Cover Reveal: Shooting Scars by Karina Halle

Shooting Scars

(The Artist's Trilogy #2)

by Karina Halle 

to be published May, 2013 by Metal Blonde Books

A second chance at first love.

There are a few things worth risking everything for - even your life. For Camden McQueen, this is one of them.

Shooting Scars is the second book in The Artists Trilogy and is told from the dual POV of Camden and Ellie.

The Artist's Trilogy: 

I freaking love the covers in this series so hard.  I love how they all go together so well and I love the font treatment for the titles. I'm not sure how I feel about Camden on the latest cover, I have in my head that he looks pretty different, but it's an epic cover nonetheless. What do you think?

Karina's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

The daughter of a Norwegian Viking and a Finnish Moomin, Karina Halle grew up in Vancouver, Canada with trolls and eternal darkness on the brain. This soon turned into a love of all things that go bump in the night and a rather sadistic appreciation for freaking people out. Like many of the flawed characters she writes, Karina never knew where to find herself and has dabbled in acting, make-up artistry, film production, screenwriting, photography, travel writing and music journalism. She eventually found herself in the pages of the very novels she wrote (if only she had looked there to begin with).

Sins & Needles Blog Tour

TITLE Sins & Needles (The Artist's Trilogy #1)
AUTHOR Karina Halle
PUBLICATION January 29th 2013 by Metal Blonde Books
READ January 21, 2013
SOURCE From the author for review

Ellie Watt is used to starting over. The daughter of a grifting team, Ellie spent her childhood being used as a pawn in her parents' latest scam. Now she’s much older, wiser and ready to give her con artist life a rest. But returning to the dry desert town of Palm Valley, California means one more temptation than she bargained for – Camden McQueen. Once known as the high school weirdo, Camden is bigger and badder than the boy he used to be and a talented tattoo artist with his own thriving business. Ellie’s counting on Camden still being in love with her but what she’s not counting on is how easily unrequited love can turn into obsession over time. When Camden discovers Ellie’s plan to con him, he makes her a deal she doesn’t dare refuse, but her freedom comes with a price and it’s one that takes both Ellie and Camden down a dangerous road.


**The Artists Trilogy is a dark and sexy contemporary ride about three flawed individuals caught in a world where it's so easy to justify the bad things we do. This is a pure adult read (Not YA or NA).**

I have to admit that I wasn’t too sure what I was getting into when I signed up to be on the tour for Sins & Needles.  My single previous experience with Halle was with The Devil’s Metal and that one was a very middle of the road novel for me.  What I didn’t find in that one, I definitely found here in Sins & Needles. This is a novel that sucks you in with the very first chapter and keeps you reading until you have devoured every single word.  Needless to say this was a one day read for me and one that left me longing for more upon finishing.

We live out this tale as Ellie Watt who has grown up moving from town to town, never really having a home.  Her parents were grifters who started teaching her the tricks of the trade very early on.  She proves that old habits die hard and we catch up with her in the middle of one of her scams going wrong.  I loved how crooked Ellie’s life was. A lot of the time when I read an adult contemporary the woman is just a regular woman who lives her life by the book and is pretty plain. Ellie was anything but, she had scams going left and right and was raking in the dough doing so.  As her old scams came back to haunt her she retreated back to the small farming town she lived in with her Uncle Jim during her high school years.  She retreats back to being simply Ellie Watt (not one of her many fake personas.)

I really liked Ellie, I liked her possibly more than I have ever liked an MC before.  She was strong headed and she was rough around the edges, I appreciated that because it made her come to life in my mind.  As she cursed and just thought about things in a down to Earth way she became someone I could see myself having a conversation with.  The detached way in which she tells the tales of her childhood (we are treated to Now and Then chapters) really hit home and I felt really bad for all that she had gone through. It’s clear early on that through one of her parent’s jobs she suffered something horrific that left her with scars and a limp. As that part of the tale came to light I felt heartbroken for her and I also understood her anger towards life. Yes, she wasn’t exactly making the best choices as an adult but her childhood didn’t really leave her many options.  It’s pretty sad that her parents abandoning her with her uncle was probably the best thing that could have happened for her.  

The romance within is not your everyday girl-comes-back-to-town-and-rekindles-high-school-romance story.  I loved the twists and turns that Ellie and Camden’s love story took and it constantly keeps the reader on their toes.  It also led to some pretty steamy scenes that had me fanning myself and craving some steak (which I don’t even eat BTW but I’d eat Camden’s steaks any day of the week oooohweeee!) One thing that I love about Halle’s sex scenes is that they are not sweet and sensual, they are rough and steamy, but oh so hot through and through.  

