Raze (Scarred Souls, 1) MP3 CD – Unabridged, October 28, 2015

"They were always meant to be together, one boy and one girl, two hearts split into two, sent to far-off lands on their own. For God wanted to see if true love could be tested. He wanted to see if two halves of one soul could find each other again, even against the odds. Years would pass. They would both be hurt. They would both be sad, but one day, when they least expected it, they would stumble into each other's paths. The question is: would they recognize each other's soul? And would they find their way back to love...?" ~ Tillie ColeOk, so this is something we've never done before. Em and I are both completely in love with the book Raze by Tillie Cole. Emily had already written her review and I asked if I could add my thoughts. She said yes and our first collaboration is being born!!!Wow!!! I stayed up until 3 a.m. to finish this book!! Could it be only Januray 3rd and I have already read the best book I will read in 2015? I think it’s very possible that I peaked early and everything will go downhill from here.Raze was not a light hearted easy read, but it still had some of the most beautiful, loving and gentle parts I have ever read!Raze starts us out in a very dark way. A boy who is falsely imprisoned in the infamous Gulag and made to fight in death matches. The boy becomes a monster, a fighting machine. He is number 818.Then we meet Kisa, a Russian mafia princess who is engaged to Alik, a Russian mafia prince. He is crazy man who is completely obsessed with her. A man who abuses her sexually and kills anyone for even looking at her. Alik is beyond crazy and even though he says Kisa "calms" him, he is brutal in his treatment of her.Kisa is trapped, her only freedom is found at church and volunteering. Kisa knows Alik needs her, and in her own way feels love for him, but the only boy who will ever have her heart is Luka Tolstoi. Her soulmate, her one true love who died so many years ago.Luka and Kisa were destined to be together from birth. Even their mothers told them that they shared a piece of each other. You see, Luka had dark brown eyes, but the upper left iris was smudged with a small splash of blue that matched Kisa’s eyes. Luka loved Kisa, even when she was a baby in her crib he asked if he could have her. They started out as best friends and they fell in love as teenagers, destined to be with each other forever! “Mama said God placed a piece of my eye within his so we would always know we shared one soul” _ Kisa818 escaped his prison and is hell bent on revenge. Though memories of his former life are gone he knows one thing, he must get revenge and kill Alik Durov. He doesn't know why, but he knows it's something he must do.818 makes his way to Brooklyn NY, which is where he finds the object of his revenge. The first time Raze sees Kisa a homeless man is attacking her in the subway and he saves her from a certain death. He is completely drawn to Kisa and though she doesn't know why, she is drawn to this strange man as well.818 or Raze as he is now called joins the death match fights that Kisa and her family run. Knowing he will meet Alik in a fight in the cage, in a fight to the death keeps him going. But memories begin to return and Luka finds the humanity in himself. Memories of his life before the Gulag come to the surface. Raze is drawn to Kisa and she to him as well. Kisa, risks everything to help Raze. “I never had this before. Never felt this overwhelming lust, this consuming level of attraction… this raw and insatiable need to be with a man. It was dangerous. It was haunting. It was forbidden. And although it was wrong, it felt perfectly right” – KisaRaze’s struggle to get his revenge but become “human” again is extremely painful. In so many ways he is like a child. Not even knowing the simplest of life’s pleasures like what love or friends are. It was truly heartbreaking to see how evil destroyed this man, yet how love and destiny can save him. “I’m closing my eyes so I can feel being inside you.” He placed his hand over his heart and rasped out, “I’ve seen too many bad things with these eyes. This, I will feel with my heart.” – RazeRaze and Kisa were meant to be together and never have I seen two souls fight so hard to get back to one another and become one. This book gutted me and made me cry the whole way through! It was heartbreaking and yet beautiful. The love story behind the darkness captivated me and made me really believe in fate, in destiny and in soulmates. I am so in love with this book right now and Tillie Cole has become one of my favorite authors!! I want to give this book 10 lip smacks, but 5 will have to do!!The story has some plot twists that you won't see coming. As a whole, the book is written beautifully. There are parts that are brutal and gut wrenching. Then there are parts that believe it or not are sweet and innocent. I can not say enough good things about Raze. I will tell you...go one click now...you won't be able to put it down. And as brutal as he is, you will fall in love with Raze.I couldn't agree with Emily more. At first, I honestly didn't think I could finish this book. But the story is exactly that; heartbreakingly beautiful. You will go through so many emotions and I promise the story will stay with you afterwards. Em guess what? If I give Raze five lip smacks and you give Raze five lip smacks, that equals (drumroll) TEN LIP SMACKS!!!

