This was the first romance novel I remember reading where amnesia played a huge part of the story. While it seemed to be a deterrant for others, I found it to be an interesting premise, even if it didn`t stay apart of the story as long as I expected. It seems a lot of readers had issues with Celia lying to Tarquin when he was in that condition and judged her for it. I didn`t take issue with that so much and I`m also honest enough to admit that if I were put in that position with someone who likened me to a cauliflower in front of the ton that I would likely be tempted to do something of that nature too. Especialy knowing that it was only going to be for a short period of time.

This story was a bit of a comedy of errors all around, which made me smile many times when reading. Between the kidnapping for seemingly no reason, the amnesia, a possibly scandalous past and upbrining in a foreign country, a jewlel obsessed evil aunt, a well meaning, well dressed and slightly misguided uncle, and a possible fiancee hiding in the wood works this was quite the cast of characters. They were all well written and entertaining though and the story moved along at a rather quick pace.

Ultimately I did enoy the main characters. I felt bad for the hand that Celiia was dealt by life; however even with all that she didn`t want to settle. She refused Tarquin`s proposals many times, mostly because he was doing it out of obligation. And while Tarquin was a tough hero to fall in love with between his callous observations and overall obession with how he looked even he eventually endeared himself to me. When I got to that part of the story where his uncle explained why he was that way it made sense but initally the obession and comdemnation of others was annoying. That and even when he was proposing marriage to Celia he appeared to be doing it out of pure obligation. It wasn`t until later on when he realized his feeling that he became genuine when it was almost too late.

I enjoyed this story and finished it in three days. I was intrigued to see how the romance would play out especially with Tarquin being, well, Tarquin as well as wanting to know why anyone would kidnap Celia. I figured that out fairly early but I didn`t solve the full mystery or discover all the players so that was a nice little twist for me.

To say too much more broaches into spoiler territory so I will stop there. I really did enjoy this book even though Tarquin was a bit much to deal with at some points. However one thing I will give credit for is Tarquin was man enough to admit when he was wrong or that he should have done something differently. It may have taken others pointing it out to him but he still did it and that is something in and off itself.

I ordered this last year since it was on sale and portions of the proceeds went to Toys for Tots which was a win/win for me. I decided to read it this year around the Christmas season since I have gotten decidely more Grinch-like over the last few years and thought it would help get me in the holiday mood.

I really enjoyed all the stories in here. They were good little snippets and ways to get introduced to other authors and characters I haven't experienced yet even though I have most of them in my massive TBR pile. Most people may not enjoy short stories but it is a good test to see if you could handle these characters and the way an author writes for longer periods of time. Since if you don't like the short story it is likely you will enjoy the longer one.

Overall they were all what you would expect from a cozy; nothing too profound but cute and a great way to pass the time. The most inventive one, setting wise, was "Sleighed at Castle Rock" since it did a Christmas in July spin. I also liked how all of the mysteries were not necessarily violent ones and it was a nice little mixture. The humor in all the stories was well done and Iam looking forward to reading about alll of the characters I got introduced to in a longer format.

This one had a bit of a rocky start, so took me a bit to get into. The first introduction of Andy made her completely unsympathetic and I was prepared to dislike her throughout the entire book. And when the book starts out and you’re not sure you are going to like one of the main ones, it can make it a difficult read. However, I pushed through and I’m glad I did so I did ultimately enjoy the story.

