Blog Tour #Review and #Giveaway: Hybrid ★★★★ by @BNTOLER

Hybrid by B.N. Toler

Description:

My Aunt Lucy used to say, “If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” She said many wise things I never heeded when she was alive. I want to be the woman that’s okay with hiding from what she fears and letting her big, strong man protect her. But that’s not me. I hate to be scared. I hate the feeling that there is an evil out there that could hurt me if it finds me. But mostly, I hate that so many before me lived in fear and died at the hands of evil. That is why I cannot find peace within. There is no peace for me while Healers suffer the atrocities of others.

I know Rhett would protect me at all costs. He loves me. And that is why I must leave him behind. It’s impossible to justify hurting someone you love—or many you love—to do what you truly believe is right. Lucy also used to say, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I get what she was trying to tell me now. Hindsight is twenty/twenty. Sometimes we choose a path we think will lead us toward a noble cause, full of ambition and altruism, only to look back and see we’ve run over and crushed the ones we love most along the way. I can only pray that one day those I love will forgive me.

I woke up and I left. I left Rhett, the man who saved me from myself. The man I love. I left my brothers—my best friends.

I left.
But leaving led me to more. I found answers. I found others like me—who want what I want.

But most importantly, I found myself.

My name is Aldo Lawson.

I’m awake.

And I’m a Hybrid.

Review:
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you haven’t read HEALER yet, you may not want to read my review of HYBRID until you do. Instead, you can read my review of HEALER here.

B.N. Toler knew not every reader would love Aldo’s impulsive and immature tendencies, but she wasn’t willing to alter Aldo to appease the masses because it wouldn’t be true to who Aldo is and the journey she is on. Ms. Toler said as much in her note to the reader after HYBRID. Man, was she right. I wanted to shake Aldo until her head bounced back and forth, then maybe a little more to make sure it sunk in! Come on, Aldo! We can’t all have three amazing guys following our every move as we make mistake and after mistake in the name of revenge. Get it together, girl!

At the end of HEALER, Aldo realizes she’s been stuck in her head in a world of her own making after she lost her aunt in a fire and discovered her crush may have been involved. Rhett, the most amazing man in the world, followed Aldo into her subconscious and patiently helped Aldo find her way home. I want to put Rhett in a bottle and take him home with me. He is perfection. The only problem? He loves Aldo so much he isn’t willing to risk her life in order to help her avenge her family. And Aldo is sick and tired of being lied to in the name of safety. Healers have been in hiding for too long and Aldo is determined to bring down the vampires who breed and kill healers once and for all.

She manages to lock Rhett out of her dreams and leaves on a journey her aunt started long ago. She follows her aunt’s clues to a man named Daniel. Leader of the hybrids, Daniel can teach Aldo her full potential as a hybrid, someone who was born of a healer that had been bitten by a vampire during pregnancy. As long as hybrids maintain a regular consumption of blood, they are stronger than blood healers AND vampires. So all that time Rhett’s sister, Sarah, seemed unnecessarily hard on Aldo? It was because she knew Aldo had the potential to be stronger than either her or her brother, yet she reveled in being coddled. I would have been a tad annoyed too. But that doesn’t mean I wanted Aldo to run off and leave Rhett in the dust just to find her true strength!

B.N. Toler has created a wonderful paranormal world and I love the liberties she takes with the talents and abilities of her characters. It is truly original and exciting and I get caught up in the adventure and suspense of it all. What drove me absolutely batty, however, was Aldo. Her immaturity was so severe that I had a hard time placing it within the new adult genre this series is obviously a part of. There are sexy scenes and flushingly hot moments and Aldo seemed like a fish out of water in the midst of a world of my hot fantasies. On top of Aldo’s immaturity, I truly battled the fact that Ms. Toler created at least two swoon-worthy men (arguably three) and then expected me to understand how Aldo could choose one over the other. I really needed there to be a more glaring reason why Aldo would give up one for the other. I heard her reasoning, but at the end of the day, it still felt like Aldo was the most selfish person on the planet. She would babble on about her love for each man in a different way, and why she loved one so much but the other was her whole world. I was screaming at Aldo to stop leading them on with her damsel in distress moments. Why were they so smitten with her? She drove me bonkers half the time, yet they were over the moon for her.

B.N. Toler’s note to the reader at the end of HYBRID supported my faith that Aldo will mature and find her strength in SAVAGE, the third book in the series. SAVAGE sounds like the perfect continuation of an amazing world and thrilling obstacles. My only concern at this point is if Thomas, Rhett, and Daniel continue to be a part of Aldo’s journey, I hope Aldo has the maturity to commit 100% to her convictions about who she wants beside her. I gave HYBRID 3.5 stars and rounded up to 4 stars for reviewing purposes because though I’m frustrated with a lot of Aldo’s actions in HYBRID, I’m still obsessed with the world she lives in and the men who dwell in it.

SAVAGE promises to be every bit as exciting as the first two books in the series and I can’t wait to experience it for myself. I would recommend this series to everyone who enjoys paranormal new adult and would like a breath of fresh air when it comes to the types of paranormal they encounter.

**Complimentary copy provided by the author/publisher for an honest review.

**Reviewed by preppea on I ♥ Bookie Nookie Reviews.

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About the Author:

B N Toler loves music and listens to pretty much anything. She's a big fan of blue grass, country, and anything old school. Some of her favorite singers and bands are Johnny Cash, Elvis, Eric Church, The Bootleggers, and old school hip-hop like Salt n Pepa. N Toler is a happily married, mother of three, and HEALER is her first self-published book. She has worked in several fields, including real estate and orthodontics, but writing has always been one of her passions. Though she has written many stories, HEALER is the first one she ever really fell in love with.

Some of her other passions include reading and music. She enjoys most genres including fantasy, erotica, romance and supernatural. She loves to find a book she can't put down. Some of her favorite authors include Charlaine Harris (The Sookie Stackhouse Series), Karen Marie Moning (The Fever Series), Sylvia Day (The Bared to You series), and recently she's become a big fan of Samantha Young (On Dublin Street).

B N Toler loves music and listens to pretty much anything. She's a big fan of blue grass, country, and anything old school. Some of her favorite singers and bands are Johnny Cash, Elvis, Eric Church, The Bootleggers, and old school hip-hop like Salt n Pepa.

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