Cozy and Endearing Paranormal Romance

 

Image copied from Goodreads

I picked up this one as an impulse buy at my local Books A Million. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it is the fourth in the Fix-It Witches series by Ann Aguirre. However, The Only Purple House in Town can easily be read as a stand-alone book, and it was a delight to read! If you do not like cozy paranormal romances light on the spice, though, this may not be the novel for you.

The adventure begins when Iris, a down-on-her-luck misfit within her own family, inherits an old Victorian mansion from a distant aunt. Seeing this as a chance to start fresh somewhere away from her family, she sets off to take ownership with plans to maybe turn it into a bed and breakfast. Unfortunately, the house needs too much work to renovate on her bootstrap budget. So, Iris instead rents out rooms to a an unusual bunch of characters who are misfits in their own right. I found Iris to be a very relatable and sweet character. In this world, paranormal creatures have "come out" to the world. In Iris's case she has been raised by a family of psychic vampires on her mother's side. But Iris's powers have never fully awakened, making her not only disappointingly human, but a failure at following in the footsteps of her older, successful sisters. When Eli, the other main character in the story, runs into Iris again, we learn that she may not be awakened in her abilities, but she is still something more than human. 

In a mix-up, Eli finds himself renting out a room from Iris and soon embarks on a quest to help her out, like she helped him when they were kids years ago. The only problem is that Iris doesn't even remember him from their past. She also doesn't know that Eli is a successful app designer who is rich, something he can't find a way to confess to Iris. From there, we get a story of love, second chances and found family, as the two fix up the old home and add roommates along the way. Some human and some not. I loved the way that Aguirre deftly weaves the idea of human acceptance of paranormal beings into a commentary on our own society today towards those who are different without making it too preachy. I also appreciated how organically a fully diverse cast of characters is introduced throughout the first half of the book and how well developed each one is in it. They each serve a purpose, have their own backstory, and agency and are easy to learn to love, from the irascible, older Henry Dale, to the social butterfly, Sally, to the young non-binary Rowan and her mentor, witch friend, Mira. As they come together, they become the family each of them has always longed for. Figuring out what type of powers Iris has is also a nice mystery for the story. All in all, I found this to be a fast and thoroughly enjoyable read and gave it 5 out of 5 stars. If you enjoy cozy paranormal romance with a touch of spice and a cast of endearing characters, you will enjoy The Only Purple House in Town.

Next month, I will be delving into middle grade adventure. My first review will be of the NetGalley read, Westfallen, which is a dystopian, alternate history for middle grade readers written by Ann and Ben Brashares and set to come out in mid-September. The other will be a contemporary middle grade novel entitled The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling. Below are the covers and blurbs for each. Cover images copied from Goodreads along with the blurb for The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus and the blurb from Westfallen is copied from NetGalley.

From #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants author Ann Brashares and her brother Ben Brashares comes the first book in a “pulse-pounding” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) middle grade alternate history thriller trilogy that asks what it would be like in present-day America if Germany had won World War II.

Henry, Frances, and Lukas are neighbors, and they used to be best friends. But in middle school Frances got emo, Lukas went to private school, and Henry just felt left behind. When they come together again for the funeral of a pet gerbil, the three ex-friends make a mindblowing discovery: a radio, buried in Henry’s backyard, that allows them to talk to another group of kids in the same town...in the same backyard...eighty years in the past. The kids in 1944 want to know about the future: Are there laser guns? Flying cars? Jetpacks, at least? Most of all, they want to know about the outcome of the world war their dad and brothers are fighting in. Though Henry is cautious—he’s seen movies about what happens when you disrupt the fabric of time—soon the present-day kids are sending their new friends on a mission to rescue a doomed candy store. What harm could that do? But one change leads to another, and when the six friends alter history in the biggest way possible, it’s up to them to change it back.

Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again.

Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all . . . even without arms.

Quest Fantasy Reminiscent of Princess Bride with D&D Vibes

 

Image Copied from Goodreads

Billed as The Princess Bride meets The People We Meet of Vacation, This Will Be Fun by E. B. Asher a nom de plume for authors Bridget Morrissey, Emily Wibberley, and Austin Siegmund-Broka, also reminded me somewhat of last summer's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves film. 

