Book Tour & #Giveaway for Cleaved by Sue Coletta

Welcome to my stop on the Book Tour, presented by Silver Dagger Book Tours, for Cleaved by Sue Coletta.  Please leave a comment or question for Sue to let her kno you stopped by. You may enter her tour wide giveaway by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  My review of Marred, the first book in this series, is below. 

Cleaved

Grafton County Series, Book 2

by Sue Coletta

Genre: Thriller, Suspense

Author Sage Quintano writes about crime. Her husband Niko investigates it. Together they make an unstoppable team. But no one counted on a twisted serial killer, who stalks their sleepy community, uproots their happy home, and splits the threads that bonds their family unit.

Darkness swallows the Quintanos whole—ensnared by a ruthless killer out for blood. Why he focused on Sage remains a mystery, but he won’t stop till she dies like the others.

Women impaled by deer antlers, bodies encased in oil drums, nursery rhymes, and the Suicide King. What connects these cryptic clues? For Sage and Niko, the truth may be more terrifying than they ever imagined.

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Marred

Grafton County Series, Book 1

When a serial killer breaks into the home of bestselling author, Sage Quintano, she barely escapes with her life. Her husband, Niko, a homicide detective, insists they move to rural New Hampshire, where he accepts a position as Grafton County Sheriff.

Sage buries secrets from that night—secrets she swears to take to her deathbed.

Three years of anguish and painful memories pass, and a grisly murder case lands on Niko’s desk. A strange caller begins tormenting Sage—she can’t outrun the past.

When Sage’s twin sister suddenly goes missing, Sage searches Niko’s case files and discovers similarities to the Boston killer. A sadistic psychopath is preying on innocent women, marring their bodies in unspeakable ways. And now, he has her sister.

Cryptic clues. Hidden messages. Is the killer hinting at his identity? Or is he trying to lure Sage into a deadly trap to end his reign of terror with a matching set of corpses?

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Saturday, September 20, 2003

Even the weather betrayed me. Aqua-blue sky, not a cloud in sight. Niko and I sat in silence during the two-and-a-half hour trip north. Next week offered a new beginning, a chance to leave Boston and never look back.

I lowered the back passenger window. A light breeze ruffled farmland acres, and a full, round sun shined, burned, blazed as though this was an ordinary day. The limousine tires hit cracked asphalt, the road worn from a brutal New Hampshire winter.

Birds whistled serenades. Preteens played basketball within the confines of school grounds. Young, adolescent voices carried in the crisp morning air, rustling hues of burnt orange, scarlet, and burgundy through autumn leaves. Mountains stood proudly as if they could protect us. Here, perhaps, but not in Boston, where my nightmare began eight days and six hours ago.

We drove by the Minot Sleeper Library, and my gaze narrowed on the patrons. A middle-aged woman clutched my latest novel close to her heart like a coveted treasure. Scorching heat jagged up my chest. Soon she’d enjoy my words while I endured the harshest committal.

Didn’t she know? Couldn’t she feel my pain, my anguish? Pure evil enveloped my life, then spit me out like bitterness on a delicate palate, leaving me reeling in torment.

The hearse carrying our dreams, our endless devotion, veered right through tall, iron gates and followed a winding road to the back of the cemetery. My fingers curled around the armrest, and I shifted my sight to Niko.

Splayed hands on his knees, he turned only his head and offered a weak, faint smile. “You okay?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

To demonstrate what I thought of his stupid question, I shot him a cutting glare.

Palms up, he opened his arms. “What? I only asked if you were okay.”

“Seriously?” I said. “How could anyone be okay with this?”

Two funeral employees in dark suits dragged a tiny coffin from the back of the hearse. Stark white, the casket rode in their hands as the men marched over burnt, dead grass. Lowering the coffin onto two bands, they stepped away. My baby lingered above the mouth of an awaiting grave—displaying my shame, announcing my cowardice.

“We’ve gotta go.” Niko’s words churned the sickening feeling deep in my gut.

I peered through the side window, the cemetery dark and gloomy through tinted glass. The world now appeared as it should, mourning along with me.

Niko said, “Babe?”

The limo driver opened my door and startled me. He reminded me of a prison guard, hands clasped behind his back, eyes focused straight ahead. Behind him, rows and rows of ghosts, shattered lives buried deep with nothing left but a headstone to mark their existence. In the distance, an emerging sea of blue soldiered toward the grave—Niko’s fellow detectives, the ones who did nothing.

I twisted toward my husband, and a stabbing pain stole my breath. I bit my upper lip, waiting for the pang to subside. “Why are they here?”

“To pay their respects, Sage. Look, if you wanna blame someone—”

“Don’t,” I warned.

