The Arcadia Series, Books One & Three by Kelley Heckart @CelticChick #Romance #Fantasy #GreekMythology

Blurbs:

The Bear Goddess, Book One

Romance, fantasy and magic in Bronze Age Arcadia (Greece)

Forbidden love… Broken vows… Betrayal…

Callisto, the daughter of the great Arcadian King Lycaon and the nymph Maia, has studied all her life to attain the high position of Bear Goddess among the nymphs of Artemis, taking a sacred vow of purity. But when she meets a mysterious man, her life changes forever.

Kasin is a prince among the fierce centaurs and one of few who can take human shape. A follower of Zeus, he is mystified to save a nymph’s life and even worse, to fall in love with an enemy of the centaurs. He is torn between his duty to his people and his love for Callisto.

When the nymphs capture Kasin for their next sacrifice, Callisto cannot allow him to die, but before she can help him escape, they are caught together and their secret connection exposed. Surrounded by armed guards, they manage a daring escape. On the run from the nymphs, danger and betrayal follow Kasin and Callisto. To survive, they must evade a god obsessed with having Callisto for himself as well as others who also want to keep them apart. Will their love for each other be enough to save them?

The Crow Maiden, Book Three

She betrayed her goddess for him…

He betrayed her.

Plotting her revenge is her only solace. Until now.

Nahla is the Crow Maiden, an Arcadian, and once a priestess of Artemis. Now she is a captive, a being who lives in the shadows until her vile master the sorcerer-king Aramon summons her. Another releases her from the Shadowlands, and while he might be the champion she has waited for, the gods must be playing a cruel joke. Her champion is crippled.

An Achaean lord who once ruled a great city, Balin is a broken man. He has lost everything—his kingdom and his family. Revenge consumes him. Although wary of the mysterious, cold-eyed female who appears and claims he summoned her, she may be his only hope to exact vengeance on the king who ruined him, the same man Nahla seeks to destroy.

They are bound by revenge, and soon, both learn they are bound by much more, but the secrets she hides might tear them apart and ruin their only opportunity for vengeance—and their chance to love again.

About the Author:

Multi-published author Kelley Heckart writes romances with fantasy/paranormal elements set in ancient and medieval time periods. Her stories reflect her passion for ancient history, storytelling, and the supernatural. She is drawn in particular to the ancient Celts who are shrouded in mystery and associated with the otherworldly realm of the Fae. With her pen and paper, she recreates long ago places filled with fierce warriors, bold women, otherworldly creatures, magic, and romance.

Two of her favorite things are sunrises and men in kilts. When not writing or editing, she enjoys practicing target archery. She can be found online at www.kelleyheckart.com.

Review:

The Bear Goddess is Book One and The Crow Maiden is Book Three of the Arcadia Trilogy, each book of which stands alone. However, the books are tied together by the fact that they take place in and around Arcadia, and the crossover appearances of various characters among the three books. I reviewed Book Two, The Wolf Queen, last year, and missed nothing reading them out of order.

I greatly admire Ms. Heckert’s knowledge of Greek mythology and the way she weaves it into her fictional world along with the paranormal. Her characters are deeply drawn and engaging, and the plots are fast-paced and draw the reader in on page one.

But, as has been happening so much lately, there were editing issues that drove me nuts. When editors tell their authors not to use too many adverbs, they don’t mean the authors should substitute adjectives. Yet I see this happening over and over again. I even hear it in dialog on TV, and find myself yelling “LY!” at the screen, as I do to my Kindle. I yelled it at my Kindle throughout the entire Arcadia Trilogy. Please be sparing with your adverbs, but do NOT substitute adjectives for them. Use a stronger verb. But if you can’t find a stronger verb, go ahead and enhance it with an adverb. Use your “ly.”

Thanks for letting me rant. Aside from the adjective problem, The Arcadia Series was a good read. You might want to start with The Bear Goddess, then The Wolf Queen, and end with The Crow Maiden, but it’s not necessary.

Author Website:  www.kelleyheckart.com

Heat Ratings (Both):  R

Lengths: 

The Bear Goddess:  285 Pages

The Crow Maiden:  269 Pages

Prices (Both):

Print:  $11.99

Digital:  $2.99

Buy Links:

The Bear Goddess:  https://amazon.com/dp/B00P74X0WY

The Crow Maiden:  https://amazon.com/dp/B01N1ZBAF1

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The Wronged Princess by Kae Elle @kathylwheeler #CinderellaTale #Fantasy #Suspense

The Plot:

Finding his mysterious princess by trying her glass slipper on every maiden in Chalmers Kingdom sounded like a brilliant scheme until the silly thing slid quite easily on the foot of the wrong girl. Now how is Prince Charming supposed to find his true love? Unbeknownst to either, his mother, the queen, and her feisty twin (Cinderella’s infamous fairy godmother) have a lesson to impart—impulsive decisions do not a future king make!