The story revolves around the three remaining heroes who saved the kingdom of Mythria, reuniting ten years later. Sadly, the group of legendary questmates, Beatrice, Elowen and Clare, split up and went their separate ways to lick their respective wounds after suffering a tragic loss in their final showdown against evildoers. The trauma of what they endured and what they lost has driven Beatrice, Elowen, and handsome rogue, Clare Grandheart to different extremes to deal with their losses. Beatrice seeks solace in marriage to a wealthy lord, while Elowen has become a recluse living in a treehouse in the Forbidden Forest. Clare has stepped up to fill the void left by the others' retreat from society to be the hero he feels the country needs as Mythria rebuilds, becoming the face of the legendary crew by making public appearances and accepting sponsorships for various sale products, much to the disgust of Beatrice and to some degree, Elowen. Now, Queen Thessia, who they saved years ago has summoned them all to attend her royal wedding. Reluctantly, they agree, but upon arriving for the festivities soon learn that the evildoers they thought they'd defeated for good have reemerged and it is up to them to once more save the kingdom. 

While I did think the novel was reminiscent of The Princess Bride in tone and humor, I also found some references to modern society with a medieval twist to be similar in nature to last summer's D & D movie. References are made to ride sharing and soap opera dramas only with medieval or medieval and magical elements. Additionally, though there is adventure and questing in This Will Be Fun, the first half of the novel deals more with the individual traumas of the characters and how they interact when they are forced to come together once again to celebrate the nuptials of their queen. It isn't until they arrive at the palace that the real quest begins. Once the adventure gets underway, I loved how it starts off as you'd expect, but then the authors have the final showdown take place in a funny and totally unexpected location. I don't want to give away too much, though. You'll have to read it for yourself to see how they change things up. 

Along with the very real struggles the characters must overcome to move forward and be the heroes Mythria needs once more, there is also plenty of spicy romance of the slow build variety. All in all, I really did enjoy this fantasy adventure. The only thing that kept it from being 5 out of 5 stars for me was the fact that it took longer than I would have liked to get to the actual quest. While I do think the authors did a good job of portraying the very real scars that can result from battle and loss with these characters, I thought they dwelt on that aspect of the story a bit longer than I'd have liked. But I sort of felt that way with Emily Henry's The People We Meet on Vacation as well, which this book has been compared to. So, as a medieval fantasy version of that, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the slight issues with pacing I had with this tale. But if you love romantasy quests in the same vein as William Goldstein's The Princess Bride, or even Travis Baldree's more recent cozy romantasy Legends and Lattes series, you will thoroughly enjoy This Will Be Fun by E. B. Asher. It is set to come out this September and I was very pleased and grateful to both NetGalley and Avon Books for giving me a free eARC of the book to read in exchange for this honest review. 

Stay tuned in a couple of weeks as I review my next summer read, The Only Purple House in Town by Ann Aguirre. It is the fourth in the Fix-It Witches series. But it is the first book in the series I'll have read. This one really appealed to me with its blurb more than the previous three and I'm hoping I won't have had to read the previous books to enjoy this one. We will see. Here is an image and blurb about it copied from Goodreads. 

Iris Collins is the messy one in her family. The "chaos bunny." Her sisters are all wildly successful, while she can't balance her budget for a single month. It's no wonder she's in debt to her roommates. When she unexpectedly inherits a house from her great aunt, her plan to turn it into a B&B fails—as most of her plans do. She winds up renting rooms like a Victorian spinster, collecting other lost souls...and not all of them are "human."

Eli Reese grew up as the nerdy outcast in school, but he got rich designing apps. Now he's successful by any standards. But he's never had the same luck in finding a real community or people who understand him. Over the years, he's never forgotten his first crush, so when he spots her at a café, he takes it as a sign. Except then he gets sucked into the Iris-verse and somehow ends up renting one of her B&B rooms. As the days pass, Eli grows enchanted by the misfit boarders staying in the house...and even more so by Iris. Could Eli have finally found a person and a place to call "home"?