I have the honor of kicking of
Jessica Fortunato’s blog tour for her long awaited second novel The Sin Collector: Sacrifice. Some of us
have been waiting months and months for this. I got the privilege of reading it
before it came out. Here’s what I thought:
Blurb: As an immortal Sin Collector, Liliana lead a transient life of solitude
for over one-hundred years.
Now with a growing family, she has found herself liking normalcy and
the façade of being human. However, when
old friends begin to turn up dead, it is clear Collectors are not safe. The battle that Liliana thought she’d won,
has only just begun.
She must save herself, her family, and her friends from the Castus, a
fanatical group sworn to eradicate her kind.
As Liliana travels the globe making allies, and discovering secrets,
she soon learns that the threat to her safety is closer than she ever thought
possible.
Will she be able to fight her fate, or will she succumb to an ancient Castus
prophecy?
I have to say I loved it. Liliana
has matured quite a bit as she struggles to protect her new family. The focus
of the story is less action but I still needed to keep turning the pages. This
goes more into the mystery of Liliana’s past and why she has the ability to
see auras. However it’s the small tidbits of prophecy that I find really
interesting. Julia is a jewel as always and there is a host of new characters
that you will come to love. Then there are the tender moments that brought
tears to my eyes. I’m not telling. You’ll have to read it and see.
Don’t worry, I have a little
glimpse as a treat for you:
“How long will it take to get to the hotel?”
I hollered toward the cabin.
No one was talking, no one was moving. My blood froze, and I knew, in my gut,
something was wrong.
“Please let it be in here.” I desperately searched through my bag. There was one rogue blade, it was bigger,
harder to throw, but if there were people out there, I couldn’t miss. Before I could formulate any type of plan,
the tiny voice spoke from the other side of the door.
“Hey, LiLi, it’s time to go.” I smiled at
myself in the mirror. She was
smart. No one would dare call me that,
not the nickname Billy used. She was
warning me. That kid could have a pet
lion if she wanted when we were through here.
“Coming,” I shouted. I slid the knife up my sleeve and emerged to
find what I’d expected. Julia was
standing in front of the sofa with her hands up. A man with dark brown hair had a Castus
dagger to Olexanders throat. The cockpit
door was open and I could see the small hole in the windshield of the plane
where the bullet had entered and killed the pilot. Yet, the bloodthirsty way this stranger was
glaring at Julia is what strengthened my resolve. It was the worst possible angle. I didn’t think I could ever hit the man
without risking harm to Julia or Olexander.
My blood boiled and each second dragged on. The man was young and looked cocky and sure
of his ability to kill us all.
Believers, true believers, were always dangerous. They saw no grey, only black and white, good
and evil.
I had to make the choice for her, and I
hated myself for it, but I couldn’t think of any other way. I let the knife slip into my hand just enough
for the man to see it.
“I see the knife in your hand devil, drop it
on the floor and kick it away.”
The man spit out the words digging the
dagger just a bit more into Olexanders throat.
“You’ll be coming with me when I’m done with
these two. Ariadne is just dying to meet you, Liliana.”
“Can I just say goodbye before you kill
them?” I asked.
He looked confused by my request, he was not
expecting it, but nodded at Julia who was wide-eyed and staring directly at me.
“Put the knife down first,” he spit out. I
let the knife drop by my foot. I looked
into Julia’s eyes, hoping beyond hope she was getting this, and I saw the
curiosity reflected in them. She knew
this was not me. I would never give up on her.
“I love you Julia and I believe in your
abilities. Every moment we spent
together, especially that day in the woods.” As I said the last word I kicked
the knife in her direction, she managed to drop down, pick it up, and throw it
directly into the man’s left eye in a matter of seconds. Olexander kneed him in the throat. The man
was writhing on the floor in agony. Olexander rushed to us both.
I threw my arms around Julia, “You’re
amazing, you just saved our lives, but there could be more out there. I need you safe, just for right now, go hide
in the bathroom and lock the door until one of us comes for you.” She looked like
she wanted to argue, but conceded and ran to the bathroom.
“What now?” I asked Olexander, who blessedly
was unharmed.
