Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: Rise – Karina Bliss

“You have the ability to make controversial characters sympathetic. Maybe I just want to be understood.”

Acclaimed literary biographer Elizabeth Winston writes about long-dead heroes. So bad boy rock icon Zander Freedman couldn’t possibly tempt her to write his memoir. Except the man is a mass of fascinating contradictions – manipulative, honest, gifted, charismatic, morally ambiguous.

In short, everything she sought in a biography subject. When in her life will she get another chance to work with a living legend? But saying yes to one temptation soon leads to another.

Suddenly she’s having heated fantasies about her subject, fantasies this blue-eyed-devil is only too willing to stoke. She’d thought self-control was in her DNA, after all she grew up a minister’s daughter. She thought wrong.

Outside your comfort zone is the only place worth living…

Zander Freedman has been an outlier – many would say an outcast – for most of his life. But there’s no disaster he can’t overcome, from the break-up of his band to the fall-out on his reputation. His Resurrection Tour is shaping up to be his greatest triumph – if his golden voice holds out. Contracting a respected biographer is simply about creating more buzz; Elizabeth’s integrity the key to consolidating his legacy as one of rock’s greats.

All the damn woman has to do is write down what he tells her. Not make him think.

Or encourage the good guy struggling to get out. And certainly not to fall in love for the first time in his life.

Turns out he is scared of something – being known.

Rise – a redemption story of a rock star going straight(er) through the love of a good(ish) woman.

Series: Rock Solid #1
Release Date: January 14th 2015
Publisher: Karina Bliss
Source: AToMR
Reviewer: Elizabeth B
Rating:

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Reviewer’s Thoughts

I have to confess, I started reading this book having never heard of the author before and knowing absolutely nothing about the story. What a great surprise!

In Rise, we meet Zander, an almost 40 rock legend in the midst of a comeback and Elizabeth, a Pulitzer-prize winning history author hired to help him with his memoir. When we first meet these two, it’s hard to imagine them together. What follows is a romance between two very unlikely people, but also a story about growth on many levels. Elizabeth challenges Zander and is a subtle force that influences not only him, but the other people around him to change. In turn, Zander challenges Elizabeth’s view of herself and her priorities.

Zander is definitely the center of the story and it was fun to watch his transformation throughout the book. I loved that underneath his hard core persona was a really good guy who had been beating himself up for a long time.

My only real complaint about Rise, is the ending. It seemed that things just drifted off without any firm resolution. In reading the author’s notes at the end, I discovered that Rise is part of a series and that Zander and Elizabeth will be appearing in future books as secondary characters, so their story isn’t really over. I’ll be looking forward to future work by this author to see what is next for them and their friends.

New Zealander Karina Bliss’s debut, Mr Imperfect, won a Romantic Book of the Year award in Australia, the first of eleven books published through Harlequin SuperRomance. Her most recent release, A Prior Engagement, was a Desert Island Keeper at likesbooks.com. Her next release, Rise, is a single title, self-published contemporary which continues the story of Zander Freedman, who first appeared as a villain inKarina’s bestselling title, What the Librarian Did – a book that made DearAuthor’s Best of the Year list in 2010.Two of Karina’s books have also featured in Sizzling Book Chats at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.

Find out more at www.karinabliss.com

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