A hit-and-miss erotic fantasy with sharp writing but underemployed characters.
Psychic lovers wrangle with each other—in and out of bed—in this paranormal period romance.
Piper Scott and Jules Alexander seem like perfectly matched English aristocrats with scruffy Victorian backstories. He’s the eighth Viscount Beauchamp, she’s the granddaughter of an earl; he fled his abusive father to live as a London street urchin, and she spent her youth accompanying her wastrel dad to gambling dens. However, Jules is also head of the League, a secret organization that shelters misfits with psychic powers at his country estate, and he has visionary trances that debilitate him; she perceives people’s auras and can heal mystic maladies with a touch. They’re also both so gorgeous that they spend half the book tremulously ogling each other. However, vague contrivances stymie their passion. Jules rebuffs Piper because he thinks his psychic gift might overwhelm her if they get close; meanwhile, she’s pursued by an unbalanced Frenchwoman with ESP who’ll use violence to access Piper’s healing touch. This first installment of Sumner’s League of Lords series is weakened by the fact that the lady isn’t trouble enough: Piper has a background in gambling but never gambles, and she enters the novel posing as a fake clairvoyant but never cons anyone; throughout, she’s mainly just a woman in love who helps people. She’s surrounded by potentially interesting supporting characters whose entertainment value is similarly wasted, such as her maid Minnie, a sex worker’s daughter who can throw knives with her mind but never uses her telekinetic powers in the narrative. The action set pieces are mainly in the bedroom, where Piper and Jules get up to intense, if slow-paced, antics: “He swallowed her moan as he captured her lips, his lids sweeping low the last thing she saw before she crested, her body bowing off the bed and into him.” Still, Sumner has a knack for snappy dialogue and Austen-esque drollery: “A week passed before Piper concluded that her rejection of Julian’s pitiable but heartfelt proposal might have been an unintentionally deceptive feminine ploy.”
A hit-and-miss erotic fantasy with sharp writing but underemployed characters.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-65920-208-3
Page Count: 420
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A sweet and sparkling adult debut.
A romance ghostwriter who’s lost her motivation after a breakup is haunted by the spirit of her newly departed editor in this whimsical paranormal romance.
Florence Day doesn't believe in love or happily-ever-afters any longer. Unfortunately, she’s also the ghostwriter for a prominent romance novelist and is currently trying to finish her fourth and final contracted book. The deadline for her latest manuscript has already been pushed back several times, and her new editor, Benji Andor, isn’t allowing for any leeway. Florence can also see ghosts, an ability that’s made quite a name for her in her hometown but also partly contributed to the devastating end of her previous relationship. On the eve of her deadline, Florence finds her life upended by both an unexpected kiss with her editor and the sudden death of her beloved father. Returning home comes with its own set of baggage, though Florence holds out hope that her father’s ghost will appear for one last goodbye. She’s shocked, however, when the spirit that visits her isn’t her father but Ben Andor, mysteriously dead only a day after she’d met him. Now Florence must not only navigate her grief and fulfill her dad's last wishes, she must also contend with Ben’s confused ghost following her around until they can correct his unfinished business. The zippy banter between Florence and nearly everyone she meets keeps things moving at a sprightly clip. Every interaction is a delight, and getting to know the cast of characters in Florence’s orbit adds excitement to the book. The romance takes a bit longer to build, though, and flits in and out of focus. Florence and Ben share such chemistry that it’s a shame readers are often left waiting for them to interact. The ghostly element is fun and fresh, adding slightly higher stakes to Florence and Ben's happily-ever-after.
A sweet and sparkling adult debut.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-33648-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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