Wow, the past 7 weeks have been wet. I feel like we should be building an Ark or two – or three. More rain is predicted for this weekend. I swear, I walk outside and it smells like mold and mildew. Leaves are falling, but not not much color is showing. It looks like once again the spectacular fall color may go missing thanks to rain and unseasonable temperatures and humidity. Well, it’s not like we can do anything about the weather, it is what it is. But football has started (yes, I’m a fan) regardless of the temperatures, so I get entertainment while I read.
I did get an unexpected treat from a friend on Paperback Swap – a hard to find book by author Kris Neri. Loved it and wish she’d written more in this series. It’s hard, really, how many good writers never get a chance at a bigger audience. One did – H.P.Mallory’s Josie Wilkins series got picked up by Bantam and will go mass market early next year with the third book in the series, Witchful Thinking. I have it on pre-order at Amazon. I have a LOT of books on pre-order thanks to their 4-for-3 sale. Mysteries, paranormal, romance, thrillers, you name it – and I’m anxiously awaiting a number of them, but a few good ones have arrived, so here we go, short and sweet.
- Title: Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
- Author: H.P. Mallory
- Type: Paranormal/fantasy
- Genre: Josie Wilkins Series, Bk 1 – Every little thing you do is magic
- Sub-genre: Unrest and contentions in the magical underground
- My Grade: B- (3.7*)
- Rating: PG-13
- Length and price: Novel – about 80,000+ $11-$12
- Where Available: Available at select bookstores, online, and used
- FTC Disclosure: purchased from an online book seller
One minute you’re a sort of successful psychic in LA running a psychic shop with your best friend Christa, and than tall dark and handsome walks into your life and turns it upside down. Rand Balfour is a warlock of considerable years and he, like other magic users, is looking for a witch that had been prophesied. Much to the everlasting shock of Jolie Wilkins, that’s her. Initially, all he asks for is a reading, something she’s usually really good at. And he pays well too. Then he comes back for a second one. He’s convinced Jolie is the one he’s looking for and offers her a job. He needs to know what happened to his client. They go go to the house and to Jolie’s eternal shock, she doesn’t just raise a ghost, she brings the dead back to life.
Word spreads in the underground community of magic users. A ragged and unkempt man approaches her to bring back the groups leader. Hesitantly Jolie agrees and brings back the alpha of a werewolf pack, she earns their loyalty – of course, she didn’t know they were werewolves when she did it. She also earns the unwanted attentions dangerous head of the LA magical community and the attentions of a very handsome vampire.
Suddenly, Jolie has to choose who to serve the LA ‘queen’, who is one scary babe, or go to Rand. Jolie and Christa head to England and the safety of Rand Balfour and his offer to take on Jolie as his apprentice of sorts.
The relationship between Rand and Jolie never stands a chance because Rand won’t let it, despite their mutual attraction. He retains a cold distance that she doesn’t understand. I did find that part a bit annoying along with Rand’s casual control of Christa. It was as if his moral compass no longer fully functioned. In general terms, Christa is the typical self-centered LA Babe to Jolie’s ‘quiet mouse’ and she has trouble with Jolie suddenly becoming far more important. The queen is evil and Rand is the emotionally cool and remote man – so the character’s are not exactly original, but the plot works pretty well. Not as well as the Southern Witch series by Kimberly Frost, but it the various plot lines made sense and kept the readers interest even when the characters got annoying and childish. The story arc was well paced, if predictable in it’s general outcome. Some of the secondary characters were more original than the main players.
Was Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble worth the nearly $12 price tag? Well, no. It was a good read and I did buy the next in the series, Toil and Trouble (which I found had an annoying plot device and have yet to finish), but I’d say enjoy a price break and buy the far less expensive e-book. You can download to Kindle software to your computer if you don’t have the device. (I don’t.) The e-book is $4. If you want a print copy, try waiting to see if Bantam publishes Book 1 and 2 in mass market. (more…)
