Ravage
Scarred Soul Series – Book 3
By Tillie Cole
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Synopsis
Is finding one’s true love worth committing the greatest sacrifice of all?
Taken as a teen, prisoner 194 was stripped of his name and freewill, meticulously honed to be a ruthless machine. Even as he tries to fight his captors hold on him he knows that obedience is the only way to save his sister, who is the one person that keeps him from turning into a monster.
As a young girl Zoya Kostava barely escaped the brutal attack that killed her entire family. Now twenty five she lives in secrecy. That is until she hears her brother also survived and is living with their greatest enemy.
Zoya risks her safety and anonymity to find the brother she thought dead and is captured by a beautiful, brutal man. A man who both captivates and scares her, in him she sees a soul as lost as her own.
They both have so much to lose will they be able to save each other…and survive.
Michel’s Review
We have all read books about the underworlds of organized crime. Whether it is the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, or street organizations, the one thing they all have in common is criminal intent and violence. They are the rulers of the underworld. They are the parasites of humanity. They are ruthless, heartless, and without conscience. They are in it for the power and the money. The ruling sanctions are the ultimate power.
The Scarred Souls series dives into the world of the Russian and Eastern European organized crime. There is a power struggle within the infrastructure of these organizations. The powerful families are vying for the power. They will do anything to gain the ruling power including using their children as pawns. Their children are being stolen. Their children are being sold into slavery. By taking the heirs they are leaving these powerful families weak.
It’s not only the children of the ruling elite being stolen. The lost and forgotten orphans are also being taken to build an army for another secret powerful organization. An organization that even the ruling factions know nothing about. An organization that is vying to ruin and take over the established organizations. The Arzianis, known as the Night Wraiths, is an international empire, like a new stalin, vying to takeover all the Bratvas.
Ravage is the third book in the series. I strongly recommend reading the first two books in order before tackling this book. Tillie Cole has created a complex world in the Russian Bratva organizations. Their organizations and violent interactions span the old world as well as their new world in the U.S. The first two books lay most of the ground work for the Ravage story.
Valentin was taken when he was eleven. He and his younger sister were taken in the middle of night from the Russian orphanage. He vowed to take care of his sister and would do anything to keep her alive. He became 194, the most ruthless and highly trained assassin in the Night Wraith army. His mistress was on a mission of vengeance after her lover was killed by 221, Zaal Kostava, the Georgian heir. Using his sister as collateral motivates 194 to become a killing machine he was trained and drugged to be. He is no longer a human being. He is a brutal and murdering monster.
As a child Zoya Kostava survived the massacre that killed her family and Georgian Bratva. She barely survived and the remaining members have kept her hidden from the world. When she finds out her older brother Zaal not only survived but has formed an alliance with their enemies, she’s shocked. She no longer has to stay in hiding. She is no longer alone in the world. She is free to meet her brother she hasn’t seen in years.
Standing outside the street, watching her brother fraternize with the enemy is heartbreaking. She must decide if she wants to reunite with him or remain dead. The choice is taken out of her hands when she’s taken by a monster. A monster that will torture her, hurt her, and kill her to get to her brother.
Zoya sees something more than a monster. She sees another victim like herself and her brother. When the rage drugs wear off, he’s a different kind of man. He’s not necessarily kind but he is not brutal or cruel. The man beneath the monster is a survivor and man of honor.
Zoya and 194 fall in love in an impossible world where they are both pawns in a high stakes war. A war that may destroy every person in the Bratva. If they are going to die, it’s going to be on their own terms, they are going to die knowing they are loved.
Tillie Cole has raised the stakes in Scarred Souls series. I could not put this book down. This complex series has taken a new direction that starts a new war. The Bratva world has taken on a new enemy. There are numbers that need to be rescued and souls to be found. The new Bratva will die trying to save these Scarred Souls.
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Scarred Soul Series
Raze – Book 1
TO TAKE BACK LIFE, ONE MUST FIRST FACE DEATH…
Conditioned in captivity to maim, to kill and to slaughter, prisoner 818 becomes an unrivaled and unstoppable fighter in the ring. Violence is all he knows. After years of incarceration in an underground hell, only one thought occupies his mind: revenge… bloody, slow and violent revenge. Revenge on the man who wronged him.
