Cold Secrets

Book Review Cold Secrets (Cold Justice Series)

Title:Cold Secrets

Series: Cold Justice Series

Author: Toni Anderson

Date Published:  January 31st 2017

Date Read: November 25, 2018

The Blurb:

When an international ring of sex traffickers kidnaps an eight-year-old girl in Boston, FBI Agent Lucas Randall heads undercover. But his rescue operation goes disastrously wrong and Lucas barely escapes with his life. Now the ruthless traffickers are hunting him down, along with everyone else who threatens their operation.

Computer expert Ashley Chen joined the FBI to fight against evil in the world—evil she experienced firsthand. She has mad skills, and deadly secrets, and once she starts working with Lucas, she also has big trouble, because after years of pushing people away, she’s falling for the guy. The feeling is more than mutual, but as Ashley intensifies her online pursuit of the trafficking ring, her traumatic past collides with her present and suddenly Lucas can’t tell which side she’s on. And as the case escalates into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, it turns out Ashley isn’t the only one with something to hide.

If neither can trust the other with their secrets, how can they trust each other with their hearts?

My Review

4 Secret Family Shame Stars

May Have Mild Spoilers

Wow did Cold Secrets take me on a dark ride or what??? This book jumped straight into dark no wine and dine. However I wouldn't call this book a dark read per se, just dealt with a dark theme. The opener has Lucas, an undercover FBI Agent, entering a sex slave house asking for a young girl. Toni Anderson must have done her research, the sex trafficking plot was very detailed and felt realistic. To know this kind of stuff happens in the real world gave the book an extra spine chilling factor. It was like watching Law and Order SVU, but sexier. Cold Secret had very hard to read moments, as it dealt with child sex slavery, sex trafficking, and gruesome murders. On a side note, I didn't read any other book in this series and had no problem following this book, so it can be read as a stand alone. 

Lucas Randall was all that was yummy. Brave, honorable, sexy, and caring he was a true hero. I love how close he was to the girls he saved. Lucas was playful, sweet and really wanted to save the world. I fell hard for Lucas. Ashley Chen was harder to connect to. She was hiding something and it made it hard to get a clear picture of who she really was. I could tell she wanted to prove herself and make a different in the world. However she was also cold, and closed off at times. Ashley would push Lucas away, and I didn't know why for the longest time. Which bothered me, I didn't like Lucas getting hurt even a little. Once Ashley's secret was out I totally got why she lied and hid her past and I could forgive her coldness towards Lucas. 

Lucas and Ashley had tons of sexual tension. Their connection was fast and hard, but it didn't feel rushed like a insta-love, mainly because Ashley fought it for so long. When they did finally get together omg it was hot. Lucas was a beast! I loved the secondary character Alex Parker. I checked and he is the hero from book 1, which I plan to go back and read as soon as I can. Alex didn't play a huge role in this book but there was something about him that got me intrigued. The plot was really, really good. On the darker side but really entertaining. The bad guys were evil and creepy, even more so because there are really people like them out in the world. The only reason this book wasn't a 5 star read for me was Ashley took a while to warm up too. The plot and Lucas were spot on and I really enjoyed this read.

Sick Fux

Book Review of Sick Fux

Title:Sick Fux

Series: Stand Alone

Author: Tillie Cole

Date Published:  October 7th 2017

Date Read: November 3, 2017

The Blurb:

When Ellis Earnshaw and Heathan James met as children, they couldn’t have been more different. Ellis was loud and beautiful – all blond hair, bright laughs and smiles. Heathan was dark and brooding, and obsessed with watching things die.
The pair forged an unlikely friendship, unique and strange. Until they were ripped apart by the sick cruelty of others, separated for years, both locked in a perpetual hell.
Eleven years later, Heathan is back for his girl. Back from a place from which he thought there was no return. Back to seek revenge on those who wronged them.
Time has made Heathan’s soul darker, polluted with hatred and the thirst for blood.
Time has made Ellis a shell of her former self, a little girl lost in the vastness of her pain.
As Heathan pulls Ellis out of her mental prison, reviving the essence of who she once was, down the rabbit hole they will go.
With malice in their hearts and vengeance in their veins, they will seek out the ones who hurt and destroyed them.
One at a time.
Each one more deadly than the last.
Tick Tock.

Dark Contemporary Romance. Contains explicit sexual situations, violence, disturbingly sensitive and taboo subjects, offensive language and very mature topics. Recommended for ages 18 and over. 

