First and foremost, I am not familiar with the work of Sydney Jane Baily. I have never read any of her books and this is the first time I have heard of her. I stumbled onto this prequel on InstaFreebie and I gave it a fair chance. 

This book is a prequel to The Defiant Hearts series and it is not a full length novel, it has 98 pages and only comes in ebook format. 

To keep things nice and short, here's my honest opinion about An Intriguing Proposition.

This book skips on the worldbuilding and any character development. It throws you in the midst of a story that deserves a whole prequel of its own. Irony is that this is a damn prequel. We only get the basics of a plot, if I can even call it that, that is summed into a few sentences. The rest of the story is an unbelievable mess of the most idiotic coincidences and stupid people who think they are in love because they saw each other once in a bank and exchanged a few words. 

I am not going to dwell too much on all the bad things, and trust me there's a whole damn list of them, but I am going to mention a few good things. I liked the setting of a story and in its very essence, the idea of the story. The final product did not turn out well but I give credit for the idea alone and a few quirky lines of dialogue that made me smile, well, I had a hint of a smile on my face at the very least.

I honestly hope that this book does not reflect on the rest of this series nor on the author's work in general. I am of the opinion that everyone deserves a second chance so I will most likely give this author one more chance if I come across one of her books. But it has to be said that people with a sharp mind, good wit and even mediocre intelligence will probably not like this book because even on the lower HEA standards this is not a success.

If anyone happens to know if any of the author's other books are better, I am happy to note it down and put it on my to-read list.

3.75 Stars

http://witandsin.blogspot.com/2017/07/review-mind-over-matter-by-nora-roberts.html

In Mind Over Matter a hardworking theatrical agent meets her match in a producer who isn’t afraid to knock down the walls she has around her heart. A.J. Fields has worked for years to become one of the most successful agents in Hollywood. She’s smart and has a spine of steel, so when David Brady wants to use psychic Clarissa DeBasse – A.J.’s most important client – in his new documentary, A.J. isn’t about to be bowled over by the handsome producer. Sparks fly immediately between A.J. and David, but A.J. doesn’t mix business with pleasure and those walls she has around herself are because she has been hurt repeatedly in the past. I liked the combination of strength and vulnerability in her and author Nora Roberts made it understandable why A.J. would be reluctant to open her heart to David. David is used to being demanding in his work life and noncommittal in his personal life, but the longer he’s around A.J., the more he finds his attitude toward relationships changing. She isn’t at all his type, but of course she knocks him for a loop. The two of them play off one another really well professionally and personally. Because they’re both hard-headed and flawed, they make mistakes in their burgeoning relationship, which I actually liked because it added a level of realism to the story.

Mind Over Matter was first published in 1987 and while there are things that date it (fashion, technology, some attitudes, etc.), for the most part it holds up really well. The style of this book isn’t as smooth as Ms. Roberts’s later work – the swift point of view changes took a bit of getting used to – but it’s still an enjoyable read and the romance is satisfying. All in all, I found Mind Over Matter to be a good comfort read fans of Nora Roberts are sure to like.


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This will just be a general review, I decided to just read and enjoy the book opposed to keep tracking of each story and their ratings. That keeping track just distracts from reading, and I also don't always have stuff ready to write down the rating + short description.

This book is 12 stories full of mystery, murder, mayhem, poison, and much much more. The stories are all short (20~ pages), and the stories range from told in the modern time to Victorian age (or thereabouts). The MCs in each story are either male or female.
The book is also separated in 4 parts. Like a part in which poisons play a big role in the mystery/murder, but we also have dogs, and 2 others. I think out of all of them the impossible rooms and the poison were my favourites.

There were only 2 stories that I didn't like. 1 was because it was just so obvious how the murder happened, and who did it, but the characters were all so stupid about it and couldn't figure it out until the last pages. So frustrating! I don't mind if it is slightly obvious what the murder weapon, or whodunnit is, but this was beyond that, and I just want to scream at the characters all the time.
The other one was one with very old English (or street Old English) which was terribly hard to read so I kind of gave up on that one because my head just started hurting too much.

A few stories were shorts from other series, especially one was a delight. I just love Lil (from the Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow) and I was happy to see a story from her POV! I wouldn't mind another one of that one.

I had great fun trying to find out the whodunnit, and the weapon of choice (since it isn't always obvious from the start).

All in all, I really enjoyed this book, and I hope that these authors will be writing another Mystery & Mayhem book, I would buy it in a heartbeat. :D

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

I’d like to start off by saying that if you’re interested in this book because you loved Forbidden you might want to give it a pass. I don’t actually say this with any authority since I haven’t actually read the book but from the reviews I’ve read, I’d imagine that this book is nowhere near the same level as Forbidden. 

That said, I adored the book. It wasn’t mind blowing, it wasn’t AMAHZING but at the same time, it was an emotional read and it kept me up for a couple minutes. You might imagine that is not a lot but I am usually someone who’d rather daydream before going to bed so the fact that I kept on coming back to this book was a big deal for me.

The characters are what take the cake in this book. The author makes them realistically flawed but at the same time they aren’t horrible people. They are lovable even if you want to shake them from time to time.

There is a good chance Jackie will bother you but she didn’t bother me. I loved that she wasn’t all, ‘we love each other, let’s do this’. She had doubts. She knows her relationship with her cousin isn’t going to be viewed the way she wished it could be viewed. The way society feels affects her. She doesn’t want to be the one that sticks out like a sore thumb because of who she loves. As a result, she ends up not realizing the extent of her feelings for Marcus and ends up pushing him away. I love that she actually realizes how silly she is being in a lot of the cases. That’s what makes her a likeable character. This is a self-discovery process and it takes her a while to realize what it is she wants and it takes her even longer to actually do something about it but then again, no one said that change would happen in a day.

Marcus is just as wonderful. He is a perpetually sweet guy but at the same time, he is tired of not being sure how Jackie feels about him and when they call the quits, he is a jerk. We know that he loves her but at the same time; he does immature things because he is heartbroken. Maybe subconsciously, he does want to hurt her, the same way she hurt him. It did make me want to shake him but considering the kind of guy he is, it made sense that he would lash out this way.

My favorite secondary character was hands down Will.The author could have easily made him into the douchy guy that would make the female lead realize how much she loved Marcus but the author didn’t do that. Instead she let Will be a genuinely nice guy, appearances aside. She let the two be friends and she let Will be the friend she really needed at that point of time.

All these wonderful things said; I am not so sure how I feel about the romance. It’s emotional and angsty and amazing but at the same time, I was discomforted by it. It was that odd mix of where I was cheering for them but at the same time, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with their relationship. In this case though, I don’t think it would entirely be possible to write a romance that would be a 100% comfortable.

The mystery was definitely a nice addition to the story but don’t go into this book thinking it’s going to be a mystery. It’s not. It’s still primarily a contemporary romance.

That isn’t to say that the mystery wasn’t good, the little there was. It just wasn’t as well developed as it could have been considering how well the author lay the foundations.

I wish I could talk about the ending but me saying anything would give away what happens and I think it’s for you to find out what becomes of the two and whether they get the HEA they want or if they end up going their separate ways.

I’d definitely recommend this to anyone looking for an intense, emotional, contemporary romance to read.