Hello!!!So I really do love this author her books Hades Hangmen novels are great story’s and really captivate you.Alright so that being said I’m not biased I will give a fair review here.The story telling was great it didn’t feel rushed or overly written.Unpopular opinion but I honestly had hope for Alik 🫣 I mean hear me out. He was treated terribly by his father and he just wanted someone to bring some light in his life. He needed some therapy for SURE but up until close to the end of the book I was kinda hoping he could redeem himself a bit.(Kinda similar to Dean in the kingsmaker series by Sophie Lark. )If he wasn’t there they’d really have no story to tell. It was honestly a quick read and keep you interested for the most part but AGAIN I think that was because of Alik.I will continue the series and see how it’s goes it’s definitely worth the price to read it.

There was just something that pulled me into this story. Until RAZE I would have told you that I was not a fan at all of Dark Romances. I've always been a reader who likes a light, fun (although no less meaningful) romance. A romance that would take me away to a happy place where even when there are challenges you know that everything is going to be okay in the end. You don't hold your breath while reading, you don't cry because someone has been so scarred that you can't help but feel a deep biting sorrow for them and all they have lost, you don't rage against the injustice and cruelty of it all. You get mildly upset because your new book boyfriend or girlfriend got the shaft or hurt feelings, but you know in the end they are going to all be okay. That is not this book and I not only enjoyed it, I feel hard for this dirty, gritty, brutal world and hero/heroine.818 (Raze) doesn't remember who he used to be before he became a number. He doesn't remember where he came from or how he got where he is. All he knows know is how to fight, how to survive. All he remembers is:"Alik Durov. Brooklyn, New York. Revenge. Kill' -RAZEHe has one chance to discover the meaning of these 7 words that rattle in his head, this battle cry that has kept him going for years while he has been brutally beaten, drugged, help captive, while he has killed only so he could survive, so he could escape.Kisa Volkova is the daughter to to the Boss of the NYC Russain Bratva. She runs her fathers underground fight club, is engaged to her father's protégé, but she's only going through the motions of everyday. She hasn't felt alive since the day the boy she loved was killed in an automobile accident. Her memories of him all she has left of the soul searing love they shared even as children and young teens. They were made for one another, meant to be together, meant to rule this underground world side by side, instead she's left in the hands of a vicious man who only cares about power and money.Raze and Kisa's lives are brutal. I know I keep using that word over and over, but there is not better word to describe what they go through. They are both abused and mistreated. It is incredibly hard to 'watch', it is at times down right viscous and more than just heart breaking, it destroys you a little to see what these two go through. Even with all the pain, hurt, and suffering they go through watching them push forward, not give in, to some how retain the core of who they are is beautiful to see and being there as their love story unfolds in the midst of it all takes all the little pieces of your soul that get destroyed and starts to put them all back together.This book is violent, dark, devastating, and cruel, but it is also one of the best love stories I have read in a long time. If you are not comfortable with violence, physical, mental, and sexual this may not be the book for you, especially if any of those things could be a trigger for you. Remember at the start of this review I said before this book I had never really been interested in Dark Contemporaries, heck Dark any kind of book, but this book has so much more to give than violence and ugliness. This is a book about never giving up even when you don't think you have one more drop of blood to give. To never let the world break you and take away the person that your soul says you are. To cherish those you love, to fight for them, to believe in them, to believe that good can and will prevail against the evil of the world if we are just strong enough to stand against it. This is a book of extremes, but it is a book with a very basic message. The message that love can heal a broken soul. That if you are willing to fight (literally in the case of this book) for what you want you can have it. There is so much about this book that makes it rather difficult to talk about. One, I don't want to go to deep into the story because I can't without giving away major plot points, 2. this book is intense and putting into words how it makes you feel, how you can't stop thinking about it when you put it down isn't easy. This book leaves you both satisfied and wanting more (and thankfully now we will get that), it leaves you sitting in your chair, your book in your lap, your mouth slightly open, your eyes staring out into space, and your mind running at high speed as you try and process what you just read. You will likely put it down thinking one thing about it and then come back to it later and have an entire different feeling for it. It's going to chew you up and spit you out then gather you back up, piece meal you back together, stitching all your pieces back together (hopefully in the right 'order') and making you smile...when a book can do all of that to you you know its worth reading, maybe even multiple times.[...]

