Savor (Vicious Feast #1) by Kate Evangelista-Review, Blog Tour and Giveaway

Savor
Vicious Feast #1
by Kate Evangelista
Release Date: December 1, 2013
Genre: contemporary, New Adult, paranormal, rock stars

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SAVOR (Vicious Feast #1) by Kate Evangelista

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Mature and explicit content. Not recommended for readers below 18-years-old. Yup, you’ve got to be that old to read my story. Consider yourself warned.

I’m Dakota Collins, a tough talking, eye patch wearing, workaholic photography student. Why am I important? Well, maybe because I get to spend an entire month with Vicious, only the sickest indie rock band out there.

You see, I needed a subject for my Spring Showcase introspective in order to graduate. During a chance encounter at a club I’d been sent to cover for the Daily Gossip, our ironically named college paper, the features writer I usually teamed up with introduced me to the band—by accident, I might add. It involved a run in with a scary, bald bodyguard. Anyway, long story short, I signed a contract to take pictures of Vicious.

I should have known their handsome yet way too serious for his own good bassist, Luka Visraya, wouldn’t be able to keep his hands to himself. He’s gorgeous and all, but the way he smiles spelled trouble with a capital L. I’m in for a long month with him around.

Crazy shit happens and then some. So, if you want the skinny on Vicious and the events revolving around my stay at Lunar Manor, read my story.

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REVIEW: SAVOR is the first storyline in Kate Evangelista’s new adult, contemporary,  paranormal spin off series focusing on the member of the rock band Vicious. We were first introduced to the storyline characters in Kate’s YA novel TASTE where it was revealed that our beautiful rock stars are anything but human. Advancing the timeline a few years, our heroes and heroines are the world’s most talked about band but there is very little information about their personal and private lives. Enter photographer Dakota Collins who will be contracted to a thirty day all access tour with the band. Finding herself at Lunar Manor, Dakota will stumble into a photographer’s paradise-but something doesn’t quite feel right. She is mind numbingly attracted the bassist Luka Visraya and he in turn appears to want everything Dakota is willing to give.

The storyline premise follows Dakota as she is contracted as the band’s personal photographer for one month while she completes her final university assignment in photography. Her subjects are the elusive and inhumanly beautiful members of the highly successful and enigmatic rock gods of the band Vicious. Although the house and its’ inhabitants are open to Dakota there are still secrets hidden beneath the walls and behind the painful façade of the people who reside in the halls and rooms of Lunar Manor.

Dakota is a strong female but one who has been scarred by a horrific attack that is slowly revealed through nightmares and dream sequences but an attack that is still very much in the moment every time she looks into the mirror. We are not made privy to the details of the attack that has left our heroine scarred both inside and out, but for all intents and purposes, she is a woman determined to make it on her own regardless of her disabilities or physical flaws.

SAVOR is a storyline that barely touches on the ‘paranormal’ aspects of the previous YA story and in this it was a little confusing as I have not had the opportunity to read or review. There is definitely something regally different about the members of Vicious and one that has yet to be revealed in the current timeline. And SAVOR will end with the knowledge that there is much more to tell. We are left wondering if Dakota or Luka will survive the fall-out of Luka’s drunken rambling.

Kate Evangelista pulls the reader into a storyline that has yet to answer many questions but one in particular will throw our heroine into a tailspin when the reality of what has happened hits home. Dakota is a young woman who is ready to accept everything that has been offered but her heart will be shattered when the truth is finally revealed.

SAVOR is a story about a family whose demons are buried deep and little by little our heroine will begin to uncover what lies beneath the public face of the infamous and famous. What she finds is something that is uniquely inherent and curious at the same time but edges on the psychological realm of heart breaking destruction and emotional abuse. Kate will lose both her heart and her soul to a man she knew was dark and dangerous the moment he stepped into her view. The camera never lies but the people hide a multitude of secrets everywhere they go and Luka hides a secret from Dakota that may be the biggest sin of all.

Copy supplied by the author.

Reviewed by Sandy

Savor Exclusive Excerpt

“Dakota Collins!”

I lowered my camera. The use of my full name never came with good consequences. I blinked my vision back at her even if I wanted to spend the rest of the night taking his picture. Sweat rose over my upper lip. I may just have found my subject for the Spring Showcase.

The only problem?

I had to find a way to convince him to be in my project. Something told me this wouldn’t be easy. By the way my heart beat in my ears, drowning out the music and Silvia having a fit in front of me, I wanted it too much. I wanted him too much.

