Stealing Innocents by Cari Waites (Lisa Henry) Blog Tour Review

About Stealing Innocents

Those who dare to scratch the surface of ordinary, everyday life may be horrified to find a sick underbelly beneath—a nightmare world populated by villains and victims, predators and prey, where the rules of society no longer apply.

Where you’ll find people like Danny, the boy who sells himself to pay for his father’s gambling debts and ends up in a situation more twisted than he ever imagined. Or Troy, the cop whose obsession with saving a brutalized human trafficking victim turns deadly. Or Drew, the mental patient who begins to suspect his nightly delusions of abuse by his doctor are actually real. Or David, the cuckolded husband who decides the best way to get revenge is to seduce his wife’s barely legal son.

Stealing Innocents is an exploration of our darkest human impulses, where sex is power, love is horror, and there’s no such thing as a happy ending.

This collection contains three edited second editions stories that were previously individually published, plus one all-new story, by Lisa Henry writing as Cari Waites.

http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/stealing-innocents

About Lisa Henry

Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.

Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly. 

She shares her house with too many cats, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.

Cari Waites is her much darker alter ego.

Connect with Lisa:

• Blog: lisahenryonline.blogspot.com
• Twitter: @lisahenryonline
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/LisaHenry

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Stealing Innocents, Lisa is giving away a $20 Riptide credit and an ebook of your choice of title from Lisa’s backlist.  Your first comment at each stop on this tour enters you in the drawing. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on January 16, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. Entries. Follow the tour for more opportunities to enter the giveaway! Don’t forget to leave your email or method of contact so Lisa can reach you if you win!

REVIEW

Stealing Innocents by Cari Waites

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.

After reading I had to have a moment to recover.

Stealing Innocents is a group of short stories with varying degrees of darkness, from erotic dubcon to horrific non-con. Even the lightest is not for casual kink reader. None would traditionally be categorized as HEA's.

Gamble Everything
I loved Gamble Everything. It's heavy on the kinks (daddy fetish, orgasm denial, cages, plugs, fisting, sounding) and falls under dubious consent. The reader experiences the process and transformation with Danny. It's an easy story to get swept up in. Control is one-sided for sure, but there is mutual pleasure occurring. For me, the ending could be considered fairly happy even though it isn't perfect.

Crazy
Whew! Crazy really messes with your mind. Drew is in a mental hospital. He thinks his doctor is making him do sexual acts, but his head is so messed up that he has no idea what's real. I wanted this story to continue when it ended. It has me all twisted.

First and Only
I had no idea where First and Only was headed. I would have never guessed. It's fairly light compared to some of the others with it's own little extras like coaxing makeup and lingerie dress up. The storyline flips quickly, and I'm not actually sure how sad or happy I am about the ending really.

Falling Angels
Inhale...exhale... I'm still torn up over Falling Angels. It gutted me, ripped my heart out. It's darker than all the others combined and multiplied. It deals with boys forced into the sex industry. It's heavy on rape, torture, mutilation and just OMFGness repeatedly. I was not turned on in the least, and I had teary eyes some. This one is a tragedy that kept me up at night. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

Lisa Henry has succeeded in turning me on, turning me off, emotionally working me over and totally mindfucking me. Thank you ma'am.

***copy given in exchange for an honest review***

FGMAMTC 

Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents 

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FLAWED by Francette Phal BLOG TOUR Review

Blood.

That's the only memory he carries from a childhood he does not remember. And now it is all he knows. Blood is his life.

Knox Bishop has done a lot of horrible things, all at the command of the man who holds his leash. It's a matter of loyalty for him. Allegiance to the man who saved his life when he was a child. So he goes where he is needed and does what he is told. He tortures. He kills. He kills. He tortures. It is an unrelenting cycle that he constantly craves and can never quite satisfy.

Until her.

Eighteen year old Lacey Barnes distributes her assets to fund her dreams. Medical school is the end game and she is determined to get there by any means necessary. But a family member's careless mistake derails her plans and now she must pay a price in order to save him.

She goes to Knox willingly offering him the only valuable thing she has. Herself. In doing so he allows her into his world, a world filled with darkness but rather than being scared it intrigues her. It lures her, calls to something in her that she hadn't known existed until he awakened it.

