Eileen Wilks

The Charmed anthology brings together four stylistically different authors under one common theme: romance at Halloween. Jayne Ann Krentz (writing as Jayne Castle, her futuristic romance pseudonym) takes us into the future to the novella that began her Harmony series of books, Lori Foster gives a passionate spin to treasure hunting and ghosts with a story that's part of her Winston brothers novellas, Julie Beard travels back in time to King Arthur and Eileen Wilks has a slightly gothic flair to a paranormal contemporary with djinn and witches.

Of the four stories I definitely enjoyed Castle's the best. I've been a fan of her Harmony books for several years now, but had not read this particular novella. There's less cohesion to the world, with more flair for the dramatic then usually found in the books, but the couple Sam Gage and Virginia Burch are sizzling. It was fun to see the guy so uncertain about where he stands with a woman and wanting love, not just sex. Virginia, also wanting love, but willing to settle for the sex if need be, is feisty and stubborn, but their respect for each other is apparent.

Foster's was the hottest of the four and gives the phrase 'grand passion' a literal meaning. I loved Allison. Hands down she was entertaining. Casually arguing with a ghost while trying to keep her wayward--and explicit--thoughts to herself and battle the flirtations of her long time crush sparked some interesting comments. Chase was very aggressive at first, but its understandable given the amount of frustration he must have been feeling. There was an unnecessary thread, involving an ex of Allison's, that was just kind of there as added 'danger' at the end, but overall this was a fun and often amusing story.

I enjoyed Beard's story the least of all the stories included. It was too pat, too predictable. It started out really well, with a crazy fortune-telling lady and misfortune and Woden's Curse, but devolved into a standard romance rather quickly. Tristan is entirely too nice and understanding for a guy in King Arthur's time, Katherine takes her time traveling really well (as well as the marauding Saxons) and the development of their relationship is pretty much off screen so to speak. Various mystics tell them both, about each other before they meet so they're already pre-disposed to falling in love. There is a clever trickery of words used, but even then the romance that develops from that is just so-so.

Wilks' story was a little confusing, and involved more psychological thinking then I usually like in a romance, but it was pretty basic. Dora and John, two seemingly dependable and staid people, are hiding secrets from each other. Which turns out to be an issue since Dora's secret puts her at risk because of John's secret and both together just makes them combustible. There was more wordplay trickery involved in here, which was funny but not discussed overmuch. The ending is a little abrupt with the consequences of their actions occurring and then lovely discussion begins, but it was fun. Plus I like romances involving djinns.

Overall this collection was entertaining and fun, but other then Jayne Castle I don't believe I'd read any of the other authors separate works based upon what I read here.… (mere)

I have a hard time judging this because apparently there is no normal audiobook for this so I listened to the "Graphic Audio" instead.
It's bad. Really really bad. I've tried Graphic Audio before and hated it and this was no different.
I rate the Graphic Audio experience 1 or maybe very low 2 stars.
It's a huge mess.
The Graphic Audio badly exacerbates sentimental scenes by overlaying the worst mood music. Instead of supporting the scenes, the soundscape stultifies them and makes them sound like they deserve this.
In many places, the stock soundscapes don't fit the scenes at all. As an example, at the climax, there is a fight between a hand full of people. There are a few handguns involved and some hand to hand but the soundscape sounds like D-Day with explosions, cries of pain, and constant machinegun fire in the background. It makes it almost impossible to take anything seriously.
Another example is unsettling psycho-thriller music in the background of romantic scenes. It's supposed to emphasize the unsettling nature of the mate bond attraction but it just ruins the entire romantic buildup instead.
The voice actors overact almost everything. There is a scene where the FMC works in the garden and the scene is quite long. And the entire time it sounds like an asthmatic fat chick tries to dig a grave in the background.
A werewolf is disgruntled? He growls like he is about to rip everyone in reach to shreds.
The MC has a headache? She makes noises like someone is amputating her foot.
All scenes involving arousal are so comically bad, even the acting in bad porn is far better.
I get what they are trying to do. It's in their tag line after all. "A movie in your head". These Graphic Audio thingies try to assign some kind of noise to every action or interaction. But that's not how this works! Just as an example, you just can't hear someone grimacing. There is no grimacing noise.
I rely on the narration (which is totally fine btw) to provide the visuals and all this contrived stuff just distracts and destroys my immersion instead of helping it. It's not that I can't appreciate a soundscape. I can totally see a Graphic Novel like that working great for me but the audio needs to sound more like an actual audio track from a movie. You just can't replace visuals with noises. If you are not able to visualize the narration, no amount of audio can help you. The audio can only ever play a supporting role.

Onto the book itself.
It has the unfortunate habit of cutting out of interesting or tense scenes and then the protagonist summarizes them to the reader afterward.
This happens with some fight scenes and with all sex scenes and I think I would've been really frustrated by it normally. But the Graphic Audio of these scenes was so comically bad that I was relieved that I didn't have to suffer through them in their entirety.

I have a minor nitpick I have to mention. The word choice of the child is completely off. That is not how children talk. An actual child voice actor says those lines (very cool!) which makes that even more obvious.

In general, this book is just unoriginal tbh. It's the typical werewolf life mate PNR template with a clichée baddy, a special snowflake MC, and evil powers stirring etc.
Within the bounds of this hackneyed template and its stereotypes, it's an enjoyable read. It's nothing special and doesn't have any of the usual steaming smut but as a light read on the side it's not bad.
I think you can do far better for every aspect of PNR with other books though.
I guess I should go easy on this book with the same old PNR accusation as it was published in 2004. At the time this was probably the cream of the crop of the genre.

I have to say though, I am not very confident in my judgment because of the entire Graphic Audio thing and it being so incredibly bad.… (mere)