie interviews demon summoners, and lawyers for her agency, which was a fun way for the author to introduce new characters.

And you get to meet Dakota, the bounty hunter from hell. Still not sure what she is.

I had a really fun time getting to know the characters of Adelheid, the largest supernatural community in all of New England.

For a not so long book, this one is packed full of back story mysteries, budding romance, lethal investigations, and a look at the politics of a preternatural town.

A great beginning to this series which the author wraps up nicely, but hints at answers to some lingering questions, which leads you to the next book.

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5 Stars
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 Synopsis

Vampires are people, too.

Cameron’s Law has made all supernatural creatures legal citizens, and the boy next door has suddenly become the werewolf next door. With Sadie Stanton, vampire and one of the public faces of the legislation, calling the little town of Adelheid, Connecticut home, it can’t help but be a focal point for these once mythical beings.

But when vampires start attacking werewolves without provocation, Adelheid draws the attention of those that would seek to have Cameron’s Law repealed and would send the preternaturals back into the shadows they used to hide in, but without the safety of their anonymity and their law.

Can Sadie keep the city’s two biggest species from descending into chaos and war before it brings all of them to harm? And can she do it when she herself gets thrust into the spotlight?

 
 
When Forever Died
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My Review
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I love it. This book features Dakota, bounty hunter extraordinaire. She is one of my favorite characters.Dakota hunts the NHF, or Non-Human Form creatures. She’s the one police call when they can’t handle a particular supernatural being. Cameron’s Law may have made all preternaturals citizens, but just like humans, you get your bad seeds and that’s when they call Dakota.Dakota now kind of works for Stanton at her agency. She has a long way to go to be a team player and she’s kind of scary.She’s working a case for Myles Bail- Bonds. A fight ends in death and the vampire, wanted for manslaughter, has bolted.Then she gets a phone call to come down to the police station. The Captain has a case he needs help with.It seems he needs an ancient, a vampire over 1000 years old, found and brought in.Dakota doesn’t usually work more than one case at a time, but she’s intrigued. She’s never hunted an ancient before.And Detective Moore, the visiting detective, has caught her eye. When she learns the detective is looking for a mysterious being, the name slaps her in the face. She’ll need to stay close to Moore in order to monitor her hunt for this being, which happens to be Dakota’s sister.Someone is following Dakota, things are heating up, people are being torn apart, and bodies are disappearing.What I really enjoyed about this second book, is Dakota finally opens up, as much as she can, and tells what she is, or thinks she is. She starts to let others in, to trust a few people, to get this ‘friend’ thing.The authors flashes you back into time so you can see Dakota’s origins and why she is like she is. You also meet her deadly sister. Not someone you are going to like at all.The writing is so fluid. The characters and situations feel normal, not fictional. You forget they can’t really exist and just go with it.All I’ll say about the ending is it left me grinning.And, of course, wanting more.

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5 Stars
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Synopsis
 

Forever is a long time.

The life of a hunter is a lonely one. Perhaps more for Dakota than others in her line of work. Not only is she better than anyone else at chasing down the things that go bump in the night, but her past chases her with the same tenacity.

She’s built walls around her solitary existence and that’s the way she likes it, but the past never sleeps. When she’s hired to hunt an ex-lover for murder, it’s just the first in a string of memories that will bring Dakota’s past, present and future into a collision course.

And when she agrees to take on a second case and hunt down an Ancient, a vampire over one thousand years old, it unleashes circumstances onto that collision that will shake the foundation of everything she’s built and force her, for the first time in a long while, to look to others.

Can she survive it, like she’s survived these past four centuries? Or will the weight of it all finally crush her?

 
 
Voracious
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My Review
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D is a reluctant vampire. He is lured by a mysterious and beautiful woman to a vampire bar. He really should have known better.I guess a few too many drinks left him with his guard down. He hates fangs, his name for vampires, and certainly wouldn’t have let this female turn him into one.Their night of passion ends with a quick snap of his neck and now he’s that thing, a fang.D is haunted by a dark hunger, has been for a long time, and now he has a hunger even greater, a hunger for blood.As he gets the hang of it, of being a fang, he feels the need to find out why Ceille did this to him, why she thought he could help her. So he returns to the scene, to the vamp bar 5, and asks the owner, Quintus, what Ceille’s story is.What Quintus tells him leaves him hanging. Ceille was beheaded by another vampire. She is now truly dead.When he turns Cassandra, a young woman dying after being attacked, he has a new bunch of problems. She can’t be left on her own, like he was, and he is her sire, he is responsible for helping her adjust.There is something special about Cassandra, something that draws vampires to her. D takes her to the vampire coven lead by Jade. They will help her adjust and learn to control her abilities.Now, a vampire is after him and her and he has no idea why. Too bad Ceille is dead for good, but maybe, just maybe, she can still tell him what he needs to know.What I liked best about D is how at first, he came off as callous, as a drunk wandering aimlessly through life.Then, when he’s turned into the thing he despises, only then does his humanness come out. That’s when I started to like him, to pull for him.Dakota makes a boisterous appearance, as does Sadie, Johnston, and several other characters from the first two books.I like that you could read these as stand-alones, but why would you want to. You can get all three books individually at a very affordable price, or you can get all three stories in one book!

