Rameau's note: We received review copies of Brianna's Bewitching and The Binding of Adara from the author for our Portable pieces of thoughts-blog. I chose the novella because I like them.

"I cast a reality-shifting spell last night to me. If it messes up a current relationship, I apologize. I fear I might have caused another guy's death too. But if we get it on, it will have been worth it, right?"

No, it's not.

Jack Ross is a cop watching the protesters when he sees a twenty-year-old buxom woman, Brianna Marston, taking off her shirt. He decides to intervene and is assaulted by braless breasts. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the novella's meet cute. It is followed by an assault, kidnapping, and some really bad sex, not necessarily in that order.

Switching between Jack's and Brianna's point of views, the author tries to round all the corners on a well trodden path to Tropeville. In doing so, she manages to alienate me completely while stripping the wonderful set up from it's magic. Yes, magic. While Jack keeps referring to Brianna's witchiness, she is, in fact, a witch and to blame for all this.

Brianna casts a spell, which has unintended consequences like killing her wonderful boyfriend. You read that right. She casts a spell to have sex with a man, who cuffed her, carried her like a sack of potatoes, threw her in the back of a police cruiser, kidnapped her, and physically assaulted her brother. Not to mention of after seeing the fear in her eyes while she's cuffed and lying at the back of that police car, he continues to touch her. Did I mention he sent his partner away and they were alone for this?

What makes it even worse, if that's possible, is that Brianna has long internal monologues about how controlling and abusive her warlock father is. She thinks about how she wants to stand on her own feet and fight for equality for all women (white only is implied), yet she's frigid without the touch of a controlling abusive cop who only wants a meek housewife to tend to his needs.

Reading the prolonged sex scene was like filling out a bingo card of awful smut many times over. There were creamy lubrication in her channel, his cock too big to fit her virgin sacred chamber, and cunnilingus with a recently broken nose. Also, she referred to taking in his big penis as "giving birth in reverse".

The sad thing is, this novella is set in the 1970s and makes several mentions of women's right marches. I even had the briefest moment of hope that the hero of this book wouldn't be a misogynistic alphahole, but a lovely ally to all those working to achieve equality. For a a short while I could see a wonderful new trend taking over the romance genre. I'll just have to hope someone else makes it happen.

The Last Forever starts with an extempore road trip. Tessa's father decides they need a change in scenery, talks Tessa into a short trip, but instead takes her to his mother's, Jenny's, house and abandons her.

Tessa doesn't know it but she's adrift. She has lost her mother six months ago and her father has never been as good at the parenting thing. She has to pretend at being a functioning teenager if not an adult. The problem is she has a lot of growing up to do and different kinds of pains to live through, of which the least is not learning how to let go.

There's some talk about putting down roots and saving a plant Tessa's kleptomanic maternal grandfather stole decades ago. That's how Tessa meets new friends and begins her genre mandated romance. This crush is painful. In this book Tess is the stubborn stalker who befriends her victim and tricks him into being friends with her. She guides him through the motions and ends up breaking both of their hearts.

This book, it tries too much. The end result falls flat like a cake without baking powder: It's all in there, just in a condensed form that's not particularly palatable to people who like their cakes fluffier.

I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I want the fluffy kind.

The trouble is, I couldn't connect with Tessa. All this astute description of what it's like to be a teenager without a clue at the cusp of adulthood, didn't touch me because I couldn't see myself in her. I was always too serious and old for my age and never the kind of wonderful mess Tessa is. The word wonderful is conjecture on my part and someone else, someone who recognises themselves in Tessa, needs to confirm it.

I get that both Tessa and her dad are falling apart in different ways, but Tessa's repression of her grief doesn't translate well on the page. And I don't think her relationship with her father was resolved well either.

There are these chapter inserts about different plants that are supposed to tie the book together and add a more meaningful layer to the story. It might have just been sand running through my fingers for all I could grab and take away with me.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher.

The most painful part of this story is that I sort of get what the author is trying to do, what kind of a teenage girl character she's trying to create, but it's just not working for me.

For me, the novel is all over the place and not in any good way.

Apparently a month has passed within this book. It feels closer to three days, or however long I've actually been reading this.