Ok so I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to read raze but I saw it again in a group and thought I’d give it ago.It did not fail to disappoint! It’s very dark, twisted, very emotional at times. I couldn’t put it down and devoured it in one night. Raze has been living in hell and was made into a killing machine but his sole mate was out there with the devil. When kisa find herself in danger raze comes to save her from the shadows from there everything falls into place.I’m looking forward to jumping straight into book two. If you love really dark books than this is for you but please be aware of the triggers within this book

OMG Raze!! That was pretty much my reaction the whole way through this story. Its a heart-breaking story about a bond between two people, a powerful love. There is so much cruelty in this book that you can't help but feel sorry for the characters, torn apart from each other when they were so young. Their journeys have been tumultuous and ultimately the story is about them finding each other again. Raze our hot, damaged soul is 26 year old boy. I say boy because his childhood was ripped away from him and he has been tortured, abused, filled full of drugs and forced to kill opponents for years. He's completely lost, he can't remember where he's come from or who he used to be.Kisa is a Mafiya heiress working in an underground fighting scene. Her Mafiya heir, fiancée is a nasty controlling man who punishes her for anything and is far too possessive. When Raze comes looking for revenge on the man who put him in hell, he also finds Kisa. There is a connection between them and Kisa has the task of making Raze realise who he is or at least who he was. With this comes dark secrets.A dark, brilliant read. A great love story. Just make sure you read this!

Exciting as always but this had small flaws for me. The concept, story line, characters were as usual the excellent quality of all Ms Coles book, but alot didn't add up in my mind.The character of the heroine just didn't add up, she was a mobsters daughter but not like any mobsters daughter I'd imagine let alone the head honcho. She always had tears in her eyes or was in a state of crying yet we are told she's tough enough to run her daddy's fight ring. Really!In fact her character just put me off the story, her ability to be the case of obsession for these men just didn't fit what we were reading about her. She seemed gutless, boring and plain......yet we're told she isn't.Another point which actually had me turning pages to move forward which I rarely do on a good book , and this is a good book. (Slight spolier alert).When the final confrontation happens she spends ages getting to the point while alongside a fight happening, which we've been told previous fights happen quickly and the hero is a dangerous and 'speedy fighter, so what does she do....she makes sure she gets her 5 mins of glory by dragging out the explanation when in reality I'd imagine her splitting it out much faster to stop the fight and get justice. But we are made to believe she, whose shown no 'balls' so far, suddenly can walk miles and wait till ALL her reveal is just as she wants it. Hmmm, I think not.I liked the hero's character, the thought put behind fleshing out his character paid off totally. But the mobsters life and background didn't really inspire me for a setting of love. Yet I get the novel idea of it.It's still a book that's beyond others and we'll worth a read as so far all the books of Ms Cole that I've read so far are. This just had those little inconsistencies that irked me. I'm sure others won't even see them, but I did.The character I loved the most was 362. He had limited word time but wow did he steal my imagination.

Intense is the first word that springs to mind when describing this book and I have a thing for big brooding men who exude dangerous so it was definitely something that I knew I was going to love, plus it's written by Tillie Cole who just happens to be on my list of authors that I will automatically read.Raze has been imprisoned since he was a boy, a death match fighter who is under the rule of the Georgians. His memory blocked and his emotions erased, he is a fighting machine that only knows how to survive in hell on earth.Kisa, the daughter of one of the three "Red" Bratva Kings of New York is in a forced relationship with an abusive man, also imprisoned by fate and family duty.When Raze flees his hell-hole, he has only one thing on his mind - REVENGE, but revenge leads him to something else when he saves Kisa from an attack something in him rises to the surface and that is a protectiveness that is so fierce that he doesn't know how to deal with it.I loved how Kisa taught Raze how to feel again, it was so beautiful to watch this big strong man turn from an anger filled bitter hulk to someone so tender and loving."I'm closing my eyes so I can feel being inside you." He placed his hand over his heart and rasped out, "I've seen too many bad things with these eyes. This, I will feel in my heart."Overall, it was a great stand-alone dark romance that will leave you breathless and despite it's predictability and the slight repetitiveness it was the perfect read for me.

Can I start by saying that I am a person that has to LOVE a book to add a review for it. Lots of things draw me to a book, usually the blurb rather than other reviews or covers. In this case I read the blurb and thought it interesting and one of those that I couldn't see myself immersing myself into, which for me is a must for an enjoyable read. When I kept seeing reviews come up I thought I'll give it a go and had never read the author before.I was gripped from the first page and despite the fact that I could never imagine myself in those situations Tillie's writing really had me feeling those characters and believing in them. The descriptions really had me in the scenes and surprisingly feeling that same numbness to the violence as the characters themselves.I will most definitely be reading more by this author.Why not a five star for me? The only reason is that the plot was predictable from the beginning, you could sense what the characters links to each other very quickly and so there were no surprises, but it was a fantastic read for me. Really enjoyed it x