Customer Reviews

Love's Magic

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Characters I cared about, a mystery that kept me guessing until the end, romantic suspense that kept me wondering and hoping - what more could I ask for? Well, add humor, magic, and hauntings and now you're getting close to what this book has to offer. If I didn't have to go to work I would have read it straight through. The characters and the story line kept me interested until the end and hoping there will be more to come in the future.

Love's Magic is a fantastic blend of history, romance, and mystery. The book flows flawlessly and Traci E. Hall will become on of your favorite authors!!! This is book 1 in a series of 3 (so far). Once you start this book you will not be able to put it down. Every scene is descibed so perfectly (using all the senses) that you will think you are there. This book was given to me as a gift and as soon as I finished reading it I had to get Beauty's Curse (#2). This is great historical love story with strong family ties, a little lovin', and a great mystery. You will fall in love with all the characters. I enjoyed many smiles during my reading and you will too!! Traci Hall has a gift for imagery that ranks her with Heather Graham, Christine Feehan, Nora Roberts,and Sherrilyn Kenyon. You'll be hooked from the first paragraph!

Love's Magic is a magical tale of love and all the joys and sorrows that come along with it. Celestia is a spunky character who believes that she will never find love. Nicholas is a man on a mission who will not let anything get in his way. And when the two characters meet... there are sparks. Not just the romantic kind, but the "I possibly hate you and want nothing to do with you" kind.

Although the plot was very promising, I felt like the novel needed a bit more editing. The overall plot is there, but there are a few scenes that could easily be trimmed down without taking the overall effect away. While the added pages do not harm the novel, it is possible that more readers would find this novel easier to digest with some "padding" removed. As for the characters, they mesh well together, and I loved the banter between Celestia and Nicholas. It was playful, sweet, and downright entertaining. The secondary characters, in addition, add much to the understand of the plot as well as serve a decent purpose.

With a few tweaks, this novel could go from enjoyable to outstanding. There is a little bit of something for all types of readers. It has magic, romance, action, humor. This would be a fabulous novel for a rainy day, sitting on the beach, or just when you need a little romance.

I'm surprised by all the five and four-star reviews for this book. While not absolute garbage, it was far too long and dragged without the plot to back up its length. The repetition of "key concepts" of how noble Nicholas is, of how dark he is inside, of how kind and saint-like the heroine is, of how much she loves Nicholas, of why they cannot be together... it's like listening to a broken record: interminable and absolutely maddening. If I only had a dollar for each time one of these thoughts was repeated, I could happily retire. I honestly couldn't feel any chemistry between the characters - either the guy was sulking or throwing passionate glances at the heroine. And she was constantly going from one extreme to another - either madly in love or swearing that this was it for her and she'd never do another thing for him again. Likewise, their passionate love for each other came completely out of the blue. Her fleeing into the woods alone and then falling asleep on a rock AFTER discovering bodies of tortured people and feeling danger all around them - all while unpursued by the hero who is said to be "always on guard" and constantly watching for danger because he is so noble... that was just as illogical and ubelievable as their sudden love for each other.

Also, a bit more editing wouldn't hurt: only a novice author (lacking an editor worth his salt) would pepper a novel with exclamations that are appropriate for the time (can't even count the number of times "for certes" is used in the book, and not just in quotes but also in the background) while also adding such modern concepts as an understanding of what adrenaline is and the role it serves in the human body or the term opiates (as in belonging to a class of drugs), which the heroine seems to know and use in everyday speech.

I hate to be so hard on someone's labor of love - especially as the book was free - but I also don't want anyone else to waste their time if they have other options.

In Love's Magic, Traci Hall has combined a thriller, a mystery, a love story, a bit of history and a whole lot of magic. I couldn't wait to turn the page to learn what would happen next. Knights, castles, ghosts, an arranged marriage and an evil Baron are what makes this story spellbinding in every way. Traci has a true gift for bringing her characters to life and making the reader care about the good guys. I found myself so engrossed in the life of the heroin, Celestia, I actually identified with some of her trials and tribulations. This book is perfect for a book club discussion, and even more perfect for a "curl up by the fire with a good book" read.

