Monday, December 29, 2014

Blog Tour: Excerpt, Review, and Giveaway for Raze by Tillie Cole














There is no easier or better way to describe this book than as intense and devastating. Occasionally I'll read a book that physically makes my chest and heart hurt; this was one of them. This is definitely an inducer of the dreaded book hangover.  You don't want to miss either the excerpt or giveaway.




Title: Raze
Author: Tillie Cole
Age group: Mature new adult
Genre: Dark contemporary romance

Release date: 30th December 2014
Add to Goodreads: 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23262621-raze?ac=1

Purchase Links will be available once the book is live!
BLURB

To take back life, one must first face death...

One man stripped of his freedom, his morals...his life.

Conditioned in captivity to maim, to kill and to slaughter, prisoner 818 becomes an unremorseful, unrivaled and unstoppable fighter in the ring. Violence is all he knows. Death and brutality are the masters of his fate.

After years of incarceration in an underground hell, only one thought occupies his mind: revenge...bloody, slow and violent revenge.

Revenge on the man who lied.

Revenge on the man who wronged him.

Revenge on the man who condemned him and turned him into this: a rage-fueled killing machine. A monster void of humanity; a monster filled with hate.

And no one will stand in the way of getting what he wants.

One woman stripped of her freedom, her morals...her life.

Kisa Volkova is the only daughter of Kirill The Silencer Volkov, head of the infamous Triad bosses of New York's Russian Bratva. Her life is protected. In reality, its a virtual prison. Her fathers savage treatment of his rivals and his lucrative and coveted underground gambling ringThe Dungeonensures too many enemies lurk at their door.

She dreams to be set free.

Kisa has known only cruelty and loss in her short life. As manager of her fathers death match enterprise, only grief and pain fill her days. Her mafia boss father, in her world, rules absolute. And her fiancé, Alik Durov, is no better; the Dungeons five-time champion, a stone-cold killer, the treasured son of her fathers best friend, and her very ownand much resentedpersonal guard. Unrivaled in both strength and social standing, Alik controls every facet of Kisas life, dominates her every move; keeps her subdued and dead inside...then one night changes everything.

While working for her churchthe only reprieve in her constant surveillanceKisa stumbles across a tattooed, scarred, but stunningly beautiful homeless man on the streets. Something about him stirs feelings deep within her; familiar yet impossibly forbidden desires. He doesnt talk. Doesnt communicate with anyone. Hes a man beyond saving, and a man she must quickly forget...for both their sakes.

But when weeks later, out of the blue and to her complete surprise, hes announced as the replacement fighter in The Dungeon, Kisa knows shes in a whole lot of trouble. Hes built, ripped and lethally unforgiving to his opponents, leaving fear in his wake and the look of death in his eyes.

Kisa becomes obsessed with him. Yearns for him. Craves his touch. Needs to possess this mysterious man...this man they call Raze.

