Hunger
By Felicity Heaton
Editions: ebook & paperback
Published: May 10th, 2014
Source: Review Copy
Genre: Adult, Paranormal Romance / Urban Fantasy
In a Flutter: Dark and lovely. Well written and sexy.
Betrayed by one of her own and turned into a vampire, hunter Eve is consumed by her hunger for vengeance and has spent five years surviving hell, driven to take the life of the man she once loved. But just as she is about to close in on the hunter-turned-vampire, an event is set in motion that threatens to see him slip beyond her grasp forever—the leader of her bloodline has sent an escort to bring her to the family’s mansion. To a nest of the very creatures she once hunted and loathes.
A vampire assassin hardened by centuries of service, Tor is a man of discipline and loyalty, never straying from his mission or the rules set out for him, and has purged all his weaknesses, including his emotions.
But the moment he meets the broken, fiery female he is to escort to Oslo, something dangerous awakens in him, something possessive and powerful, and when he is pulled into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who betrayed her, Tor discovers he will do anything to protect the woman slowly claiming his heart and give her the vengeance she desires—even break all the rules.
Can Eve embrace her new vampire nature in order to have her revenge and find a reason to live again in Tor? Can Tor and Eve stop the man who betrayed her and the deaths of thousands of innocents? Or will he succeed in creating a new army of hybrid vampires who will rise up against the purebloods?
~ GoodReads
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The highly anticipated 8th book in the Vampires Realm Series continues the tradition of outstanding dark paranormal romances from the talented Felicity Heaton…
Let me start by saying that I am a HUGE fan of the Vampires Realm Series. Each book has a stand-alone quality while seamlessly overlapping and complimenting one another. I highly recommend reading the series in order, though the reader is provided enough back-story for this book to be enjoyable on its own. That being said, there is something highly enjoyable about the way these stories interconnect. The entire series is an amazing blend of Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance / Erotica at its very finest.
Are you a lover of Vampires?
of heart-pounding action?
of sizzling hot chemistry?
of love against all odds?
Then this series is for you!
Excerpt
Eve cast him a pained look and turned her back on him. She wrapped her arms around herself again and shook her head. She looked smaller like that. More vulnerable.
It was strange for him, but Tor found himself drawn to stepping closer to her and gently asking, “Don’t you want to see your sister?”
“I do,” she said and sighed. “I do want to see her… but I don’t know how she’ll react to seeing me again. She thought I was dead. It’s been five years, Tor.”
The sound of his name rolling softly off her tongue shocked him almost as much as the news that she had turned five years ago and hadn’t seen her sister in that time. He hadn’t known, but now that he did, he understood her reluctance to jump on a plane and meet her sister again.
It wasn’t the only reason behind her reluctance though.
He could see the cold hunger in her again as she turned to face him and her dark eyes locked with his. She hid it well, but it was there, layered with purpose and determination, and a drive that seemed familiar to him.
On top of that burning need that drove her ever onwards was one that held her back.
The need to avoid accepting what she had become at all costs. At the Vehemens mansion, she wouldn’t be able to hide from it any longer. The hunter would have to face the truth. She had become a vampire. She had become the very creature she once hunted and loathed.
Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention to the front of the hangar. The stewardess and co-pilot placed their long dark coats over their heads to shield them from the downpour and rushed across the small strip of tarmac to the plane.
The jet’s staff made it on board.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Not the distance.
Not thunder.
His senses focused and everything slowed to a crawl.
A violent growl filled the silence, beginning in the belly of the jet, and grew in volume to a deadly roar. Brilliant blinding light drove the darkness back, orange and white flares stinging his eyes.
Tor reacted on instinct to the split-second warning, turning away from the coming blast.
Eve stood immobile, her eyes widening in horror as the eruption tore the Cessna apart, the inferno illuminating her face and warming her pale skin.
Tor lunged for her as the heat of the blast rolled over him and pulled her into his arms, pinning her close to his body and taking the brunt of the explosion on his back. Shards of metal sliced into his skin and flames licked at him, only his damp sweatshirt stopping them from burning him. He lifted Eve in his arms and bolted into the dark hangar, not slowing until he was close to the other end, shrouded in the shadows.
