Let the magic begin!

So, one day, Kate Jones gives me this Zoe Archer book and says, "Momma, you HAVE to read this!" I put the book on my bedside table and promised to get to it as soon as I finished whatever I happened to be reading at that moment. The problem was that I was reading something on my beloved Kindle. When you read from a Kindle, you are never really ever finished! It's the book that just keeps on writing! Then Lady Liberty comes to visit. She sees the book on my bedside table and asks me how far I have gotten because she's slated to read it next. Um, I am on page 14! I distract with a discussion on the awesomeness of the Kindle and I whet Lady Liberty's suppressed appetite for e-books! Within hours - I am the grateful recipient of the whole Zoe Archer Blades of the Roses bundle... on Kindle! My 50th birthday gift from Lady Liberty.(She really wants to read the books and is tired of waiting for me to put the Kindle down.)So now I have been asked to write a skeptic's review of the Blade of the Roses series. Kate wanted me to review the first book - but Kate knows I am hopeless at remembering one book once I have started another - so I offer a compendium of the four.

I have to say, if the books were not on my Kindle, I would still be on page 14 and still putting off the reading of them. Kate warned me (and she knew I needed warning) that the books were historical romances - I'm in so far - and involved some, "magic." This is me back-peddling. Um - yeah, NO! "Just read the first one, Momma, I promise you will love it." SIGH (of major magnitude!)Okay, and now they are on the Kindle - so no more excuses!

The characters in these books are fantastic. I cannot emphasize, enough, how much I enjoyed meeting them, getting to know them and caring about them. Their relationships with their romantic partners are so well developed and their relationships with each other are strong and believable. The historical aspects are well plotted and fascinating. I was in Mongolia, Greece, Canada, and England, learning things I didn't know and remembering things I did. I cheered the heroes, cursed the villains, and held my breath as battles of enormous magnitude threatened my main characters!

So, you ask, what's with the skepticism? It was the whole "magic" thing. I am not a fantasy reader and I am not in the least bit interested in Vampire stories. My reluctance in getting past page 14 was the magical appearance of some metal beetles attacking someone and drilling holes in a concrete wall. In the end, Zoe Archer had me completely committing myself to faeries, pixies, the Colossus of Rhodes, people who can change into wolves, bears and hawks, transporting ones self through fire, King Arthur (and Merlin.) There were the magic fish which enabled some of our heroes to breath under water, there were ancient compasses with the technology of modern day GPS systems, and there were spells and potions. The author had so perfectly developed the characters and the conflicts that the hows and the whos didn't matter to me at all. The only thing I cared about was how it was all going to resolve itself. The magical individuals who came out of the woods (and there were a lot of woods) became as believable and important as the "real people." Nothing was off the table. Inventions and science played their parts, but it was the magic that saved the day. And love. Let's not forget that! Because everyone gets a happy ever after to make the deepest cynic sigh. And you believe!

So, thanks Kate - for helping me to expand my horizons into a comfortable realm of fantasy. Thank you Lady Liberty - for feeding my Kindle hunger and for taking away the last hurdle of my excuses. Go out and buy, beg for or borrow Zoe Archer's Blades of the Roses quartet and prepare to sit back, be mystified, horrified, mesmerized and taken up in the magic that she has created for you! I know I was!