Today it is my pleasure to make you aware of a newly released book by an author I have reviewed in the past. Courtney Cole’s new adult series is called The Minaldi Legacy and it starts out with [amazon_link id=”B009B1N1IC” target=”_blank” ]Of Blood and Bone[/amazon_link], which released on September 16th.

Below you will find the usual information plus a Teaser Quote that I picked from a few other options. Please leave me a comment letting me know what your first impressions are. I am genuinely interested.

Come back on October 15th to read my review for the blog tour.

[amazon_link id=”B009B1N1IC” target=”_blank” ]Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy)[/amazon_link] by Courtney Cole

Lakehouse Press | September 16, 2012 | 226 pages (est)

Summary (Goodreads)

As a little boy, Luca Minaldi was told he was a monster.
As an adult, he knows it is true.

He lives in Malta, a fairytale-like place filled with sunshine and sea, beauty and secrets. And Luca’s darkest of secrets is the best kept of them all.

Eva Talbot arrives in Malta for the summer to finish up her doctoral dissertation. When she meets Luca, a mysterious and handsome shipping tycoon, there is an instant attraction, a disturbing and beautiful energy that she has never felt before. But she senses the darkness that lives within him.

Eva is hired to care for his mother, who suffers from dementia, but it is Luca who Eva will eventually risk everything to save. Her life becomes a swirling chaos of darkness and romance, of secrets and mystery. And the question that emerges will become the most important answer of all.

Can she save Luca from the darkness that plagues him without losing herself?

The answer is a matter of life or death.

Teaser Quote

 Eva’s Point of View

Luca crosses the room in three strides and pours two glasses of what looks to be Scotch.  He walks back and hands me a glass.  I can practically feel the power emanating from him.  He’s the type of person who has been born into it.  It has been cultivated in him from the time he was an infant and it shows.  Power and money are in every molecular strand in his body.

“To sanity,” Luca says, tipping his glass toward mine. And then he downs his in one gulp.

I take a tentative sip and realize quickly that I was correct.  It’s Scotch.  Neat.  Without one ounce of tonic or even an ice cube to dilute it.  It burns my mouth and warms my chest as it slides smoothly down.  But for some reason, I don’t want him to know that it makes me want to gag and cough.  I want to seem unfazed, so I drink the rest in two gulps and hand Luca back the empty glass.

It is worth my numb lips because there is approval in his eyes as he takes it.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” he says as he sets the glasses down on a heavy wooden side table.  He is still staring at me and his gaze makes me feel like my skin will be ablaze soon.

“Ask what?”  I feel slightly woozy from the Scotch.  And to be honest, I’m also woozy from being so near to Luca Minaldi.  For several different reasons, he has an interesting effect on me.

“Wouldn’t you like to ask me if you’re safe here with me?”

I look at him, remembering his mother’s startling words.  My son is evil.

“Am I?” I ask and my voice is barely a murmur.

“Probably not.”

Luca’s voice is quiet in the study, as dark as the night surrounding us, and I suddenly feel like I should run, somewhere far away from here.  But at the same time, I know that I won’t.  I am ridiculously drawn to this man and the more I find out about him, the more I want to know.  So I shake my head.

“I’m not afraid.”

Luca looks at me again and I don’t see one ounce of the vulnerability that I have seen there before.  Instead, he is expressionless once more and darkly handsome.

“Well, that’s the rub,” he answers.  “You should be.”

Connect with Courtney Cole

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. Every Last Kiss is her debut novel and she followed it with the rest of The Bloodstone Saga (Every Last Kiss, Fated, With My Last Breath and My Tattered Bonds).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.