What happens when negligent plastic surgeons receive a taste of their own medicine…?
Chicago investigative reporter, Eden Risk, receives an unmarked envelope containing a postcard ordering her to watch the enclosed DVD…or someone else dies. No Police. After Eden watches the DVD, a gruesome, horrifying surgery, she turns to the private criminal investigation agency, CORE, for help. Only she hadn’t expected that help to come with a catch. Her former lover, Hudson Patterson, has been assigned to the case.
Hudson would rather have another CORE agent handle the investigation. Two years ago, he’d screwed things up with Eden…bad. And as more DVDs arrive, Eden and Hudson find themselves not only knee-deep in a twisted investigation, but forced to deal with their past, and the love they’d tried to deny.
Kristine will be awarding $5 Amazon gift cards to four randomly drawn commenters during the tour as well as print books to six other randomly drawn commenters during the tour (3 of Pick Me, a contemporary romance, and 3 of Shadow of Danger, book one of the suspense series. [US ONLY on the books]). Click on the book cover to go to discover other tour stop. The more you enter the more chances you have to win.
Shadow of Perception by Kristine Mason is Book 2 in the CORE Shadow Trilogy. CORE is an elite group of agents that handles unusually dangerous and heinous crimes. A Shadow of a Perception opens with a crazed father who has kidnapped the plastic surgeon he blames for his daughter’s death and videotapes a diabolical surgery on the man. Eden, an investigative journalist and heroine, receives the tape.
Eden can’t believe her eyes when she watches the first video or the note that instructs her to show the horrific sequence on the news or another person will die. Her first instinct is to call CORE who had handled similar incidents in the past. What she didn’t expect was to have Hudson Patterson play bodyguard. He’s convinced that the deviant killer behind the tape has his eye on Eden. It is difficult to be near Hudson after their affair ended so abruptly two years ago. She’s tried to put it behind her, but having the living, breathing Hudson beside her brings it all back.
Hudson would rather have anyone guard Eden than him, then again, not. After all, he’s the best and he wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. He’d never forgive himself. He had a job to do and he could do it. Before he knows it, he, Eden and the rest of CORE find themselves trying to outthink a driven madman anxious to exact revenge on those he blames for his beauty queen daughter’s death. As the tapes arrive, and the body count rises, Hudson and Eden rediscover what they threw away so cavalierly.
Shadow of Perception has some majorly creepy scenes with the killer. CORE characters especially work well together. Hudson and Eden are initially very prickly around one another making their eventual return to love all the sweeter. The author’s research into child beauty pageants, what happens to the participants and parents that live for the pageant crown adds to the fabric of the story.
Shadow of Perception is a major thriller with super disturbing scenes. I am betting it will put a few thousand people off any planned plastic surgery. All the same, it is a fun read. Two thumbs up for this satisfying read. Suspense and thriller fans both should enjoy it.
Heroine’s POV:
“Hey, Eden,” Hudson Patterson said as he shrugged out of his leather coat and pierced her with his steely blue gaze. “I see you got yourself into another mess.”
The room shrank and her sole focus remained on the one man who had stirred more emotions in her than all the other men before and after him combined. Two years ago, he’d lit a fire inside her, and within months, he’d smothered the flames with his arrogance and bullheaded attitude.
Based on the condescending remark he’d just made, she doubted his opinion of her had changed. His appearance had, though. Harder, darker, more dangerous. His brown, wavy hair now reached his shoulders and he needed a shave. Even without the worn, black leather jacket, which now hung on the coat rack, he looked thuggish in a tattered charcoal gray thermal shirt, low-riding jeans and black Doc Marten boots. The whole badass biker look shouldn’t have appealed to her, but Hudson owned it and wore it well.
She glanced at his mouth, then immediately regretted it. Lust slammed into her belly as wicked memories of what his firm lips had done to her surfaced. Those unwanted memories collided into a kaleidoscope of naked skin, harsh moans and multiple orgasms. Even now, she swore she could still feel his rough hands urging her hips, spreading her legs, gripping her bottom. Could imagine his mouth on hers, or better yet, between her thighs.
Hudson smiled. A smug, satisfying smile that snapped her out of her sexual spell and reminded her exactly why breaking things off with him had been the right decision. Her body might not have thought so at the time, and those urges to have him in her bed right now might still be strong, but her head knew better. Hudson was an arrogant jerk who exuded less emotion than she did.
I didn’t pick up my first romance novel until I was in my late twenties. Immediately hooked, I read a bazillion books before deciding to write one of my own. After the birth of my first son I needed something to keep my mind from turning to mush, and Sesame Street wasn’t cutting it. While that first book will never see the light of day, something good had come from writing it. I realized my passion, and had found a career that I love.
When I’m not writing contemporary romances and dark, romantic suspense novels (or reading them!) I’m chasing after my four kids and two neurotic dogs.
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