Dark Witch
Dark Witch by Nora Roberts is $1.99! This is part of today’s Kindle Daily Deals. It also has a new cover! What do we think compared to the older one? It’s the first book in the The Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy.
With indifferent parents, Iona Sheehan grew up craving devotion and acceptance. From her maternal grandmother, she learned where to find both: a land of lush forests, dazzling lakes, and centuries-old legends.
Ireland.
County Mayo, to be exact. Where her ancestors’ blood and magic have flowed through generations—and where her destiny awaits.
Iona arrives in Ireland with nothing but her Nan’s directions, an unfailingly optimistic attitude, and an innate talent with horses. Not far from the luxurious castle where she is spending a week, she finds her cousins, Branna and Connor O’Dwyer. And since family is family, they invite her into their home and their lives.
When Iona lands a job at the local stables, she meets the owner, Boyle McGrath. Cowboy, pirate, wild tribal horsemen, he’s three of her biggest fantasy weaknesses all in one big, bold package.
Iona realizes that here she can make a home for herself—and live her life as she wants, even if that means falling head over heels for Boyle. But nothing is as it seems. An ancient evil has wound its way around Iona’s family tree and must be defeated. Family and friends will fight with each other and for each other to keep the promise of hope—and love—alive…
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RECOMMENDED: A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn is $1.50! The latest book out now and it’s a good time to start this series., especially since many of the books are also on sale. This is a historical mystery and Sarah really enjoyed it. Here’s what she said:
I read A Curious Beginning with an I-cannot-put-this-down enthusiasm and devoured it very quickly. I relished both the characters and the mystery. The Veronica Speedwell series is excellent and intelligent fun, and while the second isn’t quite as satisfying as the first, I heartily recommend them both.
In her thrilling new series, the New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Julia Grey mysteries, returns once more to Victorian England…and introduces intrepid adventuress Veronica Speedwell.
London, 1887. As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry—and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a sharpened hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England now gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.
But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron with ties to her mysterious past. Promising to reveal in time what he knows of the plot against her, the baron offers her temporary sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker—a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can deliver on his tantalizing vow to reveal the secrets he has concealed for decades, he is found murdered. Suddenly Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run from an elusive assailant, wary partners in search of the villainous truth.
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Dangerous by Minerva Spencer is $1.99! This historical romance features a heroine who is older than what we normally see in historicals. However, if you couldn’t tell by the plot description, it really harkens back to early romance novels, which some readers may want to leave in the past. Anytime this is on sale, there are comments on either side on whether to buy it or not. I’m curious, but maybe not that curious.
What sort of lady doesn’t make her debut until the age of thirty-two? A timeless beauty with a mysterious past—and a future she intends to take into her own hands…
Lady Euphemia Marlington hasn’t been free in seventeen years—since she was captured by Corsairs and sold into a harem. Now the sultan is dead and Mia is back in London facing relentless newspapermen, an insatiably curious public, and her first Season. Worst of all is her ashamed father’s ultimatum: marry a man of his choosing or live out her life in seclusion. No doubt her potential groom is a demented octogenarian. Fortunately, Mia is no longer a girl, but a clever woman with a secret—and a plan of her own.
Adam de Courtney’s first two wives died under mysterious circumstances. Now there isn’t a peer in England willing to let his daughter marry the dangerously handsome man the ton calls The Murderous Marquess. Nobody except Mia’s father, the desperate Duke of Carlisle. Clearly Mia must resemble an aging matron, or worse. However, in need of an heir, Adam will use the arrangement to his advantage.
But when the two outcasts finally meet, assumptions will be replaced by surprises, deceit by desire—and a meeting of minds between two schemers may lead to a meeting of hearts—if the secrets of their pasts don’t tear them apart.
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A Game of Fate by Scarlett St. Clair is $1.99 and a KDD! I feel like St. Clair has a huge following in the self-pub circles. I also believe this one is a retelling of her popular series starting with A Touch of Darkness, a Hades and Persephone retelling, but told through the eyes of Hades instead.
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The Veronica Speedwell is my pick here—love that series!
I’ve not read the Spencer, but I’ve read the next two books in the series (BARBAROUS and SCANDALOUS) and they’re pretty weird. They don’t handle the exoticism/imperialism/sexual violence angle terribly well, IMO.
“What sort of lady doesn’t make her debut until the age of 32?”
That would have been me back then. It takes me forever to do a anything.
Jackie Keswick‘s Power of Zero series is on sale at Amazon. I really enjoyed the first book, haven’t made it through the rest yet. It’s a kind of over the top secret agent type story.
“ Lady Euphemia Marlington hasn’t been free in seventeen years—since she was captured by Corsairs and sold into a harem.”
Sure, she was. And I’m Marie of Rumania. Note that the woman in this book is an outcast because of something done to her, and the man, because of something(s) he’s supposed to have done. One of the things is not like the other …
“Sold into a harem” is very Bertrice Small. By which I mean it is a trope that needs to not be used anymore.
“Oh, I like the banana-pants Old Skool problematic romances. How bad could it be?”
*Reads further*
“Sold into a harem.”
AGHHHH!!!!!!!
@Quinn Wilde—oh, SCANDALOUS is even worse on that front. The hero is a former slave who ends up with a white missionary and this is the ending of the book:
“He’d thought he was a free man but, somewhere along the way, he’d become enslaved without even realizing it. This time it was chains of love, and he never wanted to break free.”
There is not enough WTF in the world for that.
There’s a lot of romance out there nowadays about poly relationships and reverse harem set-ups (and occasional harems) but they are usually in a fantasy or contemporary romances. There’s not a lot of romances now about historical polygamy or harem relationships. Obviously there are pitfalls but a harem setting can be quite dramatic and even romantic if done properly (the Turkish show Magnificent Century for an example).
@Ms. M
In reverse harem romances the men choose to be there, typically.
Also “reverse harem” does not refer to a literal harem. Need a better name for that subgenre.
Also it’s always white women being sold into harems in these stories and I’d like to know how often that actually happened historically and why we’re supposed to find that worse than any other woman being held against her will.
I have a lot of feelings about this.
Went to the Goodreads page for the Spencer to see if it was good Old Skool or bad Old Skool, and an author who I’ve read before (and really did not like the way they exoticized POC in her books, although I know others like her so YMMV) gave it a glowing review and that’s how I decided to give Dangerous a hard pass.