KAREN’S KILLER BOOK BENCH: Welcome to Karen’s Killer Book Bench where readers can discover talented new authors and take a peek inside their wonderful books. This is not an age-filtered site so all book peeks are PG-13 or better. Come back and visit often. Happy reading!

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BLOOD BOUND
Possessed by Passion Collection
BY OLIVIA MARIE ETAL

Crazy Ink Publishing, LLC is pleased to present a USA Today bestseller list-aiming dark romance and paranormal romance collection boxset for release on March 16, 2021. Featuring stories from USA Today and International Bestselling authors, this set includes more than twenty romantic novels and novellas aimed to ignite your passions and make you fall in love with the characters. Pre order your copy today!

Collection Blurb

Passions pulsate.
Destinies collide.
Humans, angels, and demons alike are possessed with a common bind—desire.

Experience exquisite and sultry seraphs, demonic witches, a hellfire phoenix, a vengeful gargoyle, ordinary humans with dark sides, vampires, werewolves, ghostly spirits, and other creatures of the night, who will whet your desire for romance and seduction. Travel with them into their worlds as they lust for love, romance, and pleasure.

Will they find what they are searching for? Will you?
Find out in this twenty-plus, limited time paranormal and dark romance collection by USA Today, international bestselling, and award-winning authors.

Experience the passion.

Readers of Anne Rice, Debbie Paterson, Linda Howard, Dean Koontz, Kristen Ashley, and Paul Tremblay will love this dark collection! One click now to become POSSESSED…

Featuring the works of USA Today and International Bestselling Authors:

Bella Emy – USA Today Bestseller – For Better or For Cursed
Alyssa Drake – USA Today Bestseller – For Better or For Cursed
Cora Kenborn – USA Today Bestseller – Cast Stones
Catherine Wiltcher – Amazon All Star – Cast Stones
Erin Lee – USA Today Bestseller – Blank Slate
Olivia Marie –USA Today Bestseller– Blood Bound
Lorah Jaiyn – USA Today Bestseller – The Immortal Stone
Murphy Wallace – International Bestseller – Death in the Flames
N Isabelle Blanco – International Bestseller – Malice
Rena Marin – International Bestseller – The Arisen
Rita Delude – International Bestseller – Driven by Desire
M W Brown – International Bestseller – Under the Moonlight
Diana Register – International Bestseller – Electric Man
Stephanie Ayers – International Bestseller – Blood White
Yolanda Allard – International Bestseller – Gargoyles: Stone Curse
Sian B. Claven – International Bestseller – Neutral Ground
LJC Fynn – International Bestseller – Blank Slate
John Watson – International Bestseller – The Hollow-Eyed Girl
Tiffany Carby – International Bestseller – Meet Cut(e)
Michelle Edwards – International Bestseller – Demonic Destiny
Tracy A. Ball – International Bestseller – Blood Like Rain
Eve Corso – International Bestseller – Spellbound
Marie Ahls – International Bestseller – Villainous
Rheanon Nicole – International Bestseller – His Soul to Keep
Cloud S Riser – International Bestseller – Queen of Stone

Editor’s Note: Look for **Spring Madness** spotlights through March and April for authors included in this collection, a deeper look at the individual authors and their books, including Excerpts, Author Interviews, and Character Interviews!

BLOOD BOUND
Possessed by Passion Collection
BY OLIVIA MARIE ETAL

Blurb

Alyssa was turned by Regan over a hundred years ago. Instantly embracing her life as a vampire, she thrived as his mate.

The hunt and kill were forplay to them. Both enjoyed the game of seducing their victims and did it better than anyone else.

Until the day she tried to seduce Dylan.

Finding herself falling for a human was a guaranteed death sentence for them both. To make him hers, Alyssa would have to kill her maker and turn Dylan before anyone found out about their forbidden affair.

Would she have what it took to be with him or would she have to let her true love go to save him?

BLOOD BOUND
Possessed by Passion Collection
BY OLIVIA MARIE ETAL

Excerpt

I’d never seen him before, but when he walked into town that late afternoon, mine wasn’t the only head to turn. He was stunning in his long-tailed coat and top hat. His light golden hair poked out from under the hat, and it was pulled down so low, you could only make out his chin. Gloves covered his hands.

It was late fall and the nip in the air wasn’t what had made my hair stand on end or left me covered in goosebumps. There was something about the stranger that drew me to him. My racing heart pounded in my ears and kept in perfect timing to his walk.

Bomp. Bomp. Bomp.

The closer he got to me, the louder it became. Blood rushed to every part of me that mattered, and I swore I watched him sniff the air that came from my direction as a smile slithered across his half-hidden face. Warmth ran through me and it felt like his fingers were tracing under my breasts and between them landing on my throat. I lost my breath and with a gasp, the spell was broken.

I lost him when I blinked. He had to have gone into one of the buildings around us, but I couldn’t see any of the doors swinging shut behind him. Curious to know where he went, but also needing to get home, I watched for him as I made my way down the quickly darkening street.

There had been a string of odd deaths in the town the past few months and because of that, there was a mandatory curfew. At first it wasn’t so bad, but as the days grew shorter and the nights longer, the solitude of being in the house alone grew into an almost unbearable loneliness.

I had moved to the small West Virginia town of Hazelton when I turned sixteen. Running away from home wasn’t the dumbest thing I had ever done, but looking back, it was in the top five.

I made it back to my small house in the woods and was about to light a candle when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. A gasp sneaked out and I ran to the front door. Stumbling over the length of my dress, I tried to catch myself as I reached for the handle to get back outside.

Smack!

A hand raced in front of my face and knocked on the door hard, making me jump. Blocking the only way out of my small shack, I tried to turn to face the other way and was blocked by a cold, hard something.

“Where are you going?” a deep voice asked.

Without even knowing who it was, my body responded in a way it never had before. My chest rose and fell as my breath caught in my lungs, making my heart race faster than before. I knew who was there and tingles raced up and down me in places they never had. While my mind was saying run, the rest of me was longing for the touch of a stranger.

“I was…I…”

“Relax. I won’t hurt you. I saw you looking at me in the street and I had to come meet you. Please, sit.”

I heard the chair move out from the table. The wood legs scraping on the wood floor sent a chill through me again. How he knew where my furniture was when it was so dark in the house had me curious and terrified. I wondered how long he had been in there and what else he had planned for me. Was he the one who had been killing people or was I letting my imagination run wild to hide the fact I wanted him?

“For you,” he said as he lit the candle I was working on when he startled me.

He stood before me with his hat and gloves off. His hair almost glowed in the light of the candle. His piercing blue eyes looked through me and into my soul. I saw the deep cleft in his chin and the dimples on each cheek when he smiled at me. There was something so familiar about him, like I had seen him before that night, but I couldn’t place where.

“How did you get in here?” I asked. I tried to get my voice to steady, but the tremble in it was easy to hear.

“You invited me, remember?” His voice was as smooth as silk. The words flowed from his mouth coating my ears in his velvet tone.