EXCERPT

Guns firing.
Crashes.
Screaming.
Gunshot after gunshot and the tumult of shouting pounded through the stone ceiling as I paced the small area of my dank cell. Above me was a stampede, the thunder of hundreds of feet; prisoners were on the loose. And here I was trapped in this fucking cell!
I need to get out. I must get out! I screamed inside my head as I ran my hand over the metal bars keeping me trapped inside.
Charging the door of my cell, my right shoulder slammed into the metal. It didnt even shake. Wrapping my hands tightly around the bars over the window, I scanned the dimly lit hallway, its flickering dull bulbs swinging back and forth from all the heavy movement upstairs. This level of the prison, the Gulag as it was known amongst the inmates, was reserved for us champions, the most prized of the death fighters. The fucking killers, the murderers, the monsters theyd created to want nothing but to feel rage and spill blood. We were jailed in the bowels of this shithole, no chance of escape. Our cells were too far apart to ever see another fighter except when we were training.
My breathing became ragged. Bellowing in frustration, I pulled on the steel bars, my arm joints creaking with the enormous pressure I put them under. My bulging, drug-created muscles corded with the effort. I roared out a final yell when they refused to budge.
The shot theyd just given me was making my skin crawl and was evoking the need to fight. I was scheduled to fight later tonight. I felt rage, nothing but rage.
I needed to kill. It was the only way to stop the rage.
The first shot had been fired about thirty minutes ago, I guessed. I didn’t know; time had no meaning in the Gulag.
I could hear the other fighters shouting, screaming that theyd been released, could hear the screech of cell doors being wrenched open, the screams of men dying.
I was fucking incensed.
I wanted blood.
And I needed to fight!
My blood boiled under my flesh, fiery, searing, preparing me for a fight to the death. To do what I did bestmaim, slaughter kill.
Roaring out, I released the cell bars and once again began pacing the cell. My eyes, even in the dark, focused on the wall and the name engraved in the stone. Alik Durov. Underneath was an address. Brooklyn, New York. Below that, a motive. Revenge. Lastly, there was a clear instruction. Kill.
I had no memory of writing it down, no memory of my life before this place. Didnt know if I ever had a life outside of these stone walls. My brain had shut down, blocking out anything but the need to kill, erasing any knowledge of who I was, where I was from, and why I was in this fucking shithole. But one thing was certain. I had written that name, that address, that motive, and that instruction. When I stared at those jagged letters carved permanently on the wall in my line of sight, anger consumed every cell in my body and I knew, without a doubt, I had to do what the inscription commanded.
But I had to get out of this place first.
The sound of the hallway door slamming open echoed off the walls. I rushed to the bars to see what the fuck was happening. My skin was itching with the need to break free, to join the fight to get my revenge.
The clinking of cell doors opening made my heart race faster. My knuckles cracked with the intensity of my grip on the bars.
Get me the fuck out! I growled as I heard heavy footsteps approach my cell. My cheek pressed hard on cold metal as I stretched to see who was coming, my hands rocking the cell door until blood began to ooze from the constantly splitting skin on my fingers.
Go! Go! a male voice ordered a prisoner, and I heard a man running away. Theyve been overpowered. Head for the east gate.
Theyve been overpowered. Hearing these words spoken out loud, I lost it. Wildfire pulsed through my veins. Running to the back of my cell, I charged the door, my shoulder dislocating with the force.
Seizing my right hand, I popped my shoulder back in place. GET ME THE FUCK OUT! I bellowed, my voice sounding as sharp as razors.
The light above my cell flickered off, plunging me into darkness, but it didn’t matter. I could hear everything, Id learned to embrace the dark. Thudding on the stone floor made its way toward me. My roaring and bellowing increased.
Suddenly, the footsteps stopped and I could hear the sound of heavy breathing outside my cell.
Get. Me. The. Fuck. Out, I warned. I caught a nervous flicker of movement to my right.
Two men.
Two men were pussying out of facing me head on.
Its him, one of them whispered as my jaw ticked in annoyance. Its 818.
I wont tell you again. Get me the fuck out, or when I find you, Ill snap your spines, I threatened in a low voice, as the bars creaked louder with the pulsating power of my anger.
The men still didn’t move. I could smell their fear and it just fucked me off even more.
Get him out! a voice ordered from behind and, suddenly, the familiar face of 362 came into viewmy greatest rival but the man I spoke to and respected most.
362 grabbed a key and unlocked my door, his broad chest bare, black sweatpants covering his legs and his long black hair hanging down his back. He swung the door open and met me toe to toe at the entrance. His brown eyes bored into mine as my chest pumped with adrenaline. Then he smirked and slapped me on the arm, laughing. Shaking my head, I sized up the two men who blocked my way and then I smiled. I could kill the two weak fuckers in seconds. Snap their necks before they could fucking blink.
The smell of piss filled my nostrils as the two men stood frozen, wide eyes fixed on me. Then the tension of the moment was shattered when a gunshot rang out from upstairs. 

REVIEW

★★★★★ stars

This book has given me a serious book hangover.  Not only can I not read anything else, I don't know where to start talking about it.  I knew the book was going to be dark but I had no idea it was going to wreck me this badly.  My eyes are still puffy and sore from all the crying I did.

It usually doesn't take me very long to capture attention; a couple of pages, a chapter or two, etc.  I've never had a book capture my attention as fast as Raze did.  It only took the first line.  Not only did it capture my attention, but by the end of the page my heart was broken. I was hoping for a respite from the intensity and the emotions I experienced, but the entire book continued at that level.  I was torn about wanting to slow down the fast pace I was reading at, but unable to because of how much I wanted to know more about Raze and Kisa.  When my heart wasn't pounding, it was hurting.  Both of them were in interminable situations and it sucked.

I loved Kisa as much as I absolutely hated Alik.  I wanted to reach into the pages and squash him like a bug as soon as I met him.  It was interesting to see the differences in how I felt about Raze and Alik. There's so much more I want to say about Raze, what happened to him, and how I feel about it, but I think I might inadvertently give away important plot points.  I'll say this much and then try not to say anything, while the mystery surrounding Raze was being cleared, my heart was both being broken anew and somehow being put back together. There were parts when I didn't think I'd be able to stop crying, reading hurt so much. It's not something I'll soon forget.

Every time I think Tillie Cole can't write a better story than her previous one, she proves me wrong by writing something new and different.  I always look forward to new material from her and she's one of my must read and buy writers for a reason.  I don't read dark romance on a regular basis, but Raze just proves to me how powerful such writing can be, especially Tillie's.  The journey I went on Kisa and Raze is powerful, emotional, sometimes hard to read, and yet so haunting.

*Thank you to the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for them in any manner.* 


AUTHOR BIO

Amazon & USA Today Best Selling Author, Tillie Cole is a Northern girl through and through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought up surrounded by her English rose mother — a farmers daughter, her crazy Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals and horses.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7074846.Tillie_Cole


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