BLOG TOUR STOP: REVIEW AND EXCERPT: Heart Recaptured by Tillie Cole

Title: Heart Recaptured

Series: Hades Hangmen #2

Author: Tillie Cole

Age group: Mature new adult

Genre: MC dark contemporary romance

Release date: 14th December 2014

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22107044-heart-recaptured?from_search=true

BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heart-recaptured-tillie-cole/1120923375?ean=2940046459395

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/heart-recaptured-hades-hangmen/id952314369?mt=11

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Recaptured-Hades-Hangmen-Book-ebook/dp/B00QZLSQ9U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418868592&sr=8-1&keywords=heart+recaptured

 

Blurb

Even salvation can be delivered through the love of the damned…

Beauty can be a curse.

Faith can be a cage.

Only love can set you free.

A few long weeks after being reluctantly ripped from the comforting embrace of her sacred prophet’s religious commune—the only life she has ever known—a terrified Delilah is thrust into a world enveloped by evil and swimming in sin.

Steadfastly devout in her faith, and retaining the deep belief that her soul is innately tarnished as a branded ‘Cursed woman of Eve,’ Delilah is determined to find her way home to her people in The Order and away from the corrupt and damned outlaw motorcycle club—The Hades Hangmen—who hold her at their secluded compound for her protection—a ‘protection’ she strongly resents.

Delilah yearns to return home, convinced that only amongst her own people, and under the holy guidance of the Lord’s revealed prophet, can her Satan-spawned soul be truly saved. Conditioned her entire life to believe she is a witch… a life-long temptress… the devil’s whore… Delilah increasingly resents her beautiful face, her shapely body and her sensuous effect on men. But when a man of the motorcycle club—a deeply sinful yet stunningly beautiful man—is charged with her care, Delilah begins to see that this dangerous and moralless sinner from the ‘outside’ may offer her something she did not know could truly exist: unconditional love.

Kyler ‘Ky’ Willis loves his life: a daily abundance of brotherhood, liquor, the freedom of the open-road and—best of all—his pick of hot women. Raised a biker brat and now VP of the most notorious MC in the States, Ky has no shortage of club sluts warming his bed; a situation he takes full advantage of… until a certain blonde enters his life… a gorgeous pilgrim-blonde he can’t get out of his head… a pilgrim-blonde he and his club recently-rescued from some backward religious cult… and a pilgrim-blonde he’s been ordered to keep the hell away from and his whorish hands off.

When yet another in a lengthy line of drunken blunders forces Ky to reluctantly take charge of the pilgrim-blonde’s care, he realizes that there could be more to this woman than just supermodel looks and a stacked set of tits. He begins to see that she could be the woman who could do the impossible—tame his wild ways and capture his reluctant heart.

But the unyielding bonds of Lilah’s past are strong, her ‘people’ determined and, with a new Prophet in charge and hell bent on revenge, they are mightily reluctant to let her go…

Review

I absolutely adore Tillie Cole’s Hades Hangmen series. It’s unique. It’s gritty. It’s fucking brilliant.

Heart Recaptured picks up right where It Ain’t Me Babe concluded. The Hangmen rescued Mae’s sisters, Lilah and Maddie, and brought them back to their clubhouse. But Lilah and Maddie are not adjusting to their new life outside the compound, especially Lilah. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near these heathen sinners; she wholeheartedly believes in her elders’ teachings and believes that she will only receive salvation if she returns to the compound and carries out her role.

As soon as he set eyes on the Pilgrim blonde, Ky was awestruck; there’s just something about Lilah that captured his attention from the start. But Ky has never had to work for a female’s attention, and Lilah seems like too much work because she acts like a Bible head case and doesn’t seem to want to give him the time of day.

Ky’s  always been a man devoted to his club and his dick in that order. His father’s view on women as nothing more than pieces of ass to get men off is what helped turn Ky into the Hades Hangmen whore. He’s an immoral biker with a corrupted soul, but he just might be the person Lilah needs in order to teach her how to live in the outside world and unlearn all of the brainwashed lessons that forced her to see herself as a cursed beauty.

The religious cult aspect of the series has always read like a character all on its own, and in Heart Recaptured, it is brought even more to the forefront due to Lilah’s fanatic devotion to its teachings. There were many times while I was reading about the heinous crimes that the cult’s elders’ committed that I needed to put the book down and regroup. It’s disturbing and demented and to witness Cain take on his new role and talk of reclaiming what’s his left me feeling completely out of sorts. The way Tillie wrote these scenes makes the reality of these type of religious sects so realistic and it sickens me to know that they are out there treating women and children this way.

