Braving Fate By Linsey Hall: Blog Tour, Review, & GIVEAWAY!!!!

Title: Braving Fate
Series: The Mythean Arcana, Book 1
Author: Linsey Hall
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:


Disclaimer: A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

As chaos looms, a warrior queen is reborn

Bookish academic Diana Laughton has been having terrible dreams. Dreams of battle, dreams of blood... dreams so vivid she's living them day and night. When demons invade her quiet life, she wonders if she's going mad. Or if perhaps she's remembering a past life she had no idea existed...

In the midst of betrayal, he must protect her

Mythean Guardian Cadan Trinovante loved and betrayed Britain's warrior queen Boudica two millennia ago. Now he's tasked with protecting mortals whose lives affect the fate of humanity. His latest assignment is Boudica herself, reincarnated as a woman with no idea of her past or her fated future. Though in the irresistible form of Diana Laughton, it's possible Cadan has once again met his match...

To succumb to seduction could prove fatal 

Thrown together in a shadowy world that exists alongside our own, Diana and Cadan must fight not only the demonic forces that want Diana dead, but a past and a passion that have lasted centuries. Their desire could be deadly. But as evil from the underworld unites against them, their only hope could be each other.

Braving Fate was a great read. Cadan is missioned to protect Diana while she get's her remembers back and figure out why she was reincarnated. Cadan was not a happy camper when he found out that the reincarnate was Boudica. He'd lost her thousands of years ago and on her death bed she believed that he had betrayed her. Cadan loved Boudica but she did not return the same love. Boudica was a hardcore warrior and she did not have time for romance. That just was not who she was. Cadan was a warrior but a romantic at heart. Unfortunately with Boudica, that was not an option but with her reincarnate Diana it is.

Diana is a historian that had a rough childhood. Her passion was the past and since she was little Diana would always have these weird dreams. She couldn't figure out if it was all the research she had completed or if she was going insane that trigger the dreams. As she got older, the dreams would present themselves even during the day. It wasn't until Diana was attacked in her kitchen by a birdlike creature that things finally started to explain themselves.

When Diana and Cadan finally meet they are trying to figure each other out. Cadan is trying to uncover what Diana's mission will be so he can complete it for her and Diana is trying to remember her past life. Through all her dreams, Diana has a feeling that she knows Cadan but he denies all her questions that could bring her closer to the truth. See the trick is, Cadan is afraid that if Diana gets her memories back that she will remember that she felt betrayed by him. Cadan feels like this could be his second chance with the woman he loved. Luckily for both of them, Diana is nothing like Boudica. Yea, Diana still has Boudica's mad fighting skills but her social skills are a lot better. Cadan believed that if he had sex with Diana that it would trigger her memories. So he tried his hardest to make sure that did not happen until Diana tied him to the bed. They didn't go all the way but goodness what a way to go. Diana did not get her memories but she did find a key on Cadan that indeed unlocked her past.

Braving Fate gave me a run for my money. I loved Cadan's accent and the fact that he had so much love so Boudica. When he met Diana his world flipped. The type of love he couldn't have with Boudica he could have with Diana. He was just afraid to lose her again. Diana was attracted to Cadan from jump but with some much unknown happening at such a fast rate she did not trust herself. It didn't help either that Cadan continued to lie to her. Once all the pieces were on the table between these two, Cadan had a lot of explaining to do and Diana had to figure out if he loved her or Boudica. I love the love these two have. Braving Fate gets a scorching wicked rating. Can't wait to read more of this series.

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About the Author:

Linsey Hall is the author of the Mythean Arcana, a sexy paranormal romance series. Before becoming a romance novelist, Linsey was an underwater archaeologist who studied shipwrecks in all kinds of water, from the tropics to muddy rivers (and she has a distinct preference for one over the other). Her books draw upon her love of history, travel, and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include.

Several of her books may or may not feature her cats.

Stalk Linsey at the following locations:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest

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Check out this excerpt:

Excerpt Prologue

Central England, AD 60, eve of the Roman conquest of Britain

The woman he loved lay dying in his arms. Blood spilled over her breast, trickling from the dagger she’d sunk into her chest. Drops of blood hitting the dirt floor of the stone roundhouse echoed hollowly in his ears, amplified by the dawning knowledge of what he’d done. What she’d done. What they’d done.

“Why, Boudica?” His heart and voice were breaking. “Why do this?”

She shuddered in his arms, her broken body cold and fragile with looming death, but no less fierce than when she’d fought on the field of battle the previous dawn. She was their warrior queen, the force that had drawn thousands of British Celts together to revolt against Roman occupation, and he her top general.

She was his love. The one bright spot in the miserable spectacle of blood and death his life had become.

Boudica drew a harsh breath that rattled in her wounded chest and glared at him, her eyes alight with hatred.

“Why?” It was clear she would have screamed it if she could. Another faltering breath. “After your betrayal, you ask me why?”

“Betrayal? I did it for you.”

Her bitter laugh died on a cough. “I thought you knew me. I was wrong. You only know what you think me to be. I’m a warrior, the leader and symbol of our beaten land. I led my people in battle for our lives, our homes, our freedom.” She paused to catch her breath. “But we’ve lost. Irreparably.”

His jaw clenched, his chest aching with the weight of their past and his future. For she would die this night, her future forever erased. Because of him. Because he hadn’t been able to protect her. As he hadn’t protected his village and family before he’d joined her.

“The Roman dogs are at our door.” She coughed. “My daughters dead at their hands. Our lands stolen. Why would I live when capture is inevitable and my very life will be used as leverage? My head will be on a pike in Rome before summer’s end. More likely, they’ll use me against our people.” She raked him with a scathing glance and coughed again. Blood marred her colorless lips. “What would you do, O great warrior?”

“The same.” His throat burned. Capture was inevitable. And unbearable. Now, with the final battle lost and thousands of their families and allies dying in the fields around them, the fate that awaited her at the hands of the Romans would be worse than death, not only for her, but very likely for her people as well.

He’d tried to save her from this, but she hadn’t let him. He would have committed any deed, no matter how terrible, to save the woman who’d changed his life when he’d met her a year ago. But Boudica was a warrior first, his woman second. And she would die believing he had betrayed her.

She coughed, her pallor more pronounced. “And yet you would deny me my honorable death?”

“I love you. I’d do anything to save you.”

“And I thought I loved you,” she whispered. And as her eyes closed, the enormous life force that had propelled Boudica, Celtic Queen of the Iceni, evaporated.

The crushing weight of grief squeezed the breath out of his lungs. Collapsing over her, the black night swallowed his roar of pain. He would have vengeance.