While I did find that the twists were not exactly hard to see coming, the characters and their twisted relationships left me feeling completely satisfied.  The ending is one that leaves you pondering exactly where this series will go and have you dying to get your hands on the sequel.  Sins & Needles is a contemporary novel that has all the makings of a great gangster movie to satisfy your thirst for a rush.  This is series that is not to be missed!

Karina's Website | Twitter | Facebook

The daugh­ter of a Nor­we­gian Viking and a Finnish Moomin, Karina Halle grew up in Van­cou­ver, Canada with trolls and eter­nal dark­ness on the brain. This soon turned into a love of all things that go bump in the night and a rather sadis­tic appre­ci­a­tion for freak­ing peo­ple out. Like many of the flawed char­ac­ters she writes, Karina never knew where to find her­self and has dab­bled in act­ing, make-up artistry, film pro­duc­tion, screen­writ­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy, travel writ­ing and music jour­nal­ism. She even­tu­ally found her­self in the pages of the very nov­els she wrote (if only she had looked there to begin with).

This post is a part of the Sins & Needles Blog tour

Click the banner to see all of the dates on this tour

The Devil's Metal Review

TITLE The Devil's Metal (Devil's #1)
AUTHOR Karina Halle
PUBLICATION September 21st 2012 by Metal Blonde Books
READ December 22 to 23, 2012
SOURCE Purchased

It’s the summer of 1974 and 21-year old Dawn Emerson has only three things she wants to do: compete one last time in the Ellensburg Rodeo, win back her ex-boyfriend Ryan, and become the best damn music journalist at Central Washington University. But all her plans are left in the dust when she’s contacted by Creem magazine to go on the road with one of her favorite groups, the up-and-coming metal band, Hybrid.

At first the assignment reads like a dream come true. Not only will Dawn land some much-needed credibility as a female music journalist, but she’ll finally get to experience life from the other side of the stage, and maybe crack the drunken, enigmatic code that is guitarist Sage Knightly. Instead, Dawn finds herself on an aging tour bus filled with ego-maniacs, band politics and a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. When monsters start showing up in dressing rooms and some of Sage’s groupies become increasingly strange and dangerous, Dawn discovers the band is not only going places – they’re going straight to Hell.

And Dawn has a backstage pass.

It’s been pretty hard not to notice the absolute raving that has been going on for author Karina Halle in my Google Reader. People are in love with her Experiment in Terror series and I have been recommended The Devil’s Metal numerous times. After seeing it compared to Almost Famous (one of my all time favorite movies) on more than one occasion, I decided to pick it up and give it a go. Upon finishing I can definitely say that the high praise in comparison is more than accurate and that the novel also serves out some good chills in high doses.

My favorite thing about The Devil’s Metal was the 70’s rock n’ roll feel that Halle portrayed perfectly. From the seedy backstage happenings to the warm, summer festivals I was there with the characters and believed every second of it. I loved that Hybrid was doing shows with the best of them and we got cameos from some awesome names but also that those didn’t feel forced and unnecessary. Halle achieved the fast lane lifestyle in a way that felt completely authentic and not campy at all (though I could have done without the numerous flip-flop references. Flip-flops are not sexy.)

Not only did she have life on the road nailed down, but she was also a master at dishing out the scares in this one. I admit that I liked the general day-to-day happenings of the band better than the paranormal element that is thrown in, but I did still enjoy the random glimpses that are strewn about, constantly letting you know there are some dark things afoot. I’m honestly not sure how I felt about the whole reveal at the end of the novel. I think having been such a huge fan of Almost Famous I went into it expecting to get my favorite movie in book form. I wanted to tour with the band and be a fly on the wall backstage but I got way more than I bargained for here. Though looking back at the chills and goosebumps that the sudden, jarring creeps had me feeling, the paranormal element wasn’t entirely unwelcome either.

Dawn was a fantastic character; I loved how, even though she was thrown into a world full of sex and hot men, she kept her wits about her and didn’t buy into the whole scene (though she wasn’t without her slip ups of course.) I really enjoyed her sarcastic ranting with her best friend, Mel. A lot of their conversations had me chuckling out loud and I always looked forward to Dawn calling or writing a letter to Mel. While Dawn and Mel were great characters, they didn’t hold a candle to the dynamic of the men of Hybrid. The band was just that, a hybrid of completely different guys coming together to make great music. Sage was a great character and I loved how he was broody and mysterious while still coming across as approachable and as someone Dawn could turn to. The voices of Robbie, Graham, Mickey and Noelle all felt defined to who they were and I could always tell who was talking even in a big conversation by the dialogue. I find that is something that is pretty difficult for an author to achieve; characters that don’t seem to blend together, and Halle did a wonderful job of giving all of her characters a unique voice.

While The Devil’s Metal wasn’t really what I was expected it was one hell of a ride nonetheless, and one that I was more than happy to be on. This has definitely wet my appetite for Ms. Halle’s writing and I can’t wait to get going on her EIT series.