Tagged: warlocks
Flirting With Fire by Tara Quan
(Cover picture courtesy of Tara Quan’s site.)
Apprentice witch Catalina Gato is prohibited from assuming her human form in front of her new employer without his express permission. Since he doesn’t know he’s a warlock, he can’t give it, leaving her in a familiar’s limbo. To make matters worse, she’s barred from leaving his house, and her attempts to enlighten him of his true nature results in burnt notes, charred walls, and exploding laptops.
On All Hallows’ Eve, she gets one night of freedom. Deciding some no-strings-attached sex might take the edge off the intense attraction she feels for her clueless boss, she signs up for Madame Eve’s service. When she meets her masked mystery date at the Castillo Capital, she realizes she might have gotten much more than she bargained for.
After being gifted a one-night stand from his annoying best friend, attorney Leo Difuoco reluctantly ventures to the Castillo Capital to celebrate Halloween. When he meets his oddly familiar green-eyed date in a Cat Woman costume, flames literally ignite, sparks magically fly, and life as he knows it changes forever.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
Having read Tara Quan’s Operation Owl, I expected Flirting with Fire to be a semi-serious romantic novel. That’s pretty much just what I got with this second book of hers that I’ve read but for some reason I just liked it much more than Operation Owl.
Maybe it was the fact that both characters are much better fleshed out, even though the book seems shorter. Leonardo is a kind of sloppy bachelor who can’t see things under his own nose, but you get the feeling that his heart’s in the right place. Why else would he care for the cat his crazy grandmother left him? Cat, on the other hand, is a much more vivid character in my mind. She’s stuck in the form of (you guessed it) a cat because she was a familiar to Leonardo’s grandmother and now Leonardo, who doesn’t believe in magic, is in control of her contract without knowing it. So she’s stuck as a cat when she goes out of the house on every night but one: Halloween.
Since this is kind of a romance, you can pretty much guess how the story goes from there when both Leonardo and Cat go out on the same night. Still, Tara Quan does a good job of building up a reasonable amount of suspense by ratcheting up the tension within both characters as well as creating some tension between the two when they meet. And of course, when the romance part finally seems to happen, there’s still the question of Cat’s contract and whether Leonardo is willing to open up his mind and believe her.
The best thing about this book is that it’s emotionally satisfying. There’s no Insta-Love, but rather an instant connection of some sort that in some situations obviously can lead to a one-night stand. So that’s more than believable given the circumstances both characters are in at the time. And by the end, you get the feeling that not only has the main conflict been resolved satisfactorily but that you can guess at what happens next to some degree. It makes for a much better ending than the usual drive off into the sunset with these sorts of things.
So if you’re looking for a good book that’s also fairly light reading with plenty of romance, Flirting With Fire would be a great place to start.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Mine to Spell by Janeal Falor
(Cover picture courtesy of Janeal Falor via email.)
Cynthia has always hidden from her father’s hexes behind her older sister. When her family gains independence unheard of for women, she’s relieved that her days of harsh punishments are over. But as her seventeenth birthday approaches—the typical age to be sold to a new master—death threats endanger her sisters. She now faces two options: run or meet society’s expectations.
For once, Cynthia isn’t going to let her older sister shield her from the problem. She’s going to prove to herself, her sisters, and society that her family isn’t a threat to their traditions. She willingly chooses to be purchased by a new master. A bold step that takes her somewhere she never thought she would go and to a man she might possibly fall in love with. With his help, she may just find a way to save her sisters while discovering how to stand up for herself. If she lives long enough.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
I very much liked Serena from the first installment of this series but now after reading Mine to Spell I’m rather favouring Cynthia.
Cynthia is a fascinating character. Now that her older sister is the head of the family with the same status as a warlock she knows she doesn’t have to be sold on her seventeenth birthday. But if she doesn’t meet society’s expectations and enter the marriage pool there are some very serious death threats against her family that could become reality. So she chooses to enter the marriage pool and reveals that she isn’t the shrinking violet that always hides behind her older sister anymore. In fact, she’s ready to show all of Chardonia what women are really capable of.
I loved seeing a bit of an expanded world in this second book. We see the aftereffects of Zade freeing Serena and giving her status equal to any man. We certainly see the effects of the attempts on Zade’s life in the previous book and how they’re not going away any time soon. All those things add tension to the plot but it’s really Cynthia and her actions that drive the story forward. She really is an incredible character that will surprise you at every turn.
The plot is much more fast-paced than it was in You Are Mine. This is in part because we have a very different narrator but also because Janeal Falor’s writing has improved. It was already good but now it’s even better and I think we can expect some great things from her in the future. There are plot twists around every corner and while the ending isn’t totally unexpected it really is satisfying.
Usually the second book in a series is weaker than the first, but that was certainly not the case with this one!
I give this book 5/5 stars.
My Interview with Janeal Falor
Janeal Falor is the author of You Are Mine, a novel about a society where magic is real and where all women are owned by warlocks. Below is our discussion about the inspiration for her fantasy/dystopian novel, the sequel Mine to Spell and why self-publishing was the best option for her.
1. Where did the inspiration for You Are Mine come from?
I’d been in a mood to read a lot of marriage of convenience/arranged marriage-type books and then I thought: What if these girls weren’t being sold off for money? What if they were being sold for something they had that was of great value, but something they couldn’t control. Something like… Magic! And You Are Mine was born.
