Surfacing Secrets Elemental Evidence Book 3
M/M Metaphysical Mystery Thriller
Pride Publishing
March 13, 2018
286
Dual Review
Surfacing Secrets (Elemental Evidence Book 3) – Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham
REVIEWERS: SHE SAID – GLORIA LAKRITZ / HE SAID – Guest Reviewer: Blogger OJ He Say
They’re treading water in an ocean of secrets.
When ex-cop Jake Chivis is woken by the police and questioned about the mysterious death of his neighbor, he thinks his day can only get better. Things go from bad to worse when his lover, Mari Gale, brings him a horrific sex tape which appears to show a man being murdered. As they begin to investigate the origin of the video, nothing is as it seems. Will they find the killers before they strike again? Or will dark secrets rising to the surface in their own lives erupt and tear them apart?
Gloria Lakritz – She Said:
Wow, Just wow! Since beginning this series, from Book #1 Breathing Betrayal, I had gotten the feeling that I was reading something special ! I love to read, I can picture the worlds I am brought to through reading. I adore love stories, I love mysteries. Most of all I dig the supernatural. What could be better than have it all wrapped up in one?
A few authors have made it impossible for me to ignore the carrot they dangle in front of me. Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham have leveled a BIG BIG Carrot…..with all of my wants in a single series…. which takes my breath away.
Please read the blurb about this book. Now you sort of know the premise. Now I will discuss what this book meant to me.
First the beautiful men…….Jake and Mari
Whew !!!! Be still my heart…..Each one of these young men is beautiful in his own way. Jake Chivis, is ruggedly handsome, working with his powers in England, meeting and falling for sinfully sexy Dr. Mari Gale. Their sexuality screams from the pages.
Our Jake is frustrated about his ‘gift’ no longer working. He is conflicted he will be fired from the job because of this. His fear is that he will lose Mari if he fails.
With Mari we have started to see, addiction. His riding the waves of the internet, traveling thru the circuits he finds thrilling. From one server to another searching till time and place means nothing. Losing himself into the dark web.
Our authors have taken this story to another level. It was great before, BUT now this becomes even Greater. The mystery is not only the killings, the murders and the horror of the deaths; but the story becomes what they are becoming and what it will do to their new relationship.. Will each find their own way back? OMG this is the best of the three ever.
These wonderful story tellers have taken another step into their character development of Jake and Mari. They have stripped each one down to their souls. The pain for the reader is significant. It hurts and is frightening as hell. Their pain, their deception, their love keeps you breathless. What a story!
Guest Reviewer: Blogger OJ He Say – He Said
SURFACING SECRETS
I have loved each of the two previous books in this series, patiently waiting for the next one, and I must say this is the best one yet. I won’t get into specifics here as I will address those later on in my review, however suffice it to say that these two writers have hit their stride and it shows through in this excellent 3rd book!
THE CHARACTERS
Jake Chivis:
“…he was drawn to him in a way that went beyond his good looks. Although, admittedly, Jake’s dark curls and big brown eyes, and that honest to goodness amazing body, were certainly not a small factor in the attraction. Just thinking about Chivis in a state of undress had him more turned on than a hundred smutty video links.”
Ilmarinen (Mari) Gale:
Mari pulled in a harder gasp and tilted his head back, his pants and briefs around his hard-muscled thighs, shoulders pulled back by the restraints. He looked so beautiful like that, all sleek skin and sculpted muscles, like a renaissance sculpture.
THE STORY
The stories are so well paced in this series that I can’t even describe. They are following right in sequence, at the logically measured timing of a real liferelationship progression. Jake and Mari’s relationship is progressing more and more into the revelation of those three dreaded little words that we all adore to hear in our MC’s and in Surfacing Secrets this devilishly matched writing duo of Quinn/Birmingham delivers in spades.
Jake’s and Mari’s relationship is blossoming along with their sexual escapades with each other and each progressive sex scene is hotter, wilder, more intense than the next. Holy Erotica, Batman! That last, ending sex scene? I though my poor Kindle was going to melt and warp right in my hands.
