I picked up the first six volumes in this series for free.  Apparently, it was when volume seven was about to be released and Scholastic offer the first six via Kindle for free.

                The series chronicles the adventures of Emily, her brother Navin, and their mother as they try to adjust to an unexcepted trip to a magical land.  Emily is a Stonekeeper, an Amulet wearer (hence the title of the series).  She received this amulet from her grandfather upon her arrival.

                In short, this is a series where the chosen one is a girl.

                And that is cool because that doesn’t happen too much.  Don’t worry though, unlike some series where the sidekick gets sidelined, Navin too is allowed to come into his own, and his skill set is different than his sister’s.

                Kibuishi makes it quite clear that the siblings love each, though they do tease each.  The back story for the family is pretty much comic standard, one that we have seen pretty of times.  The artwork is cool, and the comic touches on themes such as redemption and protection.  At first it seems that the bad guys are going to be the elves, but the true evil becomes more complicated than that.  Kibuishi also illustrates where hate and fear can lead people.  It’s a tale with morals that doesn’t hit the reader over the head with them.

                Additionally, there is a creature that resembles Cherbourg (you know that mountain demon from Fantasia’s Night on Bald Mountain).

                I did have some problems with the story.  The first is one that I think only adult readers will have.  Both Emily and Navin at times seem both too adult and too childish.  It doesn’t quite work and at times, it throws you out of the story.  This occurs when Navin says to two children that they are too young to be helpful.  But I am pretty sure this is just an adult perspective.  The other issues are despite Emily being the chosen one, for much of the series the other major players are all male.  This changes in books 5 and 6 where we finally get more female characters who are active and not simply damsels in distress (like Emily’s mother).  This could have occurred before – Emily is being accompanied by men, trained by men (or male animals) so it is a little disappointing.  But if 6 is any indication this is going to change in the rest of the series.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If you're a fan of insta-love, then oh baby is this the story for you. BOUGHT 2: Lucien and Olivia's Story (Billionaire Buyers Series) by Dahlia Delights was one sexy adventure. And I loved that this can be read as a standalone OR as part of the series, where our heroine Olivia Crown is the daughter of Marshall and Mary from book one.

'This man, this person who was a near stranger to me a few days ago, was now the center of my universe.'

Basically, Olivia is the new head of her family's business, Crown Enterprises, since her father retired. And the good old boys investing in the company are not happy that it was Olivia and not one of her brothers that took over the reins. Looking to head off a bad financial situation, she is on the hunt for investors. So in walks multi-billionaire Lucien Dare. He is very interested in working with Olivia, seeing in her the same shrewd business sense that he possesses. But he wants even more to make her his very own and build a life with the gorgeous woman who's stolen his heart with just a glance.

'...When the time was right, I would let her know that I intended to make her mine--heart, mind, body, and soul. No less than that would ever sate me.'

I think what I liked most about Lucien and Olivia together (aside from their instant attraction, of course) was how they brought out the best in each other. She was very methodical and rational in the way she approached things and Lucien needed her calmness to focus on the tasks at hand. And conversely, he was an extremely passionate, sensual man who was able to see exactly what Olivia needed to be herself and experience love for the first time. *sigh*

Our couple found themselves stuck in a remote mountain chalet in the middle of a blizzard--which is always a fun theme. Stranded alone, there were several ways they could keep themselves occupied and one activity in particular that helped heat things up quite a bit. Talk about erotic and sexy as hell! In addition to that, I really liked the balance of their real fears over losing power and heat due to the storm with how Lucien and Olivia were able to remain playful and laugh while they were solving their problems.

BOUGHT 2 was every bit as steamy as the first installment in this erotic series. And I think the lovely connection between the hero and heroine will be sure to bring a smile and a sigh to every reader's lips.

I've been reading shifter novels, but this one was a little bit different. I didn't expect the story to have such ending. Interesting storyline, never get bored even for a minute. I like the use of language, understandable i.e not too complicated. Overall, I super love the book.

21/11 - Picked this up for free from allromanceebooks.com and while it wasn't too bad I'm still glad it was indeed free. The website included quite an extended excerpt on the book's page and that was the best part of the whole book, once you get past the excerpt it goes downhill pretty fast. The appearance of editing disappears (as if that excerpt was edited and nothing else) and the writing style became very simplistic. Lots of short sentences that started with he or she and repetition of words, like in this paragraph from location 124

'He watched her as she took the last child into the room and wondered how long she would stay in there this time. He knew they would never allow him into the room, so he would have to wait until she got hungry. He would get his chance then.'

That's a lot of uses of the words he and would, made worse by the way the Kindle formatting lined all those woulds up at the far left alignment, one after another.

I thought the idea was quite good, but it was let down by the writing and editing. If I thought the writing and editing was going to be better I could be enticed to read something else by Persaud, but not going to read another if there's a whisper of editing problems.