BOOK REVIEW ~ THE AWAKENING: LIAM BY ABBY NILES

Title: The Awakening: Liam ( The Awakening, Book Two)

Author: Abby Niles

Expected Release Date: August 26, 2013

ARC provided by Entangled Publishing for an honest review 

Shifter, Liam Doyle knows Hell. At least he believed he did. The night he feels his mate die, he learns how very wrong he was. Nothing he’d struggled with since Ava’s rejection compares to the emptiness that fills his soul by her death. Lost in his grief, he’s taken by surprise and drugged. When he wakes, everything changes. Nothing is what it seems, and someone is dead set on making him pay.

When Ava Michaels is taken captive, she’s thrust into a dark and terrifying world along with the man she was forced to leave behind. While being near Liam again is heartbreaking, the motive behind her kidnapping is gradually revealed. The more she learns, the more she worries Liam isn’t the man she believed him to be. He has enemies willing to do anything to extract their revenge. Can their love survive a crazy man’s vengeance?

Book Review

I am a fan of Abby Niles and her unique shifter world. After reading the first book of the series, Aidan, I knew I wanted to follow up with book two.

Liam was seen in the first book and has been rejected by the woman that he loves--his mate--Ava. Most men would typically mutter a "Screw you" and go on their merry way. But Liam is different. He's not human, but a shifter. And when a shifter finds his mate, only to be dserted, that shifter loses his connection to the beast that lives inside.

Unable to completely bond with Ava when she rejects him, Liam has been falling into a coma-like state called bahrraj.  The more frequent these episodes occur, the higher the risk that Liam will not be able to return to his normal state.  It is ultimately a death sentence for the dserted shifter.

At the beginning of Liam's story, Liam senses that Ava is being threatened and in serious trouble. But before he can reach her, he feels her life force slip away. When he rushes to her home, he finds her lifeless body on the bedroom floor covered in blood. Cradling her, rocking her back and forth, totally distraught, an unseen enemy approaches and knocks Liam out.

When Liam awakens, he finds himself a prisoner of a mad man. And this mad man's evil plan starts to unfold with a shocker--a two-way glass revealing his precious Ava strapped down and alive.

And Ava and Liam are his pawns in a very deadly game.

I loved Liam the shifter and Liam the man. His alpha instincts, the caring gestures he has toward Ava, make a sexy package that Ava has a hard time resisting. And Ava has her altruistic reasons for rejecting Liam, even though she has continued to love him. Their story is beautifully told with heart breaking emotions and sizzling chemistry.

Niles starts out Liam's story with nail-biting intensity and I couldn't put it down. A must read for fans of shifter romance readers out there who love a protective hero who will do anything for his mate.