Add to this hot writing the overarching story of who is committing these heinous murders and just how are the carrying them out, along with Mari’s addiction and Jake’s still unrevealed past, throw in some jealousy in the form of Cordiline and Colm and you’ve got one hell of a story.
THE WRITING
Truly magic is afoot when these two writers pair up. I have so far enjoyed this series so much and each new book is truly better than the other one. The stories progress at a measured, enjoyable pace, not beyond belief fast or dragged out needlessly. The editing is superb, no hiccups or typos, which makes for the complete immersion experience I so enjoy in well written books.
Bring on Elemental Book Four!
Now that the reviewers have read each other’s thoughts…
Hi OJ…. Welcome to Tampa! It is wonderful to finally meet you in person, sit down and talk books.!!! The book we are Dual reviewing for each of our sites is the third book in the Elemental Series written by Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Birmingham. I can say these two authors have really amped up the heat in this number three. This series has intrigued me from the beginning, the writing, the characters and the pace have been so consistent.
Hey there Gloria. So good to finally connect and chat about what we both love – books.
I must say the Elemental Series is one that has gotten better and better as it’s gone along. Their writing is nicely meshed at this point and, not that it ever didn’t, is really flowing so nicely. You’re right, too. The heat level of this one is awesome. That final sex scene between Jake and Mari! Wowza!
OJ I found the whole book very sexy as always, BUT what I focused on more was how the authors had Both of our guys have individual meltdowns!!!! I thought as I was reading this how bad this could go. It’s enough in a storyline to have one character creating internal angst to perpetuate turmoil, But Both….ugh it was killing me.
On the whole, Gloria, I do agree with you on the angst level as both Jake and Mari battle their own internal challenges. I think this makes them more three dimensional for us and continues the excellent character development these two authors have developed. It is truly a masterful development. In addition, I can’t but be fascinated by Inspector Cordiline. I think there is a richness waiting to come out in this character that I am relishing to experience.
Yes, Inspector Cordiline was a great side character and from the Q&A of our authors you may get your wish! Can I ask if you would be interested in following up with other Dual Reviews of books we would like to tackle this year and of course promise to meet again for Book Four in Elemental Series for sure?
I think doing some Dual Reviews would be fun. We’d have to make it work into both our schedules. As you know, reviewing is an ongoing labor of love we adore and it’s so much fun. Thanks for such a great experience.
Q & A with the authors – Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham:
1- Will you share with your fans of this series: which author writes which character… and secondly how you as the writer see your character?
Bellora: Oh, I think we should keep that a secret, don’t you? Secret, get it? (nudge nudge).
Sadie: The secret is going to surface eventually though. 😉
Bellora: Surface indeed. We are just walking bad puns tonight. Really though, I write Jake’s parts and Sadie writes Mari’s parts, and we both sort of share everyone else.
Sadie: Yes, we have an ensemble supporting cast and they follow directions from either of us. As to how I see Mari, he kind of crept into my head a little while before we started writing Elemental Evidence. He had a different name then and he was younger and less high-maintenance, but he evolved when we cooked up the premise for this series. I knew he was tall, blond and complicated, and a bit too clever for his own good. The type of boy I love to write. Originally he was going to be of Slavic origin but then I got hijacked by Finnish mythology and the rest was history. He’s a bit nerdy, but cute, though he doesn’t really think he is. The reader will continue to find out why he’s so annoying challenging as the books progress.
Bellora: Jake is my challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jake, but I usually write a certain type of character, someone whose moral compass is a bit ambiguous. Someone who isn’t always nice. Someone a bit wild and outside of the norms of society. Jake is… the opposite of all of that. Purposefully. Jake is the most ethical, true, loyal, strong, and caring character I’ve ever written and all the other characters that live in my head call him ‘the boy scout’. I’m okay with that, and so is Jake. He’s a good guy, and I like him like that.
