Charade Blog Stop! Masquerade (Heven & Hell #1) Review, Guest Post and Giveaway!

Heven and Hell Blog Stop!

I'm happy to announce that the Heven and Hell blog tour has stopped by blog!

I think that the Heven and Hell series is a fantastic series for young adults. I am certain that a lot of you will really enjoy these books, and that (as well as the author being awesome) is why I've decided to feature these books here on my blog. I hope that a lot of you will decide to try out this series!

Thanks to the author, Cambria Hebert for providing a guest post and a giveaway (see 'extras').

For those of you who haven't yet started the series, here's my review of the first book in the series, Masquerade. I hope that it'll persuade you to pick it up!

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Masquerade (Heven and Hell #1) by Cambria Hebert

Paperback, 360 pages

Published December 16th 2011 by Otherworld Publications

My shelves: angels-demons, arc-or-review, blog-tour, books-i-own, currently-reading, fantasy, read-in-2012, series-or-companions, shapeshifters, young-adult

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Before. Everything was so much better Before. I wasn’t haunted by nightmares, my place at school was secure and my face was flawless. Now, I’m a freak and everything has changed. The worst part is that I can’t remember the night I was sentenced to the shadows. The memory has been stolen from me and I just can’t shake the feeling that someone, something is out there -watching.

Just when I think I have my life handled, Sam, with his intimidating golden stare and shiver inducing voice, makes me realize that I don’t know anything. He makes me see that my scars don’t matter. That they never mattered. I can’t help but fall for him, completely unknowing that he knows exactly how I got this way. Not knowing he was involved.

***

Heven has no idea how closely death stalks her. She has no idea what I have done to keep her alive. I fear the day she learns my secrets, finds out what I really am. But even then I cannot stop, I vow to make things right. Finally her hunter will be hunted, Heaven and Hell, faith and sin will battle, and we will be victorious. But first, Heven must learn to be what she never imagined. I know her strength is there – I feel it. If we are to overcome all odds, she must push past her flaws - her frailties - to become much more.

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My thanks go to Otherworld Publications for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had looked forward to reading this book since I heard about it, it sounded intriguing and had a lot of potential. Although there are many paranormal young adult books out there, Hebert still manages to keep her story fresh and exciting, throwing in a lot of twists and turns along the way. There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of you will love this series, 


I absolutely loved meeting the characters that Hebert has created, especially our main character, Heven. She was a definite individual and was realistic, she had insecurities, she was vulnerable - she wasn't perfect and she knew that. I also thought that it was really interesting to read about a character who had a facial disfigurement  due to an attack, rather than someone with just the average high school/friend/family problems. It was quite refreshing to read about a character who is not confident and doesn't always have the answer to everything. It was also good to read about a character who seemed to have a good best friend, Kimber, who despite having some difference of opinions, did support Heven for the most part.  


Things start to unravel when we meet a new guy at Heven's school, Sam, and they start to get closer. For those who like their romance, I think that Heven and Sam's romance was well written. It did happen a little too quickly for my liking, but I wouldn't class it as insta-love. However, despite the chemistry forming between them very quickly, I found their relationship to be quite understandable - Sam certainly had something different about him, something that was intriguing and loveable. He was determined to protect Heven and due to her vulnerability, that's what she needed. 

The mystery behind the attack which scarred Heven's face was what really got me hooked into the book. Obviously something bad had happened on the night that she was attacked, but Heven couldn't seem to remember much about it, apart from having strange dreams of the night that it happened. I didn't know what or who it was and so it was interesting to see events unfold and to find some clues. Paranormal fans will certainly enjoy the revelation of the attacker and the details surrounding that. It got really exciting around the last third of the book. I found myself gasping, I was truly shocked and absolutely enthralled, wanting to know more about Sam's other side and why Heven was the target of an attack - a lot was revealed, but there is certainly a lot more that I want to find out about! We are also introduced to Sam's brother near the end of the book and I can't wait to learn more about both him and his family.

