Category: Book Reviews

Book Review: Courting Cate by Leslie Gould

On By K. S. WattsIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

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When Pete Traeger moves to Paradise Township in Lancaster County he meets the lovely Miller sisters, Cate and Betsy. Though each sister is pretty, Betsy is sought after by most of the bachelors in the county, where Cate’s fiery temper and preference for books over people keeps most of them at bay. Their father has decreed that Betsy cannot start courting until after her elder sister is married. So when Pete seems drawn to Cate’s sharp wit, the other bachelors are quick to convince him to start courting Cate. But Cate knows what the local male population thinks of her, and she becomes immediately suspicious. It’ll take more than sweet words and romantic buggy rides to win Cate Miller’s heart, but Pete might just be the man to do it.

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I read a lot of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The kind where the main characters get into bloody battles and empirical political machinations rule the day. Some of my favorite secondary characters often end up dead or horribly injured. It can leave me with a book hangover. I’m sure you know the kind. When a book has ravaged your emotions so much in the best and worst ways that you have trouble recovering.

It is then that I love to deploy the palate cleanser. A nice story. Where bad things might happen, but nobody dies and the ending is almost guaranteed to give you the warm fuzzies. It helps balance me out.

I also love a good Shakespearean tale. So Courting Cate by Leslie Gould was right up my alley. It is an Amish Romance take on Taming of the Shrew. Even better, it is the start of a series, all based in the same Amish community, of Shakespearean retellings.

If you are not into clean reads and retellings, this will not be the book or the series for you. There are no curse words, sexually explicit scenes, or instances of bloodshed–at least not the dangerous kind.

The biggest drawback to the story, however, is a lack of representation. If you are hoping there might be POC in this Amish community or the neighboring Englisher (non-Amish) community, you’re going to be disappointed. I have found this true with the vast majority of Amish fiction, though, so I was less than surprised.

Overall the story was cute and I enjoyed the take on the old tale. It was just what I needed to wash away the emotional turmoil of the last book. It was also a quick read, one night rocking a sick child will cover it. I can verify that.

Book Review: The Empress Game by Rhonda Mason

On By K. S. WattsIn Book Reviews1 Comment

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Kayla lost her home and most of her family in a bloody coup five years ago. Now all she wants is to protect her little brother and earn enough money in the blood pit to get him to safety among others of her kind. When a tall, handsome stranger shows up offering her more money than she could earn in a year, she’d be a fool not to consider. Except she doesn’t trust him.

However, when she discovers that the man they’ve been hiding from for the last five years is sniffing around her hideout, she rethinks her decision. She takes up the handsome stranger on his offer and agrees to play the role of body double for his friend in the Empress Game, a combat tournament to decide who will marry the prince. In exchange, she gets her money and a free ride back to her people, no questions asked.

The only problem is that the very man she is running from has shown up at the game. And is in league with the people she thought would be her salvation. Now she and her brother are in more danger than ever. Somehow, she has to hide from Scary McTraitorface, protect her brother, and pretend to be somebody else while competing in the galaxy’s most famous spectator sport.

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I loved this. I don’t want to oversell it for you, so I’ll try to rein in my enthusiasm.

The pacing was great, the plot was exciting, and the handsome stranger romantic arc was the kind that kept me turning pages to see when sparks would finally fly. I burned through this in just a couple of nights, at the expense of sleep, I’ll admit.

The main character is from a race of beings where male/female fraternal twins are common and strong bonds exist between them. The females are taller and stronger physically, and make up the warrior class, but each has a particular internal need to protect her male twin. The males are smaller, but have strong telekinetic and telepathic gifts which they use to aid their female twins in battle. Kayla was not only trained as one of these female warrior twins, she was a princess on her homeworld. She’s a princess who has been taught since birth to unapologetically kick butt in a society that prizes her strength, agility, and tactical prowess as the very pillars of femininity.

Too bad that the enemy empire in which she is hiding out with her brother doesn’t value any of those things in her outside of the fighting pits in the slums–until the Empress Game. An agent of the special security force officiating the game helps orchestrate her secret involvement as she pretends to be the prince’s real-life paramour. Their interactions are volatile at best, but her telepathic brother reads the agent’s mind and informs his sister that it is in part because he is trying to hide a strong and ever-growing attraction to her. It gets even better when the agent finds out where she is really from and that his thoughts have been more or less on display to her. And not all of them were PG.

Combat, political machinations, betrayals, attractions, and spectators; oh my!

It was funny and heart-wrenching at the same time. It sets up the next book in the series well, though not as cleanly as I’d like. In any case, if you like females who don’t just say they can kick butt, but actually do and males who love them for it, this could be your ticket. It is the first book in a trilogy. I have not read the others yet, mostly because the ending to this one made me want to throw things–but in the best possible way. Maybe that only makes sense to other book lovers. Or maybe it’s just me.

P.S. If you’d like to know a little more about me, K.J. Harrowick interviewed me for her Winterviews series over on her blog. Check it out, and while you’re there, you can take a peek at the other posts in the series. There are a lot of fascinating people in the line-up.