About the Author:

I love sports—the NFL, the NBA… I hold season tickets to the Oklahoma City Thunder. I love Broadway musicals, too. I have a BA in Management Information Systems and a vocal minor. I love travel, reading, writing, and just to round things out and scratch the singing itch—karaoke.

Review:

I just hate it when I read a book by a friend that’s poorly edited. Ms. Wheeler tells a really good story with a much more complex relationship between Ella and her sisters than the usual version of Cinderella. Her stepmother is still the scheming, social climber of the Grimm version, but she doesn’t have to lop off parts of her daughters’ feet to get the shoe to fit. Esmerelda and Cinderella used to swap shoes all the time before the Count died, when the girls were friends. Imagine both Cinderella and the Prince’s horror when the glass slipper slid right onto the wrong foot! And so, the fun begins.

As I said at the beginning, my problem with the book was the editing, or lack thereof. There were mixed tenses, misused words; in short, the grammar was terrible. It really is a shame, because Ms. Wheeler shows a deep knowledge of history and mythology, and her fractured fairy tale would be a great read with better grammar.

Author Website:  http://www.kae-elle-wheeler.com/

Warnings:  None

Length:  190 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $9.99

Digital:  $0.99

Buy Link:  https://smile.amazon.com/B007MF3NK0

A Pinch of Poison by Alyssa Maxwell @Alyssa__Maxwell #Historical #CozyMystery #Suspense

The Plot:

In post-World War I England, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford, encounter an uncharitable killer at a charity luncheon sponsored by a posh school for girls…

Good deeds build good character, and good character is what the Haverleigh School for Young Ladies is all about. Lady Phoebe—with the tireless assistance of Eva—has organized a luncheon at the school to benefit wounded veterans of the Great War, encouraging the students to participate in the cooking and the baking. But too many cooks do more than spoil the broth—they add up to a recipe for disaster when the school’s headmistress, Miss Finch, is poisoned.

The girls at Haverleigh all come from highly respected families, none of whom will countenance their darling daughters being harassed like common criminals by the local police. So, Lady Phoebe steps in to handle the wealthy young debutantes with tact and discretion, while Eva cozies up to the staff. Did one of the girls resent the headmistress enough to do her in? Did a teacher bear a grudge? What about the school nurse, clearly shell-shocked from her service in the war? No one is above suspicion, not even members of the school’s governing body, some of whom objected to Miss Finch’s “modern” methods.

But Lady Phoebe and Eva will have to sleuth with great stealth—or the cornered killer may try to teach someone else a lethal lesson.

About the Author:

Alyssa Maxwell is the author of The Gilded Newport Mysteries, a historical series featuring the glamour of a bygone era and a sleuth who hails from a less “well-heeled” branch of the Vanderbilt family. The series debuted in March 2014 with Murder at The Breakers (a USA Today Bestseller week of Sept. 4, 2014), followed by Murder at Marble House in September 2014, and Murder at Beechwood in May 2015. Alyssa is also debuting an English-set historical series, A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mysteries, set in the post WWI era. Murder Most Malicious released on Dec. 29, 2015. She and her family live in South Florida, and she is a member of the Florida Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Novelists Inc., and the Florida Romance Writers.

Please visit her at http://alyssamaxwell.com, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/alyssa.maxwell.750

Review:

A Pinch of Poison is the second book in a series, yet it stands on its own quite well. There are enough references to the first book to give a reader a pretty good idea what happened, and to maybe pique one’s interest enough to want to go back and read it, without making it feel necessary to this story.

Lady Phoebe Renshaw, with the help of her maid, Eva Huntsford, has planned a charity event at their alma-matter, the Haverleigh School for Young Ladies. Eva attended on a scholarship, but did not graduate due to family issues. But the event is ruined when the headmistress is poisoned. Who did it and why? There are plenty of suspects for the young ladies to investigate before they figure out who did it and why, and Ms. Maxwell kept me on my toes trying to figure it out with them.

My only problem with A Pinch of Poison is the combination of the title and cover art, which was a cartoon. Looking at them, I thought the book would be a humorous murder mystery, but it wasn’t. Yes, it’s a cozy mystery, but I was expecting humor as well, and I believe the cover art was a bit misleading. While illustration can be less expensive than stock photography, sometimes it’s just not appropriate—and I believe this is one of those times.

So, don’t be deceived by the cover. A Pinch of Poison is a serious cozy mystery, but it is well worth reading, even if you haven’t read the first book in the series.

Author Website:  http://alyssamaxwell.com

Warnings:  None

Length:  304 Pages

Prices:

Hardcover:  $25.00

Digital:  $11.99

Buy Link:  https://amazon.com//dp/1617738344

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