Blog Tour: Cold Malice by Toni Anderson (Review & Giveaway!)

About COLD MALICE: 

ASAC Steve (Mac) McKenzie is out to prove himself by leading a task force investigating a series of murders in the heart of Washington, DC. His undercover work in an antigovernment compound twenty years earlier is related—as is the sweet, innocent girl he befriended back then. Now that girl is a beautiful woman, and she has something to hide. 

Tess Fallon spent a lifetime trying to outrun her family’s brand of bigotry, but someone is threatening her anonymity by using the anniversary of her father’s death to carry out evil crimes and she’s terrified her younger brother is involved. She sets out to find the truth and comes face-to-face with a man she once idolized, a man she thought long dead. As the crimes escalate it becomes obvious the killer has an agenda, and Tess and Mac are running out of time to stop him. 

Will the perpetrator use a decades-old dream of revolution to attack the federal government? And will the fact that Tess and Mac have fallen hard for each other give a cold-hearted killer the power to destroy them both?

Review: 

Toni Anderson's Cold Malice was originally pitched to me as a Criminal Minds type novel, and if you read my reviews regularly, you'll know how much of a Criminal Minds fangirl I am. So basically right there I was already 100% sold, saying gimme the book!  

One word that describes Cold Malice? ADDICTIVE! I raced this book easily in one sitting, flipping the pages as fast I could on my iPad. Even as the night turned darker and the wind picked up, I was still enthralled, no matter how amped up the creepiness and suspense got because I needed to know what happened. Was Tess's baby brother the culprit, a cold blooded killer inspired by their deceased, no good father? Was Tess's older brother pulling all the strings from prison, watching Tess's every move? Was Tess holding back important information? There was so many questions, and often more twists and turns than answers coming my way. 

One of the aspects I enjoyed the most about Cold Malice was the mystery. I'm always intrigued by cult survivor stories so that alone brought a lot of interest out of me. Tess's childhood fascinated and disturbed me. It sickened me to know how much pain and suffering she had gone through, especially at the hands of the people who should've loved and protected her the most. However, I will say Toni Anderson did a great job of establishing that part of the mystery and plot. I especially loved how she made me question how far out Tess's dad's reach went out and influenced others even twenty years later. It got to the point where I was questioning everyone's intentions that Tess and Mac came in contact with. I also enjoyed the fact that I never quite knew where the book was going to go. Sometimes I thought Tess's younger brother was the murderer and then two chapters later I was convinced he wasn't the murderer and back and forth I continued to go...never quite knowing until those final three chapters who-dun-it. It especially added suspense given the POVs of those involved in the crimes were involved in the book - it was creepy to be in their respective heads but it brought a great amount of suspense and intrigue! 

In addition to mystery, Cold Malice gives a good helping of steamy romance. 

I don't know about you all but I love a good former childhood friends to lovers type of romance, and that's exactly what we got between Tess and Mac. In her childhood, Tess saw Mac as her protector, the guy who kept her creepy big brother away from her, no matter the consequences, while Mac say Tess as a spirited little girl who's spirit and desire life he couldn't let die. Years later, Tess still sees Mac as her protector and Mac sees Tess as a strong, determined woman rather than the little girl he once knew. I truly enjoyed seeing their friendship and eventual romance develop over the course of the story. 

Additionally, I liked both Tess and Mac as characters. Tess was strong willed. I found it incredibly impressive that she didn't let her family's history get the best of her. Instead, she barreled forward, starting a whole new life with a whole new identity with her baby brother. It was admirable and it spoke words for the kind of person she was. Mac was the typical hot-headed, acts-before-thinking male, but I still found him to be one hundred precent desirable. I found it interesting to see how he went about solving cases, and I especially enjoyed seeing him challenge Tess, forcing her to face certain parts of her past she's left deeply buried. Brought up the tension and eventually the steam. 

In all, Cold Malice is an enthralling read, perfect for fans of romantic suspense! This may be my first book by Toni Anderson, but it certainly won't be my last! 

Grade: A- 

Source: eBook provided by publicist for blog tour 

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Did you know the first book in the Cold Justice series is available for free? Get your hands on A COLD DARK PLACE!

