Kay Hooper

This is a rather delightful little story, and the perfect way to end my reading year. I see that this is actually part of a series called "Once Upon a Time," which makes everything make 1000% more sense. I love fairy tale retellings, and this one is a doozy: Alice in Wonderland!

Maggie Durant is the family chameleon, and the family troubleshooter. When she learns that her cousin Merlin has died mysteriously - and that her Aunt Julia believes that he was murdered - she realizes that it's up to show more her to go investigate his death. Merlin was a magician in a traveling carnival called Wonderland, so Maggie shows up at its ramshackle temporary home in Kansas, takes an animal trainer's job, and starts her investigation into her cousin's death (he apparently fell into a well when the carnival was in Iowa).

Meanwhile, Gideon Hughes has been summoned to Wonderland upon the news that a very distant relative has suddenly died and left him in charge of the carnival. Gideon is an investment banker, and is frankly flummoxed by the idea of owning a traveling carnival. He demands to see the manager, and is immediately surprised - and intrigued - to find that 28-year-old Maggie is in charge of this lot. She looks like a fairy: small, blonde, impossibly fey features, and he's immediately intrigued. He can't make anything she says make logical sense, however, so they find themselves rather at a rather bemused crossroads. Eventually Gideon learns how to unbend enough to feel, rather than think, and the two put their heads together to discover who is a murderer hiding amongst the carny crew. They also fall in love over the course of about 2 days, thanks to a little meddling matchmaking from the improbably old Uncle Cyrus Fortune, who incidentally looks exactly like Col Sanders of KFC fame.

This is a very bizarre story, one you just have to roll with. If the author has her rights back, she could easily market this as fantasy romance these days. The only internal sense is the whimsical nonsense of the Lewis Carroll classic stories. There's even a Cheshire cat!

Bizarre, but unlike my last read, utterly delightful. I love the idea that there are more books in this series, all of which appear to be other fairy tale retellings. If this author can pull off freaking Alice in Wonderland, I can only imagine how she'd handle the more conventional tales! show less

Twenty-five years ago in Leisure, Tennessee at The Lodge where a young girl is hiding in a closet and hears something evil coming but can't tell if it is inside her or outside the door. From the light coming in under the door, she sees two feet and basically that is all we know from that past. Advance 20 years, FBI agent Quentin Hayes in on vacation and in the police station conference room in Leisure. He is working as he has for the past ten years to try and solve a very cold case of 20 show more years ago when he was 12 that a young girl (Missy) was found murdered. Noah Bishop has just formed his Special Crimes Unit nicknames the Spooky Crimes Unit and has come to try to persuade Quentin to join. Quentin is a "seer." This story, and Ms. Hooper's writing only gets better and better with each turn of the page. As I moved from one chapter to another, I found myself clutching this intense story with a kind of fervor I hadn't felt in a long time. I simply couldn't wait for the next secret to be revealed, and then the next. Soon, the story becomes real. Now that's an excellent ghost story! show less

I actually read “Arts Magica,” the sequel novella to The Wizard of Seattle several months ago without knowing it was part of a series. I enjoyed it very much, so I decided to go back and see how it all started. This book is a very intriguing mixture of a number of different elements. For starters, it puts a whole new spin on Atlantean mythology and exactly what destroyed the lost continent. (Hint: It was wizards.:-)) In fact, even before Atlantis sank into the ocean, it was being show more polluted by magical energies that were distorting plant, animal and human life. There is also an extreme form of patriarchal culture in the wizard world that has essentially seeped into the very DNA of all male wizards. This makes it nearly impossible for them to trust anyone of the female persuasion, human or wizard, and keeps them locked in a competition of sorts with other male wizards to the point that they need their own territory devoid of other male wizards in which to live. Additionally the wizard council is all male, and there are laws on the books that forbid male wizards from training female wizards, instead instructing them to siphon off the female’s power by force if necessary. Into this male-dominated society comes a male wizard who decides to buck convention by taking in a young female wizard as his apprentice. After nine years together, they realize that they have feelings for one another that go far beyond that of teacher and pupil. But in order to find out exactly what happened to create this world they now live in and to rid themselves of the stigma, they must travel back in time to ancient Atlantis and put together the pieces of the puzzle, while hoping to change history, making it possible for them to be together in their own time. Although the romance itself was somewhat muted (which I’ll get to shortly), it was a fascinating and unique story that I enjoyed.