My crutches in hand, he dashed around the back of the limo to my door. Jaw clenched, I sneered at my new mode of transportation and steadied my balance with the toe of my splinted leg. I dropped my chin to my chest. Dammit. Why didn’t I fight? Why didn’t I do something, anything?

With a supportive arm around my waist, Niko coaxed me toward the gravesite. I passed him one of the crutches and rested my head against his strong chest. If only he could sweep me away so I didn’t have to face this devastation.

I squeezed my eyes closed. I couldn’t look, couldn’t witness the finality. It wasn’t fair. I had no memories to savor. No first touch, no tiny fist gripping my finger. No first steps, first word. I never had the chance to admire a newborn’s searching eyes, gazing at the world as a wondrous place. Instead, I had the harsh reality that wicked men roamed free, leaving destruction in their wake. 

A psychological crime thriller filled with secrets, violence and plenty of gore, Marred by Sue Coletta grabbed my attention from the very first page and never let go.  Gripping characters, a solid mystery, and a seriously deranged serial killer grab your attention from the get go.  A quick pace, good dialogue and the desire to know the final outcome between the primary characters make this a book you simply can’t put down.

Ms. Coletta does a great job introducing her characters, and the fractured lives and world they are living in, right from the start.  I quickly connected with Sage Quintano, a victim of a vicious sexual assault and attempted killing.  A cop’s wife and a crime writer, whose books became popular after her ordeal, she’s got more secrets than the local parish priest.  Especially when it comes to her what happened during her assault before her husband was able to rescue her.  Unable to live in their home after their joint ordeal, Sage and her husband, Niko, moved from Boston to a rural community where Niko has become the Chief of Police and they are beginning their lives again.  Only both of them have secrets and neither is really able to move on.

There are plenty of psychological twists and turns that begin taking place as both Sage and Niko are drawn into a twisted series of murders which have disturbing similarities to Sage’s assault three years earlier.  The tension increases when Sage is contacted by a man who claims to have her twin sister and demands that Sage follow his instructions to the letter if she wants to see her alive again.  Ms. Coletta really does a great job developing the tension between the Sage and Nico and between Sage and the few people she trusts in her life.  And it's just scary enough to make you want to read the book with the lights on.  Determined to keep her secrets, save her sister, and keep both Niko and herself alive, Sage really puts her life on the line.  While the story is mostly told from Sage’s point of view, we do get some insight into what’s going on with Niko, and the secrets he’s keeping from Sage, and even a little bit of insight into the viewpoint of one of Niko’s detectives. 

The mystery takes quite a few twists and turns and there were times I wasn’t sure why Sage, and Niko, did some of the things they did.  For instance, if you want to move away from a horrific situation, why only move away 3 hours from where it took place?  Wouldn’t it have made more sense for them to move across the country or to another country all together?  And why did Sage and Niko not trust each other with their secrets? Especially since they used to trust each other with everything?  I did like the secondary characters and thought Ms. Coletta did a good job with them, especially Frankie Capanelli, one of Niko’s detectives, and Chloe, Sage’s sister, who we get to know from Sage’s point of view.  The dialogue is sharp and as I stated the pace is fairly quick.  Ms. Coletta’s voice as an author is pretty good for a debut author, this is her debut book. 

Will Sage and Niko finally confide their secrets to each other in order to save Chloe from a deranged killer?  Is this killer the same one who attacked Sage three years ago?  Will Sage and Niko’s marriage survive this newest ordeal?  You’ll have to read Marred to find out.  I enjoyed it and look forward to reading Cleaved next.

My Rating:  3.5 out of 5 Crowns   

Member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers, Sue Coletta is an award-winning, multi-published author in numerous anthologies and her forensics articles have appeared in InSinC Quarterly. In addition to her popular crime resource blog, Sue co-hosts the radio show "Partners In Crime" on Writestream Radio Network every third Tuesday of the month from 1 - 3 p.m. EDT/EST (see details at www.suecoletta.com). She's also the communications manager for the Serial Killer Project and Forensic Science, and founder of #ACrimeChat on Twitter.

She runs a popular crime website and blog, where she shares crime tips, police jargon, the mind of serial killers, and anything and everything in between. If you search her achieves, you'll find posts from guests that work in law enforcement, forensics, coroner, undercover operatives, firearm experts...crime, crime, and more crime.

For readers, she has the Crime Lover's Lounge, where subscribers will be the first to know about free giveaways, contests, and have inside access to deleted scenes. As an added bonus, members get to play in the lounge. Your secret code will unlock the virtual door. Inside, like-minded folks discuss their favorite crime novels, solve mindbender and mystery puzzles, and/or relax and chat. Most importantly, everyone has a lot of fun.

Sue lives in northern New Hampshire with her husband, where her house is surrounded by wildlife...bear, moose, deer, even mountain lions have been spotted. Course, Sue would love to snuggle with them, but her husband frowns on the idea.

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