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About Toni Anderson

New York Times and USA Today international bestselling author, Toni Anderson, writes dark, gritty Romantic Suspense novels that have hit #1 in Barnes & Noble's Nook store, the Top 10 in Amazon and Kobo stores, and the Top 50 in iBooks. Her novels have won many awards. A former Marine Biologist from Britain, she inexplicably ended up in the geographical center of North America, about as far from the ocean as it is possible to get. She now lives in the Canadian prairies with her Irish husband and two children and spends most of her time complaining about the weather. Toni has no explanation for her oft-times dark imagination, and only hopes the romance makes up for it. She's addicted to reading, dogs, tea, and chocolate. If you want to know when Toni's next book will be out, visit her website (http://www.toniandersonauthor.com) and sign up for her newsletter. If you want to read other fascinating stories about life in a city that, during winter, is sometimes colder than Mars, friend her on Facebook: (https://www.facebook.com/toniannanderson).

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Review: Kismet (Birch County Blue, Book 1) by April Canavan

Summary/Cover Image from Author's Website:

Birch County is a beautiful place to live. Along the rocky coast of Maine, its residents are used to a peaceful life.

Maya, a police dispatcher by trade, is one of them. Until the night she's attacked and left for dead in her own home. In the aftermath of her attack, she struggles to love not only herself but to love someone else as well.

Brian has seen terrible things during his time as a deputy in Birch County, but nothing prepares him for the attack on one of his own, especially not when he feels responsible for the person who gets hurt.

While Maya struggles to find her own sense of normal, Brian and the other members of Birch County Sheriff's Department must figure out who her attacker was, before he comes back to finish the job.
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When everything else fades away, Maya must fight to save herself. Along the way, she learns that she can't escape her fate.

Review: 

I feel like all I've been reading lately is romance novels and mystery/thriller/romantic suspense novels. And you know what? I'm completely okay with that since I get both sides of the spectrum: the sugary and sweet as well as the disturbing and suspenseful. 

So when April Canavan's Kismet, the first romantic suspense book in her Birch County Blue, landed on my radar I knew I had to read it. It seemed like the perfect book to continue my reading trends. Plus, isn't that cover just delightfully creepy?! It made me wonder just how the word Kismet would be involved in the novel.  

The result? While slow to start, Kismet turned out to be an overall addictive and enthralling read once the story got going and the suspense as well as the romance started building.  

Maya was so incredibly ordinary. However, I think the ordinariness here is what made her character stand out to me, especially when bringing her attack into the picture, because Maya? She could be any of us - she's just a girl trying her best to find her place in life who unknowingly attracts the eye of the wrong kind of a person. It's what made this book so frighteningly realistic. 

What Maya went though broke my heart. I was right there with her and her friends, wondering and screaming why this could've happen, and wishing I could give her a hug. However, I admire the strength she had moving on from that night. She doesn't let it get in the way of living her life; instead, she goes back to work and tries to return back to normal, trying to put what happened on the back burner. 

While I did like Maya, there is one thing that annoyed me about her....her unwillingness to forgive Brian for what happened at the start of the book. I get it...it sucks when someone who you love doesn't admit the feelings back to you...but to push that person completely aside? Blew my mind. In some ways, I got it - he was an easy person to deflect her angry at the world at - but at the same time Brian was trying his best to repent for his actions as well as show Maya that while her accident was horrific it made him want to repent his mistakes and get the girl. And I did like Brain. Yeah, he acted like a lovestruck, confused teenager at times, but at the same time, I think he was just someone who hadn't grown up yet, who was afraid of making another bad relationship decision. 

The mystery in this book was compelling, full of enough twists and turns to easily allow me to finish Kismet in one sitting. One of the reasons it was so unputdownable was the changing POVs. April gives us not only Brian and Maya's viewpoints but also the viewpoint of the attacker. The attacker's viewpoint was disturbing, creepy, and frightening, but it also had me on the edge of my seat, dying to know what he would do next as well as angry that the police just kept missing him. The attacker's identity was one I didn't see coming, but the revelation at the end around it rocked my world. Crazy, crazy, crazy, that's all I'll say. In addition to the mystery, I loved the romance component as well. Brain and Maya were the classic will-they-or-won't, and the more they fought it, the more I was scramming internally, just admit you're in love already, you two!! I especially loved how their friends and family's conspired to get them together and admit their feelings. Brian's little boys always managed to steal the show in that regard. 

I had two problems with Kismet, however. One was the story was slow to start. It took at least five chapters to really get the story going, and while that did have some importance (it helped to establish the plot and characters) some parts of me were dying for that big twist or turn. The second problem I had involved editing. I feel that some parts of this book could've been edited down a bit - sometimes certain passages did more telling and showing, especially regarding day-to-day activities and physical features - but not the biggest of deals overall. 

Perfect for fans of romantic suspense, April Canavan's Kismet is a book that will you bitting your nails, dying to know what will happen next. I can't wait wait to see where she takes this series next! 

Grade: B+

Source: eARC provided by Author/Publicist - thanks April & Author's Pal! 

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