Thursday, February 20, 2014

Suddenly Sorceress / Erica Lucke Dean

This is the second half of a doubleshot. If you missed it, look at the post from this morning with ?wazithink's take on the same book.


Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Chick Lit/Paranormal

Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“After walking away from her career as a business banker to pursue writing full-time, Erica Lucke Dean moved from the hustle and bustle of the big city to a small tourist town in the North Georgia Mountains, where she lives  in a 90-year-old haunted farmhouse with her workaholic husband, her 180 lb lap dog, and at least one ghost.

When she’s not writing or tending to her collection of crazy chickens and diabolical ducks, she’s either reading bad fan fiction or singing karaoke in the local pub. Much like the main character in her first book, To Katie With Love, Erica is a magnet for disaster and has been known to trip on air while walking across flat surfaces.

How she’s managed to survive this long is one of life’s great mysteries.”
Description:

"PMS can be a real witch.

Ivie McKie isn’t your run-of-the-mill kindergarten teacher. After an encounter with a horny goat, followed by a confrontation with her lying, cheating fiancĂ©, Ivie is shocked when the big jerk suddenly transforms into a skunk—the black and white furry variety.

Enlisting the help of her shopaholic friend Chloe and sexy club magician Jackson Blake, Ivie is forced to play a literal game of cat and mouse as she races against the clock to change her ex back before she's arrested for his murder... Ivie soon discovers what every witch worth her spell book knows: There’s nothing worse than a bad case of Post Magical Syndrome."

Appraisal:

I’ve read books that combine something paranormal with another genre - romance, thriller, and horror immediately come to mind - but I don’t think I’ve ever read one that tossed chick-lit and paranormal together before. Both the story conflict and much of the humor in Suddenly Sorceress come about due to Ivie, the protagonist, finding that she can cast spells, although she’s not sure exactly how she’s doing it or how to undo what she’s done.

While I felt sorry for Ivie and wondered if she was going to find a way to turn her ex-fiancĂ© back into a human, I was also laughing at her the entire time. Some of that was because of the situations she found herself in (getting attacked by a horny goat) and some was the author’s sense of humor or way of describing something. One example is the pop culture reference when Ivie as the narrator said she, “felt the wintry air soak into me and shook like Bruce Banner in the throes of a temper tantrum.” Another was prompted by her hair which changed color over time (although she wasn’t dyeing it) starting out with red highlights and eventually turning bright red, which prompted this:

I look like Ronald McDonald’s slutty younger sister. “Would you like a happy ending with that value meal?”

This was a very fun read, even for this non-chick.

FYI:

Adult content and language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.


Rating: ***** Five stars
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3 comments:

?wazithinkin said...

Love your review, BigAl! It was worth the wait. :D

Erica Lucke Dean said...

I would tend to agree! Thanks for reading and reviewing my book! And a twofer? Wow. I'm honored :)

BooksAndPals said...

Thanks ?wazi and Erica.