Foxylutely Books!: Blog Tour - Steel & Ice by Emily Eck

Sunday, 6 April 2014

Blog Tour - Steel & Ice by Emily Eck

Title: Steel & Ice

Author: Emily Eck

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publication Date: January 26, 2014

Tour Host: Dreams Come True Promotions

Elle isn't looking for love. Hardened by years on the streets, she's learned to take care of herself by covering her heart with ice and keeping men at arm's length. She's not weak and she doesn't need to be saved. But she wouldn't mind getting laid a little more often.

J's covered his heart with steel. He owe's his life to an MC that is not what it seems. Since he knows his priority must be to the club's demands, no matter how illegal, he decided a long time ago that love didn't fit anywhere in his life.

A not so chance, but definitely hot encounter on a crowded dance floor should be enough for J, but he can't seem to stay away from Elle. As she begins to melt his steel, and he manages to chip away her ice, his forced loyalty to the MC threatens to tear them apart. When the risk becomes greater than J expected, will love be enough to keep Elle from freezing her heart to him?

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My rating = 4.5 stars

*Copy provided by the author in exchange for my honest review for the blog tour

This is the first book in the L & J series and for a debut it was fantastic. There is a massive cliffy but wow what a cliffy! The author promises to not keep us hanging too long though.

Elle has come from a struggled background, trying to love up to her parent’s exacting standards until she could stand it no more and effectively lived her life on the streets for the majority of her teen years. This saw her go through some pretty tough situations and started her early to drink and soft drugs. She’s dragged herself out of that now and although she often partakes in ‘weed’ and ‘bowls’ with her close circle of friends, she, for the most part, is now actively living a respectable life. She works at Applebees, attends classes and helps out at the local youth centre. She’s a tough cookie and is total kick ass, she’s definitely no shrinking violet – she knows what she wants and what she won’t put up with. She protects herself at all costs and with the exception of her two best friends, she doesn’t let anyone in to the REAL Elle.

J is a bit of an enigma. He’s a hottie for sure and a tall one at that but we don’t quite get to find out much about him. Little snippets are given as Elle and J divulge bits of their past with each other but even with that J still remains a mystery. We know he kind of ‘works’ for the St Louis MC but not in what capacity. I love that he was mixed race and part Lakota, SEXY! He was so sweet and tender with Elle but a hard ass and scary mo-fo to everyone else. I was totally sah-wooning reading about him.

I loved the gradual build-up of the story and the flip-floppity moment at Elle and J’s first interaction and subsequent get togethers. I liked that the attraction although instant was left to develop at a natural pace with some definite hotness rolled in!

However, when first reading this it took me a while to get into the story as it all seemed to be about buying weed, bowls and for me it just went a little too in depth. The story really took off into riveting proportions once we hit the 15% - 20% mark. I could understand the author wanting to show the background and lifestyle of Elle was not all white picket fenced but at first did read like a documentary and a step by step of how to score weed. If that could have been ‘weeded’ out (LOL) and a generalisation given it would have had more impact for the reader to be enticed in to the main part of the story, which is Elle and J, at an earlier stage of the book.

Saying all that I really enjoyed this book and amazed this was Ms Eck’s debut. With a bit more editing this could well have been a five star read for me. With the erotic and romantic parts of Elle and J plus that WTF ending it still wasn’t far off the mark. A great debut and a 4.5 star read for me. Can’t wait for the second book but in the meantime I have J Speaks (a novelette of J’s POV) to keep me going.

Emily is a Midwestern Gal, but could be anywhere as you read this. She gypsys the country, as well as south of the border. Adventure feeds her soul, and offers great writing material. She loves kids and working with teens, but can only handle caring for four-legged furry friends. A crazy dog and laid back cat have trained her to be their partner in life. Vices include Swedish Fish, ignoring chores in favor of reading, and caring too much for the people in her life. She chose to write this bio in third person as she is an Aries, and found writing in first person ended up with her writing an excessively long life story. Aries like to talk about themselves. It is something Emily is working on being more mindful of.