Knowing Vera by Rachelle Ayala guest post, #giveaway, and #review!

Knowing Vera, a thrilling romantic suspense and cross-cultural family drama, released September 6 on Amazon.

Excellent and exciting read! – Cate
Beauman

The tension just ups and ups!  Well, done. – H. Elliston

Vera’s dating Zach, casually, not committed, when she finds out her long-departed father is the killer of Zach’s mother many years ago.

Meanwhile, Zach reevaluates his life after a tragic accident and realizes he’s falling in love with Vera.

Can their timing be so wrong? Vera knows the relationship is doomed, but she cannot resist the tugging of her heart and Zach’s panty-melting grin.

Caught in a web of family secrets and hidden agendas, Vera and Zach must depend on each other for survival. A dangerous killer is on the loose, and Vera must find the truth, wherever that leads, even if it’s shocking news for Zach.

From the Author:

Vera Custodio is possibly my most favorite character. I never planned on making her a heroine, but she grew on me. In Broken Build, she first appears as the sister of a dead man, and then as the flirt enticing Dave Jewell with her pancit malabon. From there, she grew to be Maryanne Torres’ best friend in Hidden Under Her Heart. She met Zach Spencer, a playboy triathlete, and succumbed to his charms, but under her terms. Since she was a side character, she had several bad traits she had to grow out of to become a true heroine. She was a flirt, had trouble keeping her panties on, and dropped boyfriends like used nail extensions. But she was also caring, loyal, and a darn good cook. When Zach Spencer suffers a crippling injury, I knew Vera would be the perfect woman for him. But first, she has to overcome the mystery in her past and open her heart enough to trust. And that’s the theme of Knowing Vera.

So, download Knowing Vera, kick up your heels and enter my awesome Giveaway, featuring the all NEW Improved Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, a paperback, and giftcard.

BUY KNOWING VERA NOW!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Review:

4 STARS

Knowing Vera follows Vera Custodio, a young woman who has a hard time loving.  Why?  It probably  has something to do with the murder she witnessed as a child and the fact that she saw her father jump off the Golden Gate Bridge because he was guilty of the murder.

When Vera met Zach, everything changed for her.  She found herself falling in love, but she couldn’t love, could she?

Vera’s on a journey to find out just how much she can love and while she’s dealing with that, she’s thrown into a world she never imagined possible.  A world where her father might still be alive and innocent, but is what she remembered and what she’s being told true?

I loved the mix of sweet romance and suspense.  I was riveted as I tried to wrap my head around what was really happening.  Was Vera wrong this entire time?  What I thought I knew was definitely wrong in the end.  I loved it!

It was a great, entertaining read!

Advertisement

UnEmbraceable Review

I recently read a new novel by Precarious Yates.  Although I’ve known her for a while, I’ve yet to find time to read her novels, but when I found myself between books (waiting for a sequel to a book I’d just read to arrive in the mail), I bought Precarious’ new release, UnEmbraceable, to read while I waited.  Oh my gosh, I was hooked from the very first page!

About UnEmbraceable:

Leonard, a computer programmer, has a unique gift: by words alone he can calm violent situations. Which is helpful with all these kids running around the streets behaving like zombies. He has his own set of sorrows to face, but he’s prepared for anything. Anything except Tamar, and the thunderous inkling that she will be his wife. This doesn’t make any sense to Leonard. She stole his wallet. And his heart.

Painful circumstances ripped family and stability from Tamar’s grasp, but with gutsy tenacity she faces life head on. Meeting the gorgeous and single Leonard changes everything. But surely a guy like him would never fall for a girl of the streets like her.

 

I won’t rehash that.  You know that there are two main characters in this novel, Tamar and Leonard.  Leonard is a good, clean-cut Christian man (someone I could easily fall for!), and Tamar is a prostitute and thief.  Yet, God wants Leonard to marry Tamar.

Leonard couldn’t stop thinking about her, even though she stole his wallet.  She stole more than that, his heart.  Tamar couldn’t stop thinking about Leonard and how she’d stolen from this man who was nothing but kind to her.  They both new they were supposed to be together, but Tamar couldn’t bring herself to fully trust that.  Who would want a woman like her? How could she heal and let herself love a man?

In UnEmbraceable, we see just how much pain Tamar has been through.  She was abused at a young age.  Her mom had died, leaving her without a family, and so she had been thrown into foster care.  Every foster family had abused her in some way, and eventually she ran away, looking for a way to survive.  And that way was through theft and prostitution.  Something even more horrible than that happened to her, and it had caused her to be the way she was.  It had stripped her dignity, purity, and left her empty.  I cried when I read some of the things that she had gone through.

She meets Leonard again, and the two of them hit it off well. He’s forgiven her, but she can’t forgive herself.  The story is about finding forgiveness and letting yourself love.  But more than that, it’s a statement about how foster care can ruin lives by human trafficking, abuse, or kids having to prostitute themselves just to make a living after they run away.

I loved that this had a political feel because now, I want to do something about the terrible situations some girls/boys find themselves in.  And we can never truly understand just how hard it is for kids to bounce back from this.

I urge you to pick up this novel today.  Read it, let it soak in.

There is a subplot in the novel about a drug causing kids to act like zombies, which I really liked too, and I felt like Precarious Yates did a fantastic job of using that to break up the tension of Tamar’s life.  It can get heavy, and it can get dark.  But it’s important that we read this book and learn just how hard life can be for teens who have to deal with this.

Rarely does a book make me cry multiple times, and this one did.  I honestly think everyone should read this book.  (mature) Young Adults and Adults alike!

 

**Note, this does have some violence in it, so those with kids under fifteen, you may want to read this before you let them read it.**