2. What was your world-building process like? Did you start out with a basic idea and then build around it before you started writing or did it all come to you as you wrote?
Most of it started with a basic idea and came as I wrote. There were a few spots where I knew I needed to show more of what the world was like and I thought, how can I add something that supports their world and the story at the same time? But mostly whatever flowed out was what happened.
3. Who is your favourite character in your first novel? Why?
Katherine. Though I’m probably biased towards because I just finished writing her novella. She is sweet, but strong. She’s been through a lot and is able to use the strength she’s gained to help Serena.
4. What made you decide to self-publish? Would you recommend it to anyone else?
Short answer: I had been trying to get an agent for this book, but stopped because it just didn’t feel right. After a break from trying, I realized I still loved You Are Mine and wanted to do something with it. I thought a lot about the pros and cons to all my options, made a giant list of them, and in the end, self-publishing just felt right. Really right.
Short answer to the second questions as well: Yes, BUT it’s tons of work. That means it’s not for everyone. It’s an intense process when done right, but is an amazing feeling when you see your hard work pay off. There are a lot of great choices in publishing right now, so you can pick what works for you and your books. Thankfully if you do go with self-publishing, there’s a lot of great information out there.
5. Do you have any advice for any aspiring writers reading this?
Read. A lot. Write even more. Believe you can follow your dreams.
I still have a lot to learn, but these are the things that have helped me the most.
6. Can you give us any hints as to the next novel, Mine to Spell? Do you have a tentative release date yet?
Yay for hints! Let’s see what I can say without spoiling anything…
As much as I love Zade and Serena, the hero Cynthia falls for in Mine to Spell makes me all melty and swoony. Seriously, sometimes I “edit” gushy parts just because I want to read more about him. This means there’s more romance than the first book, though it’s still not the main focus of the book.
The first chapter starts a few months after You Are Mine ends on Cynthia’s 17th birthday. Also, I think the end of the first chapter is going to make a lot of people happy/excited and help with understanding Cynthia so much better. Nice, vague response 😉
And very tentatively, I’m shooting for releasing in Spring of next year. Probably March or April.
You Are Mine by Janeal Falor
(Cover picture courtesy of Crash Boom Bang.)
Serena knows a few simple things. She will always be owned by a warlock. She will never have freedom. She will always do what her warlock wishes, regardless of how inane, frivolous, or cruel it is. And if she doesn’t follow the rules, she will be tarnished. Spelled to be bald, inked, and barren for the rest of her life—worth less than the shadow she casts.
Then her ownership is won by a barbarian from another country. With the uncertainty that comes from belonging to a new warlock, Serena questions if being tarnished is really worse than being owned by a barbarian, and tempts fate by breaking the rules. When he looks the other way instead of punishing her, she discovers a new world. The more she ventures into the forbidden, the more she learns of love and a freedom just out of reach. Serena longs for both. But in a society where women are only ever property, hoping for more could be deadly.
[Full disclosure: You Are Mine caught my eye on a blog a while back so I requested a review copy from Janeal Falor in exchange for an honest review.]
I thought this was going to be a wishy-washy romance with some good fantastic elements when I requested You Are Mine. I was willing to ignore the romance in exchange for a well-developed world, but Janeal Falor completely blew away my expectations. Trust me, the romantic elements don’t pan out like you expect them to.
Serena is one of those characters that you’re not sure how you feel about her in the beginning, but you learn to love her after the first few chapters or so. What I like is that she rebels against a male-dominated society in her own ways and yet doesn’t go into stereotypical girl power mode that would be completely unbelievable considering her upbringing. When you’ve been tortured by your own father for minor infractions like she has, you’re not exactly going to be ecstatic about marrying some wretched barbarian who killed your admittedly horrible intended. Understandably, she’s more than a little terrified of Zade especially when he doesn’t punish/torture her like her father does even though he technically owns her and that kind of behaviour is expected of him as a warlock.
The plot of You Are Mine is not fast-paced, but that’s really not the point of the whole story. I’d say this is more character-driven and that makes it a much better book than it would have been if it were plot-driven. We get to intimately know the world of Chardonia through Serena’s eyes and get a little outsider perspective from Zade, the ‘barbarian’ foreigner. I love how Zade really isn’t all that he appears to be and that his real character is revealed by the end of the novel. It’s plot twists like that rather than crazy pacing that made me like You Are Mine.
Where do I start with the world-building? The warlocks completely dominating women by making them less than human, the tarnished outcasts, the magic? In short, Janeal Falor has created a patriarchal society that is both believable because of the power warlocks have and is terrifying because of how women are treated like property. And of course warlocks are allowed to destroy their property any time they see fit, which leads to women being tarnished (aka hexed into being bald, tattooed and barren). It’s a horrible society and you can definitely see why Serena acts the way she does around Zade even when it’s obvious to the reader that Zade isn’t like Serena’s sadistic father.
I thought that the plot dragged a little too much in some places (even if it was primarily character-driven), but that’s my only real complaint. Other than that, Janeal Falor has written an amazing debut novel and I can’t wait to see more of her work in the future. Especially with that huge cliffhanger ending!
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.