I read one book each night and had a fun time doing it. I never had to wait for the next release and all of my favorite characters made appearances, like old friends stopping by to visit.

I caught myself wishing there was a town like Adelheid, a town of supernaturals and humans living side by side. I think I’d like it there. Who knows, maybe there is.

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5 Stars
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Synopsis
 

Sometimes, life doesn’t begin until after you’re dead.

Days stretch out in a series of predictable steps. A to B to C to A. Work. Friends. Life. But for some people, it’s not enough. It’s not enough for D. Possessed of a ravenous hunger for more, he’s at a loss for how to find it.

Until he meets Cielle. She’s everything he’s looking for: new and exciting.

And a vampire, which he’s less crazy about.

But when “new and exciting” Turns him, D is forced into an undead life he never anticipated. Trying to adjust to this new existence is hard enough, but he’s about to get more than he ever bargained for.

Will it be enough to sate his hunger?

 
 
Written All Over Her
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My Review
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There are two story lines in this book.In the beginning, a young woman is talking to you, the therapist, about what happened to her when she was abducted and terrorized for eleven months.Her name is Detective Nyck Marlowe, but she’s just Nyck.The other is solving a series of murders who’s killer leaves a signature like the one Nyck is wearing.You’ll flash back and forth, but never in the middle of a chapter. There is no interruption and the glimpses into her psyche are very helpful in understanding her actions and reactions during this case.Thee victims all resemble her and the killer leaves the telltale scars of vines upon their bodies.Nyck insists it can’t be the same killer, as the one who brutally tortured and scarred her face and body is long dead.But as the bodies continue to pile up, she begins to wonder. Could there have been an accomplice? No, she’s sure the killer worked alone. Could they have killed the wrong man? No, he was caught red-handed.Nyck doesn’t believe in coincidence, so who is killing these girls, why do they all resemble her, and how does he mark them?These are just some of the questions Nyck has. She has to revisit her dark past, face the memories head on and, with the help of her partner, Detective Vance Johnson, a shifter, catch this killer before more young women die.The thing I love the most about Mia Dariens Adelheid series, is that each book is written about a character you have met in the other books. You get to know the back story about the character and learn what makes them tick.Nyck is complicated. She has the responsibility of caring for her younger sister Ana, who has Down Syndrome, and has her good days and bad days. Then she has to deal with her own issues from when she was brutalized and nearly killed. Now she has to deal with a killer that just might be the very person who left the trail of scars on her body.

Any ordinary person would buckle under the pressure. But Nyck is strong and determined, while also being nurturing and vulnerable.

With her and her sister being pretty much the only humans living in Adelheid, she somehow feels safe there. Cameron’s Law, giving supernatural beings the same rights as humans, has made Adelheid the largest community of all kinds of beings, from vampires, to shifters, and others.

You get to see some familiar characters from other books in this series. That always makes it more genuine and entertaining for me. I get to see what’s up with them and Mia is great at bringing them into the picture in just the right moments.

With each book I read in this series I think, this is the best one, this is my favorite character. Then I read the next book, and think the same thing!

I wonder who I’ll think is my favorite next?

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5 Stars
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Synopsis

One word can change the story of your life forever.

Abduction. Torture. Surrender.

Eleven months from her adolescence have framed thirty-one years of Detective Nykk Marlowe’s life. Despite the trauma of her past, and the unique physical scars it left her with, she’s built a career as a detective for the Adelheid Police Department.

Her personal life might only consist of caring for her sister and a pet rabbit, but she accepts that.

She accepts that she’ll never be able to be like “normal” people, even the supernatural ones. As long as she can keep the past where it belongs, she’s okay.

But when the body of a teenage girl shows up with the same scars that Nykk sees in the mirror every day, her “okay” life gets turned upside down and she’s forced to confront the past she’s been looking away from for sixteen years.

And when it turns out there’s already more than one victim, the pressure’s on to stop the killer before any more girls are tortured, mutilated, and murdered.

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Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

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Disposable People

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My Review

It’s been a while since I read the first four books in this series but everything came rushing back thanks to references to past events. Mia kept them brief and placed them perfectly to not interrupt my reading enjoyment.

I’ve had such fun with this series and couldn’t wait for Detective Vance Johnston to have his own story.  His rough and tumble relationship with Sadie, a vampire, was such fun to read and I’ve been curious how that was going.

