C Gockel Writes

Book Review 10,000 Stitches by Olivia Atwater

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Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales Book 2) Kindle Edition by Olivia Atwater (Author)

Are you looking for an escape from the real world that you can believe in? 10,000 Stitches is the second in Olivia Atwater’s Regency Fairie Tales. This one twists the conventions of the Regency genre even more, and delightfully so.

The heroine isn’t precisely plucky, she is contained, trying to get by in horrible circumstances. She is that rarely visited of Regency Romances characters: the maid. And not the lady’s maid. A floor scrubbing maid who speech brands her as being part of the lower class. She does have one thing going for her: a talent for embroidery that is magical. It is on that talent that she makes a wager with a fairy Lord–she has 10,000 stitches to win the love of a gentleman, not just any gentleman of course: a handsome gentleman.

Hijinks ensue. Like the last book, this “fantasy” is in many ways a more realistic portrayal of the Regency era than the non-magical variety of regency romance. Highly recomended.

Check it out at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, & GooglePlay

Book Review: Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater

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Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales Book 1) Kindle Edition by Olivia Atwater (Author)

Well this was delightful. Half a Soul is a Regency Romance with magic. Dora, our heroine, is cursed by a faerie and loses the half of her soul that can give a damn. She is left being able to care, but only if she tries very, very hard, or if a person has done something extraordinarily wonderful or terrible.

She cares for her cousin Vanessa, and so hares off to London with Vanessa to “help Vanessa find a husband,” but Vanessa has other plans–mainly finding someone who can cure her dearest Dora, most likely in the form of the Lord High Sorcier.

Hijinks ensue. There is loads of witty banter in this one, and a touching story. But what I really liked was that although this is a fantasy, it did much better at showing how cruddy the regency world was if you weren’t rich.

Highly recommended. Available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple Books, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay