No Perfect Magic By Patricia Rice

No Perfect Magic: Unexpected Magic Book FiveNo Perfect Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five by Patricia Rice

Barbara Rogers rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Unexpected Magic #6
Publication Date: June 27, 2017

Delightfully entertaining and witty with a perfect hero and heroine. Any book that has a beginning paragraph like “Dead meat, lemme, lemme, oh no, heel! Yummy bite, wiggle, flower lady now, please. . .” just has to be a delightful read!

I have loved the entire Unexpected Magic series. Each hero and heroine are perfectly matched to compliment the others ‘powers’. This is another match-up of an Ives male and a Malcom female, so you know sparks fly. It is part of a series but could be read as a stand-alone book. However, I would strongly suggest reading the entire series from beginning to end because it is wonderfully delightful and the characters are so very interesting.

Lady Aurelia is the daughter of a duke. She lives in pampered luxury with lots of love and every material want or desire completely fulfilled. Yet, she is a prisoner in all that luxury. No, she isn’t a physical prisoner but is imprisoned none-the-less. Aurelia has ultra-sensitive hearing and sounds from everywhere bombard her so much that she cannot focus or even carry on a normal conversation. Aurelia stays at their country estate because she cannot tolerate all of the cacophony in London.

William Ives-Madden is the bastard son of a marquess and half-brother to the current marquess. William is quiet, very quiet. He seldom speaks and spends all of his time with the dogs that he trains for others. His dream is to purchase his own property where he could train the dogs rather than traveling all over the country to do it. He also has the lady he plans to marry all picked out. His life is all planned out and set and he’ll have enough money saved to buy the property he wants within the next year. William not only trains the dogs, he ‘communes’ with them. He can read their thoughts and send them commands with his thoughts.

William is training a dog for Aurelia’s father at their country estate when Aurelia comes running out to him just at dusk. She is very upset and says she hears a child crying in great distress and they must hurry to find her. Will hears nothing, but since Aurelia is so distressed, he decides to help her conduct the search. Will sees this as an excellent opportunity to work Argyle (the duke’s dog) further. At first, Argyle cannot pick up the sounds either, but finally, between Argyle and Aurelia, they find a badly injured little girl and her also badly injured pet.

That is how the mystery began – and quite a mystery it is. The search for the little girl is hindered by the fact that she is deaf and mute and very, very frightened. You’ll love the search for her family and what happened to them. It is filled with twists and turns and leaves you guessing right up to the very end!

During the course of their investigations, Aurelia discovers that William has a dampening effect on all of the noise that tortures her life. When Will is around, she can actually focus and carry on a conversation. Will admires Aurelia but knows that there is no chance of him ever being able to marry the daughter of a powerful duke. It would also require him to live in London, which he hates and there wouldn’t be a place to train his dogs. So, what is a girl and guy who have complimentary ‘gifts’ to do? Read the book and you’ll see.

A delightful read that I’m sure you’ll enjoy!

“I requested and received this book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”

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Once Upon A Spine By Kate Carlisle

Once Upon a Spine (Bibliophile Mystery #11)Once Upon a Spine by Kate Carlisle

Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Bibliophile Mystery
Publication Date: June 6, 2017

ONCE UPON A SPINE is the eleventh book in the Bibliophile Mystery series by Kate Carlisle. I seem to enjoy this series more and more with each new book. Brooklyn grows and matures more with each book and her relationship with the handsome, debonair Derek is heading toward the next level with their upcoming wedding. I can hardly wait!

I love books – and this is a book (and series) about books – what could be more perfect. Brooklyn is a book binder and antiquarian and each book in the series centers around a rare edition. This one features rare, first edition copies of ‘Alice In Wonderland’.

Brooklyn and Derek love their neighborhood and certainly don’t want it to change and become urbanized, so when the lovely group of businesses across from their apartment are vandalized and then a murder happens they simply MUST investigate. The businesses have been tagged by graffiti and nobody can catch the culprit. Then, when the cobbler is murdered things really heat up.

To add to the stress and confusion, Derek’s parents are visiting from England. This is the first time Brooklyn has met her future in-laws and she has been stressing out over it. Her main stressor isn’t meeting them, it is worrying about their reaction to her whacky, flower-child mother. She expects them to be very nice, but stuffy, dignified and very proper English parents. Boy does she get a surprise.

There are suspects aplenty for the murder and Brooklyn, Derek and both sets of parents are knee deep in investigating. Who in the world would have wanted to murder the very nice, sweet cobbler? Was the cobbler the real target of the murderer? Is someone trying to scare the business owners into closing their businesses so real estate developers can take over? Where did these extremely rare copies of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ come from and who really owns them? So many things to investigate and so little time to do it.

The only thing I didn’t care as much for in this book is that Brooklyn’s mom wasn’t her normal wacky self. She only did one ‘spell of protection’ and that was done very calmly with none of the weird stuff she usually does along with it. She’s usually way over the top for my taste, but this time she was too subdued. I know – no pleasing me.

This is a delightful addition to the series and I recommend it if you enjoy mysteries and romance.

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