Flora Reviews... "Cupcakes, Trinkets and Other Deadly Magic (The Dowser #1) by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Read from 8th - 13th June, 2015 on my Kindle.

What a great book!! I really enjoyed it; witches, vampires, shape shifters and zombies - what more could a fan of Urban Fantasy wish for! ;-)

 

So what's the story about? The Official blurb says:

 

If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you that the best cupcakes were dark chocolate with chocolate cream cheese icing, that dancing in a crowd of magic wielders — the Adept — was better than sex, and that my life was peaceful and uneventful. Just the way I liked it. That’s what twenty-three years in the magical backwater of Vancouver will get you — a completely skewed sense of reality. Because when the dead werewolves started showing up, it all unravelled … except for the cupcake part. That’s a universal truth.

 

This story is written in the first person from the viewpoint of our main character, Jade, I found it well written and easy to follow. The balance of world building, character development and plot progression felt just right to me.  The journey of self discovery that our main character Jade experienced was exciting, scary, traumatic and at times also very funny even though the big bad in this story came as no surprise to me. A lot of loose ends were tied up to complete this tale but enough remains a mystery to allow for exploration in future books.
 

It was lovely to see Jade grow in confidence as this tale progressed and although this book is cliffhanger free (woo!hoo!) I became so involved in her story that I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series "Trinkets, Treasures and Other Bloody Magic" to find out what Jade gets up to next!!

 

 

Flora Reviews..... "The Library: Where Life Checks Out" By Carmen DeSousa

Read from 7th to 8th June, 2015 on my Kindle I really enjoyed this book - what a great story! This is a modern day detective story with a nice splash of romance, mystery and a ghostly twist. I liked the writing style; it was easy to read and the plot (although full of twist & turns) never felt muddled. The storyline & pace had a good balance of tension, humour and facts were revealed to us (the reader) as our main character, Detective Mark Waters, found them out. I was pleased that I couldn't work out "whodunit" as is the case in so many detective novels and enjoyed the unexpected twists! All of the characters in this story were well thought out and written with depth and the complexities of human characteristics, no-one was just there to add to the numbers or be background scenery, they all had their own stories (some of which I'd like to see feature in other stories) which made them all totally believable and added a further depth to the whole book! Back in October 2014 I gave 4 stars to the novella The Depot: When Life and Death Cross Tracks" by Carmen DeSousa which also features at the beginning of this book, the story of which takes place 6 months previously and stars our hero Detective Mark Waters. What a bargain - 2 books for the price of 1!! I will be looking out for more from this author.

Kat's Book of Shadows: Planting an Elemental Garden

I really like this well written post :-)



Kat's Book of Shadows: Planting an Elemental Garden: If you haven't already planted an Elemental Garden, Summer is a great time to do it. An Elemental Garden is a garden devoted to the ...