Lucia Ashta

A waste of good writing just to exploit all the most profitable tropes and tricks.
Just long enough to not count as a novella but still insultingly short considering the normal audiobook price.
A title that is clearly meant to collect on confusion with kate daniels.
The book opens right into an extended sex scene because that is how you capture an audience.
Followed by tired enemies to lovers tropes but without any subtleties about their romantic relationship considering they fucked each other's brains out right at the start. Add a bit of angst and the by now famous Leia Stone pregnancy and the paranormal romance chlichée collection is complete.
We of course need a Japanese katana and a bunch of archaic Japanese culture elements for the weeb readers and a magical regulatory institution and all the other old UF clichées.
Everything about this was predictable and while most elements were clearly derivative from existing popular books nothing was outright plagiarism.

What makes me mad about this book is that it is not bad because the author is actually a competent writer. She (or rather they) can do without all this low-effort cheap crap.
I think if she tried she could actually write a pretty good book/series. But judging from all her more recent books she clearly tries to aggressively optimize for the most money per hour of work she possibly can get away with still.… (más)

My Thoughts:

The story started right where the first book left off and ended right in the middle of the story. So this one is more like a chapter of a bigger book. The start was began in Maigc Bite and the continuation will be in the subsequent installments in the series. Therefore, plot-wise this book hasn't got much. In fact, if one reads rel="nofollow" target="_top">Magic Sight on its own, the reader will be mightily confused because a lot of the explanations are in the previous book. I really like the premise of this book so the poor plot building and the cliffhanger ending is really a downer! And I don't like cliffhangers, so I probably wouldn't be reading further into this series...

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 3.5
Story itself = 1.5
Writing Style = 3
Ending = 1
World building = 4
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = 2
Plot = 1
Narration = 4

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 cherries… (más)

This review is for the Morgana Best story titled: Sixty, Sassy and Sleuthing. This story is a prequel to her paranormal cozy mystery series, Colt Calling Horse Rescue Mysteries. Ms. Best is an Australian writer so you may, if you are American, think she has typos. She does include a fun glossary of some Australian slang and terms which also includes an explanation of spelling differences.
With Sixty, Sassy and Sleuthing we are introduced to Calliope “Cally” Colt. I love this character. The older sleuths in cozy mysteries are a lot of fun. They have a load of life experience and wisdom and they just don’t really care anymore about trying to fit in to anyone’s picture of who they should be. What fun and amazing role models they make! Cally, who runs a horse shelter in Australia, is doing work that no one expects a sixty year old to do. She is strong, capable, smart and funny. When one of the horses takes off during a storm, Cally finds him by a stream...and a dead body! With a new detective in town suspicious of her, Cally is going to have to use all her smarts to discover what really happened. I really love the back and forth between Cally and Detective Bronco. He keeps hinting about her family secret and Cally has no idea what it is. To find out what happened and if Cally has a secret, you will need to read the story.
I love anthologies because they are filled with quick reads that can introduce you to new series and authors. I usually have a mix between authors I have read and a few new ones. Morgana Best is an author I am familiar with and have enjoyed. The series is new to me but I am excited to read more from it. Others in the anthology that I am familiar with are J.R. Rain, Annabel Chase, H. P. Mallory, Renee George and Nancy Warren. I am excited to read their stories along with the new to me authors.… (más)

This was a very quick but captivating tale of a young woman discovering she has a natural and wild ability to control magic among a world where magic equals a death sentence and where many of the men treat woman as objects rather than humans. She seems to never stay scared of anything and has wonderful morals, I wouldn’t mind handing this book to my daughter if she could read and we’re just a bit older than 5, and I wouldn’t mind reading the sequels to see where this story goes. I love how much respect the author shows for the elements through her characters and she has beautiful words to describe the respect each element is due.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.… (más)