Previous to this book I had read Peeler’s Jane True series which I really enjoyed. I have had this book on my “to be read” pile for awhile. For the most part I enjoyed this book. It was a fun and light urban fantasy read with a touch of romance. This is supposed to be the first book in a series but I havn’t been able to find any information on if/when the second book will release.

I liked some things about this book. Having our heroine be a 1000 year old jinni is a fun concept and something (that while done in urban fantasy before) isn’t done all that often. I do wish that Peeler has capitalized on this ancient age thing a bit more and given us some interesting stories from Lyla’s past.

I also really enjoyed the different Immunda we run into. The Immunda are non-pureblood supernatural creatures and were really interesting. In some parts this reminded me a bit of Seanan McGuire’s Incryptid series; light-hearted with interesting monsters.

I do have a couple complaints as well. I did think that Lyla came across as a bit naive and immature considering how old she was. I also thought the story was predictable. Additionally I think this would have made a wonderful stand alone book and didn’t really like the ending much. Peeler could have ended this one chapter earlier and it would have been a wonderful and cute stand alone.

Overall this was a cute and light-hearted urban fantasy read. I enjoyed the that the main heroine was a jinni and all the world-building around Immunda and Purebloods. I thought the heroine was too immature for her age though and found the story to be fairly simple and predictable. If you are a Peeler fan you will probably enjoy this. ( )

A fun, light-hearted urban fantasy and a great new series. I read this book in just two sittings. It is easy to read, with good characters, and an excellent world. But the blurb is so very wrong and bad. Lyla did not want to be made into a jinni. She wanted to become a son to inherit everything from her father. The Magi binding her just wants to save a young girl who has been kidnapped. The nightmare and the jinni bent on vengeance are the same being. So now that you have a better idea of the plot, it is a great read. I liked all the characters but Lyla's best friend did get a little on my nerves. She just does not really understand how dangerous things for Lyla really are. Her master is dense but he just discovered this world a month ago. I am curious about where Peeler is going to from here.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library. ( )

I liked the world introduced in this one and that the inevitable romance handled the unequal power between master and jinni very well and I'm really damn picky about healthy relationship developments. The problem was the humor just wasn't my style (a lot of swearing to be funny) and it was just too long for the plot. I'm hopeful about book two though! ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: A woman cursed to be a jinni for 1,000 years is finally close to the end of her sentence. Then a Magi has to show up and ruin everything. A fun tale full of humor and action, this book definitely should not be missed!

Opening Sentence: The chubby little human was doing his damndest to hump my leg, but the palm I’d placed on his forehead kept him at arm’s length.

The Review:

It’s been a very long thousand years for Lyla. Born human but cursed to be a jinni, she’s waited for this day for a very long time. The rules of her curse state that if she is unBound exactly one thousand years after being cursed, she will become human again. Well, she is only a week away. Her freedom is so close she can actually taste it. Then, Oz shows up. Oz, a Magi, has the power to Bind Lyla, and that is exactly what he does. He needs help finding the daughter of friends of his, and he won’t release Lyla until the daughter is found. Lyla has no choice but to follow his every command and hope that he’s telling the truth when he says he will release her once her task is complete. It soon becomes obvious, however, that this is no simple rescue mission. Things are starting to go terribly wrong in Pittsburgh, and it’s becoming more and more clear that this girl is at the heart of it. Will Lyla and Oz be able to find this girl before Lyla’s time is up?

I’m still in the middle of Nicole Peeler’s Jane True series, about which I have mixed feelings (hated the first 2 books, but the third was entertaining), so I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to react to this new series. Thankfully, I needn’t have worried. I was pretty much hooked from page one and had a hard time putting the book down. It’s full of humor, but the humor doesn’t feel forced, which makes it very enjoyable.

It did take me a little bit to warm up to Lyla, mainly because it is so obvious that Oz is a good guy, so the way she treats him at first made me not like her, even though her attitude is justified based on her prior experience with Magi. Once I let my initial feelings go, I really began to like her. She has the makings of a very tough heroine, and I’m curious to see where she goes from here.

One complaint I have is that, while Oz is supposed to be the leading man, he felt more like a side character. I never really got a good feel for him, other than knowing that he was a good guy. I’m hoping there will be more added to his character in future books because there is definitely potential there. It just didn’t come to fruition in this book.

