Blood Vine by Amber Belldene….Blog Tour, Excerpt, Review & Giveaway

Buy Blood Vine at Amazon or at Barnes & Noble 

Synopsis:

In Blood Vine, bites are an inconvenient bliss, exiled vampires are wasting away, and the fate of their kind depends on the perfect PR campaign.

When public relations pro Zoey Porter arrives at an enchanting California winery, she discovers her sexy new client is the almost one-night stand she can’t forget. After her husband’s suicide, Zoey has vowed never to risk her heart again. But can she walk away from the intriguing winemaker a second time?

Driven from Croatia by his ancient foes, vampire Andre Maras has finally made a blood-like wine to cure his fellow refugees. Now he needs Zoey’s PR expertise to reach them. After his wife’s death, Andre has a vow of his own—never to risk another painful blood bond. And one taste of the tempting Zoey would bind him to her eternally.

His secrets stall her PR plans. Her jealousy is stoked by the blissed-out beauties leaving his bedroom. At every turn, he utterly fails to resist her. When she discovers he is a vampire, will she be lost to the golden-eyed Hunters, or lose herself to the emptiness in her heart, before she can help him save his kind?

Exclusive excerpt:

To die on the Hunt was the greatest honor, though it offered little solace at the moment. That smug son of a bitch Ethan had been right—he shouldn’t have come alone. Blood pounded in his ears. Would they make him watch while they ripped out his entrails?

One of the vampires called out to him from the darkness. “Hunter, don’t they teach you to stand down wind?”

Words pressed against the lump in his throat.

“Too bad for you,” the other said.

Then they were on him. One pushed him to the ground and placed a knee into his back. Dirt and dust filled his mouth, choking him, and he spit, trying to get the grit out. A hand gripped his shoulder and flipped him.

He looked up into the eyes of his target.

“It will have to be gory,” said Andre Marasović. “If we do not make an example of him, they will think they’ve won.”

“Can’t have that,” the son said.

“Kill him first. Then we will make our example.”

Surprise was the last emotion to flutter through the Hunter’s heart—a vampire had shown him mercy.

My Review:

The minute I received this information on this book, I was intrigued.  I was eager to start and see just how this spin on the vampire world would play out and I gotta say…WOW!  This story was a-freaking-mazing!

Zoey is a talented PR agent working for a successful firm in California.  She’s beautiful, young and should be feeling like she’s got it all…only she knows she doesn’t.  She’s been mourning the death of her husband for a few years now and has put up an icy wall that no one will be able to penetrate.  It’s easier that way.  After all, if you don’t let people in, you can’t get hurt if they leave.  So she’s managed to keep her love life to a fling with her boss and one attempt at a one-night stand with a handsome stranger she met in a bar.  However, for some reason, the minute she laid eyes on that stranger, she knew there was something more to him and it was a bad idea…so she shored up her icy reserve and left him where he sat on the barstool.  Imagine her surprise when the owner of the vineyard she’s now representing is the very same man she left sitting on the barstool….

Andre is a centuries old vampire living on his vineyard and desperately trying to come up with a cure for the disease that is slowly killing him and his fellow vampires.  Since the Hunters, a group of zealots hell-bent on wiping out the vampire race, have exiled him and hundreds of other vampires form Croatia, he has been working on a cure and believes he’s finally found it….in the wine he has made using the vines from his homeland.  Now, with the help of a PR firm, he needs to get word out to his fellow refugees.  Could it be fate has more in store for him when the woman that left him dumbfounded, sitting on a barstool months earlier is the very same woman sent to help with his PR work?

Together, Zoey and Andre, along with his friends, house staff and two sons, they have the fight of a lifetime ahead of them.  The Hunters are closing in, the wine and the vineyard need to remain safe so the vampire race can be cured, and they need to figure out if this attraction between them is something worth exploring.

This book kicked ass.  I know, I know…we’ve all read a million vampire stories but this is a book I highly recommend no matter how many vampire tales you’ve explored.  The dynamic between the characters is fantastic.  Every move Zoey made in this book is EXACTLY what I would have done.  She wasn’t unrealistic or overly emotional.  She took things at face value and was level headed where many other heroines would have gone into hysterics. I really appreciated Zoey’s genuineness.  She was strong and stoic when she needed to be yet somehow kept her soft side.

Andre is delicious.  He is kind, determined, responsible and oh-so utterly male.  His love for his sons and for the staff that helps him in his quest to save the vampire race, is so endearing.  He is a man who knows what he wants at when push comes to shove, he gets it.

Along with Zoey and Andre, we meet Lucas and Pedro, who are amazing.  They absolutely broke my heart…I cannot wait to see what the future holds for them.  Andre’s sons, Kos and Bel, are also characters that capture your heart as well and I also am excited to see what happens for them in this series. This book had everything I love in a great story…love, loss, conflict, devious villains, heroes and heroines worth rooting for and great originality.

I won’t go into too much more detail, because I am not a spoilery kind of gal, but I will tell you this….put this book on your to-read list and settle in for a great read.  I absolutely LOVED this book and see this series becoming a success we will be talking about for some time.  Thank you, Amber, for a remarkable read!

Four-and-a-Half Loves

 

And now, because we all love giveaways, I have an eCopy of Blood Vine to give away!  Enter in the RaffleCopter below!
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Author Bio:

Amber Belldene grew up on the Florida panhandle, swimming with alligators, climbing oak trees and diving for scallops…when she could pull herself away from a book.  As a child, she hid her Nancy Drew novels inside the church bulletin and read mysteries during sermons—an irony that is not lost on her when she preaches these days.

With a B.A. in comparative religion and an M.A. in theology, Amber is a Christian minister and student of religion.  She believes stories are the best way to explore human truths.  Some people think it is strange for a minister to write romance, but it is perfectly natural to Amber. She believes the human desire for love is at the heart of every romance novel and God made people with that desire.

Amber is addicted to vampire stories, but loves to read all kinds of romance and literature.  Her favorite books examine history and cultural origins, like Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, or Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.  And, yes, she was named after that Amber, of the classic romance novel Forever Amber.

From the wine country of Sonoma County to the foggy neighborhoods of San Francisco, all of Amber’s fiction is set in Northern California, where she lives with her husband and two children.

Author Links:

Website: http://amberbelldene.com/

Blog: http://amberbelldene.com/blog/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmberBelldene

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amberbelldene

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6537150.Amber_Belldene