Blog Tour Review: Craved – Stephanie Nelson

Craved by Stephanie Nelson
Series:  Gwen Sparks #1
Release Date:  July 25, 2011
Publisher:Page Count:  264
Source:  Bewitching Book Tours
Buy the book at: Amazon   Book Depository

Gwen Sparks just wants to live a peaceful life in the little town of Flora, but when she reads the headline, she knows peace may be hard to find. She’ll have to use her rare power for being able to read the memories of dead to catch the culprit behind the string of murdered witches. Teaming up with the one man who broke her heart, Detective Micah Reynolds, all the while she has to deal with a ghost who pulls her into the deathly realm at any given moment and a sexy but frustrating vampire who not only craves what runs through her veins, he’s after her heart.

Gwen Sparks lives in Flora, a peaceful town for the otherwordly in Missouri, running her shop Broomsticks while trying her heal her broken heart and resist the advances of one very determined vampire.  But once she discovers that a witch has been murdered and drained, she decides she needs to do her part to help the police find who was responsible.  Since part of her witchy talents is to “speak” to the recently departed she wraps up her broken heart and calls her ex-boyfriend, Micah Reynolds, to offer her services.  The only problem is, this time something is different when she talks to the dead.  She’s dreaming about the dead and finding herself much deeper into the mystery of vampires getting high on Brew.


If dealing with all that weren’t enough, Gwen’s stuck between two men.  The ex, who dumped her because he was pressured to mate with one of his own kind, and the hot vampire, Aiden, who has made it his mission for the last two years to get under Gwen’s skin.  Will she go back to the ex who broke her heart or will she finally break down and succumb to Aiden’s charms?


This is one of those books that sucks you in right from the very beginning.   From the very opening of, you know that there is something between Gwen and Aiden.  It screams at you, but that something has to wait it’s turn to be realized and when it finally happens you appreciate it so much more.  What did we have to wait for?  Gwen.  She needed to let go of her past with Micah to fully appreciate what had been staring her in the face for the past two years.  


The storyline with Brew was very engaging and had you wondering who was involved and even looking a little closer to home, even though you didn’t want to.  Ian Despereaux masterminded a plan to perfection, so while the ending of the book may appear to have wrapped up a large portion of that storyline, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing much more of this storyline in the next book, Hunted (which comes out in December).  


An engaging story with a sexy, sensitive Italian vampire to add to my boyfriend list.