Ky and Lilah’s journey together is definitely not an easy one. Lilah starts out as a job for Ky – one that Styx’s assigns him as payback for his deplorable behavior. But as they spend more time together, Lilah witnesses a different side of Ky – one that she is responsible for creating. Ky slowly transforms from a manwhore wanting a buffet of pussy to a one woman man who only has eyes for his “sweet cheeks.” But regardless of how enamored Ky is by Lilah’s internal and external beauty, the cult’s teachings are extremely hard for Lilah to break away from and every statement that Ky makes about him being under her spell is only reaffirming what she’s been taught of herself as being nothing but a seducer of men.

Ky is going to have to work his ass off in order to show Lilah what she truly means to him and that doesn’t even guarantee it’s enough to be enough to break the brainwashing of the cult, and with the threat of payback and the regrouping of the religious sect, there’s no telling how everything will play out and if Ky will be able to capture Lilah’s heart before all hell breaks loose.

Heart Recaptured is violent and gritty; it’s steamy and sweet; it’s heartbreaking and soul crushing. It’s one hell of a ride that I didn’t want to get off of and it definitely sets Tillie Cole’s writing apart from a shitload of writers. I’m extremely curious to see how Flame and Maddie’s story is going to play out in Souls Unfractured – if it’s anything like the first two, which I know it will be, I can’t wait!

A complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

5 poison apples

Excerpt

Another tear trailed down Mae’s cheek. “I have no idea how to make her and Maddie want this life. There is no more commune, no more Order. I am unable to help her… them. What will happen to them if they cannot adjust?” Her huge wolf eyes focused on me as Styx wiped at her cheeks with his thumb, his nose flaring with protectiveness. “I need your help, Ky. Not for you to make this even more difficult. If they left me, I do not know… I do not know…”

Styx turned Mae in his arms and she cried into his chest. His jaw clenched and he glanced in my direction.

Great. He wanted to murder me again.

Running my hands down my face, I jumped to my feet, and Mae lifted her head in surprise.

“I’ll keep the fuck away from Lilah. I swear,” I vowed.

Mae nodded, though her face remained blank. “Thank you.”

But Styx was still looking at me… and I knew that look. He was plotting something. I went to leave the room, when Styx cleared his throat, his infamous take-no-shit look on his face. Styx’s hands lifted to sign behind Mae’s back while her face was still tucked against his chest, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist.

“Go find Lilah. She’ll be down by the river or in the apartment. It’s the only two places she ever goes. Tell her you’re fuckin’ sorry for practically assaulting her tonight. Right?”

I nodded my agreement rather than say it out loud. He obviously didn’t want Mae to overhear our “conversation.” A lift of his finger made me pause again, and I watched a smirk curl on his lips.

“I’m putting you in charge of her and I ain’t telling Mae. Let’s call it your… atonement for being a whore-assed fuck-up.”

I rolled my eyes at his shit attempt at a joke, but I could tell my brother wasn’t fuckin’ around.

Author Bio

Amazon & USA Today Best Selling Author, Tillie Cole, is a Northern girl through and through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought up surrounded by her English rose mother — a farmer’s daughter, her crazy Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals and horses.

Being a scary blend of Scottish and English, Tillie embraces both cultures; her English heritage through her love of HP sauce and freshly made Yorkshire Puddings, and her Scottish which is mostly demonstrated by her frighteningly foul-mouthed episodes of pure rage and her much loved dirty jokes.

Having been born and raised as a Teesside Smoggie, Tillie, at age nineteen, moved forty miles north to the ‘Toon’, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where she attended Newcastle University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in Religious Studies. She returned two years later to complete a Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching High School Social Studies. Tillie, regards Newcastle to be a home from home and enjoyed the Newcastle Geordie way of life for seven ‘proper mint’ and ‘lush’ years.

One summers day, after finishing reading her thousandth book on her much loved and treasured Kindle, Tillie turned to her husband and declared, “D’you know, I have a great idea for a story. I could write a book.” Several months later, after repeating the same tired line at the close of another completed story, she was scolded by her husband to shut up talking about writing a novel and “just bloody do it!” For the first time in eleven years, Tillie actually took his advice (he is still trying to get over the shock) and immediately set off on a crazy journey, delving deep into her fertile imagination.

Tillie, ever since, has written from the heart. She combines her passion for anything camp and glittery with her love of humour and dark brooding men (most often muscled and tattooed – they’re her weakness!). She also has a serious side (believe it or not!) and loves to immerse herself in the complex study of World Religions, History and Cultural Studies and creates fantasy stories that enable her to thread serious issues and topics into her writing — yep, there’s more to this girl than profanity and sparkles!

After six years of teaching high school Social Studies and following her Professional Rugby Player husband around Europe, they have finally given up their nomadic way of life and settled in Calgary, Alberta where Tillie spends most of her days (and many a late night) lost in a writing euphoria or pursuing a dazzling career as a barrel-racing, tasselled-chap wearing, Stetson-sporting cowgirl… Ye-haw!

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

http://tilliecole.com

https://twitter.com/tillie_cole

https://www.facebook.com/tilliecoleauthor

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7074846.Tillie_Cole