R J Blain - Playing with Fire (A Magical Romantic Comedy, Book 1)
Feb 14, 2019 15:30:13 GMT -7
Banana Boat and secretromancejunkie like this
Post by omnivore on Feb 14, 2019 15:30:13 GMT -7
R J Blain - Playing with Fire
Blurb:
What do you get when you mix gorgons, an incubus, and the Calamity Queen? Trouble, and lots of it.
Working as the only human barista at a coffee shop catering to the magical is a tough gig on a good day. Bailey Gardener has few options. She can either keep spiking drinks with pixie dust to keep the locals happy, or spend the rest of her life cleaning up the world’s nastiest magical substances.
Unfortunately for her, Faery Fortunes is located in the heart of Manhattan Island, not far from where Police Chief Samuel Quinn works. If she’d been smart, she never would have agreed to help the man find his wife.
Bailey found her, all right—in the absolutely worst way possible.
One divorce and several years later, Bailey is once again entangled in Chief Quinn’s personal affairs, and he has good reason to hate her. Without her, he wouldn’t be Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor, something he loathes. Without her, he’d still be married.
If only she’d said no when he asked her help, she might have had a chance with him. While her magic worked well, it came with a price: misfortune. Hers.
When Quinn’s former brother-in-law comes to her for help, he leaves her with a cell phone and seventy-five thousand reasons to put her magic to the test. However, when she discovers Quinn’s ex-wife is angling for revenge, Bailey’s tossed in the deep end along with her sexiest enemy.
Summary:
Bailey (h) is a vanilla human barista (official status), who happens to be immune to gorgon bile and other hazardous materials. So she moonlights with the CDC. She can also find stuff, and she finds stuff in bad situations. So, hunky hero Quinn asks her to find his wife, knowing (a) his wife is cheating and (b) Bailey will find her in a bad situation that will make a divorce easy. She does, he gets his divorce, she has a major cruch on him, she thinks he hates her and pushes him away, he has a crush on her but doesn't do anything about it other than buy lots of coffee. For years. All this happens in the past and off page. It is referred to but not really described.
Anyway, heroine has a really bad day at barista job, and then a bomb with Really Bad Stuff explodes in her apartment, leading to loss of said apartment, loss of job (she quit after the really bad day), loss of immune system, almost dying from pneumonia. Hero finds her and takes her to hospital, after some recuperation at the CDC he takes her home and she never leaves.
Ex-wife wants revenge on hero and wants heroine to have her babies. She produces lots of Really Bad Stuff. Hero neutralizes her. Heroine destroys Really Bad Stuff. HEA.
Opinion:
What do you get when you mix gorgons, an incubus, and the Calamity Queen? Trouble, and lots of it.
Working as the only human barista at a coffee shop catering to the magical is a tough gig on a good day. Bailey Gardener has few options. She can either keep spiking drinks with pixie dust to keep the locals happy, or spend the rest of her life cleaning up the world’s nastiest magical substances.
Unfortunately for her, Faery Fortunes is located in the heart of Manhattan Island, not far from where Police Chief Samuel Quinn works. If she’d been smart, she never would have agreed to help the man find his wife.
Bailey found her, all right—in the absolutely worst way possible.
One divorce and several years later, Bailey is once again entangled in Chief Quinn’s personal affairs, and he has good reason to hate her. Without her, he wouldn’t be Manhattan’s Most Wanted Bachelor, something he loathes. Without her, he’d still be married.
If only she’d said no when he asked her help, she might have had a chance with him. While her magic worked well, it came with a price: misfortune. Hers.
When Quinn’s former brother-in-law comes to her for help, he leaves her with a cell phone and seventy-five thousand reasons to put her magic to the test. However, when she discovers Quinn’s ex-wife is angling for revenge, Bailey’s tossed in the deep end along with her sexiest enemy.
Summary:
Bailey (h) is a vanilla human barista (official status), who happens to be immune to gorgon bile and other hazardous materials. So she moonlights with the CDC. She can also find stuff, and she finds stuff in bad situations. So, hunky hero Quinn asks her to find his wife, knowing (a) his wife is cheating and (b) Bailey will find her in a bad situation that will make a divorce easy. She does, he gets his divorce, she has a major cruch on him, she thinks he hates her and pushes him away, he has a crush on her but doesn't do anything about it other than buy lots of coffee. For years. All this happens in the past and off page. It is referred to but not really described.
Anyway, heroine has a really bad day at barista job, and then a bomb with Really Bad Stuff explodes in her apartment, leading to loss of said apartment, loss of job (she quit after the really bad day), loss of immune system, almost dying from pneumonia. Hero finds her and takes her to hospital, after some recuperation at the CDC he takes her home and she never leaves.
Ex-wife wants revenge on hero and wants heroine to have her babies. She produces lots of Really Bad Stuff. Hero neutralizes her. Heroine destroys Really Bad Stuff. HEA.
Opinion:
So this slapstick. It is totally chaotic. Confusing. There are many plot points that are not explained and don't make sense. There is no ebb and flow in the story - it's at full speed from beginning to end. Romance goes from zero to hero at warp speed. Or maybe it just feels that way because the story is so crammed. I won't be reading this book again. However, I do enjoy the world building and I laughed out loud at several points, so I will be reading the next book in the series.
ETA: Not steamy. Sex is off page.