Every bit of his flaws is reflected in her and Knox will do anything to keep her in the darkness with him.

 

Knox

I’m not what you would call normal. The word has no meaning to me. But I’ve been pretending to act normal. It’s something I’ve been practicing since I’ve been aware of the thrum and its significance in my life. I was seven when I first heard the lullaby. Second grade, just before recess. It happened in a squall. Nothing and then all at once. I remember everything about that day. The bell rang and the other children went to play. Not me. Never me. I always stayed behind, mostly by choice, but never contested because the other children thought I was weird. I think maybe they unconsciously knew that I was lacking something fundamental. Something they all had and I didn’t, and maybe even never had at all. Whatever it was, I was alienated, excluded from their games. But I couldn’t say it bothered me. I was indifferent to it. Katia would sometimes play with me. Yuri’s youngest daughter, my adoptive sister, kept me company when she wasn’t with her own friends. But she’d been home sick that day.

In the small classroom with its oversized, rainbow-colored letters hanging over the chalkboard and tiled number blocks littering the carpeted floor, I sat in the beanbag chair staring fixatedly at the class pet. Sweet Ms. Devon always stayed with me but she’d left for a moment. A moment to heat her lunch. A moment to speak to a fellow staff member in the teachers’ lounge. But it’d been a moment too long for me. The noise in my head had been too loud. The urge too strong. The pink-eyed little rabbit, Mr. Apples, and the yellow pair of scissors sitting blades down in Ms. Devon’s “Best Teacher” mug had been too much of a temptation for me to resist.

The pounding of my heart. The lullaby and the thrum. The latch had given way beneath my shaking fingers, soaked with apprehension and anticipation. The struggle. The frantic movement of something living, something warm, with the same accelerated heartbeat as mine grappling for life. Desperate for freedom even while knowing the inevitable hand of death loomed was intoxicating. The thrill, the excitement, the sweet seductive power. I swam in it. Like too much candy on Halloween. Too much ice cream in the summer. It had been a quick death for Mr. Apples. It had been crude. Amateurish. But ever so effective in quieting the discord of my mind.

Poor, sweet Ms. Devon came to find me on the floor of the overly-bright classroom. Huddled on the floor, covered in Mr. Apples. She’d been one to smile a lot. But I stole her smile that day and replaced it with horror instead. Her pretty features contorted like a Kabuki mask.

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Francette lives in Massachusetts with her amazingly supportive husband of ten years and her darling two year old son. Reading amazing books has led her to writing and she’s dabbled in fan-fiction before self-publishing her own works. She’s constantly thinking up new stories to write and does her best work when music is playing in the background. Romance is where she’s most comfortable but she hopes to one day venture in mystery novels. She has a weakness for coffee ice cream, tropical fruits and a good glass of wine.

Flawed by Francette Phal

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lacey is a high school senior honor student. She comes from the trashiest of backgrounds. Her mother is a crack head/junkie/prostitute. Her brother is a low life user. How someone with so much fire came from such hopelessness is a mystery. In order to live, Lacey is also a prostitute. She has a small clientele of steady johns. Her goal is to save money for medical school, but her family is like a yoke around her neck constantly dragging her down and using her money.

I'm a deer in his headlights. There's no left or right for me. No up or down. No chance of looking away from the disaster that's about to happen to me.

Knox works for the Russian mob. He "takes care" of people the boss needs removed. Unlike most hit men, he doesn't do it for the money or the power—it's not a job, it's his passion, his life. Knox is a serial killer that gets to feed his hunger in a way that is useful to his boss. As far back as he can remember, he has never had any connection to another person or any emotion besides the desire to kill. He is indifferent to love, hate, happiness, sadness, fear... The name of this series is The Butcher so just imagine what you will.

He isn't sane. Not even a little bit. Everything he's done to me up to this point proves that.

Lacey, yet again trying to save her ungrateful family members, ends up indebted to Knox. There is something about her tenacity that intrigues him. She's like a puzzle that he needs to work out. How far can he push her before she breaks?

