Yes, I finally finished Fairyville by Emma Holly. Now prepare yourself for the most unfair review I've ever written.The Plot: Zoe Clare is a medium who has no trouble communicating with the dead-or with real live fairies, for that matter! But she can't seem to get her feelings across to her landlord-slash-manager- Magnus Monroe, Fairyville, Arizona's most eligible bachelor. She's tired of his erotic antics with every woman in town but her. So when her high school flame returns to town, Zoe is more than a little vulnerable to his charms. How Alex broke her heart is a scandal no one in Fairyville has forgotten. But even if Zoe isn't ready to forget, she's willing to forgive. The rules they're about to break will bring out the jealousy in Magnus-and the astounding truth.
The Good: Reading this book it hit me what makes Holly's erotica so good. She's the best at writing "longing." That is to say, her characters really ache for each other (physically as well as emotionally) and there's usually a healthy dose of pining going on. There's a lot of that here. Magnus pines for Zoe, Zoe pines for Magnus, Alex pines for Zoe and Alex's business partner, Bryan, pines for him.
There's quite a bit of male-on-male lovin' in this book, which I thought was very well done. Obviously this won't be to everyone's taste - but I thought Holly handled this aspect of the story very well. There were several times I was more interested in the Alex/Bryan coupling than the Zoe/Magnus one. Just saying.
The Bad: To say it was "bad" isn't necessarily fair, but I was totally bored by the paranormal aspects in this novel. It was all just too precious for words. Magnus' reasons for not lovin' up on Zoe. Zoe talking to dead people. Zoe having a horde of teeny-tiny fairies follow her around and do her hair. Me rolling my eyes. Hell, there's even a kitten. I was just so not interested. After a while I was skipping the sections that featured anything paranormal (and there were more than a few) just to get to the hot lovin'. Of course after a while I even got a little bored with that (I'm making a doctor's appointment as I type this) and ended up skimming the last 100 pages.
Final Verdict: I hate assigning a grade to this, but what the hell - I'm giving it a C. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't my cuppa. It's well written and very erotic - but, ugh, paranormal! That said, I urge anyone who isn't annoyed by paranormal crap, fairies and isn't turned off by the hot gay lurve to give this book a go. It's got massive keeper potential. Just not for me.
Now on to something else...
5 comments:
OMG!!! Fairies? Kittens? Save this one for your niece when she's older. Tee hee.
Big Sis: Tee Hee. I will admit the thought of fairies doing my hair every morning held some appeal.
I really enjoyed this one...though i like the whole paranormal stuff. have you ever read anything by Laurell K. Hamilton? she is crazy good (though of course is part of the paranormal/fantasy group)
I had to go check my grade on my spreadsheet before I came back to comment because I have most of the same gripes. The book does have some great EH sizzle particularly the M/M, but the whole fairy fae thing ruins it for me. My final grade was B-. Probably because I really thought the man-love was so well done.
Rosie:
I originally was hovering around the B-/C+ territory - then I found myself getting bored, so it slipped to a C.
The only fairy/fae book that has worked for me in recent memory was Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning - and that's because she makes her fae very, very bad. I'll swallow just about anything paranormal if the author makes it dark enough....
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