Overall, though there is a lot of competition and repetition in this genre, I think that Hebert has been very successful in starting off a new series that is bursting with potential. In fact, there are a lot of very popular series out there already, but I think that the quality of this exceeds a lot of them and it does deserve more coverage. I am very excited to get my hands on a copy of Charade as I think that now I know the basics, the room to develop and expand this series is huge. This is a series that can really develop further and I can't wait to see what's in store next for Heven and Sam!

Already read Masquerade and want more?

Check out the brand new second instalment of the series, recently released on 18th May!

Dying at the hands of a psycho was a shock. Having my life returned to me by an angel was incredible. Being named a Supernatural Treasure and being given Sam as my guard was pretty darn awesome. Acquiring a debt for it all—well, I should have seen it coming.

Now here we are, fighting demons from Hell, caring for a boy that I just don’t trust, and traveling to faraway places to return a treasure to its rightful place. Nothing is as it seems. Everyone wears a mask; everyone puts on a charade. It’s up to us to separate the truth from the lies and reality from fiction. A hard task when my new reality involves fallen angels, witches and dragons… and did I mention Hell?

Anchoring me down through it all is Sam. Sam, who must face tragedies of his own and is put to the test again and again.

If we fail in our task, life as we know it—life as you know it—will end. Forever.

Love quotes? I know I do! Cambria Hebert has kindly provided a guest post which tells us a few of her favourite quotes from Charade. 

Thank you so much for having me here today! I don’t know about any of you but I always like to read quotes. I have an app on my website for quotes that I like and I have one on my homepage for my computer. Quotes can be inspirational, funny, meaningful or words that male you pause to really think about something. I also really enjoy reading reviews from bloggers, readers and book reviewers that include a snippet of their favorite quotes from the book they are discussing. It gives a girl (or a guy ) a glimpse at the writer and what a book holds between its pages and it also piques curiosity.Sometimes I often wonder what quotes an author really loves from his/her work. As a writer, I know the time consuming job of rewrites and editing. An author must read their manuscript until they practically recite it in their sleep. Why? Well, I can’t speak for all authors but for me it’s because I want to know that I have done everything humanly possible to make my book the best it can be and the only way to reassure myself of that is by reading it a bazillion times (yes, that is a number).  I don’t mind admitting that when I am reading my book for the bazillionth time sometimes I get bored. LOL!! (now, now that doesn’t mean the scenes aren’t good but I mean even listening to your favorite song a million times you have to turn off the radio – you know?) But there are always those scenes, those snippets of dialogue or quotes that no matter how many times I read I still love. Every single time. Here are those quotes for me, from Charade: 

“If you cannot breathe, I will breathe for you. If your heart will not beat, mine will beat harder.If you do not live, neither will I.” ~Sam 

“I loved this boy. More than myself. More than life. More than anything. Tears leaked from beneath my lids because my feelings were so intense that they had nowhere else to go, there just wasn’t room in a single body for how I felt for him.” ~Heven 

"I kept my eyes on the water—how deceiving it could be. It appeared peaceful; it appeared beautiful. It was good at lying." ~Sam 

"I wasn’t afraid of the dark but I was afraid that when day arrived and the sun came out it would shine light into all the shadows from the night before, revealing all that the darkness had hidden." ~Heven 

 “Oh, and one more thing,” she said and looked over her shoulder. “Don’t hold back because I’m a girl. I might be a girl, but I will kick your ass.” ~Gemma
  
“Hope you like dirt, you’re going to be eating a lot of it today.”~Sam

 “… all the way back to last year when I was injured (I didn’t think of it as disfigured anymore because I wasn’t disfigured. There had been nothing wrong with the way I looked. The problem had been with the way I felt.)” ~Heven

I'd like to give huge thanks to Cambria for giving her time to provide a guest post and I hope that this post has persuaded some of you to give this series a go!


Want to win an eCopy of Charade? Cambria is kindly offering to giveaway a copy here, all you have to do is fill in the Rafflecopter form below:

Charade giveaway