Lyla’s friends really make up the heart of this book. I easily felt the most connected to them, I think because it so apparent from the very start how much they care about her, and their actions throughout the book only served to further deepen my affection for them. I especially loved Rachel. Her personality just leaped off the page. I would love to get a chapter or short story from her point of view.

All in all, this was a very entertaining first book in a series. There were times that exposition bogged the story down a bit, but it really didn’t affect my enjoyment too terribly. I would say everyone should definitely give this one a try, even if they didn’t love the Jane True series. You might just find yourself pleasantly surprised, as I was.

Notable Scene:

Recognizing a true, Initiated Magi, my crazy inner she-bear emerged, gibbering about never being taken alive. If I had any thought at all it was that my sense of self-preservation would give me an edge. I was fighting for my life, after all, while this guy was just a jerk trying to Bind a jinni.

Unfortunately he didn’t fight like a jerk; he fought like a cornered wolverine. He fought as if he were the one who’d be enslaved if he lost this match. He fought like his life depended on it. Which, considering I was intent on killing him, I guess it did.

He fought better than me.

I was hitting him, hard, but I’d lost my talons shifting to a bigger size. Being unBound meant I was far less powerful, even with my unusual access to all of Pittsburgh’s corrupted magic swirling at my feet. And now that I was unarmed, he wasn’t hitting back, just using his big body to deflect the majority of my blows. Until I overextended a kick.

His own booted foot lashed out, knocking my leg out from under me. I was on the ground again and this time he didn’t underestimate my abilities.

He pinned me down with all his weight, his knees pressing painfully into my thighs and his chest blanketing mine, his hands holding down my wrists. His face was inches from mine, but his features were entirely obscured by the bright glow of his Flaring eyes.

Not me, my brain howled. Not when I’m so close to being free. I started to shift again in a last, desperate attempt. But before I could change, he’d spoken.

It was the second part of the spell that was the real bitch. And I was too late to stop him.

“Te vash anuk a si,”he chanted over and over. I Call you.His pronunciation grew more confident with every repetition. The harsh sibilance of the language of the jinn reached toward me, wrapping around my soul. I cried out, but the spell blanketed me, muting my powers. I stopped mid-shift, my power whoomping out, leaving me beneath him in my own small form.

My wide brown eyes stared up at him, begging him silently to stop, not to say the last bit. The bit that made me his; that made me do his bidding; that made me a slave until he either let me go or died.

He spoke the words.

FTC Advisory: Orbit provided me with a copy of Jinn and Juice. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Reviewing by: Rabid Reads.

I spent months waffling on this title; the reviews weren’t great, the paperback edition got bumped to an April release date (5 months after the eBook), and although Nicole Peeler’s JANE TRUE series apparently started off strong, the last few installments left readers dropping like flies. Now, I haven’t checked out her other novels, but the three previous points were enough to make me leery of JINN AND JUICE’S pretty cover, and catchy name. The story was fast paced, and the author went all out with her mythology, however there were LOTS of characters and the romance crossed a line that was kinda iffy.

Lyla’s POV was disappointing considering she’s supposedly nearly a millennia old. I found that she was rather immature as far as protagonists go given her massive life span, and she also lacked drive. She had a “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” outlook that consisted of belly dancing at a burlesque club, and hiding in Pittsburgh with the other misfit toys. Peeler does explain Lyla’s reasoning; she doesn’t want to get Bound again, and the other jinni have it in for her, but still… she was too green for someone so old, and powerful. I felt like her potential was wasted.

I had zero quibbles with the world. Peeler really dug deep when it came to setting the tone of this series with her definitions of Purebloods & Immunda, Deep Magic, Bound vs. unBound, and multiple plot threads. There was at least a baker’s dozen of different supes in this book which came with advantages, and downsides. In the positive column, you were never bored, but alternatively, very little was elaborated on besides the jinni & Magi, and there were SO many characters that it was difficult to identify potential secondaries from background noise. The only names I remembered were Lyla & Oz.

The romance seemed to be the main bone of contention with readers, and I have to agree. I fully anticipated the Master / Slave relationship; however the feelings that developed between them progressed entirely too fast given their dynamics. Oz strolls into town and Binds Lyla one week before her thousand years of servitude are up because he’s convinced that his mission outweighs her freedom. He feels bad about it, and ultimately keeps his promises when all is said, and done, but is there really such a thing as a good oppressor?? It was all a little too dysfunctional for me.

JINN AND JUICE tried overly hard to be funny, and not enough to be badass. ~3.5 Stars ( )