🎧HOT NEW AUDIO RELEASE🎧
✮THE DUET IS NOW COMPLETE✮
Blood Duet by Maria Luis
A Dark Age Gap Romance
SWORN, Book 1 → http://geni.us/sworn
DEFIED, Book 2 → http://geni.us/defied
What can you find in Sworn + Defied?
⚜️ Age Gap
⚜️ Insta-lust (even though Avery is desperate to pretend that isn’t the case)
⚜️ OTT, possessive hero
⚜️ Twists & turns & utter crazy sauce.
Their attraction was poison and pleasure, but in the shadows of New Orleans…neither will resist going down in flames.
I bow to no man.
The words are tattooed on my skin, just as they’re branded on my heart.
But I never planned for Sergeant Lincoln Asher, a man as deceptive as he is cold. His dominance sets my teeth on edge . . . and my body on fire. He won’t stop until I’m his, but I’m not his to take.
My secrets bind me—and blind me. I live in the shadows of New Orleans. Hidden and protected in the underworld I call home. I know who I am.
I vow never to kneel before a man… Save one.
And he will be my downfall.
The Blood Duet is a dark and gritty age-gap romance, featuring a heroine on the run and a possessive, morally grey hero. It includes both Sworn and Defied.
Sworn by Maria Luis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
🎧🎧AUDIOBOOK REVIEW🎧🎧
I’m not quite sure if this is a good or bad thing yet, but my mind was working overtime the entire time I was listening to this audiobook. I couldn’t quite get a grip on the story at any point. Make sense? I felt like I was always missing something. So far, I’m not counting that as a bad or good thing because this is not the whole story. This is a duet and as far as the author building the story and keeping me guessing (as she should in a duet) she nailed it and then some! Maria Luis is a new-to-me author with SWORN so I don’t know her style or voice just yet, but I can tell you with 100% certainty, that I will know it by the end of the year!
SWORN had me on the edge from the very beginning. I love being on the edge of a story. It was sexy and dangerous and carried a pulse with every scene. The chemistry between Avery & Lincoln began from act one scene one and built on every page. They pulled as much as they pushed and to be honest, so this the story. The entire thing was one like a rubber band being stretched to it’s limit oh so slowly until …
🎧 I listened to this story and I just cannot even describe what an incredible job Stella Hunter & JF Harding did with their performances. A duet narration is no easy feat and these two put on a performance that was flawless. I have no idea if they narrated in one studio or separate, and I can tell you that not being able to notice that is high praise in my opinion. The story came alive in living color for me and I felt every moment of it!
I’m honestly not sure how long I’m going to be able to go without grabbing DEFIED and devouring every word! I’d like to say I could wait until it is available in audiobook so I can experience the duet all in the same manner, but I can’t find a single post about its pending release date so far and we all know how patient I can be LOL and don’t want to loose the momentum I have right now about this story so …
Well done all around and, well played on that ending. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
Defied by Maria Luis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
🎧🎧AUDIOBOOK REVIEW🎧🎧
It pains me to type this, but Defied did not meet the expectation that Sworn set up for it. Sworn was all about building the story to something, that something being the events in Defied, but it missed the mark in my opinion, and it was a huge disappointment for me. AND I HATE THAT IT WAS!!
There is more than just Lincoln & Avery to keep track of with this story. Along with their personal journey, there’s their individual journeys. That being said, in my opinion, there are a few other “main” characters we as readers have to get acquainted with as the story builds. My interpretation on the storyline puts the romance of Avery & Lincoln second to that of the “suspense/mystery” behind Avery & Lincoln both. I cannot tell you how long it has taken me to come up with that wording! LOL AND, because it took me forever and a day to even figure out how to word what I just did, and since this story has been out in the world for enough time, I’m not going to worry about spoiling anything by just saying what needs to be said moving forward!
✔️ Someone please explain to me the point of the “gunpoint kidnapping” that gave us the cliffhanger to Sworn? Wait, no, I get it, we got a lot of information from it and what shenanigans lay ahead, but the whole scene was so badly executed. You take 2 chapters were Lincoln is beaten and intimidated just to have Lincoln basically turn the tables at a snap and while a gun is trained on him, he overcomes everyone by just speaking???????? Was there no other way? Because as a reader, I gotta tell ya, dramatics for dramatics’ sake is the quickest way to ensure a story will not be finished. And this story came really close. *shrug*
✔️ If I have to download the ebook while listening to the audiobook because the author keeps going back and forth from first name to last name with key characters, my listening experience is not going to be that great. Because this happened constantly, I couldn’t be in the story like I should have been. This leg of the duet was all about solving the “mystery” and “corruption” in the storyline of Lincoln & Avery. Their relationship was established in Sworn as far as I was concerned. Sure, it still needed to be fleshed out, but again, it wasn’t what drove this leg of the story. At least, that’s my opinion and interpretation. So, who are these key players? Jay Foley (Mayor of New Orleans / Biological father to Lincoln / Stepfather to Avery), Joshua Hampton (President of Pershing University and the man responsible for the cliffhanger in Sworn and a bunch of other shenanigans), and last but not least we have Jason Ambideaux (Warlord of the underbelly of New Orleans, maybe?? I don’t really know what to call him lol). All three are key characters surrounding this storyline and all three were referred by first or last or both names at intermittent times throughout the story. Also, not to add to this discombobulation, but they were also referred to as their “roles” throughout the story at intermittent times. LISTEN, when you have a “who done it” like this one, please just refer to each character the same way and maybe don’t name three key players Jay, Jason & Joshua. Was there no other letter in the alphabet to use? All three were all up in this story and I just was blinking like a lunatic.
On a more positive note, if I overlook those two issues, and by overlook, I mean pretend they were written differently, this story is a really great romantic journey with a huge side of suspense, all cloaked in an air destiny and fate. I like the way the author connected all the characters with “seven degrees of separation” and connected all the different plot-points in a tangled web within those degrees. It was fascinating but also hard to follow because of the reasons I already gave. I’m not sure that I would have had as much difficulty if I’d have been reading rather than listening to this leg of the story. But I wasn’t so it is what it is.
🎧NARRATION ⇒ Stella Hunter & JF Hunter performed an outstanding duet narration from the very beginning. I mentioned this in my review of Sworn, but it bares repeating. A duet narration is no easy feat and these two put on a performance that was flawless. I have no idea if they narrated in one studio or separate, and I can tell you that not being able to notice that is high praise in my opinion.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Maria Luis is an Amazon Top 25 Bestselling Author.
Historian by day and romance novelist by night, Maria abandoned the cold winters of Boston for hot and humid New Orleans (with a pit stop in England, along the way). When Maria isn’t frantically typing with hot chocolate in hand, she can be found binging reality TV, going on adventures with her better half and two pups, or plotting her next steamy romance.
Stalk Maria Out in the Wild!
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