It looks like things are going great between Sadie and Vance, despite her reservations about the weretiger. He knows she’s got a thing about her being a vampire and him being a shifter. About her immortality and watching him grow old. But he’s not given up on her. There’s hope and they are happy.

Vance becomes involved in a double homicide with preternatural elements and his happy world falls apart.

This was so suspenseful. Vance’s homicide investigation lead to his kidnapping. He’s put in a situation that goes against everything he believes in. Forced to do things he has no control over was gut wrenching.

I felt so bad for Vance. He’s a cops cop and a good man. His agony over what he’s forced to do is hard to read. His guilt is heavy even though it’s not like he had a choice.

His sensitivity for the others trapped with him along with his faith that his friends will rescue him revealed a softer side, one usually saved for Sadie, and had me hoping along with him.

As with her other books, Mia deals out the mystery, drops you into the action, and has you crossing your fingers and toes for a happy ending.

Some of the characters from the other books make an appearance. The one I wanted the most, Dakota, didn’t actually feature in this story but the mere mention of her name caused a ripple throughout the story. Actually, she scares me. She has that affect. LOL

I just love this series and hope to read more about Adelheid and keep in touch through further books.

5 Stars

Synopsis

Even Adelheid has a dark side…

Detective Vance Johnston has a lot going for him. He’s got good friends, a job he likes, gets to play tiger every now and then, and is getting ready to propose to his long time girlfriend, Sadie Stanton. Things are looking pretty good.

That is until a shocking turn of events sends him into a case at the last minute that threatens not just everything in his life, but his life itself. Thrust into the seedy underbelly of the preternatural organized crime world, Vance is trapped, a prisoner to the entertainment and money of a darkness threatening to undermine Adelheid.

But he’s not alone. Not just in the prison he’s kept in, but on the outside too. He just has to hang on until help comes, but that’s going to be anything but easy as his own beast within is used against him.

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GOODREADS / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

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Born a Connecticut Yankee in nobody’s court, Mia Darien grew up to brave snow and talk fast. She started reading when she was three and never looked back, soon frequently falling asleep with a book under her cheek. (Something she still does, though these days it’s her Nook as often as a paperback.)At eleven, she discovered “Night Mare” by Piers Anthony and entered the world of grown-up fantasy fiction and it was all over from there. She started writing at fourteen, then met vampires as a teenager and the concept for what would become Adelheid was soon born. Epic fantasy remains her first love, but she enjoys writing whatever stories come to mind in any genre.Now she loves both writing and helping her indie community with her freelancing. A geek till the end, she enjoys role-play by email games and World of Warcraft when she has the time. Married to her very own Named Man of the North, she lives with him, their mini-tank (also known as their son) and pets, who usually act more childish than the child.

Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads

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Comments
  1. alisbooks says:
    February 18, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    Wow! 5 stars for every book in the series. That’s pretty impressive! It’s been a while since I’ve read a good vampire series.

    Reply
    • fuonlyknew says:
      February 18, 2015 at 8:39 pm

      I loved every one of these. I felt a bit funny having so many 5 star reviews. But also glad as I’ve had a lot of 4 star books and some three star ones lately.

      Reply
  2. emaginette says:
    February 18, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    They sound so awesome. I can’t wait. 🙂

    Still no email. Did I miss it? emaginette at hotmail dot com

    Anna from Shout with Emaginette

    Reply
    • fuonlyknew says:
      February 18, 2015 at 8:41 pm

      I love it when each book gives me what I want! LOL

      I’ll be sending the email soon. To give a hint – blogger and author interview.

      Reply
  3. A. P. Bullard says:
    February 18, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    These sound fantastic!! I really want to read them.

    http://www.triskelereviews.com/

    Reply
  4. Taylor Dean says:
    February 18, 2015 at 10:55 pm

    Love the covers and all of these books sound great. Just curious, why is one written by mia and mason? Is that her hubby?

    Reply
  5. Jeann @ Happy Indulgence says:
    February 20, 2015 at 11:00 am

    I love the sound of the paranormal investigations in the first book, and the demonic interviews. Great reviews!

    Reply
    • fuonlyknew says:
      February 23, 2015 at 12:55 am

      All of these just blew me away. Every now and then I run across an author that does that. I now have her short stories too and will be sharing them soon!

      Reply
  6. sherry fundin says:
    February 20, 2015 at 12:43 pm

    Sounds great and with all the stars, I think I am missing something. Must rectify! 🙂
    https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/complete?url=http%3A%2Fsherry @ fundinmental

    Reply
    • fuonlyknew says:
      February 23, 2015 at 12:57 am

      You’d love these Sherry. Some tough chicks. Remind me of you. LOL My favorite is Dakota. She’s a Scary Sherry like that story I wrote about you and Nancy! Mia is writing another story about her now!

      Reply

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