Blog Tour Review, Excerpt & Giveaway: The Minaldi Legacy – Courtney Cole

“I’m a monster, Eva.  There’s no saving a monster.  But I love that you want to try.”

Luca Minaldi is rich, powerful and mesmerizing.  He’s also a reclusive enigma.  He lives in Malta, a fairy-tale place filled with sunshine and sea, beauty and secrets.  And Luca’s darkest of secrets is the best-kept of them all.

Eva Talbot moves to Malta to finish her doctoral dissertation in Psychiatry.  When she meets Luca, there is a very real and instant attraction that she has never felt before. But even still, she senses the darkness that lives within him.

Eva is hired to care for Luca’s mother, a woman who suffers from dementia.  It is Luca, however, that Eva will eventually risk everything to save… as the legacy that plagues him continues.

As the darkness swirls ever more tightly around her, Eva realizes that no matter how hard she tries, she might not be able to save Luca without losing herself.

Eva and Luca are thrust into a world where their love is tested and darkness reigns.  Amid chaos and treachery, love and hate, Luca and Eva learn one important thing.

Love is dangerous.

But it also might be the one thing that can save them all.

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The Minaldi Legacy consists of two parts, part one:  Of Blood and Bone and part two:  Of Darkness and Demons.  It contains adult themes and content.

Series:  The Minaldi Legacy #1-2
Release Date: February 6th 2014
Publisher: Lakehouse Press Inc
Source: Inkslinger PR
Reviewer: Candace
Rating:

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Reviewer’s Thoughts

“I’m a monster, Eva. There’s no saving a monster. But I love that you want to try.”

This one line sums up both books (part one, Of Blood and Bone and part two, Of Darkness and Demons) that make up the Minaldi Legacy.  The love story between Eva and Luca is haunting, hypnotic and absolutely impossible to stop reading.  The killer about the Minaldi Legacy is from the get go, you don’t have any answers and as time moves along in the story, you are even more dumbfounded as to what is really going on with Luca.  Luca Minaldi is extremely good looking, rich, and powerful.  His family’s shipping empire has given him plenty of money and fame as well as a fortified estate called Chessarae on the island of Malta.  The people from the island gossip about the fact that he seems to be a recluse and with no explanation why.  Luca has dark secrets that he isn’t willing to share until he meets Eva.

Eva Talbot is working on her doctoral dissertation in Psychiatry.  She visited Malta as a child and always wanted to come back.  When she arrives on the island, her and Luca share a comical moment with a large spider and there is immediate attraction.  She senses something is closed off about him but can’t put her finger on it.

Luca eventually hires her to take care of his mother who is suffering from dementia or so it seems.  Eva moves into Chessarae to help but there is also a string full of murders that are unexplained on the island and Luca’s family home seems safe.  Or is it?

Without giving too much away, I have to say that I didn’t see the ending for Book 1 coming.  It was a fantastic twist and I applaud Ms. Cole for the twist.  Through all of darkness in this book, Eva and Luca hang on to each other.  Their relationship is tested over and over again and it was heartbreaking to read.  Unlike a slew of books I have been reading, I had no idea where this story was going and where it would end up…it was absolutely refreshing.

Luca doesn’t speak, he simply pulls me to my feet and lowers his lips to mine. His are soft, yet firm, crushing mine, taking my breath, causing my heart to race.

My hands flutter up to grip him, to pull him to me.

Everything about him causes my head to spin…his scent, his strength, his piercing dark eyes, his touch.

He picks me up and carries me to the bed, laying me down gently and covering my body with his own.

“Do you love me?” he asks huskily against my neck.  He pulls away and looks into my eyes.  His own are such deep and bottomless wells of darkness.  I feel I might tumble into them and drown.

“Yes,” I tell him simply.  “With everything that I am.  You know that.”

“Then all of this is worth it,” he decides simply, pulling my back into an arch and kissing the curve of my neck, worshipping my skin with his mouth. “All of it.”

He makes love to me several times, one after the other, time after time, as though he can’t get enough.  As though he can’t breathe enough of me in, or taste enough of my mouth.

“You’re everything, Eva,” he murmurs to me before he finally sleeps, his body tangled with mine.  “You’re worth anything.”

I sleep with a calm sense of well-being, filled with the love I have for this tortured and beautiful man.

I have to believe that everything really will work out for us.  It’s the only acceptable scenario. Luca doesn’t deserve anything less, and neither do I.

Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.

Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.

LINKS:                                                                 

Website:  http://www.courtneycoleauthor.com/

Blog:  http://courtneycolewrites.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Court_Writes

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Author Goodreads:   http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3112212.Courtney_Cole

The Minaldi Legacy Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/series/97613-the-minaldi-legacy

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Courtney-Cole/e/B004Y4Z8ZU/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1375577792&sr=8-2-ent

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