The Glittering Court, Book 3

I Picked Up This Book Because: Finish the trilogy.

The Characters:

Tamsin Wright:
Jacob “Jago” Robinson:
Mira, Adelaide, Orla, Half a dozen other characters whose names I can’t remember

The Story:

The conclusion of a whirlwind of a tale of three young ladies chosen to give up their common lives and trained to become wives of wealthy gentlemen in a new land. Tamsin, the third in the trilogy, goes through enough to have lived 6 lives. Starting with her keeping a huge secret from the girls in the court and a shipwreck and taking her through an unbelievable series of events.

This is an excellent story of adventure in a strange land and wraps up with a happy ending.

The Random Thoughts:



The Score Card:



4 Stars

Georgina Kincaid, Book 1

I Picked Up This Book Because: Paranormal Love Crew monthly read

The Characters:

Georgina Kincaid:
Sahil Roy:
Roman, Seth, other friends

The Story:

I can not pinpoint a specific reason I can not get into this book. What I do know is I put it down after almost two months and haven’t picked it up in almost another month. I like Georgina and I have my suspicions about what is going on but I can’t make myself read and find out more. :-(

The Random Thoughts:

*DNF so no rating

This reader's personal opinion, ©2019, all rights reserved, not to be quoted, clipped or used in any way by goodreads, Google Play, amazon.com or other commercial booksellers* 

Outright boring.  Surprisingly disappointing.  Surprising because I usually like this author and because the disappointment wasn't with some of my usual YA objections.  

This just was not a paranormal series.  Maybe if I hadn't been expecting a YA paranormal ...?  Maybe if had just been billed as alternate history?

Pretty much take a 1970s historical romance about colonizing the Americas with an uneven heroine (sort of mail order bride-ish) mostly self-involved ... oh heck, it was so utterly boring and trope-y I'm not even going to waste more time on reviewing it.  Prejudice and racism -- well yeah but even that was so utterly typical (male assholes wanting women in their place and assholes, mostly male, degrading a side character of color and all the women brought over to be brides treated like pieces of meat -- and even that was bland).

100% failed to live up to the hype and even the drama about whether or not was racist.

Drama? What drama, everything was so bland and forced and didn't flow.  Even the sudden about face towards end chapters with our shallow heroine now becoming super pioneer hardworking wife-y was just boring and a weird twist on the character that already was uneven.

Doesn't sound like rest of series is exactly "series" although follows some of the characters. I am certainly not interested enough to try the next book.

*©2019.  All rights reserved except permission is granted to author or publisher (except Penumbra Publishing) to reprint/quote in whole or in part. I may also have cross-posted on Libib, LibraryThing, and other sites including retailers like kobo and Barnes and Noble. Posting on any site does not grant that site permission to share with any third parties or indicate release of copyright.  

Ratings scale used in absence of a booklikes suggested rating scale:

★★★★★ = All Time Favorite 
★★★★½ = Extraordinary Book. Really Loved It.
★★★★☆ = Loved It.
★★★½☆ = Really Liked.
★★★☆☆ = Liked.
★★½☆☆ = Liked parts; parts only okay. Would read more by author.
★★☆☆☆ = Average.   Okay. 
★½☆☆☆ = Disliked or meh? but kept reading in hopes would improve.
★☆☆☆☆ = Loathed It. Possibly DNF and a torturous read.
½☆☆☆☆ = So vile was a DNF or should have been. Cannot imagine anyone liking.  (Might also be just an "uploaded" word spew or collection that should not be dignified by calling itself a "published book." If author is going batshit crazy in the blogosphere over reviews -- I now know why they are getting bad reviews.  Or maybe author should take remedial classes for language written in until basic concepts like using sentences sink in. Is author even old enough to sign a publishing contract or do they need a legal guardian to sign for them?)

This is a tough one for me, since I have, at various times, enjoyed each of them, but, also, each of these tropes became oversaturated at some point or another! If I had to choose, right now, I would choose werewolf by elimination, because I overdosed on vampires and I never really liked zombies, although there a couple of zombie books I liked a lot.

I was never a fan of Twilight. My YA vampire romance catnip were the Morganville Vampires and Vampire Academy - those were the ones that my daughter read, and that I read along with her. Oh, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on television, of course.

Now that I've put some distance between myself and far too much sexy vampire fiction, there are a few series that I'm interested in again, though! The Chelsea Quinn Yarbro St. Germaine series has been recommended by several of my friends here - including Linda Hilton, whose bookish taste is impeccable. The first book, Hotel Transylvania, is on my list of possibles for this years game of Halloween Bingo, unless someone who knows the series recommends a different starting point! I also have a copy of Anno Dracula on my kindle that has been there for years, and that looks like something I would love!

Moving on to zombies, they just didn't appeal to me. Sexy vampires are silly, but there is nothing sexy about a zombie. On the other hand, World War Z is worth reading, and The Girl With All the Gifts is excellent, with a great ending. Too many authors blow the ending, and Carey nailed it.

There are exactly zero is one possible zombie books that I am sufficiently interested in to plan to read for Halloween bingo at this point, although I'll keep my eyes on the posts for something that might interest me. No, wait, there's Feed by Mira Grant. I might read that one!

So, that brings me to werewolves, which brings me to urban fantasy. Urban fantasy is replete with shifters of all sorts, and I pretty much lump werewolves with shifters. My favorite shifter has to be Mercy Thompson, who is actually a skin walker (shifts into coyote form), not a werewolf. I read the hell out of Mercy Thompson and keep meaning to do a reread! And I can't mention shifters without pointing to Kate Daniels, which may be the actual best UF series ever written.