Book Review: The Watchmaker’s Daughter (Book One of the Glass and Steele Series) by C.J. Archer

On By K. S. WattsIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

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India Steele’s father just died and the only good thing about her ex-fiance stealing her family shop out from under her is that he’s her ex-fiance. When she goes to the shop to tell him off, because someone has to, she arrives just in time to ruin his interaction with a would-be customer. The customer, however, doesn’t take India’s dressing down quite the way she expected.

He offers her a job.

He’s looking for a specific watchmaker to fix his very special watch, but he doesn’t know the man’s name, where he works, or even if he is still in London. He hires India, who has intimate working knowledge of the clock industry in London to help him find the man. Since she is without employment, prospects, or a place to live, she accepts.

The mysterious man and his special watch intrigue India; especially when she discovers him using the magical watch to heal himself of some undisclosed illness! On the same day she discovers that a man, possibly matching his description, has just arrived in London from America and is an outlaw on the run.

He’s only in town for a week. Perhaps if she can manage to not get distracted by his handsome countenance, his charming manner, and his motley crew of friends, she can survive the week and claim the reward on his head.

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I love the chemistry between the two main characters in this book. The supporting cast is varied and endearing. It was a quick, fun read that left me wanting to find out where the story goes from here.

Having said that, I do have to say that I think the story suffers from pacing issues overall. There is a subplot that, while it becomes more relevant through the series, feels superfluous in this book. Also, not being a sensitivity reader and coming from the background that I do, I cannot speak for how anybody else will interpret a couple of the characters, but I will say that each of them gets stronger and more developed throughout the series.

As you can see, there are ups and downs, but I liked it. What I considered flaws in the structure didn’t keep me from enjoying the book as a whole, nor will they stop me from desiring to read the next book in the series. It is a good example of a story not needing to be perfect to be captivating.

Book Review: 5 Secrets of Story Structure by K.M. Weiland

On By K. S. WattsIn Book Reviews, Writing AdviceLeave a comment

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If you are just getting started as a writer, or if you’ve been at it a while and can’t figure out how to solve your wandering plot issues, this book is invaluable. K.M. Weiland breaks down the concept of the three-act story structure in easy to understand ways and offers common examples.

The book is short, easily read in an hour, more or less depending on your reading speed. If you are already well versed in the three-act plot structure, then you are not the target market for this book. Though I will say, I knew what the three-act structure was, but this did make the pieces of it clearer to me. The examples were a tremendous help. And she has a database of examples. My list-making, organizational heart loves that she has a database of examples. A database. It makes me happy.

All of the information in the book is available on K. M. Weiland’s site, but to have it in a quick to reference book, organized away on my Kindle, is right up my alley–especially considering it’s free. That’s right. You heard me. Free. In it, she points the way to several other resources as well. Some of those are free. Some are not. Your mileage may vary.

I love the simplicity of what she says and will be keeping this one filed away with my reference books for some time yet. Because if I’m having pacing issues, there’s probably an issue with my structure that could easily be fixed if I take a step back and study it a little harder. This book helps me break it down and examine what each of my plot points are and what isn’t necessary or draws the reader out of the story by crowding out the important milestones within it.

It’s quick. It’s simple. It’s valuable and yet free. You have nothing to lose by giving it a shot.

Book Review: Dark Deeds (Book Two in the Class 5 Series) by Michelle Diener

On By K. S. WattsIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

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Fiona Russell was abducted from Earth and forced into manual labor aboard a ship of unfriendly aliens who beat her, mocked her, and tried to hide her very humanity. She was waiting to die. Until the day a group of murdering pirates boards her vessel and clocks her over the head.

Hot on the trail of those pirates is the handsome Grih Battleship Captain Hal Vakeri. Fiona is a human, which makes her only the second of her kind ever discovered in his region of space. He rescues Fiona, determined to take her back to Battle Center Headquarters and find out how and why she was abducted in the first place, not to mention bring her captors to justice.

But as soon as she gets on board his ship trouble starts. Long range communications are down, The investigation team hasn’t shown up at the rendezvous point, and there could be a traitor on board trying to kill the human who might know too much.

When someone kidnaps Fiona from right under his nose while his ship is docked at a way station, Hal goes after her. She was his charge, after all. It has nothing to do with how attractive she is or the way her singing captivates him so.

The trick is, when he is finally reunited with her, the question becomes who saved who? Before they can answer that question, they are thrown into a tangled web of secret hideouts, alien experiments, and political machinations that could spell trouble for the Advanced Sentient Beings across the galaxy. But alone and cut off from anybody who can help them, except a ship with a child’s personality, they may already be too late.

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I did something so out of character for me that it still surprises me when I think about it. I read a book in a series out of order. This goes against everything inside me. It’s not right. And when I read Dark Deeds, I know why.

Because now I already know the plot of the first book in the series and I have been robbed of the chance to be as delightfully surprised by it as I was by the second. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll end up reading the third.

Not all of the aliens we meet are humanoid, the ship is a character, there’s a parrot with a foul mouth, it has a romance arc (but is still a clean read); what’s not to love?

My disclaimer over my love for this story is that I read it because it was suggested to me as a comp for a manuscript that I’ve written. So, clearly, I’m drawn to the themes and concepts.

I will say that at times the pacing felt a little off, and there are a couple of plot points I would argue are a little too convenient. But overall, if you are looking for a good, quick, sci-fi romance, this is a good choice.