Book Review – Magical Midlife Madness

This book was gifted to me and I’ve had it sitting on my desk for a while now, taunting me with it’s pretty cover. Magical Midlife Madness is the first book in a paranormal romance series (Leveling Up) by K. F. Breene. It appears to be self-published, which isn’t necessarily a strike against it as I used to do book reviews for “indie” press books and am open to the idea of reading books that aren’t a product of a major publisher.

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Here is the blurb:

A woman starting over. A new house with an unexpected twist. A cape wearing butler acting as the world’s worst life coach.

“Happily Ever After” wasn’t supposed to come with a do-over option. But when my husband of twenty years packs up and heads for greener pastures and my son leaves for college, that’s exactly what my life becomes.

Do-over.

This time, though, I plan to do things differently. Age is just a number, after all, and at forty I’m ready to carve my own path.

Eager for a fresh start, I make a somewhat unorthodox decision and move to a tiny town in the Sierra foothills. I’ll be taking care of a centuries old house that called to me when I was a kid. It’s just temporary, I tell myself. It’ll just be for a while.

That is, until I learn what the house really is, something I never could’ve imagined.

Thankfully forty isn’t too old to start an adventure, because that’s exactly what I do. A very dangerous adventure that will change my life forever. I have a chance to start again, and this time, I make the rules.

This book had a fun premise and while parts at the beginning were a bit awkwardly written, it got better in the middle. Jessie is an entertaining character that takes a risk on a new chapter in her life and discovers strange magic in a small town and within herself.

There is a romance aspect to the story and a larger threat that is not fully explored in this book, so don’t expect any resolution to either of those parts of Jessie’s tale. I don’t know if I’ll keep reading this series or not. It was easy and fast to read, but didn’t grab me as much as some other books.

Have you read any books by K. F. Breene? Let me know in the comments above.

Find more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Lover Revealed

Hah, I finished another book! This is part of a series that I stumbled into last year (The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J. R. Ward) and it’s basically about sexy vampires and their eternal battles against the slayers. I’m not going to go back to rehash the earlier books in the series at this point, but each one mainly focuses on one pair of characters and their romance as the main plot continues. Lover Revealed is book 4 (links help support this blog).

Here is the summary blurb:

Butch O’Neal is a fighter by nature. A hard-living ex-homicide cop, he’s the only human ever to be allowed in the inner circle of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And he wants to go even deeper into the vampire world—to engage in the turf war with the lessers. He’s got nothing to lose. His heart belongs to a female vampire, an aristocratic beauty who’s way out of his league. If he can’t have Marissa, then at least he can fight side by side with the Brothers…

Fate curses him with the very thing he wants. When Butch sacrifices himself to save a civilian vampire from the slayers, he falls prey to the darkest force in the war. Left for dead, he’s found by a miracle, and the Brotherhood calls on Marissa to bring him back. But even her love may not be enough to save him…

I don’t remember how I found this series, but I have to think it was part of my effort to occasionally branch out and read something different. So while there is a huge romance component to these books, the author does a brilliant job in building suspense and tension through each one for the non-romance elements as well.

While the main episode of each book is resolved, numerous side plots and an overarching plot thread through the series. The story in this book did not completely go where I thought it would, which is always a nice surprise. By this fourth book, the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood has grown more complicated, with added political facets, deeper character relationships, and tragedy.

At over 500 pages, Lover Revealed is not a quick read, but it is an easy one. I’m sure I’ll pick up the next book in a couple of months. If you want to start reading this series, look for Dark Lover, book 1. Are you already a fan? Let me know in the comments!

Read more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Dark Prophecy

Dark Prophecy is book #1 in the Soul Storm series by Ann Gimpel. I had read an earlier version of this book shortly after its release, and the author released a revised version of this series a few years later. Since I had never finished reading the series *and* one of my goals for the year is to finish reading series, I picked up this book to re-read before delving into the next two.

My original review was written about the first version of the book, and can be found here under the title of Psyche’s Prophecy. I can’t say that I picked up on any major differences in terms of the character or plot, so I’m simply reprinting my review below.

