COVER REVEAL – FAE, by Emily White

Title: Fae

Series: Auri #2

Author: Emily White

Publisher: Spencer Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-937053-26-0 

Release Date: December 10, 2013

Formats: paper, e-book

Cover Design: Vic Caswell of Sketcher Girl

“Not all fae’ri tales come with a happy ending.

     Ella thought taking care of the ego-bloated Mamood god would be a sure way to bring peace to the galaxy and satisfy her taste for revenge.

     

But she was wrong.

     Despite the fact their god is gone, the Mamood refuse to abandon their attack on the planet Soltak and Ella’s own so-called friends start to turn against her. And with Soltak dying–its oceans drying up and its plants withering in the ground–Ella and Cailen suspect there’s a new enemy at work. As more people die and more water is leached from the planet, they both prepare for something straight from a nightmare. 

    

 The fae are coming.“

Review – TEMPTATION by Karen Ann Hopkins

Expected publication: June 26th 2012 by HarlequinTEEN
ISBN 037321054X (ISBN13: 9780373210541)
Source: NetGalley and Harlequin


Goodreads
“Your heart misleads you.  That’s what my friends and family say.  But I love Noah. And he loves me.  We met and fell in love in the sleepy farming community of Meadowview, while we rode our horses together through the grassy fields and in those moments in each other’s arms. It should be  ROSE & NOAH forever, easy. But it won’t be. Because he’s Amish. And I’m not.”

I grabbed this on NetGalley even though it’s way out of my reading comfort zone. I almost never do romance if there’s no paranormal element. So why did I choose Temptation? My husband and I visit the Ohio ‘branch’ of Amish Country as often as we can. We absolutely love it there. So you can see why I decided to take a chance on this book. There were parts I liked, but also parts that I seriously did not get.

It seems that insta-love is everywhere. At least here, it was more insta-lust that turned into love…kinda. I think Hopkins went in a bit of overdrive with it though, and forgot to really let us know WHO Rose and Noah really were, and focused too much on what they felt. Yes, it’s been a while since I was sixteen, but I had my share of boyfriends and I don’t remember constantly being ‘on fire’ around them, or wondering what they were ‘doing to my poor body’ when we sat next to each other. It was just strange. It was also very unrealistic that the two met, fell in love and wanted to get married within four days. I know that it does happen. Heck, my husband and I only dated a week before we had the marriage conversation (eight years running!) but we had been really close for over a year, and our families had known each other longer than we’d been alive. Normally people have had the chance to talk and get to know each other. Noah and Rose really didn’t have that luxury.

Another part that really irked me was how Hopkins painted Noah as being so crazy possessive. Example, “I had to figure out a way to curb her wild impulses’. While I understand what Hopkins was going for, it just sounds almost like abusive behavior. And I am SO not down with that. Up until 36%, Hopkins didn’t mention the biggest part of the Amish way of life. Their devotion to God. Everything was about the elders or ‘the community’. I thought maybe it was a case of the author not doing enough research, so I checked out her bio on Goodreads and it says that ‘her neighbors in all directions are members of a strict Amish community’. It seems like that would have played a big part in developing this story. Noah and Rose couldn’t be seen talking to each other or be alone because of ‘what the community would think.’ Well, part of that is true, but without explaining the WHY, it just makes Noah and the other Amish seem crazy. Granted I could not live that way, but I just felt like Hopkins did them a disservice by leaving the heart of their beliefs out of the story, possibly to keep it from being labeled a ‘religious book’. Well, sorry, but you can’t have a character like Noah and leave something that big out. Hopkins’s depiction in TEMPTATION just rubbed me the wrong way, if you couldn’t tell. End rant.


The last part of the book just made me cringe. Rose’s decision, based on a tragic incident, and her reasoning… cringe, cringe cringe. I guess this is a clear example of why I shouldn’t read romance novels. I’m way too critical, and even though there are books like this in my preferred genres, at least there’s always some metaphysical force/presence to make sense of characters’ choices. If you do like normal romance, or don’t really care about accuracy of the Amish faith, and TEMPTATION sounds appealing, go for it. There will be more books to continue the story, though I will not be following along.