Musings on Romance

Tag: Molly Harper (Page 1 of 4)

July Round Up

Monthly Mini Review

picture of the face and hands a pretty brunette white woman holding a lighted candle in a caveOne Fine Fae by Molly Harper, narrated by Amanda Ronconi & Jonathan Davis – B- I listened to the most recent full length book in this series recently, Shifters in the Night, and realised I’d missed this novella where Jillian and Bael’s baby is born. So I backtracked, naturally. Charlotte is a fae-human midwife who uses her magic to bless the babies she assists into the world. Leonard is the hapless assistant to Sonya and Jillian at the League, living under a longstanding family curse which makes him clumsy when stressed. The more stressed he is, the more clumsy.  Charlotte is instantly drawn to the sweet-natured Leonard and discovers that she may be able to break the curse.

And, of course, Jillian’s baby arrives. Given she is carrying a “giant metal egg” inside her I was interested in how she was going to manage quite apart from just wanting to listen to how the happy event occurs for Jillian and Bael’s benefit.

One Fine Fae is novella-length and does not have a suspense plot like the other books. I kept waiting for it but it never arrived. Continue reading

May Round Up

Monthly Mini Review

moody bearded pale white guy with dark hair (with a reddish cast to it) before a backdrop of a bayouAlways Be My Banshee by Molly Harper, narrated by Amanda Ronconi & Jonathan Davis – B+ The overarching plotline of the Mystic Bayou rift is finally resolved in this book – but never fear – there are potential new storylines opened up too so (hopefully) there will be more books to come. Because there is such a strong through-story though, even though each book has a new couple and a HEA, I’d still recommend starting at the beginning with How To Date Your Dragon to get the most out of this book. I’ve loved all of them so I see this is a feature not a bug. Plus, the books are available on Audible Escape, so subscribers don’t have to pay anything extra to listen.

Brendan O’Connor, a banshee from Ireland, has come to Mystic Bayou, along with Cordelia Canton, a “touch-know” psychic, on special assignment from the League to investigate the mysterious box revealed in the previous book. Technically, Brendan is dead (or something similar at least) so he is able to touch the box without any ill effect. Cordelia has been avoiding touch from people for her entire life – she’s overwhelmed by emotions and memories when she does touch someone or something unexpected and it is with delight that she finds she can touch Brendan and only receive “white noise”. That is not why they get together. I was very happy it was made quite clear in the book that while there were things that made it easier for them to be together, what actually drew them to one another was a more emotional connection. Continue reading

October Round Up

Monthly Mini Review

Face of a pretty dark-haired woman against a green-washed moon over a bayou pictureSelkies Are a Girl’s Best Friend by Molly Harper. Narrated by Amanda Ronconi & Jonathan Davis – B Sonja Fong has moved to Mystic Bayou to help her best friend Jillian Ramsey with running the office for the League for Interspecies Cooperation. The daughter of a Chinese diplomat-type father and a Russian particle physicist mother (I’m not entirely convinced the model on the cover is an accurate representation of her ethnicity), Sonja is scarily competent, fearfully organised and super smart. She’s also gorgeous, kind and generous.

Will Carmody is a Mystic Bayou native and selkie shifter. He’s been away from the bayou for decades but has recently returned. He’s a doctor and the town desperately needs one. Jillian is delighted to offer him a job with the League as the town’s doctor and Sonja helps Will organise his new premises and get all set up.  They don’t get off to the most auspicious start but this is quickly sorted out and they start working together and exploring their chemistry and growing attraction.

The main conflict between them is Will’s fear (born from witnessing the trainwreck that was his parent’s marriage) of being trapped by his selkie pelt.

In amongst that is the ongoing mystery of the ever-expanding Rift which is causing humans to spontaneously develop supernatural abilities and the League’s ongoing research into it and their attempts to stablise and minimise the Rift. Sonja finds herself at risk after she begins investigating some shifty financial dealings. While the mystery contained in this book wasn’t particularly hard to decipher, there were some interesting developments with the wider story arc and I’m curious as to how it’s all going to work out. Continue reading

June Round Up

Monthly Mini Review

Fair-haired slender woman communing with a treeEven Tree Nymphs Get the Blues by Molly Harper, narrated by Amanda Ronconi & Jonathan Davis – B This is a novella-length audiobook which was free to Audible members and is set in the world of Mystic Bayou – a follow on from How to Date Your Dragon and Love and Other Wild Things, both of which I enjoyed very much. Rob Aspern is a human mathematician/data scientist with the League for Interspecies Cooperation. He was something of an antagonist (albeit a benign one) in Zed and Dani’s book – Zed and Bael still call him “Dr. Kendoll Assface” or “Dr. Assburn” – but now he gets his own HFN. Ingrid Asher is the tree nymph of the title. She moves to Mystic Bayou from New York, to open an Ice Creamery. She has been deeply hurt by a man in her past and Rob has a lot of work to do to get through Ingrid’s barriers.

Unsurprisingly, Ingrid is taken under the wing of Jillian, Dani and Sonia. Ingrid has little experience with Girls’ Night Out or friendships in general, having kept to herself for much of the last 70 years (she’s about 500 and is amortal) and the scene where she discusses dating with the girls is very funny. Penis size is mentioned.  Also hilarious is the section where Zed and Bael are giving Rob dating advice. Bael shit-talks Zed constantly and it’s so funny. I bet Ms. Harper was cracking herself up writing them. Continue reading

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