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Never Seduce a Scot
Never Seduce a Scot by Maya Banks is $1.99! This is part of today’s Kindle Daily Deals. This is a historical romance with (you guessed it) a Scottish hero! The heroine is deaf and in an arranged marriage. Some readers thought the conflict was resolved rather easily, but many loved the romance between the hero and heroine. It has a 4.1-star rating on Goodreads.
Eveline Armstrong is fiercely loved and protected by her powerful clan, but outsiders consider her “touched.” Beautiful, fey, with a level, intent gaze, she doesn’t speak. No one, not even her family, knows that she cannot hear. Content with her life of seclusion, Eveline has taught herself to read lips and allows the outside world to view her as daft. But when an arranged marriage into a rival clan makes Graeme Montgomery her husband, Eveline accepts her duty—unprepared for the delights to come. Graeme is a rugged warrior with a voice so deep and powerful that his new bride can hear it, and hands and kisses so tender and skilled that he stirs her deepest passions.
Graeme is intrigued by the mysterious Eveline, whose silent lips are ripe with temptation and whose bright, intelligent eyes can see into his soul. As intimacy deepens, he learns her secret. But when clan rivalries and dark deeds threaten the wife he has only begun to cherish, the Scottish warrior will move heaven and earth to save the woman who has awakened his heart to the beautiful song of a rare and magical love.
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The Bone Houses
RECOMMENDED: The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones is $1.99! This is another Kindle Daily Deal. I really liked this one. It has elements of Celtic mythology and role reversal of sorts: the heroine brandishes a giant axe and fights the undead, while the hero is a scholarly cartographer. It was mentioned in our previous Goth Rec League.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Sky in the Deep in this bewitching, historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Holly Black and V.E. Schwab.
Seventeen-year-old Aderyn (“Ryn”) only cares about two things: her family and her family’s graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don’t always stay dead.The risen corpses are known as “bone houses,” and legend says that they’re the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?
Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the deeply-buried truths about themselves. Equal parts classic horror novel and original fairytale, The Bone Houses will have you spellbound from the very first page.
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Archer’s Voice
Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan is $1.99! I haven’t read this one, but I’ve read other books by Sheridan. They are very emotional, very intense, and have alpha heroes. This book was recommended by Pat in a Rec League of books that really met our expectations.
When Bree Prescott arrives in the sleepy, lakeside town of Pelion, Maine, she hopes against hope that this is the place where she will finally find the peace she so desperately seeks. On her first day there, her life collides with Archer Hale, an isolated man who holds a secret agony of his own. A man no one else sees.
Archer’s Voice is the story of a woman chained to the memory of one horrifying night and the man whose love is the key to her freedom. It is the story of a silent man who lives with an excruciating wound and the woman who helps him find his voice. It is the story of suffering, fate, and the transformative power of love.
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The Darkest Part of the Forest
RECOMMENDED: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black is $2.99! Carrie read this book and gave it a B grade:
The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black, is a fantasy YA with romance elements. I’m a huge Holly Black fan – she’s been a major force in urban fantasy and her books are always gorgeous to read. This book had some problems, and the romance is pretty tacked on, but it’s excellent in terms of plot and dark fantasy atmosphere.
Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.
At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.
Until one day, he does…
As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?
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Mia Sheridan has been one of my “discoveries” this year and I’ve enjoyed her well-written, angsty books (DANE’S STORM, BRANDT’S RETURN, SAVAGED); but I will warn readers that Sheridan really puts her characters through the physical and emotional wringers before their HEA. Be prepared!
@D3: I got about ⅓ of the way through ARCHER’S VOICE before I had to DNF due to some very triggery “physical and emotional” wringers. I’m sure it would have worked out in the end, but I just couldn’t… Take D3’s warnings to heart if you’re in the “can’t take the emotional stress at the moment” camp.
@Qualisign: I agree and will add that my recollection of the end is that it didn’t work out at all, at least for me. Ultimately it wasn’t worth it, but I’m happy if others enjoyed it.
The Blacksmith Queen is free at Apple Books (or iBooks— whatever it’s called)
Banks is always pretty good but I’ve never tried this one. The Holly Black is good too.
