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thriller

Book Blast: The Last Dragon Knight (The Dragon and the Crow #1) by Tim Akers

February 25, 2025 by hpholo Leave a Comment

Hey, y’all! 😄 I have lots of cool author friends who write lots of cool books, and occasionally I like to show off those books. That said, my pal Tim Akers has a new epic fantasy thriller out today and IT’S GOT DRAGON WARRIORS IN IT! 🎉

Book Cover for The Last Dragon Knight by Tim Akers
READ THE LAST DRAGON KNIGHT HERE!

You may remember Tim from my fangirling about Knight Watch and Wraithbound, and now he’s back with a story of a former assassin who wants to live a quiet life – but, between a blessing from a Crow, a curse from a Dragon, and a past that just won’t leave him alone, he’ll have to make a last stand to defend his new home.

Tim’s writing is always fun, so go check it out! 😄

Book Cover for The Last Dragon Knight by Tim Akers

The Last Dragon Knight

The Dragon and the Crow #1

by Tim Akers

***

Betrayed by his friends. Driven from the land he swore to protect. Hunted by the legions of Hell. Cursed to carry the Dragon’s fury in his soul. Determined to survive.

Corem Holt was once an assassin, before he was a warrior. Before he was a cataclysm in the shape of a man. Blessed by the Crow and cursed by the Dragon, he fled the destruction of his homeland. It was a destruction for which he was responsible.

To his friends, he is a traitor. To his enemies, he is the last real threat in their endless war. Both will hunt him to the ends of the earth. And so he hides. He tries to live a simple life, to survive, to be happy. But mostly, he tries to forget what he has done.

All that comes undone when his past catches up to him. What starts as a chance encounter with an old enemy rapidly devolves into a battle for life and death, not just for Corem, but for the people he’s come to love while in hiding. To save them, he must make one last stand far from home, far from the throne he was sworn to protect, far from the memories that brand him a traitor. For anyone else, it would be impossible. For Corem, it’s inevitable.

Because he’s not just a hero.

He’s the last Dragon Knight.

READ THE LAST DRAGON KNIGHT HERE!

NOTE: As Amazon Associates, we earn a wee little commission on any Amazon purchases made through qualifying links on this page.

Filed Under: Book Blasts Tagged With: assassins, Book Blasts, Dragons, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, The Dragon and the Crow, The Last Dragon Knight, thriller, Tim Akers

A Flash of Red – Book Review

November 8, 2019 by hpholo Leave a Comment

flashofredcoverJacob’s sister wrote a book, too, you guys! 😀
Psychological thrillers are a bit out of my wheelhouse, but thanks to this one, I may have found a new genre worth exploring.
A Flash of Red by Sarah K. Stephens tells the intertwining stories of three characters: Anna Kline, a psychology professor afraid that she’s traveling down a dark family path; Sean, her husband, who struggles with feelings of inadequacy; and Bard, a student of Anna’s who has a particular interest in his professor and her subject matter, for potentially dark reasons of his own. 
To say more would be to give away spoilers, as one of the novel’s greatest strengths is how it reveals its characters’ secrets and how it plays on reader expectations. As a new reader of psychological thrillers, I’m generally unaware of the genre’s tropes, but nonetheless I found myself tricked into making certain suppositions in each chapter, only to be surprised by the truth (or developing truth) of the matter some chapters later.
The chapters are also short and quick, which propels the story along at a healthy pace, and despite their length, they convey a lot of information. Stephens is efficient with her characterization, telling the reader exactly what they need to know when they need to know it, often in lovely turns of phrase. 
Characterization is, of course, key in a genre as necessarily character driven as the psychological thriller, and Stephens deftly manipulates how readers view her characters from chapter to chapter, careful to balance their flaws and sympathies. Anna has a very real mental struggle, but she’s also a pretentious intellectual ass; Sean is a manipulative bastard, but he’s also unappreciated by his wife, despite genuine efforts to show his affection; Bard is deeply concerned for his professor and has legitimate reasons for asking her advice about schizophrenia, but he has a manipulative streak as well. Thing is, Stephens writes them so that, from scene to scene, the reader doesn’t know which traits are the dominant traits in each character; in some scenes, they’re all basically sympathetic, but the other scenes sneak a haunting “What if?” into the backs of readers minds.
A “What if?” which lingers even after the final page.
Engaging, fast-paced, and psychologically complex (especially for its length), A Flash of Red is a must-read for people who like to get into characters’ brains – even if they’re disturbed by what they find there.
***
Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: a flash of red, psychological, psychological thriller, sarah k stephens, thriller

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