This is a hodgepodge of a lot of pop culture and literary things. There was the obvious Scooby-Doo reference as well as Lovecraft. There was also the nostalgia of being in the early nineties (there was a scene involving a cordless phone at one point that gave me pause on why it was a big deal until I remembered this). So, if you like all those things then you will probably enjoy this.
There were some drawbacks though, related mainly to the writing style. There were a few points where the format would go from the traditional storytelling to a play format with the character’s names, their dialogues, and their actions in parenthesis. There were also a few instances of breaking the literary fourth wall and characters drawing attention to that they were in a book. By that I mean lines that would read things like “re-reading the last line of dialogue” or “realizing that the ending of the last chapter was bullshit”. It wasn’t enough to detract from the enjoyment but it was startling to see and in some instances really disrupted the flow of the story.
The overall mystery was good. As readers, we knew going in that this was going to be a case where there were really monsters involved. There were quite a few twists that I didn’t fully see and by the end they kept coming. There were also developments that I didn’t see as well as other aspects I didn’t expect (to say more would be spoiler territory). The ending seemed abrupt to me and there wasn’t a real resolution to anything. I don’t know if this is because anther one is planned or if the author just wanted an ambiguous ending but it did leave me wanting a bit more resolution.
It took awhile to get through because of the pacing, the jarring changes in storytelling pattern, and the overall language usage (it read like it was a translated work even though I don’t think it was). However, it was still enjoyable for me and I would recommend it a fan of the things listed above.

I am mixed about this book. Overall I enjoyed it but it felt exceedingly fast paced and I felt like I missed a lot. Now, I know this is the third in the series but everyone I've read online and in reviews says it can be read 'out of order' so I thought it wouldn't matter when it turned out it does.

It was also a novella so a lot had to be compressed into shorter space and I get that. I read it because it's still the holiday season so I was like why not finish the year with another Christmas story. Again it was cute, it was sweet, but since this was my first meeting with the citizens of Blueberry Springs I didn't have the background or history for any of the characters or the history for Katie and Nash to really see the development of their romance. Still, it wasn't bad I kind of wish that it had been made more apparent it actually *is* better to read them in order.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I loved the alternative history aspect of it as well as the idea of there being a police force dedicated to protecting literature. Were Literary Detective a real thing, I would likely throw my hat in the ring for a job as one. And the idea of being able to enter your favorite books or have literary characters come out into the real world was an intriguing one. After all, who wouldn't want to meet their favorite character from a book? It was a good blend of mystery and action with a dash of romance without any one of those genres being too dominant. The characters and the world were well fleshed out and struck the balance of having everyone you meet, even the bad guys, be intriguing enough to want to know more about without too much of the book being taken up with setting up this alternative world.

There was one thing that kept this from being a five star for me and that is the main plot point as advertised on the back of book didn't happen until less than the last quarter of the book. With the title this book has, I expected to meet Jane early on and have it be a cat and mouse between Thursday and Hades to get her back. While the cat and mouse aspect was still there though, most of the first part was trying to save a character from a lesser known Dickens novel rather than Jane. I have never read Jane Eyre and I honestly will likely never do so, especially since the novel was laid out for me in this book through a conversation with Thursday and her partner Bowden. Having the title it does though I did expect her to play more of a part than she did. In truth, we saw and heard more of and from Rochester than we did Jane and even then the recovery seemed a bit rushed and anti-climactic. Which is not to say the rest of the book wasn't enjoyable because it was. It just seemed the title was a bit misleading as well as the description on the back of the book.

I would have also liked to hear more about Hades and how or what he was but that could be something that comes later in the series as well as development on the other villains in the story. I also imagine that we will learn more about the Next family as it develops or at least I hope so. That and we hear more from other characters, especially Spike. Despite that one main point, I enjoyed it and will read the others in the series since a few of those have also caught my eye. I will just be sure to read them with an open mind and take the description on the back of the book with a grain of salt since it may prove to be like this one and not really match up to the story within.

Proven Guilty

Horror movie monsters come to life at a Horror Convention and start bringing their violence and carnage to our world. It’s a great premise for any story honestly. The fact that it happened with a Dresden book, a character who is already well-versed in all things pop culture and makes quips at the drop of a hat, made the premise have even more potential. Overall, I did enjoy this book, as I have with all the Dresden books, but there was a period in the middle where it did lag and it was work to push through to get to the ending. One thing that did make this one stand out, at least for me, was that the ‘big bad’ was well neither.