Storm cursed (fairly recent Mercy Book) only $1.99. https://smile.amazon.com/Storm-Cursed-Mercy-Thompson-Novel-ebook/dp/B07DMYTL6L/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=storm+cursed+patricia+briggs&qid=1603230126&sprefix=storm+cur&sr=8-3
Archer’s Voice gets great reviews, but I thought the writing was simplistic, unpolished, and stilted. Sheridan gives almost no sense of place. You get plenty of “I went through the door into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas” but almost no descriptions of the places Bree goes or even the people she meets. There is a little beach Bree goes to, but we are never told what it looks like, what surrounds it, what the view is, or anything else. Honestly, I was stumped at the great reviews.
I can’t with Maya Banks anymore. Too many sex scenes where the hero “eats through her tissues” during cunnilingus and is a “big pissed-off ball of alpha male.” Sorry, I really tried.
I was interested in the Maya Banks book but noped the fuck out when I got to the “with a voice so deep and powerful that his new bride can hear it” part in the synopsis. As someone with a severe hearing loss I’m just fed up with stories that treat it like a nuisance that can be overcome when you meet the right person. Yes, most people can hear some pitches better than others but he can’t be the only dude with a deep voice in town and if she can hear him I assume she can at least hear some sounds/noises as well. Also I find it highly unlikely that not even her family has caugth on to that she’s at least hard of hearing bc surely they would notice if she doesn’t react when someone is calling her or there’s a loud noise. Lip reading only works if the person talking is looking at you/in your direction and never covers their face with their hands, which isn’t the case if the person doesn’t know you can’t hear them. I have hearing aids and I still struggle a lot of times and I’m sure most people notice that something is off. Obviously I haven’t read the book so I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt but the synopsis alone is upsetting.
Do any of the rest of you have times when you’d like to rewrite — or at least write a new ending for — a book that had a good premise and bad execution? Some books really deserve a good do-over. More than that, certain book characters deserve a chance!
I read Never Seduce a Scot a while back and don’t remember all of it but I do remember that the heroine lost her hearing due to a head injury as an adult. Once she recovers, she deliberately keeps her deafness a secret, letting her family think her brain was damaged. I think she does it to avoid marriage with a suitor (not the hero) she particularly doesn’t like.
@Qualisign: All. The. Time.
@Qualisign: I find that books termed “psychological suspense” often have this problem: really gripping premises, but then the execution falls flat, or the denouement involves finding a secret diary or a letter of confession (puleeze: that’s as bad as “and then I woke up”). Sophie Hannah is a perfect example of this—her books have epically good setups, but it’s all downhill from there. Writers: the premise is only half the battle—you’ve also got to make it work.
I agree with Lynn, that synopsis makes no sense. “No one knows that she cannot hear.” Huh? How would that be possible? I also have hearing aids and the reason I got tested was because my family knew something was off. For years I thought I had attention issues because I got exhausted trying to follow conversations, nodding along where it felt appropriate while trying to fill in the missing pieces or replace the words that didn’t make sense with context, but my family still noticed and insisted I get my hearing tested. Now, this character is described as deaf, and somehow her family has no clue?
@Lynn and @Dove: I have read (and reread) this one and I can tell you that the author states in her notes that she modeled the character’s hearing condition after her own husband’s. Also, the character hides her hearing condition because her family believes the injury which cause the hearing loss (thrown from a horse – she is already an adult when this happens) actually gave her a brain injury because that is what she wants them to think (it’s part of the plot.)
Thanks for the clarification @MaryK and @Hope. I still find some plot points questionable (e.g. hero has a magical deafness defying voice, family thinks it’s ok to marry her off when they think she has brain damage?) but I assume they get explained better in the actual book. It seems to me though that the synopsis is really subpar in this case and I wonder if that does damage to the sales of the book.
@Lynn – I just now actually read the synopsis and I see what you mean. She can’t actually hear his voice the way the synopsis suggests. Apparently, she can get a sense of low-pitched sounds and his voice is deep enough that she can get a strong “feel” for it. And their king is forcing them to marry to unite their warring clans because of tropes. Her family doesn’t want them marry but it is that or war and she makes it clear to them that she wants to marry him.