He set her down behind a stack of crates to conceal her, dropped their bags, and began checking her over, working methodically from her head downwards. His back stung, every laceration burning, but he ignored his own pain, shutting it out as he focused on Eve.
“What happened?” she whispered, her eyes glazed as she stared ahead into the darkness behind him. “What happened?”
She asked that question ten times over before he had even reached her wrists in his visual check of her.
A shudder went through her and she shook her head. She trembled beneath his fingers, her bare skin clammy and freezing to the touch. Shock, and it was hitting her hard.
“We could’ve been killed… we could’ve been killed… and I never would have had my revenge.”
Tor’s head snapped up and he stared into her wide dark eyes as she looked beyond him. Suddenly, the emotions he felt in her and that showed in her eyes made sense and he knew why they felt familiar.
He understood how powerful a need for vengeance could be. He knew how it could drive a person to great lengths, make them do things they would have found objectionable in the past, and make them live with something that would have normally torn them apart.
Eve wanted to bathe her hands in cold blood and annihilate someone. Who?
Tor took hold of her shoulders and shook her, trying to get her to shift her focus to him and come out of her trance.
“Who do you want revenge on, Eve? Could they have done this?” It had to have something to do with her. None of his enemies knew that he was here. The attack at the club had to be about her too. Someone wanted her dead. The same someone she wanted dead. “Could they have done this, Eve?”
She jerked her head up, her eyes shooting to meet his, and stared blankly at him for long seconds, shaking beneath his grasp.
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Yes, they could have?” He needed to be sure.
She nodded. “I think… they sent the vampires who attacked me at One too. They want me dead.” A mirthless bark of laughter escaped her soft lips. “Feeling’s mutual. Got to make them pay.”
She began rocking and he held her tighter, tried to keep her focus on him so she didn’t slip back into shock. He looked past her, to the burning wreckage of the plane. Someone really wanted her dead.
Tor cursed.
“Why do you want them to pay?” he whispered and smoothed her tangled hair from her face, accidentally smudging soot across her cheek. “Tell me, Eve.”
Her eyes met his again and a flicker of red ringed her irises. “He betrayed me.”
Cold stole through Tor’s veins in response to the anguish in her eyes and the hurt in her voice. He clenched his teeth and suppressed his desire to growl.
He knew a little about betrayal.
Tor slung their two bags over his shoulder and lifted her back into his arms, settling one around her back and one under her knees. She sank against him, her head on his shoulder. The feel of her weakly clutching his black sweatshirt, tugging it into her fist, only served to darken his mood.
He hoofed it out of the back entrance of the hangar, pausing only long enough to scan his surroundings and ensure no one was watching them. Rain lashed down on him, soaking him in an instant, and Eve began chanting things about betrayal, revenge and the explosion, muddled things that warned she was slipping away from him again.
He held her closer to him, trying to shield her from the worst of the weather as he sprinted across the quiet airport, heading back towards the city. He slowed when he reached the perimeter fence and Eve trembled against him.
Tor looked down at her and something in the region of his heart melted a little at the sight of her soaked to the skin and clutching at him, muttering incoherent things to herself.
He needed to keep her focused and he only knew one way to do that, and it went against his nature.
He needed to talk to her and let her know that he was here, with her, and knew intimately what she was going through.
Tor swept his gaze over his surroundings, got his bearings, and began walking towards an area of Paris he had stayed in before and knew to be safe.
He drew in a deep breath, his lungs burning at the sudden invasion of oxygen after so long without him using them. He had long ago given up the pretence of breathing, but he needed air now, so he could do something else he hadn’t done in a very long time.
He exhaled hard to give himself the strength to go against his nature and do what was necessary to keep the beautiful woman in his arms with him.
“I know a little about betrayal.” The words came out quiet, a soft admission that part of him hoped she didn’t hear.
No luck there.
She lifted her head, that dark gaze landing on his face and not moving from it. It burned into him, making him intensely aware of her and every spot where she pressed against him and where his hands clutched her. He wasn’t sure when he had begun holding her so tightly, so close to him, his fingers pressing into her ribs near to her breast and into her soft supple thigh.