My Review

5 Down the rabbit hole Stars

Spoilers all up in this bitch

Well that was different. I have been in a really bad book funk for the last few months. I just haven't been real excited to read anything. I have tried numerous rereads, and though I enjoyed my rereads they didn't pull me out of my funk. Now I'm at the point were I am reading things I don't read a lot of to change it up a bit and hope that it pulls me from this book funk from hell. Dark romances are reads I do every now and then but they are not my favorite romance genre. When I heard about Sick Fux well before it came out, I'm going to be honest I had no desire to read it. Then all the reviews started coming out. I read some spoiler-ish ones and was like yup I'm just gonna skip this one. After having some friends ask me to read this book so they could see my thoughts on it, I thought well fuck it! Nothing else sounds good and here I am. Sick Fux is one of the darkest reads I have read, now the reason I say that is because it deals with children being drugged and raped repeatedly, and it's pretty detailed. I will say that since I read spoiler reviews of this book a head of time and was full warned of the contents of the book I handled it better than if I would have if I walked into this read blind. It was still super hard to stomach but being warned helped. Now all that being said this was one twisted ass read. It got my attention and never let it go. Which was nice since nothing has held my attention lately. 

“Heathan James, you have eaten my heart and drunk my soul. I am yours. I have been consumed by you . . . happily.”-Dolly

“She was my living, breathing doll. She wore the face of the purest angel, masking such evil living within. My soul’s perfectly fucked-up counterpart” -Heathan

This book started with Ellis Earnshaw and Heathan James meeting as small children. Heathan was a dark child, intrigued by death and blood. Given away by his mother who was scared of him, he went to live with his father. His father didn't want him either and let him know that. Heathan didn't like people and couldn't stand to be touched. Ellis was a sweet bubbly child that lived in her own imaginary wonderland, like her favorite book Alice in wonderland. Her mother was dead and she lived with her dad and his business associates who she called her uncles. Heathan called Ellis Dolly because she dressed up like Alice in wonderland and she called him her white Rabbit. They became each other's world. Best friends that lived in Dolly's wonderland. A couple years past and Ellis's dad and "uncles" started drugging and raping Heathan. He put up with it so he could stay with his dolly. That was until he seen his sweet Dolly drugged, crying with blood running down her Alice and wonderland thigh highs with Uncle John holding her. He knew what they did to his sweet Dolly and he killed one of them trying to protect her. Ellis's dad sent Heathan away, to a off the radar prison funded by the rich to hold the people that cross them. 11 years later, Heathan broke out of prison with the help of his cell mates Chapel and Henry/Hyde. The white Rabbit came back to save his Dolly. He didn't know what shape she would be in, but he planned of healing her and killing all the men that hurt them. Dolly and Rabbit killing side by side getting rid of the bad guys in wonderland.

“I thought of all the kills I’d made. Of her blood that I had consumed, and all the times we had fucked . . . then the one time we had made love. Nothing compared” -Heathan

“You were born to stand by my side in Wonderland.” “Born to kill, by my side.” -Heathan

Dolly was totally bat shit crazy. She suffered so much in the 11 years Rabbit has been gone that she became a shell of a person. Not talking, moving or really living, just locked in her mind. She was so damaged that when Heathan finally broke through her catatonic state she believed her name was really Dolly and that Heathan was really the white Rabbit. She thought of Ellis as a friend of hers that lived there too. Almost like split personalities. The only way she could function at all was in her make believe wonderland. Though now she was no longer sweet and innocent. Dolly had a dark killer side. Heathan was sane but pretty much evil. He had always had a dark side and a need to watch things die, but after years of rape and being locked in a prison with two crazy ass serial killers he was all dark now. The only one that he cared about was his Dolly. Dolly was his obsession and other than his friendships with Chapel and Henry/Hyde she was the only one he had in his life. Even though Heathan was evil that loved to kill I still loved him. The way he loved his Dolly and went to elaborate measures to make Dolly feel safe and like she was really Alice in wonderland was totally swoon worthly in a crazy dark sort of way. I liked Dolly but at times she came off a little too child like and it was harder to connect to her. I did however love her darkside. 

“My little Dolly, once broken, healed by a pretty dress and a crown. Standing before her king like the royalty she was. My queen of the dark.”-Heathan

“Heathan James was never the light in my life, but instead a heavy eclipse, blotting out the sun and anything bright, bringing with him endless, eternal night and murderous tar-black blood pumping through my veins. - Ellis

Heathan and Dolly together were dark and really sick fucks but their love worked. I also really enjoyed the way they rode around killing the guys that raped them. If you have read other reviews by me you would know I can be a bit blood thirsty when I read books where the bad guys do such horrible things. I always want to see them get their comeuppance and boy did they get it in this book. So even though the killing in this book was graphic and gory I was cool with it. Also I really liked Chapel in this book. I know he was a serial killer and all but he intrigued me. Now I want to know his back story. Overall this book kept me on edge, had me biting my nails and thinking what the Fuck did I just read. I love Tillie Cole and I think she is a great writer. I am glad I gave this book a change. Hopefully it will pull me out of my book funk!

"Heathan James was the genesis of my soul’s reawakening…a soul not meant for peace, but one handcrafted for death and murder and blood and bones…Soulmates forged in fire, under the watchful gaze of Satan’s mocking eyes. Heathan. Ellis. Just a couple of sick fux."