I think it might be a reflection of the sort of person he is on the inside. Beautiful, yet irredeemably evil.

This book is filled with unlikable characters. Lacey's mother and brother are of course on the list along with several minor assholes at her school. But the biggest bitch of all is Katia. I don't know when I have hated a book persona this much.

There are so many things I'm not even going into about title. It has some deep twists and turns. There are explanations, connections and surprises. These things need to be learned as you read so that you may get the full emotional blow.

For those looking for a dark read that is truly dark, not sort of, but the real deal, which also has an awesome storyline this is the book for you. Sometimes a book is labeled dark, and it isn't. This book is dark. Sometimes a dark book takes it too far and becomes a horror story. You end up not caring about the characters. That isn't the case here. I was totally into this book and the outcomes. I highly recommend it.

5+ flawless black stars

***Copy given in exchange for an honest review***



toni

FangirlMoments and My Two Cents

View all my reviews

Determined to Obey by CJ Roberts Review

BLURB

Determined to Obey is being published independently at the request of thousands of fans who already own Captive in the Dark, Seduced in the Dark, and Epilogue: The Dark Duet--known together as the DARK DUET SERIES

Determined to Obey was written as part of the bonus material for DARK DUET: PLATINUM EDITION (Featuring Determined to Obey) and not meant to be read as a stand alone. However, it is possible to enjoy it as such if one prefers

WARNING: 18+ ONLY. VERY FRANK LANGUAGE, GRAPHIC SEXUALITY AND COERCION DO NOT READ IF MALE/MALE/FEMALE BOTHERS YOU! YOU ARE WARNED

Synopsis:
The character “Kid” appears in both Captive in the Dark and Seduced in the Dark

This novella takes place in Mexico and follows Kid after he and his girlfriend, Nancy, are taken hostage by a group of men led by Caleb. Unbeknownst to Kid or Nancy, they are taken to the mansion of Felipe Villanueva, an eccentric crime boss with a taste for the taboo.

Wrongfully accused by Nancy of the attempted rape and subsequent assault of Caleb’s escaped captive, “Kitten”, Kid is tortured by his captors.

We join Kid in the dungeon, where he is about to meet Felipe and his companion Celia for the first time...

PURCHASE LINKS

Amazon US
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iTunes/iBooks

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Paperback

Paperback
Determined to Obey

PLATINUM EDITION
Dark Duet: Platinum Edition (ebook)
Paperback


Other ebook:

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JOIN THE RELEASE PARTY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CJ Roberts is an independent writer. She favors dark and erotic stories with taboo twists and her work has been called both sexy and disturbing in the same sentence.

She was born and raised in Southern California. Following high school, she joined the U.S. Air Force in 1998, served ten years and traveled the world.

Her DARK DUET series has sold over 150,000 copies and is currently optioned as a TV show.

AUTHOR LINKS

REVIEW

Determined to Obey by C.J. Roberts
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Although lighter than than most of the Dark Duet series, this book still deals with issues of slavery, but it goes about it from a different angel.

Kid reminds me of Caleb in that he's too pretty to be a boy. The difference is Caleb's hard life toughened him while Kid is still all soft and sweet. Really Kid is just looking for someone to love him. Celia and Felipe take him on as their boy toy. While forcing his boundaries, they also fill the missing holes in his life.

His world has become simple: obey or be punished. Kid decides simplicity offers its own peace.

Some of the scenes in previous books where we had the story from the perspective of Caleb and Levvie are shown from the POV of Kid, Celia and Felipe, but mostly the story is tale of the conditioning of Kid.

The way Felipe talks to Kid, the debasement of forcing him to refer to his ass as his pussy is hot in my opinion.

He fights back tears as Felipe compliments his 'shy, pink hole' and 'virgin pussy.'

And I never knew Celia was such a freak. :)

The dynamics of Felipe and Celia's relationship, the love that sprouts between the three and some about their backgrounds are also discussed. They really do complete each other.

Celia can be too brave.
Felipe can't tell her no.
And Kid is determined to obey.

I loved this book, but it was over too quickly. I want more of this series.

4.5 stars

toni

FangirlMoments and My Two Cents

View all my reviews