He cleared his throat, derailed his dangerous train of thought, and focused on their destination.
“I was betrayed by a fellow vampire once. He left me to die at the hands of a hunter.” Tor almost smiled when Eve tensed in his arms, a glimmer of fear going through her. “I almost lost my arm and came close to losing my head.”
“What happened to him?” she whispered.
“The hunter?” He frowned down at her and she shook her head, the edge to her eyes saying she knew what had happened to the man who had been foolish enough to try to kill him. She wanted to know what he had done to the one who had betrayed him. “I hunted him down, and I did what he failed to do to me. I took his life. I killed him with my bare hands. Justice was served.”
“Justice.” She drew the word out and her expression softened, her dark eyes brightening, as if she liked the sound of that.
He liked it too. He liked the thought of dishing out justice to the man who had betrayed her trust and the vampire who had done this to her, shaking her world, turning her into something she despised, even though it wasn’t his place.
The thought was sweet though and too tempting to ignore. Things that had bothered him about her fell into place like puzzle pieces and spelled out the reason behind many of the emotions he had felt in her and her behaviour.
She had agreed to come with him because she had seen him kill, had seen what kind of man he was, and had viewed him as an opportunity to seek out the vengeance she needed.
Under normal circumstances, he would have disappointed her and told her that his mission came first, but as he stared down at her, he began running through everything that had happened tonight and everything he knew about her, and normal went out of the window.
He couldn’t take her back to Oslo when she had vampires on her trail. A small voice, a tiny sliver of his heart that wasn’t dead to the world and all feeling, whispered that his concern about the safety of his bloodline wasn’t the real reason he was going to do something he had never done in three centuries of life as a hunter—bend the rules.
Tor told himself he wasn’t bending the rules. He was simply taking a different meaning from his mission parameters. He had been charged with her safety and Lincoln had warned she might need protecting from herself.
If he could help her mete out her own brand of justice, it might help her come to terms with what she was now and might help her say goodbye to what she had been in her human life.
He might be able to convince her that life as a vampire was worth living, that her new life could be something good and there was reason for her to go on.
The ferocity with which he wanted that astounded him.
Something about the determined yet delicate woman in his arms had him going against everything, every rule and every instinct.
Her dark eyes locked with his, focused and sharp, making his heart kick in his chest.
He looked away and ignored the strange feeling and reaction, shutting it down. She was beautiful, but she was a mission. Nothing more. She could never be more and he was a fool if he thought she could be. He wasn’t going to delude himself. This reaction was purely physical, a need born of a solitary life, and one he refused to act on with her. He would deal with it later. Right now, his mission was top priority.
She wanted revenge and he was just a tool she would use to achieve it. He would be that for her and nothing more. The moment she was safe from her betrayer, he was handing her over to her family and that would be that. She would become their Chosen Daughter. He would move on to the next mission and bed the first woman he came across.
“What happens now?” she whispered softly, her voice curling around him, stroking his ears and threatening to undo the work he had done to harden his heart.
Tor refused to look at her.
His eyes betrayed him and fell back to her face, taking in the luscious curves of her lips and the soft sweeping line of her jaw. He dragged his gaze away and locked it on the distance, determined not to let her bewitch him anymore.
She was a mission.
He had a feeling this was going to be the hardest mission in his long life.
It was going to push him to his limit and might just be the death of him.
“Tor?” she said in a low, cautious voice, and he pretended not to notice the way the cold abyss in his chest warmed whenever she spoke his name, unsettling him and tipping him off balance. “What happens now?”
Tor narrowed his eyes on the distance and set his jaw, dark thoughts of what was to come swirling through his mind and destroying all of his soft feelings as it painted a delicious picture, a tempting and satisfying portrayal of death.
“You get your revenge.”
Q&A with Felicity Heaton
1. If you were to describe your e-book/book in only one word, what would it be?
Passionate.
2. What would you say inspired you to write it?
I don’t really get inspired to write anything. I just write the stories that come to me, and I’m never really sure where the inspiration for them comes from. I have a very fertile imagination that is constantly tossing new ideas at me, and I don’t tend to question it. I just go with the flow.
