Title: Until Forever Comes
Author: Cardeno C
Series: Mates, #2
Narrator: Charlie David
Length: 5 hours and 54 minutes
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (11-11-13)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥5 Hearts
Reviewer: Tams
Blurb: Ethan Abbatt is a wolf shifter who can’t shift. Plagued by pain and weakness all his life, he hopes to find an honorable death by joining his pack mates in a vampire attack. Instead, Ethan learns two things: draining his blood releases his pain and his wolf, and he has a true mate – a vampire named Miguel.

Miguel Rodriguez is more than four centuries old. Strong, powerful, and vicious, he walks through life as a shadow, without happiness or affection. When a young shifter tells Miguel they’re true mates, destined to be together, Miguel sends him away. But Ethan is persistent, and Miguel can’t resist for long. Once Miguel gives in, being together comes naturally.

The challenge is keeping themselves alive so they can stay by each other’s side until forever comes.

Purchase Link(s): http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Until-Forever-Comes-Audiobook/B00FOTQVPA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4244

Review: Ethan Abbatt foolishly follows his young pack mates into town to take down some rogue vampires, with life changing consequences. Ethan has always been slight, smaller, sickly and weak, never able to shift into his wolf to spite being a natural-born shifter. That all changes the night he meets a centuries old vampire named Miguel Rodriguez.

Ethan recognizes the connection to his true mate straight away, but the vampire will take a little more convincing. As werewolves have their beliefs, so do the vampires, and they have long since known that drinking the blood of a shifter is deadly to their kind. But Ethan’s blood literally calls to Miguel, unlike anything he has ever experienced.

Ethan’s body seems to be built for Miguel’s. His smaller frame fits perfectly in Miguel’s arms. His veins plump and sing to the vampires fangs, they can sense each other and Ethan can finally shift. The ages old rift between shifters and vampires may be easily set aside by these two unlikely mates, but the same cannot be said for their friends and family.

Even after Ethan and Miguel go out of their way to ensure the pack lands are safe, the pack beta still expresses his disgust with their mating. Just when it seems these two might get their own version of a happy ever after, a power-hungry idiotic vampire threatens to destroy them both.

Just like with the first story in this series, CC has brought something fresh and unique to this shifter story. Ethan has a jealous streak a mile long, not good when your mate is a bloodthirsty vampire. But what if Ethan’s body, this condition that has plagued him his entire life, is the perfect solution to their problem. Are you intrigued? You have to grab a copy and read then!

I loved how this story answered a few unanswered questions from ‘Wake Me Up Inside’ and you learn more about the connection Ethan really has to the Eskedale pack from that story.

Narrated by the greatness that is Charlie David. I think this is his best performance yet, and I’ve listened to more than a dozen of his narrations. He does this sort of regal, relaxed tone for Miguel that sounds ancient and smart, just like the character.

The only time Miguel loses control is when Ethan is in serious danger, and that is flawlessly conveyed in David’s rendering of the story. Then when he is voicing Ethan, he is shy and unsure of himself in the beginning, but as the story progress, so does Ethan’s strength of character, and David conveyed that perfectly as well.

This book was simply music to my ears, right down to the most non-descript moan. This book was also by far one of CC’s sexiest novels as well. No sooner does Miguel touch Ethan, he can’t keep his hands off him, they literally redefine the term “fucking like minks!”, but it is so passionate and raw and sexy.

Ethan is 21 years old, never shifted, never even been kissed. Miguel is over 4 centuries old and never met someone he would be willing to die for, until now. So their mating is frantic and frenzied and often, but it’s too be expected, and just fits for the story.

A must listen if you are a fan of Charlie David’s narration, Cardeno’s stories, shifter and/or vampire novels, and of course my fellow hopeless romantics.

Title: Wake Me Up Inside
Author: Cardeno C
Series: Mates, #1
Narrator: Charlie David
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 7 hours and 20 minutes
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (08-19-13)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥5 Hearts
Blurb: Zev Hassick is surprised and confused when he finds himself attracted to his best friend. His very human, very male best friend. Zev is the son of the pack Alpha, regarded as the strongest wolf in generations, born to lead. And everyone knows a male shifter has to mate with a female of his own kind to keep his humanity. So shifters can’t be gay, right?

Jonah Marvel wants a relationship with Zev, his best friend, the man he has loved since childhood. It wasn’t easy to maintain that relationship over years spent living apart while Jonah studied to become a doctor. And then things grow more difficult when Jonah becomes his own patient. Before he can make a life with Zev, he has to understand his past and cure the unexplained ailments that plague him.

Zev and Jonah know they’re destined for each other, but they’re facing traditions ingrained over generations and long-buried secrets that may threaten any future together.

Product Link(s): http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Wake-Me-Up-Inside-Audiobook/B00ELJQLHC

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4170

Reviewer: Tams

Review: Zev Hassick, future alpha of his pack, is an anomaly. He shifted before his first birthday, he is able to stay in his wolf form far longer than any of his pack members and Zev is very open-minded, wanting to change some of the more archaic laws of the pack when he becomes alpha. At just one year old, Zev met his best friend, the love of his life, his true mate Jonah. It will be close to thirty years before he actually stakes his claim to Jonah, but the bond is formed and bound on that first day.

Jonah Marvel has only ever loved one person, his best friend Zev. The hardest thing he ever had to do was leave Zev to go off to college, but Jonah wants to be a doctor almost as much as he wants Zev. Over twelve years the two grow both individually and as a couple, experience a lot of firsts and struggle with the separation.

While both men carry the burden the separation causes, it seems to physically affect Jonah almost inexplicably. Nightmares, insomnia, weight loss and an overall sense that something is missing from his life.

Zev is certain that once Jonah comes home and they bond that everything will click into place, that they’ll find a way to deal with everything else, as long as they are together. But there are secrets buried in Jonah’s nightmares, secrets that someone will kill to keep hidden.

CC really writes some of the finest Shifter stories, and manages to bring something new to the worlds she creates every time. I was so intrigued by how Zev and Jonah were connected to each other in such a unique way very early on. There were aspects to their story, their relationship that I saw coming from the start, but there were a lot of surprises as well.

There was a bit of angst peppered throughout the story, but since these two met as toddlers, some angst would be expected as they grew up together. Their romance was sort of epic though, Zev was very old-fashioned in a sense, refusing to literally mate with Jonah until they could be together, but never giving up on him, on them at the same time. Rest assured, there is a LOT of heavy petting over the years.

Narrated by Charlie David who is such a fantastic storyteller. From subtle nuances to slight tone inflections at just the right points in the story, and he enunciates his words clearly as well, which is music to my ears!

This is a must read for anyone that likes paranormal romance and shifter stories, especially if you are looking for something different at the core of the story.

* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com *