Bewitching [Kindle Edition]

Jill Barnett (Author)

Book Description

What's a duke to do when a carefully selected bride rejects him rather than marry without love? He salvages his pride by marrying the next woman who falls into his arms. Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie bewitched the Duke of Belmore the moment she appeared from nowhere and knocked him over...literally. Joyous MacQuarrie is a Scottish witch whose powers of white magic are not always easy for her to control. When Alec's pride makes him choose to marry her, Joy turns the life of the most serious and snobbish duke in England upside down. Too soon Alec finds his well ordered and controlled life a mess, because he married a witch--one who turns him to fire when he kisses her, who charms everyone around her, and threatens to destroy both their lives as scandal looms over her. Too late, Joy discovers she's desperately in love and not even the strongest magic can seem to turn her into a proper duchess, or make her husband love her. Passion holds them spellbound in an irresistiblely funny and tender tale of two opposite but lonely hearts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1813 Alec Castlemaine, a callous English duke who compares courtship to horse trading, faces rejection from his meticulously selected betrothed, who decides she cannot live without love. That same night, Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie, a Scottish witch with faith in fairy-tale endings, messes up a travel incantation and "zaps" herself into the duke's lap. Unbelievably, she explains away her sudden appearance, and the duke, wanting to salvage his pride, marries her immediately. After she reveals her powers on their wedding night, the duke forbids her to perform any hocus-pocus. Inconveniently, she can't always control her magic. When she sneezes, whatever she thinks appears. There is some self-righteous challenge to traditional representation of race and class. Joy hires a Caribbean cook named Hungan John despite protest from the rest of the household, although he ends up being little more than a happy, singing black man. Joy also helps Alec see that servants are people too. Barnett's ( Just a Kiss Away ) quirky wit is demonstrated when Joy say things like "Can't you shrink it a wee bit?" after they consummate their marriage, giving a twist to an otherwise standard plot.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Jill Barnett is the New York Times bestselling author of fifteen acclaimed novels and short stories. There are more than five million copies of her books in print in seventeen languages. Her work has earned her a place on such national bestseller lists as The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her website at www.jillbarnett.com.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 811 KB
• Print Length: 464 pages
• Publisher: Bell Bridge Books (June 10, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003TXTINU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,358 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 68 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars BEWITCHING makes you want to take time to smell the roses! June 28, 1999

By Suzanne Coleburn

Format:Mass Market Paperback

When I first read BEWITCHING I had so many laughs at Joy, a witch who just couldn't seem to get her spells right that my family had to tell me to calm down. Joy landed herself in more trouble the moment she landed in the carriage with the handsome Lord Alex. The poor man didn't know what he was in for. I loved the way she changed Alex from a person who ran his life by the clock into a caring, loving man who was often covered in rose petals.

Joy's familiar was a riot and I laughed so hard at times I was crying, especially when he was working away on a certain footman's wig. I told a friend I couldn't read this in public since I would make a fool of myself laughing my head off at certain parts, and believe me my family concured.

This is a story that brings home the fact that many of us don't take time to laugh or do some silly things in life to make ourselves and others happy.

Jill Barnet is an excellent writer who knows how to bring love and laughter to her readers.

This is one author whose works go right on my keeper shelf whether they are of a serious content or down right tickle your funnybone.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the witty and incomparable jill barnett! January 8, 2000

By Jeanine

Format:Mass Market Paperback

you know a book is really good when you can pick it up after years of it just lying there and laugh as hard as you did the first time you read it! this was the case for me. my favourite part of "bewitching" was when Joy was "cooling" off her face by plastering her lips onto the carriage window! I love how barnett described them like "pink leeches." A part of me wanted to cringe in mortification for Joy, but another part of me just thought it was too funny! this humor is continuous throughout the story and it provides comic relief for the staid and all too duke-like Alec Castlemaine. I think it is wonderful how his character develops from cold and unbearable to downright loving, foolish and sentimental. It's not as though those feelings didn't exist in Alec, it's just that they had been suppressed so long by his family and his sense of honor for his family. Best of all I like Beezle, Joy's familiar. This is a wonderful story and barnett employs a rhetoric that is uniquely hers. I would consider "bewitching" her best piece of work to date.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Jill Barnett creates magical moments! February 8, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

BEWITCHING sparkles with fun, romance and magic. Alec and Joy are a magnificent couple. She's so adorable as the inept witch and he's the brooding hero. She loves him, charms him, and makes his life worth living. The rose petals- what a lovely, imaginative touch to the romance scenes! And the ending? Sure it was a little hoaky - but in her introduction, Barnett says that she used to hang her hair out the window like Rapunzel, she married her first true love - would an author like that NOT give you and ending truly worth the words "happily ever after"? The romance genre is, after all, the ultimate escapism! I used to think no one could equal Julie Garwood and Judith McNaught as the best romance writers but I have added 4 new ones to my list: Jill Barnett (BEWITCHING, WILD); Jillian Hunter (FAIRY TALE); Jo Beverley (FORBIDDEN MAGIC) and Mary Balogh (THIEF OF DREAMS) Bravo! All these books are worth reading - at least several times!!

More About the Author

I am a native Californian, a baby boomer who grew up in a very idyllic place at a very idyllic time--on the coast of Southern California in the 60's, although I spent many childhood summers before that on my grandparents' farm in Texas.

So I'm a West Coast girl raised by Southern parents, who grew up in a place where you spent your free time playing volleyball on the beach and weekends dancing to local bands like Beach Boys, Dion, and the Righteous Brothers.

My husband and I met in high school, and I never knew I wanted to be a writer until I was in my thirties and back in college again. I had been an art major the first time around--it was the 60's--quit to make some kind of mark in the world, but I got married instead.

My love of history and reading and art all came together for me when I quit school again, after working toward my history degree and then becoming a mother--something we were told couldn't happen. (The child not the degree.) So with the miracle gift of my daughter, came a new career for me.

I knew then I wanted to write a book, had an idea and more importantly a vision of the kind of stories I wanted to tell. I told myself I could always go back to school.

Funny thing the way life works. Almost two years to the day I quit school, I sold my first book on 50 pages to Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster. That was over eighteen years ago and many books later.

So the road I traveled to become an author had many twists and turns, joys and disappointments. Yet I'm doing something I really love. In so many ways I'm a very lucky woman.