Blog Tour & Giveaway: Hale Maree by Misty Provencher

Posted December 7, 2012 by Christine in review / 2 Comments /

Title: Hale Maree
Author: Misty Provencher
Pub. Date: Nov. 19, 2012
Find “Hale Maree”:
Amazon / BN

Hale Simmons dreams of climbing out of her impoverished life, going to college, and getting herself a titanium crash helmet, so she can eventually bust through the Plexiglas ceiling of her crappy life. But for now, she’s just a 18-year-old girl with a flimsy hope, barely getting by with her alcoholic father, Jerry.
But for Hale, ‘crappy’ suddenly takes a nosedive, when Jerry becomes the sole witness to a horrible accident. It is an event which means to effect everyone, especially Hale, who wasn’t even involved.
While the depth of the accident has just begun to unfold, Otto Maree, a prominent business man and old family friend, stands to lose everything because of it. Otto is desperate for Hale’s father to stay quiet about what occurred the night the two men met for a drink. Out of mutual moments of desperation, the two fathers forge a deal. Jerry is desperate to gain financial stability for both himself and Hale, and Otto Maree is more than willing to pay to keep his secret just that.
But deals like this need to be made of the strongest vows and bound with the most faithful of loyalties. Otto proposes a marriage between Hale and his playboy-son, Oscar, in order to assure that the secret remains ‘in the family’. The mystery surrounding the accident continues to grow and Hale struggles against her own mysterious feelings that begin to develop for Oscar, who turns out to less of a playboy, but just as fiercely loyal and dedicated as his father.
As the pressure around her continues to escalate, Hale realizes that she’s got to decide if this arranged marriage is really just a big mistake or an amazing twist of fate that has been waiting around for this particular accident to happen.

Please be advised that this book is NOT suitable for Young Adult readers due to language and explicit sexual situations.

~My Review~

How this amazing lady manages to write a winner every time, I’ll never know. But, in case you haven’t read any of my previous reviews of Ms. Provencher’s work, I just so happen to love her!

Hale Maree is so wonderful because I was completely taken aback by how in a world of pretty unoriginal story ideas (MOST of the time), Hale Maree is like a breath of fresh air. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even read the synopsis before agreeing to review because I was pretty sure this book would rock. But, then, to read it without any idea of what to expect and have the book surprise me was SUCH a treat!

Hale and Oscar’s characters are both SO endearing and clever. I loved their chemistry right from the beginning. What started as an intent to read just a “few chapters before bed”, ended in me finishing the entire book in one sitting. THAT’S how much I enjoyed the characters and the story.

If you’re in the mood for a story about a couple who have chemistry and heat from page one, then Hale Maree is a book I KNOW you would enjoy!

~My Rating~

~Giveaway~

a Rafflecopter giveaway

~Coming Soon From Misty Provencher~

My will to survive is the first thing to drown.
I know, because I hold it under myself.

After facing severe tragedy in life, Madeline assumes her death will be easy.
But the angels do not come to take her to Heaven.
Instead, what retrieves her is something she never expected: a gargoyle.

Delivered to Truce, the King of the Gargoyles, Madeline now has choices she never wanted. She has the ability to take over the entire Gargoyle Kingdom, if she is willing to kill the king. However, looking to prevent takeover, Truce transforms Madeline, thereby granting her the ability to achieve the thing she wants most—death—if she can just find the human recipient for the Gargoyle Gift that she now has to give. It should be easy.

But lives, whether they are lived or not, are seldom simple, and Madeline’s past still stands in her way. Now, only a voyeur in the life of The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice, Madeline’s must reconcile her own life and death, if she ever hopes to have free reign of her soul.

Scheduled Release Date: 12/8/12

~Mercy Excerpt~

It is a lion, I suppose. A grotesque lion, with a great, smooth hole, arcing through the center of its head, from a broad opening at its crown to its wide and snarling teeth that line its open jaw. If I were a girl again, I could pass my arm through it’s mouth and out the top of it’s head, crooking at the elbow. As a gargoyle, my claws would get stuck.
The snout of the immobile beast is as wide and flat as Moag’s, but sculpted to be more lionesque. The eyes are fierce with fat rectangles at the edges, narrowing like an Egyptian queen’s eyeliner toward the ears. The mane could be made of snakes, tangling and reaching out its undisciplined fingers on all sides. It’s body is that of a muscular and half-starved king of beasts, but with magnified feet and claws that are as long and sharply arced as a collection of machetes.
To stare at the thing, I must tip my face up and peer out the holes of my bone mask.
I stare at the thing for a long time but it’s own gaze never falters from its focus over the city.
I stare a long time more and begin to itch, although I never dare, to touch it.
I stare until the moon has begun its decent and then I finally say, “Hello.”
The lion does not move, but its enormous eyes slide, like gravel stones, rolls to the side of it’s head. It looks at me.