There were quite a few revelations in this book, and it served as sort of a turning point for a couple of the relationships in Harry’s life, specifically Michael, Karrin, Thomas, and even Charity. It is also a turning point for Harry as it adds yet another hat for him to don in one of his many roles that he already has. The newer one he receives here will be one of his more challenging ones I think, even more so than that of the Warden mantle he had to take with the ending of Dead Beat, simply because it plays on the adage of the student becoming a teacher. I also enjoyed this one because this book was the turning one for me in beginning to like Karrin Murphy, as she has not been one of my favorite characters up until this point. She is slowly endearing herself to me but we will see how long that lasts. The jury is still out on Thomas though.

As mentioned, the big bad reveal was a little anti-climactic but I felt it had to be with the way the story played out, what with Harry calling out the Wardens on be being too hard on new to magic people. Right away, they deem as warlocks and set them up for execution because they break one of the Laws of Magic, not knowing any better. He says, rightly so, that these kids need training to know between right and wrong and the Laws of Magic. I expected there to be more of a twist once we found out who summoned the ‘fear demons’, but I think this served to set the path for other story arches that will happen in the book, so I can understand why the reveal was what it was.

As a somewhat related side note, reading this was interesting for me since I know the trivia behind or at least the trivia given to me by one of the paternal figures in my life who is a die-hard Dresden fan. Allegedly, this book was supposed to come before Dead Beat, which is decidedly more comedic. But Butcher received heavy indication that the book after Blood Rites was going to be his first in hardback, so that he may want to make it a little lighter all around. He swapped the order of the books, making major edits and adjustments to both manuscripts so that chronologically it mad sense. So, reading it with the knowledge that technically this was supposed to be first was interesting. It really had no bearing on my overall enjoyment of the novel, but I can see how the other way would have made sense as well, if for nothing else from a drastic break in the brevity that this novel had. I will continue this series because again I do enjoy it and Harry always manages to make me laugh.

This book wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great, hence the two-star review. I didn’t hate it, since I finished it, but it was a bit of a push to. It helped that it was short so it didn’t take me long to finish it.

While it started off promising it soon derailed. I feel the pacing was too fast for the period the story was set in, and that Nathaniel accepted Olivia’s affair proposal much too quickly for a gentleman of the time. If he were a rake, I would understand but he was not. Him not being a rake was one of the reasons that Olivia chose him. Although, society would have dictated him informing her parents right away of her proposal to him so there is that to contend with. He didn’t put up much of a fight on this or any of the decisions at all. In fact, he severely lacked a spine in all things which was a bit disheartening to read. I don’t want an alpha male of the 1970’s variety but I do need one who isn’t such a jelly fish.

Likewise, while I initially admired Olivia thinking for herself and flouting social norms by the end I could barely tolerate her. She came across as bratty and selfish and not endearing at all or grateful for anything that people did or were willing to do for her. And she did seem contradictory in not wanting to be an embarrassment to her family or bring scandal on them, but was perfectly okay with propositioning a man for an affair roughly five minutes after meeting him. The fit she threw about her family going to the trouble of getting her published in a magazine and her level of under appreciation was staggering. I get it wasn’t as polished as she wanted it but still they had to go to some trouble to get it done and it wouldn’t have killed her to say thank you.

A few other reviews mentioned that it seemed too ‘modern’ and I do agree with that but it was forgivable for the most part. There were some social situations that wouldn’t have happened or missteps that couldn’t be ignored but then the general premise required a major suspension of belief. There was some questionable verbiage (the use of the word ‘grounding’ is the one that readily comes to mind) as well but I’m chalking that up to this being the first book in the series and perhaps by the author so I expected a bit rockiness.

I wanted the HEA because it’s a romance novel and I am one of those that feels there always needs to have one. However, I also felt Nathaniel deserved one after dealing with all that asinine nonsense that was Olivia. I really don’t say this about a lot of books, at least not as much as other reviews I’ve seen, but I’m really glad I got this for free as well as the rest of the series. Hopefully the other heroes have more of a backbone and the heroines are not educated twits, and are both more sympathetic and endearing characters.