Mama's Reading Break: Tour and Giveaway

TOUR GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Irina & Jo-An are giving away the following prizes at the end of their tour:
Grand Prize: $25 Amazon gift card (1 winner)
2nd Place: $10 Amazon gift cards (2 winners)
3rd Place: eBook of Vampire Elite (5 winners)
(Giveaway at bottom of post)

Vampire Elite

Series: Vampire Elite, #1

Release Date: 6/9/13 (all electronic formats)
Genre: Paranormal romance

How can you make a choice between saving your people and destroying the one you love?

A millennia-long war between two immortal races is about to come to an end. Long ago, the Vampire Elite began capturing members of another race of immortal beings, the Amiti, forcing them to become their blood suppliers—bloodstock—and locking them in underground cells, where they are treated like livestock. Now, the few remaining free Amiti are making a final attempt to strike back. The Queen of the Amiti has been proclaimed a traitor and executed. Her death makes possible the rise of a new Queen, her young daughter Arianna, who becomes the last hope of her dying race. Arianna totally embraces her mission and is ready to fight for her people to the last drop of her blood but encounters an unexpected challenge—the vampire King Tor. The Amiti Queen and the King of the vampires are drawn into a trap of love where each has to make the ultimate choice: to kill their loved one or risk the extermination of their people.

Vampire Elite is an epic story of a bitter conflict between two peoples, and the effect of that conflict on everyone living in its grip. The characters are driven to love and betrayal, vengeance and sacrifice in a world without easy black-and-white answers.

Based on an ancient Egyptian legend, packed with action and intrigue, Vampire Elite will pull you into the entrancing world of immortals and open new portals into their hidden universe.

Available at Amazon

You Tube Book Trailer

Authors Bio

Irina Argo is the pen name of a writing team composed of two close friends.

Irina is originally from Russia, where she worked as a journalist; now she has a PhD in clinical psychology and counsels violent offenders in the criminal justice system.

Jo-An exercised her creative spirit for many years as the owner of a costume shop and writer of short stories. Both love cats and welcome the occupational hazard of paws scampering across keyboards. Vampire Elite is their first book.

To learn more about Irina Argo you can visit the VAMPIRE-ELITE Website or you can connect with them on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

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My Review:

Before I started reading this book, I thought it was going to be another fluffy vamp romance book – which is totally fine, I really was feeling that I needed a vamp-lovin’ fix. WOW! I was totally off base there. The blurb really does not do this novel justice. Maybe it’s just me, but I see “passion that erupts” and I think romance. Although this book has romantic qualities to it, I wouldn’t consider it a romance. This is more of a fantasy tale of the evolving war between these two races, and ultimately good and evil.

I loved the ancient Egyptian aspects to this book. I found it extremely interesting and loved how intricately placed it was throughout the entire story. There’s a glossary in the beginning of the book if in case you need some further information if you get lost with the vastness of this world, but I personally found it unnecessary. There was plenty of explanation throughout the story.

There’s so many things about this book that I found completely fantastic. I think my favourite part of this book was actually not really a part of the story, rather than the construction of the novel. This is the first of a series, but there’s just so much meat here! Honestly, I feel like I won the lottery with this book! Often when a book is split up into a series, it means that the books are fairly short. Kind of like there’s really one book, but it was split up into installments. This is definitely a beefy book, nearly 400 pages. I found several places that would have been adequate to end a first installment, in order to create more books in the series, and theoretically, more income from the series, but this wasn’t done. THANK YOU AUTHORS! I get so frustrated by this, and the best part is, even after sitting through these 400 pages, I still wanted more. The only thing that really made the book feel long to me is that I wasn’t able to read it in a sitting!

The cast in this book is extremely well developed and plentiful. Everyone seemed to have their own agenda, as well as their own growth of character. I’m boggled at how an author can so masterfully develop so many characters! It is extremely impressive and left me wanting to know more about all of them.

The story itself is addicting. I found myself staying up way to late at night trying to read as much as I could. There were so many parts where I just could no longer figure out which was the “good” side vs which was the “bad” side. And with an ending like this novel has, I can’t wait to read the second book to find out who is who!

I definitely recommend this book to anyone that likes paranormal.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”