Reliquary Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

Series: Reliquary #1
Source: Irish Banana Tours
Format: Paperback
Pages: 280
Genre: Adult Fantasy / Urban Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
Publisher: 47North
Release Date: June 14th 2016

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Mattie Carver’s engagement party should have marked the start of her own personal fairy tale. But when her fiancé, Ben, is violently abducted the next morning, her desperate quest to find him rips her away from small-town life and reveals a shattering truth: magic is real—and Ben is hooked. It’s not the stuff of storybooks. It’s wildly addictive, capable of producing everything from hellish anguish to sensual ecstasy almost beyond human endurance.

Determined to find out who took Ben and why, Mattie immerses herself in a shadowy underworld and comes face-to-face with the darkly alluring Asa Ward, a rogue magic dealer, infamous hustler…and her missing fiancé’s estranged brother. Asa has the power to sense magic, and he realizes Mattie is a reliquary, someone with the rare ability to carry magic within her own body, undetected. Asa agrees to help find Ben on one condition: Mattie must use her uncommon talent to assist his smuggling operations. Now, from magic-laced Vegas casinos to the netherworld clubs of Bangkok, Mattie is on a rescue mission. With Asa by her side, she’ll face not only the supernatural forces arrayed against her but the all-too-human temptation that she fears she can’t resist.

My review of Reliquary...
*This book is an adult book for mature readers only*

Can we just take a moment to enjoy this cover? This is the most striking, utterly beautiful book cover I've seen so far in 2016!

Reliquary is my first Sarah Fine book, and let me just say I LOVED IT! Have you ever opened a book, got so engrossed that you couldn't stop until you were finished? Well that was me while reading this book. 

Mattie Carver's life has just been turned upside down. Her fiancée Ben is kidnapped. Which made me feel for her, BIG TIME. She's willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Even if that means working with Ben's older brother Asa, who she's been told is basically a terrible person. 

Now y'all know how I make sure to not include spoilers in my reviews. This one however is so difficult to review without including spoilers but here I go, I'm going to try my darndest! 

what I liked:

• Asa- He's my absolute favorite character in this book. I now have a huge fictional crush! You see, there's much more to Asa than what Mattie was led to believe. I'll leave it at that, you'll have to find out for yourself! 

I'd never thought of the truth as a knife, but now I knew it was, able to sever muscle from bone, heart from heart. 

• Gracie- She's Asa's dog and she'll melt your heart!
• The Tension- Yup, there's tension between Mattie and Asa. Of course Mattie is off-limits but while traveling the world trying to save Ben there's an underlying emotional attachment developing between the two. (See below my thoughts on Ben to see why I'm okay with this.)
• I hope in the next book Splinter that we see something evolve out of this undeniable chemistry between Mattie & Asa.
• The Originality- The way Magic was incorporated into the world of Reliquary was completely unique. This is the first time I've read a story in which Magic was used as a drug.

what I didn't like:

• Ben- Let's just say, while Ben got hooked on magic he did some awful things to Mattie. She had no idea until she found out magic was real, and well yeah...Ben's a pretty crappy person in my book. 

All in all:
Reliquary was refreshing, a nice step into Urban Fantasy with plenty of action, originality and sexual tension! I'd recommend this to readers who enjoy adult books with magic, mayhem and mysterious men! 

Slight Spoiler, click at your own risk...I admire and respect Mattie's character. Even after she learns the truth about Ben lying and manipulating her, she's determined to be with him. Now some would call this foolish, but even though I don't like her wanting to stay with Ben I understand her decision. My prediction with book 2 is that she'll have to face the fact that she's not meant to be with Ben.

About Sarah Fine...

Sarah Fine is a clinical psychologist and the author of the Servants of Fate and Guards of the Shadowlands series. She was born on the West Coast, raised in the Midwest, and is now firmly entrenched on the East Coast.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr

Tour Schedule...

7/17: Polished Page-Turners - Spotlight
7/18: The Eater of Books - Excerpt
7/19: Behind Closed Covers - Spotlight
7/20: Gone with the Words - Excerpt
7/21: Reading is Better with Cupcakes - Excerpt
7/22: Supernatural Snark - Q&A
7/23: Quite the Novel Idea - Spotlight
7/24: The Book Cellar - Review
7/25: Fiction Fare - Q&A
7/26: No BS Book Reviews - Q&A
7/26: Emily Reads Everything - Review
7/27: Stuck in Books - Excerpt
7/27: Reads All the Books - Review
7/28: Ex Libris - Review
7/28: BCS Reviews - Review
7/29: kimberlyfaye reads - Review
7/29: Wandering Bark Books - Review
7/30: Lost in Lit - Review
7/30: Bookish Lifetsyle - Review
7/31: Don't Fold the Page - Review
7/31: Miranda's Book Blog - Review

3 Finished Copies of Reliquary (US Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway