Margaret Brazear

GIRL. I love an angsty read with a martyr heroine, but please, have a modicum of self-respect. This hero is a villain. He accuses a rape victim of adultery, beats her so viciously she miscarries, scars her face, absconds with her child, and when he comes back to “apologize,” he insults and upsets her every time they talk. But she immediately leaps back into bed with him and talks about how she loves him and wants him to stay. WTF? I might have liked this more if I cared about the Protestant subplot but all that did was make me annoyed that the heroine was apparently willing to stand up for herself when it came to religion, but not when it came to violence and cruelty. Also for a hero who supposedly opposes violence against women, he sure does threaten it a lot. Anyways, ultimately this just was not for me, which is so disappointing as the premise could not be more up my alley.… (más)

I'm one of those annoying people who'd love to step into a time machine and go on adventures, so how could I ignore Margaret Brazear's Ye Olde Antique Shoppe series? It has a wonderful premise. An antique store that's not been open for over sixty years. A coin that takes a person into another time when it's removed from the building. Period costumes aplenty to use as camouflage...

For the most part, the premise lived up to its promise, but there were two things that irritated me a bit. One was the proofreader who was unable to tell when to use "past" instead of "passed." This happened several times and is such an easy fix. The second irritation concerned the characters. Rachel is in it for the money. She's a Here & Now Girl who doesn't give a hoot about the past or anything else other than gathering up the money for her fashion house. Okay. She and I aren't going to be BFFs, but that's not the thing that bothered me the most. What really made me roll my eyes was the fact that she became all fire-breathing feminist when she went back into the past, and she refused to keep her mouth shut even when she learned what the consequences were for her verbal diarrhea. Peter was better-- but not much. For a supposed expert, he was absolute rubbish at planning ahead. This is good for getting characters into scrapes that they have to figure their way out of, but I'd rather have those scrapes be unforeseen circumstances instead of something brought on by a lack of basic logic.

Were Rachel and Peter irritating enough to keep me from continuing with the series? No, at least not enough to keep me from reading the second book. I liked the look into that period of English history, and when the two begin to learn what Rachel's uncle was up to with his magical antique shop and those historical costumes, I wanted to know more. Besides, it's still a marvelous premise, and I want to see how the author develops it.… (más)

This is a good story.
At the beginning I was a little bit confused what was happening.
It starts with the couple separated, the Hero believes his wife was cheating on him and after an angry confrontation flees with his daughter. When he returns his wife has left and he decided not to pursue her as he wants her to be happy even if it's with another man.

But things are not as they seem.
There are plenty of scenes with his 2 brothers who feature in future books esp the couple for the next book.
If you like a book where the Hero needs massive redemption for being an idiot then you will enjoy this.
I liked that the heroine, although still loving the Hero doesn't melt when he kisses her and forgive and forget, it takes time.
Reconciliation marriage.
No other woman drama, it is even said at one point that the Hero didn't see other women during their separation. How refreshing.

I am looking forward to starting the next book thought the Hero for that one already seems like an idiot. Lol.… (más)