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Beguiled ( Betwixt & Between book 3)
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
226 of 230
Kindle
Beguiled ( Betwixt & Between book 3)
By Darynda Jones
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Paranormal Women's Fiction with a bit of class, and a lot of sass, for anyone who feels like age is just a number!

Newly indoctrinated witch, Defiance Dayne, discovers there’s more to life after forty than she'd ever imagined possible. Especially if one is a charmling, one of only three in the world, with enough magics to make her a target for every power-hungry warlock out there. When one of them sends a hunter to town, she knows it’s time to take her talents seriously before the hunter takes her life.

She decides she has three things to do before she can die. Find out who killed her beloved grandmother, teach her BFF the finer points of spellcasting before she blows up the world, and figure out how serious her relationship with the Adonis living in her basement really is. If it’s heading in the direction she’s hoping for, she can die happy. Though, admittedly, she’d rather not. Die. Happy or otherwise.

None of that will matter, however, if she can’t figure out how to foil the supernatural assassin who’s been sent for her. Until then, it’s business—and hopefully romance—as usual. Now if she can only figure out how to tame a lacuna wolf.

This author never disappoints! I really am enjoying this series I think it’s quirky and love how it’s a middle aged normal woman as the lead. We see how finding her birth family and her magic changes her life and brings so many new people and adventures. Really worth a read as it’s easy to get into and a fun light read.
  
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Merissa (12699 KP) rated Never Again in Books

Jun 8, 2023  
Never Again
Never Again
Heather Starsong | 2015 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This book is simply amazing and it should be read by everybody. I can't put it any plainer than that!

We start of with Clara, an old lady in her garden, feeling all the aches and pains of being over 80-years-old. Then she starts to tell a story, which will quickly enfold you and have you completely entranced, hanging onto every word. She has a tale to tell and she won't finish until she has.

This book raises some important issues, gives you questions, also gives you answers that I personally would love to be true, and makes you ponder. All of this is a good thing as far as I am concerned. I loved how she wasn't comfortable with her 'old-fashioned' values, inside the body of a younger woman. I thought Zachary was a jerk, and refused to admit that I was the same generation as him! I adored Lenny and his eyebrows.

I will not give out anymore to do with the story, except to say that this book blindsided me. I honestly thought I'd just be getting a 'normal, run-of-the-mill' science fiction. What I got was a biographical account, a fascinating story that tore at my heartstrings and emotions. I loved every moment of reading this and certainly didn't want it to end, especially not once it became clear what would happen at the end.

A fascinating concept, executed with perfection, and definitely one to keep. Absolutely recommended. (ps, don't forget the Kleenex)

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jun 5, 2016
  
MU
My Unfair Lady
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
My Unfair Lady by Kathryne Kennedy
Genre: Historical fiction, Historical Romance
Rating: 4/5

Summary (from the back of the book):
HE CREATED THE PERFECT WOMAN… the impoverished Duke of Monchester despises the rich Americans who flock to London, seeking to buy their way into the ranks of the British peerage. So when railroad heiress Summer Wine Lee offers him a king’s ransom if he’ll teach her to become a proper lady, he’s prepared to rebuff her. But when he meets the petite beauty with the knife in her boot, it’s not her fortune he finds impossible to resist…
…FOR THE ARMS OF ANOTHER MAN. Frontier-bred Summer Wine Lee has no interest in winning over London society—it’s the New York bluebloods and her future mother-in-law she’s determined to impress. She knows the cost of smoothing her rough-and-tumble frontier edges will be high. But she never imagined it might cost her her heart…

Review: This book is so cute! The dialogue is lively, the characters are likeable (or in the case of the “bad ones”, hate-able), and the images and descriptions are clear and visible. I loved it by the end of the first chapter.