3. What was the source of inspiration for your protagonist? What about your antagonist?
I love writing stories of betrayal and revenge, and characters who overcome something in order to gain their heart’s desire. I wanted the hero and heroine in Hunger to grow throughout the story, both rediscovering things about themselves and both learning at the same time, coming to tread a better path to a brighter future together.
4. Have you ever been hit by the infamous “writer’s block”? What did you do to escape it?
I tend to get writer’s doubt. I will stumble to a halt because I’m doubting the story and my writing. Generally, I cure it through reading over everything I’ve written so far for the book and I realise it’s better than I had thought. It inspires me to keep writing.
5. Your all time favorite book?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
6. What made you pick that one above all others?
I fell in love with it as a teen and the story of love triumphing over adversity.
7. What’s the longest time you’ve spent working on a project?
I honestly don’t know. I’ve written over 50 books, and I’m sure some of those took longer than others, but with so many written, it’s hard to keep track. It was probably Love Immortal as I did some intensive editing on that one, and it’s a big book.
8. Would you say becoming an author has changed you? In what way?
No, it hasn’t really changed me at all. I’m still the same person I was before I began writing in 2003. I just expressed my creativity in a different way back then, with design and art, rather than painting with words. Writing is just another outlet for all my creativity and imagination, and one that I embraced. I used to daydream about a world of vampires as a teen, a whole secret world that overlapped with ours without our knowing about it. Now rather than daydreaming, I write books about it instead.
9. Was there ever a time, during your work for the e-book/book, when you felt like giving up? What made you change your mind?
No, I never give up on something. My husband calls me a completionist. Once I set my mind to something, I see it through. I would never ditch a book while writing it. I have ideas that I haven’t written, ones that are just notes right now and will probably never become anything more than that. But I definitely wouldn’t give up on a book when I had chosen to write it.
10. What does your day-to-day life consist of? What else do you do, aside writing?
Besides writing, I do all my own marketing, answering emails, design work, website development, editing, proofreading, and accounting. I’m very much the one-person-band right here. I do have an assistant, and she’s fantastic, but it’s only admin work she takes off my hands. I still do all my own design work and book formatting, and everything else that an indie author needs to do. It’s always been that way ever since I went indie in 2006, and it probably won’t change.
11. How do you deal with bad reviews or acid criticism? What would you advise other authors to that effect?
Being from a background in design and web development, I’m used to handling criticism, and I have taught myself that it’s one person’s opinion. Not everyone will love what you write, just like not everyone you meet will like you as a person. That’s just life, and it’s something that every author needs to come to terms with early on and learn to handle. If someone doesn’t like one of my books, I shrug it off, because there are normally many more who love it. You have to take the bad with the good.
12. Is this title part of a series? Without giving us spoilers, of course, what can we expect from the next e-books/books in the series?
Hunger is part of the Vampires Realm series and at the moment, that series comprises of eleven stories, but only eight of those are novels. I can’t really give too much away about the next book in the series. I can only say that it will probably be a novella, and it will feature Tynan as the hero, if everything goes to plan. My schedule is constantly shifting so it might actually end up being a novel next. You never know!
13. What do you have stored for us in the future? What are you working on/planning on next, aside this title/series?
I’m actually working on Tempted by a Rogue Prince right now, which is the third book in my Eternal Mates series. Once I’ve finished editing this novel about my lovely and somewhat broken dark elf prince who seems to have caught the hearts of many readers already with his appearances in the first two books in the series, I will move on to planning and writing the next book in the Her Angel series. Her Avenging Angel will be Nevar’s romance, and will tie up the current story arc running through the series novels.
Tempted by a Rogue Prince will be out on August 9th, with Her Avenging Angel following it in October.
14. What made you decide to become an Indie Author?
I was e-published and was talking to a fellow author about our publisher. We decided we could do everything ourselves and probably do a better job of getting our stories out there to readers, so we set up a small cooperative of indie authors. We all worked together and helped promote each other. This was back in 2006, way before being indie was cool. I’ve been indie ever since then. Coming up on 8 years this year.
