Despite a few annoying typos, I absolutely loved this novel! The characters had depth, the plot was intriguing, and the love story was heartfelt. Truly a wonderful read for fans of romance, fantasy, and adventure! Looking forward to discovering what happens next! ( )

I received Promising Light through the Librarything Member Giveaway Program, in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The characters were well formed, interesting, and likable. The storyline kept me intrigued. The writing style was decent, although my copy had many errors. (such as, "Dar grabbed his face in her hands and then kissed her." Just took me out of the story for a second while my mind had to reverse the pronouns)
The love story between Dar and Grace is sweet. I found myself rooting for them all the way through. There was plenty of adventure and magic. For me magic is always a plus. I thought that all the characters had personality, and had me hoping that things worked out for all of them.
I can not wait to read book two in this series. I need to know where Grace, Dar, Sierra, Evan and even William go from here. ( )

I tried – I really did. I tried not long after I first got the book, and the writing fought me, and I set it aside. Shame drove me to try again because this was a LibraryThing Member Giveaway book. I was determined to read it.

But the writing still fought the effort. Phrasing was awkward; there was no infodumping, I'll give the writer that, but there was also little effort to give me any threads of story to weave into a rope to hang onto; the names grated on me, mostly Earth-ish (Grace and Pearl and Peter and – oh, my, William and Harry? And so on) but not all (Dar and Silva and Shyra and Phoresa and such– and then there was Rebekah, which with its more Jewish style was just odd in this context.) I made it a couple more chapters, but still had no real idea of setting or background or who anyone was supposed to be (or why I was supposed to care) when I hit the final wall: the main character got "a bit sweaty" before lunch and hoped she would have a chance to visit the "powder room".

The powder room?

From wisegeek.com: "The term powder room dates back to the early 18th century, when it was used to refer to a closet-sized room where people went to have their wigs repowdered." Currently a euphemism for a public women's room. Or, of course, the place where gunpowder and shot is stored. And, unless this fantasy world is closer to our own in some period later than 1800, ridiculous in this context.

Sorry. Can't do it. ( )

Promising Light was a book that I simply could not put down, not because it was overly suspenseful or dramatic, but because everything seemed so real that I was honestly curious as to how it would all end. There are two major elements that are true through the story, one being a love triangle, the other being a combination of magic, adventure and politics, the whole of which makes for some very good storytelling.

The characters were honest, living beings with emotion and life to them. I found that reading the pages their feelings were touching me in a way that I could understand, especially in regard to finding out that the man you have fallen in love with is going to call it off with you because he's "no good" for you. What do you do? Well, when someone else makes advances, you go to them, begin a possible relationship, but still that previous love lingers. What becomes interesting is when the three people begin to find themselves entangled within the plot together.

The politics of throwing down punishment on someone because of something they can do is also touched on. One group will use a person for their best interests, another will come and do the same. This isn't ground in to you as if being pounded in by a stone, this is dealt with by simple discussion, interaction and personal exchange. I was quite surprised when I realized just how much of the structure of expectations I had understood and how I had taken it away as the concept of being political, though it never felt that it felt that title at all.

Overall, if you take an adventure, blend it with a magical curse, and sprinkle it with just a hint of love potion, you'll have one book that you will honestly enjoy.

Note: Though this book was a free gift from the author, the content of my review was in no way influenced by the gifting. The book speaks for itself and my review would have been worded just this way even if I'd gone out and bought it. I also give bonus points for Text To Speech enabling on Kindle format.... but that also wasn't a factor in the above review. ( )

I really enjoyed this book! The beginning was a bit slow, but once you started reading more about the world the author was creating it got more interesting and then the action kicked in and the story picked up from there. The characters were well built and I'm assuming the next book will delve more into the secondary characters and such. I felt this book had that of a love story, adventure story all in a fantastic world with magic and such. If you enjoy these types of books, you should enjoy this story.

FYI: I did run into some typos, a few of which did make me confused while reading, so I hope if this is not in print version yet an editor can go through this book and fix these errors.

(Received this book via Member Giveaway) ( )