Summer was my kind of girl. She grinned when things were funny instead of trying to remain indifferent, she wasn’t afraid to show how she felt—but she could also throw a knife, shoot an arrow better than the woman champion of their day, and mount and ride a horse bareback (which I think is so cool!). She has a love for animals—and odd ones at that. She owns a three-legged dog, a dog with four legs but the size of a small horse, a monkey, a pocket-sized puppy, a fox, and a cat with no back legs (it sits in a cart and rolls around the room). She was raised by an Indian (one of those childhood dreams that I never quite left behind…) and he was the one who had taught her all that great stuff. Watching her try to settle into society was hilarious.

MY UNFAIR LADY has a lot of tension in it—both inner turmoil from poor Summer, and also sexual tension between the characters. However, it wasn’t overpowering because was so funny. I found that I laughed just as often as tension was built, so there was a constant, even balance. The end was very exciting, and I found it impossible to put down. Overall, reading this book was a hilarious and wonderful experience, and an unforgettable escape from reality.

Plot: My Fair Lady (the movie) shows a girl who is transformed to a lady, then the man falls in love with her. I love the change that has taken place in MY UNFAIR LADY—The man doesn’t want to change her, because he loves her the way she is. I like this plot better than the first!

Writing: The writing was decent, acceptable, and more readable than a lot of newly published romances. Though it wasn’t Dante, it wasn’t hard to read either.

Content: Refreshingly, there was no language in this book. Summer has her own set of expletives, but they weren’t offensive (“Tarnation!”). As far as sex, let’s just say there were several scenes (pages) in this book that I skipped completely, and just started reading again where the dialogue picked up. I didn’t miss anything important.

Recommendation: Ages 18+ to lovers of Historical fiction, Romance in general, or anyone who loves a girl who can shoot a gun, wield a knife, or use a bow and arrow better than a man!

**Thanks to Danielle at Sourcebooks for supplying my review copy!**
  
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ClareR (5854 KP) rated The Farm in Books

Sep 1, 2019  
The Farm
The Farm
Joanne Ramos | 2019 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
8
7.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
In a world where everything can be bought and sold, even pregnancy has a value in The Farm by Joanne Ramos. Make no mistake: this isn’t dystopian fiction. In fact it’s probably closer to what is actually happening than we could imagine.

Jane (a Filipino immigrant to the USA) has been persuaded by her aunt, that the easiest way to provide for her infant daughter is to become a surrogate for someone else’s baby. Mae runs Golden Oaks (nicknamed The Farm by Lisa, another of the surrogates), a luxury resort set in woodland, far from prying residents of Golden Oaks are all young women. And they’re all pregnant with the babies of wealthy parents. It came as no surprise to me that the vast majority of these women were immigrants from The Philippines or Eastern Europe. Mae has just started to look at a more ‘luxury’ host: women who have very good educations. The future parents are willing to pay a premium rate for women like Reagan. Not that it could make any difference, because all of the surrogates are merely incubators (referred to by their numbers, not their names, when staff are talking about them out of earshot), and carry embryos made from their parents sperm and eggs. These are mainly people who don’t want to waste their time with pregnancy, childbirth and recovery. This part really didn’t sit well with me: pregnant women reduced to numbers, and parents who didn’t have time to be pregnant (how could they have time to be parents? Would their babies be like a new designer handbag?). The other thing, was that they largely speaking didn’t have time to even visit the women who were carrying their children. At one point in the book, an ultrasound technician doesn’t even acknowledge the pregnant woman that she’s seeing (or isn’t!), angles the screen away from her as she shows the picture of the baby to its parent who isn’t even in the room. The pregnant woman is a non-person - merely a walking incubator.

Make no mistake, this is a pretty damning insight in to class and race. I felt so sorry for Jane. She is cut off from her daughter. None of the women have regular contact with friends or family on the outside. And seeing foetuses and babies being used as commodities and benchmarks of profit really made me uncomfortable.

I did really enjoy this though. I liked the women who were the main characters - they all had valid reasons for their choices. And I liked that this wasn’t written as an alternative dystopian novel à la Handmaids Tale. It’s all so frighteningly plausible.