by: Christiana Miller
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Synopsis:
A little magic can go a long way -- to really screwing things up. Mara is having the worst month of her life. At least, that’s what her cards tell her and they’ve never been wrong. She's evicted from her apartment, loses her job and is banned from Beverly Hills. So when the tarot cards predict her imminent demise, she uses a little magic to make her world right.
Suddenly, an aunt she’s never met dies, leaving Mara as her sole heir. But when Mara moves into her inherited home, she discovers Aunt Tillie never moved out. She’s still one pissed-off old lady, even post-mortem, and she blames Mara’s magical meddling for her death.
When Mara accidentally releases a demon and awakens the spirit of the most powerful witch in history, Tillie’s ready to kill her -- literally. It’s the only way she can think of to save the girl from herself. The witch and the demon, however, have other plans for Mara’s body.
The cover is cartoonish and eye catching. In fact it was the cover that caught my eye on one of those free-ebook pages on Facebook. So yes, I downloaded this for the Kindle. I don't have a Kindle so I read this on my phone. I actually couldn't put it down, my phone went with me everywhere for a few days. My oldest asked me last night, "Why are you reading on your phone???" Because Mommy has to finish this book and it's not on the Nook. Nope, but I did just request it.
The characters are a hoot and a half. Mara and Gus are the only two that get really in-depth treatment. Mara being the main character, and it's all from her perspective in the first-person. And of course Gus is her best friend, he is a gay witch. So he's perfect in all ways but that one. He's also very aggressive and pro-active, which is the opposite of Mara. If it weren't for him she never would have made any movement in the story. It works really well, is all.
She moves from L.A. when her overly-Christian apartment manager evicts her and her Aunt Tillie dies. It's a tiny town on the northern end of Wisconsin. I think it was called Devil's Point. She finds the cottage gorgeous but slightly haunted. Against all her instincts, she decides to move in.
She finds a love interest and lots of fun and creepy things happen. I won't give any more away but I was shocked more than once. This book was not at all predictable. The paperback is a few bucks, but the Kindle version is only $3.49. If you have a Nook like me, you can request it be made available in Nook format as I just did today.
Seriously fun paranormal read. Romance is in here a little but it's not anywhere near the main story line. I would call it quirky paranormal...mystery? Maybe...anyway, it was a really good read.
by: Rosa Sophia
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Synopsis:
An envelope addressed to Katherine Maslin stood out amongst the pile of bills. It is her notice from an attorney… the rights to her grandparents’ farmhouse and adjacent property.
She believes that a change will rid her of the strange dreams she’s been having, wherein an oddly familiar woman visits her, begging for her help. But when Kat realizes that the woman in her dream is her dead grandmother, she begins to have doubts about moving to the farm.
Rumors and nightmarish tales fill her mind, stories of the five men who lost their lives in the late 1950s to a heartless murderer. A man had been convicted, but was he the one the police had been looking for, or had he been framed?
Kat is thrown backwards through time on a journey to discover a terrible truth. The ghost of her grandmother is always one step ahead of her, leading the way. But will she find the killer before he finds her?
Cover was fairly freaky, I probably would have read this much sooner had I ever seen that cover. I don't remember there being a ghost kid, but trust me there was a lot going on to make this a thriller.
As the synopsis stated, Kat inherited her grandparents' farmhouse. Seems like a dream come true, Kat is an artist and was eager to live in a farmhouse. So Kat and her fiance pack up their meager belongings and make the move. The thing about this I found distracting about this was where they were getting their money. It was very unclear until the book was nearly over that either of them had been to college. It sounded like the went wandering after high school and settled down together. But even so, where did they have the savings to draw from? They were both very young and unemployed. So a few more details would have been great.
The next part I found that took away from the story was Kat's constant battling with her mother. Seriously every single conversation ended up with Kat yelling...and it was really unclear why in many cases. When she had been missing for so long, and her fiance told her to let her mother know she just refused to deal with her. Her mom wanted her to move closer, and it was blown up into how controlling her mother was. It was pure teenage perspective, the high school romance was too. But then I found out Rosa wrote this book when she was 17 and it really changed my perspective. Kat still bugs me, but I think Rosa is a fantastic author.
The writing and editing of this story are really well done. The things that bothered me were really the teenage perspective that Rosa wrote this story from. I think anyone can enjoy this story, but the younger 20s crowd will really get it.
If you'd like to win a copy for yourself head over to Pagan Writers Community to enter Rosa's New Year's giveaway of a paperback copy of Taking 1960.