Richard Merlin, who usually simply goes by Merlin, is a high-level Master wizard. He knows the rules of his wizard society that forbid him from training a female, but nine years ago, something compelled him to take in the orphaned teenage waif who showed up on his doorstep. He became both her guardian and teacher. Now that she has grown into a lovely young woman, she stirs unfamiliar feelings inside him that make him want more, but he knows that will most likely be impossible. He’s already broken wizard laws simply by training her, and the thought of mating her brings an uncomfortable combination of desire and mistrust. He seeks out his father’s advice to discover what fuels this long-held inability to trust females, but the male wizards on the council have long forgotten where the law and these feelings of animosity originate, only that they simply exist. Merlin is instructed to take away Serena's powers, but he knows he cannot do that to her without trying to get to the bottom of this mystery first. Therefore, he proposes that they travel back in time to find the source. I liked that Richard is clearly someone who is above all the male domination. That he took a chance on Serena and trained her, knowing it was illegal, and that he cares enough for her to want to try to figure out what happened in the past and change it speaks volumes to his character. However, by virtue of simply being a male wizard in this society, he’s very unemotional for a large part of the story. It’s something he can’t help, partly passed down through DNA and partly through how he was raised, but it did put something of a damper on the romantic feelings. Once he starts to understand the past and finds the proverbial switch to turn off the mistrust and get back in touch with his emotions, I liked him even better.

Serena is an orphan who sensed Merlin’s presence with her own powers and sought him out at the age of sixteen, looking for guidance. She’s an apt pupil, who is well on her way to becoming a Master herself, when Merlin gets the directive to take away her powers (something he doesn’t tell her at first), and suggests that they travel back in time to find out what really happened so long ago. Serena is madly in love with Merlin and would do just about anything to help him find the answers he seeks, even though she isn’t certain if he feels the same way about her. She’s a feisty young woman who is none too happy when she discovers the subjugation females have to endure in Atlantis. Because of what those women are going through and Merlin finally telling her the truth of why they traveled back in time, she begins to doubt him a little herself. But I liked that ultimately she was able to trust Merlin to not become like his ancient counterparts. She was a heroine I could definitely relate to and one that made a very worthy mate for Merlin.

There is also a sweet secondary romance that I enjoyed as well. Tremayne is a young wizard from Europa who came to Atlantis to visit a distant kinsman. Relations between male and female wizards in Europa haven’t yet deteriorated to the point they have in Atlantis. He disdains the way the women are treated there and falls in love at first sight with a female wizard named Roxanne. Little does he know, though, that she’s fallen victim to some of the human men on the continent who have been told by male wizards that if they take a female wizard by force, they’ll gain some of her power. Of course, this, along with the general distrust between the sexes, puts a major roadblock between Tremayne and Roxanne that I enjoyed seeing them work to overcome along with Merlin and Serena’s help.

My only real complaint about The Wizard of Seattle is that because of all the mistrust that’s going around within both sexes, Merlin and Serena’s romance is pretty slow to take off. It’s obvious that they care for one another, but they don’t even kiss until a long way into the story. Therefore, it takes quite a while to get to the actual romance. It helped that there were two different couples to root for, although Tremayne and Roxanne’s romance is even slower building, which is understandable given all she’s been through. However, I did like the payoff that occurs when both couples finally discover a twist with their powers that shows that male and female wizards were meant to be together all along, but trust is a key ingredient in being able to harness this power successfully. Otherwise it was a very interesting story with lots of intriguing elements. I would certainly recommend it to fans of fantasy romances who don’t mind a story that’s a little heavier on the fantasy and lighter on the romance. show less

Sense of Evil
4 Stars

Hastings, South Carolina seems like a quiet, safe and friendly place to live until the day undercurrents of evil rise up to destroy the idyllic little town. A vicious serial killer is targeting women with blond hair and Chief of Police, Rafe Sullivan, calls in reinforcements from the FBI. Special Agent Isabel Adams is smart, confident and blonde, something that pushes all of Rafe’s buttons. Can the fearless agent and the determined cop stay one step ahead of a deranged show more monster dead set on filling his quota?

The story is fast paced and the characterization an improvement on the last book. Nevertheless, there are still too few clues as to the villain's identity although it is possible to figure it all out because the explanation for why the victims would willingly go with their killer is all too obvious.

Even though there is definite potential for an intense romance between Rafe and Isabel, their relationship takes a back seat to the mystery, which is unfortunate. The paranormal elements, however, are an added bonus, particularly due to the interesting insight into the possible origin and function of extra-sensory abilities.

All in all, a well-written and suspenseful mystery with engaging characters and it looks like Hooper is back on track with this series. show less