Kisa Volkova is the only daughter of Kirill ‘The Silencer’ Volkov, head of the infamous ‘Red’ bosses of New York’s Russian Bratva. Her life is protected. In reality, it’s a virtual prison. Her father’s savage treatment of his rivals and his lucrative and coveted underground gambling ring-The Dungeon-ensures too many enemies lurk at their door. She dreams to be set free. Kisa has known only cruelty and loss in her short life. While working for her church-the only reprieve in her constant surveillance-Kisa stumbles across a tattooed, scarred, but stunningly beautiful homeless man on the streets. Something about him stirs feelings deep within her; familiar yet impossibly forbidden desires. He doesn’t talk. Doesn’t communicate with anyone.
He’s a man beyond saving. But Kisa becomes obsessed with him. Yearns for him. Craves his touch. Needs to possess this mysterious man… … this man they call Raze.
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Reap – Book 2
Raised as a prototype for the Georgian Bratva’s obedience drug, 221 fails to think, act, or live for himself; he’s his master’s perfectly-crafted killing puppet. Standing at six-foot-six, weighing two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, and unrivaled in to-the-death combat, 221 successfully secures business for the Georgian Mafiya Boss of NYC, who rules the dark world of the criminal underground. Until his enemies capture him.
Talia Tolstaia dreams to break from the heavy clutches of Bratva life. She dreams of another life–away from the stifling leash of her Russian Bratva Boss father and from the brutality of her work at The Dungeon, her criminal family’s underground death-match enterprise. But when she stumbles upon her family’s captive who is more monster than man, she starts to see the man underneath. A powerful, beautiful, damaged man whose heart calls to hers. But sacrifices must be made–blood for blood…life for life…souls for scarred souls…
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Ravage – Book 3
Is finding one’s true love worth committing the greatest sacrifice of all?
Taken as a teen, prisoner 194 was stripped of his name and freewill, meticulously honed to be a ruthless machine. Even as he tries to fight his captors hold on him he knows that obedience is the only way to save his sister, who is the one person that keeps him from turning into a monster.
As a young girl Zoya Kostava barely escaped the brutal attack that killed her entire family. Now twenty five she lives in secrecy. That is until she hears her brother also survived and is living with their greatest enemy.
Zoya risks her safety and anonymity to find the brother she thought dead and is captured by a beautiful, brutal man. A man who both captivates and scares her, in him she sees a soul as lost as her own.
They both have so much to lose will they be able to save each other…and survive.
Buy: Amazon / B & N / IBooks / Kobo
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Author Bio:
Amazon & USA Today Best Selling Author, Tillie Cole, is a Northern girl through and through. She originates from a place called Teesside on that little but awesomely sunny (okay I exaggerate) Isle called Great Britain. She was brought up surrounded by her English rose mother — a farmer’s daughter, her crazy Scottish father, a savagely sarcastic sister and a multitude of rescue animals and horses.
Being a scary blend of Scottish and English, Tillie embraces both cultures; her English heritage through her love of HP sauce and freshly made Yorkshire Puddings, and her Scottish which is mostly demonstrated by her frighteningly foul-mouthed episodes of pure rage and her much loved dirty jokes.
Having been born and raised as a Teesside Smoggie, Tillie, at age nineteen, moved forty miles north to the ‘Toon’, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where she attended Newcastle University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in Religious Studies. She returned two years later to complete a Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching High School Social Studies. Tillie, regards Newcastle to be a home from home and enjoyed the Newcastle Geordie way of life for seven ‘proper mint’ and ‘lush’ years.
One summers day, after finishing reading her thousandth book on her much loved and treasured Kindle, Tillie turned to her husband and declared, “D’you know, I have a great idea for a story. I could write a book.” Several months later, after repeating the same tired line at the close of another completed story, she was scolded by her husband to shut up talking about writing a novel and “just bloody do it!” For the first time in eleven years, Tillie actually took his advice (he is still trying to get over the shock) and immediately set off on a crazy journey, delving deep into her fertile imagination.
Tillie, ever since, has written from the heart. She combines her passion for anything camp and glittery with her love of humour and dark brooding men (most often muscled and tattooed – they’re her weakness!). She also has a serious side (believe it or not!) and loves to immerse herself in the complex study of World Religions, History and Cultural Studies and creates fantasy stories that enable her to thread serious issues and topics into her writing — yep, there’s more to this girl than profanity and sparkles!
After six years of teaching high school Social Studies and following her Professional Rugby Player husband around Europe, they have finally given up their nomadic way of life and settled in Calgary, Alberta where Tillie spends most of her days (and many a late night) lost in a writing euphoria or pursuing a dazzling career as a barrel-racing, tasselled-chap wearing, Stetson-sporting cowgirl… Ye-haw!
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About Kristen Ashley:
Saucy Southern Readers 