He bent down holding the dagger over the
man’s good eye.
“How many are with you?” The man smiled and
coughed a little, whatever he had heard about Olexander, he wasn’t scared. Time was of the essence.
I was seeing red, seeing it everywhere. My family, attacked and I was having a very bad
day to start with. I stalked over to the smiling man and kicked him until he
was on his back. He looked at me and for the briefest moment, his smile
wavered. He knew who I was.
“Hold his neck so he can’t scream,” I said
to Olexander. I walked around the side of the man and politely asked Olexander
to hand me the dagger. He looked
worried, but did as I asked. He was
bleeding, but not so heavily, that he would pass out just yet. He wanted to scream, but no sound came
out. I lifted the dagger and drove it
through the soft spot above his elbow, it was a technique used in knife combat
frequently. It severed the ligaments and
tendons, making the arm useless, and normally left the victim to bleed to
death. The man was going into shock so I
needed to move fast.
“You just tried to kill my family, my child,
so I’m only going to ask one more time, how many more are out there?”
He hesitated, clearly hit by the realization
that he was in over his head. My hand
still on the dagger added some pressure.
“Once I take this out you will bleed to
death in a matter of moments, and lose consciousness even faster. If I don’t remove the knife and you get to a
hospital, you could have a chance,” I said calmly and rationally.
Olexander slightly loosened his grasp on the
man’s neck. He was trying to speak, and
I leaned my head down to hear him whisper.
“Two more,” was all he could say in short
gasps.
“Thank you,” I whispered back, and jerked
the knife out of his arm. Blood was
everywhere, and he was most certainly dead.
Olexander released his grip and stood stunned.
“Are there any other weapons we can get to?”
I asked him.
“My gun is in my bag,” he said unsteadily.
I grabbed his face and pulled it close to
mine.
“It was him or us. They came to kill, so I chose us.”
This seemed to snap him back to
reality.
“I’ll go out the front, you go out the
back,” he said.
I picked up the bloody dagger and noticed a
small tattoo on the man’s forearm.
“Olexander, wait,” I said.
There was something familiar about the
tattoo but I couldn’t place it. I yanked
my phone out of my boot, snapped a picture, and returned it to the pocket.
“Lily, what the hell are you doing?”
Quickly I maneuvered my way through the tiny
crawl space under the plane meant for baggage.
I saw the first man waiting, gun drawn, by the SUV Olexander had
requested be there for our arrival. It
took me only a few seconds to sneak up behind him and slit his throat. As he dropped, I heard a single gunshot from
the front of the plane. I edged my way
around cautiously, and met up with Olexander who grabbed and held on to me tightly.
“I’ll get the bags into the car, get Julia.”
“Disable the GPS in the truck first,” I
hollered back to him.
Want more?
Excellent! Get The Sin Collector:
Sacrifice exclusively on Amazon. Also, Get The Sin Collector: Thomas for free August 30th to September 3rd.
Or you can enter for a chance to win your very on digital copies of the Sin Collector Series.
Or you can enter for a chance to win your very on digital copies of the Sin Collector Series.
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About Jessica:
Jessica Fortunato writes a rare
combination of Paranormal/ Supernatural/ Religious Literary Fiction. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family, a
clumsy black cat, and year round Halloween decorations. Rarely seen in direct sunlight, reports of
Jessica’s vampirism remain unsubstantiated.
Jessica says she based the heroine of her
book, Liliana, on the many extraordinary women in her life.
The second book of The Sin
Collector Trilogy, Sacrifice, is available now August 30th, 2013.
She hopes that every person who
reads the series finds a bit of themselves in at least one of her characters.
When I asked her what made her
want to be a writer, she had this to say:
"Everything I write is a tribute to my
Grandma, who taught me from a young age the pure magic that can always be found
in a book."
Before I concluded the interview,
I simply had to ask her the question she imposes on all her readers. What was
your first sin?
"That question literally made me laugh
out loud," Jessica says, "I guess my first sin was an act of thievery
at the impressionable age of six. I
stole a handful of Swedish fish candies from the small store up the
street. I suppose ever since then you
could say the sins just keep piling up."