In Dark Prophecy, author Ann Gimpel takes us to a near and possible future in which resources are scarce and rolling blackouts and gasoline shortages are increasing. Amid this burgeoning dystopia, psychotherapist Lara McGinnis stays busy, counseling disturbed teenagers, OCD patients, and couples with marital problems.

The story immediately takes on the trappings of a thriller before delving into the fantasy aspects that are at the heart of this mixed genre tale. Dr. McGinnis learns that patient Ken Beauchamp is abusing his pregnant wife and steps in to offer the woman assistance. Her help comes nearly too late. Mr. Beauchamp puts his wife in the hospital in critical condition, disappears from the authorities, and begins a course of stalking and retaliation upon Dr. McGinnis for her interference.

In her private practice as a psychotherapist, Lara has found that her long-time ability to read auras has always been handy. However, she has more frequent and disturbing visions as the conflict with Mr. Beauchamp and the unpredictable blackouts across the city continue. On top of this, a graduate student, one of her other patients, and even her live-in boyfriend, Trevor, have all had a common dream. Lara tries to solve this mystery while everything around her spirals deeper into chaos and her visions become darker.

The first half of this book kept me up at night, both as a page-turner and in sympathetic fear for Dr. McGinnis. This is a very good thing if you’re a fan of that type of story, but if the thought of having a stalker break into your residence will give you nightmares, then you may want to read this only during daylight hours.

As the story progresses, Lara must face who she is and what her paranormal abilities mean. There are dark forces at work other than Ken Beauchamp, and ancient mythologies turn out to have real relevance to modern life. Lara and Trevor’s characterization sparkled as they confronted new facets to Lara’s power and the inevitable changes to their world.

In the second half of the book, I felt like the tension lagged. Although to be fair, it was more like the type of tension changed, because this is where the fantasy aspects became heavier. A lot of information about magic, witches, and power is introduced that seems more like buildup for the next volume.

While there is a definite conclusion to this book, there are also many questions left unanswered. Dark Prophecy is the first book in a trilogy and I’m reading the second volume, Dark Pursuit, right now.

Find more of my book reviews here.

Book Review – Unbound

Ooooh, look! This is another series where I’m working to catch up. Unbound is book 3 in the Magic Ex Libris series by Jim C. Hines. I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by David de Vries.

You can find my review of book 1, Libriomancer, here.

And my mini-review of book 2, Codex Born, is here.

I first started to read this series because I loved the premise behind the magic. Libriomancy allows its users to harness the magic of books. If enough people have read a book, then a libriomancer can reach into the text and pull out items created by the readers’ belief. Now there are some limitations: whatever the libriomancer tries to bring into the world must fit through the pages, and some books deemed too dangerous have been locked.

Seriously, how cool is that?

The first two books in this series (Libriomancer and Codex Born) introduce us to Isaac Vainio, a member of the Porters who works a day job as a librarian. The Porters were formed by Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, creator of libriomancy, and immortal overseer of its use. Their goal is to make sure libriomancy is practiced safely and that the rest of the world never discovers the magical world.

By the beginning of this third book, Isaac has been thrown out of the Porters and had his magic stripped away by Gutenberg. At the conclusion of the previous book, his teenaged libriomancer student, Jeneta Aboderin, was kidnapped and possessed by an ancient sorceress, Meridiana. Isaac struggles to track down Jeneta while trying to come to terms with the loss of his magic.

Despite his banishment from the Porters, Isaac still has friends who can help him: dryad Lena Greenwood, and therapist Nidhi Shah. His pet fire spider, Smudge, hasn’t been affected by Isaac’s loss of magic and ignites when danger is near. Through persistence and research, he manages to learn that Meridiana is trying to find a bronze device created by Pope Sylvester II that would allow her to completely enter our world and bring the power of a ghost army under her control.

Isaac resorts to black-market magic from vampires, fellow outcast sorcerer Juan Ponce de Leon, and the students of Bi Sheng (another ancient book-magic group) in his quest to find the bronze artifact.

The action never stops in this entertaining story, with some surprising and darker twists than in the earlier volumes. The presence of the magical world is no longer hidden from the public, and the series feels more expansive as complications arise. While the main plot is wrapped up in this book, not everything is resolved. Book 4, Revisionary, will be up soon in my reading list.

See more of my book reviews here.

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