“This the guy you were saying?” I showed Silvia the picture I’d taken. This seemed to pacify her because she sidled closer, mesmerized like a moth to a flame.

“Luka Visraya,” she said with a moan like she’d just tasted the most luscious chocolate before taking a long gulp of her cocktail. The name didn’t register. Silvia must have noticed my blank expression because she continued. “He’s the bassist for Vicious.”

Still no pings of recognition in my head.

She slapped her thigh. “Where have you been? It’s weird that you haven’t heard of them. Their songs are on the radio like every second.”

Of course I hadn’t heard of them. I liked listening to country and I hardly kept up with current events.

“Name one?” Okay, I had a name. Luka. Exotic. A bassist. Part of a band I should know about. So he’s famous. I slowly felt my chances of asking him to be my subject slip from my grasp. If he was someone famous, fat chance he’d say yes to a graduating photography student like me. I just about deflated when Silvia mentioned one of their songs. “Oh, I know that one!” By accident. It played in the radio of the cab I rode in to Sacrifice. I stared at the picture of him then lifted my gaze to where he sat. “He’s gone.”

“What?” Silvia whipped around in time to come face to face with a wall of man. “Whoa!” She pushed at him. “Watch it, buddy!”

“Give me the camera,” he said in a threatening tone.

Big. Beefy. Bald. The three Bs that made up the quintessential bodyguard.

I clutched my DSLR closer to my chest and looked up at him with my good eye. “And why would I do that?” The patch didn’t seem to intimidate him because he just reached out. So much for my Bond villain aspirations. I moved away from his grubby hand. No one touched my camera but me.

Despite her size, Silvia came between me and the mountain. “We’re here to cover Sacrifice for our college paper. You don’t have the right to take away my colleague’s camera.”

Yeah! You give it to him, Silvy.

Not that I couldn’t take care of myself. But if Silvia wanted to play hero, I wouldn’t stand in her way.

“What seems to be the problem here?” a soft, authoritative voice chimed in.

The bodyguard moved aside to reveal the Gothic Lolita. She stood at just about the same height as Silvia, but she possessed an older aura even if she seemed to be our age.

“She’s been taking pictures,” Baldy said.

Lolita’s kohl eyes landed on me then shifted to my camera.

“As I was saying to the big guy,” Silvia explained. “My colleague and I are covering the opening of Sacrifice.”

“For what paper?” Lolita asked without taking her eyes off me. I clutched my camera like an extra appendage. In some ways it was. After losing half my sight, I relied on my camera like an extra eye, seeing the world through its lens. I would rather die than lose it.

“The Daily Gossip,” I said before Silvia could answer just to relieve some of the awkward tension building in me under her gaze. “We study at Wexler U.”

She tilted her head, crossing her arms.

“Okay,” I quickly stammered out. “I get that the name of our paper sounds like a tabloid, but the Daily Gossip is a cool campus paper.” The last part maybe only I believed since Silvia raised her eyebrow at me, but Lolita and the mountain didn’t have to know that.

No one spoke after that. Even in a noisy club, the silence in our group rang in my ears. Not waiting for the situation to get any more awkward, I plowed forward with my own selfish intensions.

“You know Luka.” I said it more as a statement, but it came out like a question.

Lolita nodded.

“I’m Dakota Collins and I’m graduating this spring. I was wondering if Luka would be interested in—”

“What would I be interested in?” a smooth voice joined our group.

The walls of my throat closed, chocking the rest of what I had to say. All eyes turned to Luka. Silvia dropped her empty glass. It bounced off the bodyguard’s shoe and landed in a clatter but didn’t break. Even with my height, I still had to look up at him.

“What are you doing here?” Lolita admonished. “You should be backstage.”

One side of his lips came up. God. Without the scowl, his face lit up. I had to stop the urge to lift my camera and start snapping away. And his eyes were piercing blue. The kind that stretched over my mother’s farm in the summer. Damn.Seeing him up close, I knew I’d give any one of my kidneys for a chance to take his picture in a formal shoot.

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When Kate Evangelista was told she had a knack for writing stories, she did the next best thing: entered medical school. After realizing she wasn’t going to be the next Doogie Howser, M.D., Kate wandered into the Literature department of her university and never looked back. Today, she is in possession of a piece of paper that says to the world she owns a Literature degree. To make matters worse, she took Master’s courses in creative writing. In the end, she realized to be a writer, none of what she had mattered. What really mattered? Writing. Plain and simple, honest to God, sitting in front of her computer, writing. Today she lives in the Philippines and writes full time.

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