Sadie: Jake is adorable. He’s that kid that all the other Moms wish was their son, and his own mother is like “how the hell did I produce this?” *laughs*
2- How did this book idea begin?????
Bellora: One day, I said to Sadie, I want to write a detective series. And she said, like a mystery? And I said, sort of, more like suspense, maybe a little mystery, but with this guy that’s an ex cop. And she said, that sounds interesting, what else? And I said, ummm. And she said, it has to have a paranormal or urban fantasy element. And I said, Elements! There we go. Tada.
Sadie: It was probably a much longer conversation than that, to be honest. But basically, yes. We’d both started NANOWRIMO, about the end of 2015, and both run out of steam at about 25,000 words. So even before November was over, we’d come up with the idea to do this instead. It just seemed more interesting. We drew up the characters and established that Elementals would fall into four classes, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. (There are also three more now, by the way 😉 ) Then we started writing. And by the New Year we had about a hundred thousand words, and we knew it wasn’t just going to be one book.
3- How do you both manage this living so far away from each other?
Bellora: Sadie never sleeps.
Sadie: I never sleep. It’s true. I’m a vampire. Only without the sex appeal. Or the teeth. Or the eternal youth.
Bellora: She will drink your blood though. Gotta watch out for that.
Sadie: Hahah. True though.
I think that if we hadn’t really clicked from the get go, this would never have worked. I’ve tried writing with other people and it only really worked with Bellora and one other person. We just bounce off one another, and it feels right. We’ve been best buddies for – over ten years now – even though we’ve only actually spent about 30 days tops in the same time-zone together.
Bellora: Awww… she’s right though. We manage because we both love writing, and we both can’t wait to see what the other is going to do next. We rarely schedule writing time, it just seems to happen on the fly or when we both have time to sit and spend a few hours putting words down. Google Docs has been our best tool as far as software goes. We write together in real time and it’s fascinating to watch.
4 – Detective Inspector John Cordiline! What a great character he is. Do you have plans to get him his own story line? Perhaps in one of the upcoming books? I’d love to see him feature in a book.
Bellora: Funny you should ask. We’ve actually talked about it. We both like John a lot, and he’s really grown as a supporting character especially in this book. I don’t know if we’ll actually write a whole novel from Cordiline’s POV, but we might do a short story. I for one have already said he deserves some sort of happy ending.
Sadie: I love John quite a bit. He’s based, visually, on someone I’m very fond of and I have a whole back-story in my head for him. It would be excellent to get some of that down on the page. Probably not in this series but I’m sure that he will crop up again.
5– I still don’t think we’ve seen all of Jake. Care to entice us a little with that?
Bellora: Sure. In book 4 we will reveal that Jake is really… dun dun dunnn… a vampire, no, wait, a werewolf, no no, um, demigod? Seriously though, none of those things is in store. You are right, however, that there is still more to come regarding Jake’s back story. Book 4 reveals some of it, but we have a book 5 planned in which the guys go to Michigan, Jake’s home town of Battle Creek, and we’ll get to see a lot more of how Jake came to be the person he is now.
Sadie: I’m so looking forward to writing book 5. It is going to be bloodsoaked massive. So much is going to happen in that book. *evil grin*
6 – Your co-writing is truly magical, what else do you have planned that you’d care to share?
Sadie: We have been quite industrious during the past year. We have potentially six books slated in the Elemental Evidence series (Possibly seven, but our editor is certainly happy to do six). We’ve also just completed the first draft of a new series, Wanted, set in a completely different universe, in a kind of steampunk future dystopia where there are three planes of overlapping existence, the Human, Fae and Demon worlds. The series starts with a young half-incubus on the run from sorcerous thugs that murdered his mother, who finds unexpected shelter with a pair of mongrel Fae scrap merchants who are more than they first appear to be. It is probably an understatement to say we are quite excited about this book.
Bellora: I can’t WAIT. We’re aiming for summer 2018, and I think Sadie summed it up nicely. We’re both very excited to get this new series out in the world.