Review Tour + #Giveaway: Strained by Marcia Colette @MarciaColette @GoddessFish

Strained

by Marcia Colette

GENRE:  Urban Fantasy

BLURB:

Alexa is keeping a secret from her husband and being half werewolf isn't it. After all, he’s a full-blood and doesn't care that there are those who think their union is an abomination. Despite their abnormalities, the Yorks have settled into suburbia and gone out of their way to look like the couple next door.

Their rouse may have fooled an entire community, but not the Georgia Pack. The Yorks have encroached on their territory. Most interlopers end up dead, especially when the bounties on their heads invite stalkers, killers, and psychos to collect. Despite the trouble the Yorks have brought with them, the domestic suburbanites have intrigued the pack.

Alexa’s less domestic than she seems. Eight months ago, her bounty hunting club disbanded after several team members lost their lives in an ambush. Since then, the club has reemerged and are expecting Alexa to take her rightful place among the ranks.

Keeping the truth from her husband about her extracurricular activities will strain the Yorks’ marriage and risk everything they’ve worked hard for. But, that’s the price Alexa pays when her deception becomes deadlier than her aim. A deception that also keeps her alive.

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EXCERPT:

Several shots exploded along the streets. Pedestrians screamed and ducked out of the way. Glass shattered from stray bullets.

My heart pounded in my chest. My nerves frayed to the point that revenge was the only thing on my mind. He needed to know what it felt like to have someone he held close to his heart nearly snuffed out before his eyes. How dare someone ruin a perfectly good night to use us like China plates in a shooting gallery? I tried to push past Matt’s thick body to get a peek at our enemy. I wanted to memorize their faces in case we met again. Preferably when I had my crossbow or bowie knife to level the playing field.

Whoever was in the car was gone. There were too many witnesses and too many potential witnesses. If they were smart, they’d ditch the car at the first subway station lot.

“Is everyone okay?” Stephan was the first on his feet and hitting the speed dial on his cell phone. He hurried back toward the sidewalk, stretching his neck to get a good look at the car.

“He’s not calling the police is he?” I finally manage to get out from under my husband who seemed more compact than a wolf about to pounce on his prey. In fact, Matt remained a little too quiet for my taste. I met his unyielding gaze. “What is it? What’s…?”

The smell of blood touched my nose.

My Review:

I received a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.

Alexa is half wolf – half human in her world she is called a Human Hybrid. Alexa is married to Matt a very wonderful person who loves his wife Alexa very much. Matt and Alexa are soulmates. They would each give up their own lives for the other. They would do anything possible to keep the other safe even if that meant not being completely honest with the other.

Alexa and Matt both have a bounty on their heads and have been on the run for quite a while now. They have been trying their best to find out who it is that has the bounty out on them so that they can take them out. But so far they have not had much luck in that department. They have been hiding out in Georgia which just happens to be territory of The Georgia Pack which could very easily turn out to be very dangerous to them. I mean you don’t just go into another wolf’s territory without their consent or at the least you don’t take up residence on it. They have been hiding out and trying to live among humans as if they were humans but have they or can they fool The Georgia Pack? Can any werewolf ever fool another werewolf?

While Alexa and Matt have been trying to find out who had put the bounty on them Alexa also has another secret that she is hiding and she is also hiding it from her husband Matt as well and it is not the fact that she is a Human Hybrid because Matt is a full blooded werewolf. So he doesn’t care that she is a Hybrid or not. He loves her with everything in him. Alexa is not keeping a secret from Matt because she doesn’t trust him she is keeping her secret from him because she loves him and in no way wants to bring harm to him besides she is afraid that he would try to stop her from doing what it is she has been doing for years. Her secret is not a bad secret and she would never intentionally harm anyone that was good and didn’t deserve it. She does what she does for the good of both the humans and the wolves. She only tries to protect the innocent.

To Matt Alexa is his woman his baby and like any male he wants to protect his baby. But what he doesn’t know is that Alexa is very independent more so than he knows and can take care of herself. Alexa is one tough woman and can kick but with the best of them. I love books like Stained where the heroine is a kick butt kind of woman and doesn’t need a man to take care of her or at least doesn’t need him to fight her battles for her. A woman always needs her man in one way or another. I have loved the world that Marcia Colette has created in Strained and would really like to get my hands on more of her work. I would recommend Strained to anyone who loves a good werewolf novel with a little action and a whole lot of love thrown in along with a strong willed woman. And also a man that could be a model who knows how to take care of his woman.

AUTHOR BIO:

Author Marcia Colette didn’t start out reading or writing books. She had earned a bachelor's in Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before going on to complete her Masters in Information Technology at American Intercontinental University in Atlanta, GA.

While riding the MBTA train back and forth to her job in Boston as a software consultant, she picked up a copy of John Saul and never looked back. It wasn’t long after that when she started writing her own stories. Five years later, she signed a contract with Double Dragon eBooks to publish her first urban fantasy novel.

Her next novel was a paranormal romance entitled Unstable Environment and was picked up by Parker Publishing, LLC. She went on to sell her next urban fantasy entitled Stripped to Samhain Publishing, LLC. During that time, she also released Bittersweet (YA), Hazardous Environment (Paranormal Romance), The Spider Inside Her (Urban Fantasy), and Deadlier by the Dozen (Urban Fantasy) under her own independent publishing label Dusk Till Dawn Books. She has sold several short stories and novellas to Mocha Memoirs Press and has continued her Alexa York series with Purple Sword Publications.

Marcia also writes science fiction under another pen name.

Still holding her own as an IT Manager, Marcia is a single mom who lives in South Carolina.

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Giveaway:

$15 Amazon/BN GC

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