15. What would you say was the toughest part?
Back when I turned indie, there weren’t many places where you could sell ebooks, and the market for them was very small. Most review blogs weren’t interested in indie authors either and wouldn’t review our titles. Every year we were told that ebooks would break out and become the new big thing. I persevered as an indie for years before Amazon finally kick-started the ebook revolution. It was hard to keep my chin up during those dark years when sales were pitiful. I wrote for the love of it and for the few who followed me. Now I still write for the love of it and those who follow my books, but I make a living from it.
16. Did you hire professionals for editing, cover design, formatting?
No. I do all my own book formatting, cover design and design work, marketing, and editing.
17. How long did the production part take, from the moment you began working on the manuscript to self-pub to when you hit ‘Publish’?
It really varies from book to book. All of my books are different lengths and that means that they all take different amounts of time from start to finish. Some require more editing than others. Some take me longer to plan. On average, I can turn a book around in 9-12 weeks, but in reality, it is spread out over months because I always let books sit between rounds of editing and proofreading.
18. Where is your work being distributed, Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, AllRomanceEbooks/Omnilit, some other distributor? How did you decide which one(s) to go with?
I’m with all major distributors because I believe that my readers should be able to buy my books wherever suits them best. I avoid those schemes like KDP Select where my readers would be forced to purchase from Amazon, or wouldn’t be able to have the book at the same time as readers who purchase from Amazon and would have to wait for it to become available at their favourite retailer.
All of my books are available through Amazon Kindle, B&N nook, All Romance Ebooks, Apple iBooks / iTunes, Kobo Books and Google Play, and most are available on Smashwords.
19. If you could turn back in time and do things differently, would you? What would you change?
I wouldn’t change a thing. I love my writing journey and I hope it continues long into the future. It’s wonderful being able to reach so many people through my books and have many of them reaching back and connecting with me.
Fun Facts
1. If you could wish for any one thing, and it would immediately come true, what would you wish for?
I would wish to have my aunt back. She died from cancer, taken too young, and we all miss her, especially my mum. I would want her to have her sister back.
2. If you were stranded on an isolated island, what’s the one book you’d absolutely wish to have with you?
Jane Eyre
3. Name your favorite fruit.
Mango
4. Coffee or tea?
Tea, but I tend to drink a lot of coffee because it’s so quick to make!
5. Favorite season?
Autumn
6. How about favorite time of the day?
Sunset
7. Were you a boyscout/girlscout?
Nope.
8. Favorite food for breakfast?
Granola
9. Latest book you’ve bought and read?
One Silent Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon
10. Do you collect things, like stamps, or key chains, or shoes?
No. I used to collect trading cards, but not anymore.
11. Favorite color, you know you want to tell us!
Purple.
12. Drama or comedy?
Comedy.
13. Have a fav quote or personal motto?
Yes, I love a quote from an author note from Dean Koontz. I read it years ago and it has really stayed with me. It speaks to me and this is exactly what I’m like, because I write the stories I want to read.
If a writer isn’t having fun when he’s working, the stories that he produces are never going to be a pleasure to read. No one will buy them, and his public career, at least, will soon end.
For me, that is the secret to a successful, prolific career as a writer: Have fun, entertain yourself with your work, make yourself laugh and cry with your own stories, make yourself shiver in suspense along with your characters. If you can do that, then you will most likely find a large audience; but even if a large audience is never found, you’ll have a happy life. I don’t measure success by the number of copies sold but by the delight that I get from the process and the finished work.
14. Cats or dogs?
Cats
15. Dinner by candlelight or a night out clubbing?
Dinner by candlelight.
16. Favorite Swear Word?
Too many to list, and some rather wicked. If I had to choose, it’s going to be something like bloody. Being British, everything is bloody this and bloody that.
Giveaway
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About the Author
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Felicity Heaton is a New York Times, USA Today and international best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books. In her books she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons!
If you’re a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates series.
Each Monday, Shurrn’s Indie Flutters will showcase an author who is self-publishing their book.
It should be noted that the general definition of “indie” does not necessarily mean “self-publishing only”, but for the purposes of this weekly post, I will only be showcasing self-published works. If you are interested in having your book featured in the Indie Flutters post, please see our BOM Review Request Form.
Thank You & Happy Reading!