In 1192, Celestia Montehue wonders if she is adopted; her sisters are red hair amazons while she is a small blond. She also has two color eyes; one blue and the other green. There is no trace physically that she descends from the notorious Queen Boadicea, but Celestia shares in common the ability heal.

Sir Nicholas Le Blanc is a knight pledged to Baron Peregrine. While on a crusade, he and his men are assigned to protect an ancient artifact. However, they are attacked leaving all dead except Nicholas; his enemies take him prisoner and torture him. He escapes but feels guilt because he killed a woman to get away.

Celesta who vowed to never marry and Nicholas who is too mentally disturbed to marry are forced to wed in an arranged ceremony. They travel to his dilapidated keep where his mom committed suicide and still haunts the place. As she falls in love with her agonized spouse, someone murders a maid. Celestia vows to heal her husband, help his mom move on and uncover the identity of the killer if she lives long enough.

This engaging medieval paranormal amateur sleuth romance is an enjoyable tale as two broken lead characters find healing through LOVE'S MAGIC. Nicholas is an interesting hero, but except for his mom's haunting very typical of twelfth century lea males. Celestia brings the magic to the fine plot as a unique individual; the oldest sister who's towered over by her younger protective siblings, she feels so different from them. Her courage makes for a wonderful story as she tries to help her mother-in-law the ghost, solve a murder, and heal her spouse all in one novel.

Harriet Klausner

This was a really great story, easy read and kept you guessing the whole way through!! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I started this and could barely put it down! It was a wonderful love story that kept me guessing and entertained!

The characters were well developed and the author took her time creating a romance. I highly recommend the book and would also read more from this author.

Although descended from Queen Boadicea, the Warrior Queen, Celestia Montehue looks nothing like her sisters. Petite and blond, she shares only the gift of healing with the string line of women. When Sir Petyr arrives with a missive from Baron Peregrine to announce the marriage of eldest daughter Celestia, her heart sinks as if she had been handed a death sentence. A marriage without love would cause her healing gifts to wither and die. Nicholas Le Blanc is a tortured man bent on revenge. Raised in a monastery and convinced his birth must have been illegitimate, he trained as a knight under Baron Peregrine. During a crusade, he is ordered to guard a sacred relic but an ambush leads to the death of all his men and the loss of the relic. Captured and tortured, he does the unthinkable to escape. Guilt haunts him many times over. A quest to take revenge on the man who fathered him obsesses him. Can Celestia and love heal his soul? As Celestia finds herself falling in love with her husband, the possibility for true love seems even more precarious as ghosts, a curse and murder threaten to doom their love. Can the magic of love truly heal all?

In LOVE'S MAGIC, medieval history, magic, mystery, adventure and romance all combine to make a riveting tale impossible to put down. Although no longer a captive in the Saracen desert, Nicholas Le Blanc is held captive by the nightmares of his dark soul. Alienated from others by his haunted memories, he is unable to love. He keeps his heart under the strictest guard. Nicholas is a man of honor and duty, but such noble attributes turned inwardly also might lead to his destruction. Celestia has a heart of gold. Although she may be petite in comparison to her sisters, she has a boldness of spirit. Although innocent, she is not naive. She has the gifts and knowledge of a healer but will her touch mark her as a heretical witch? Celestia is the ultimate healer on this dark pilgrimage of revenge, a woman willing to risk everything for love. Not only must they battle inner demons, but also the two must uncover all the twisted threads of family and political intrigue that threaten the possibility of love.

In this medieval romantic adventure, Traci E. Hall creates a wonderful pacing in plot as she intertwines romance and adventure. Written in a flowing easy-to-read style, the tale is not simplistic. Traci E. Hall brings psychological depth to her portrayal of the hero without letting it bog down the story. Traci E. Hall creates a perfect mix of action, emotion and inner look into her characters. Secondary characters bring a richness to this story. The Christian spirituality and magic creates a wonderfully medieval atmosphere to this fairy tale adventure. Even if a reader guesses some of the connections, the final unraveling of the mystery gives presents several exciting surprises. Above all, LOVE'S MAGIC is a medieval romance for the reader who wants to get lost in the magic of the story. Kudos to Traci E. Hall and Medallion Press for bucking the trend of the ever shrinking romance. LOVE'S MAGIC creates such intriguing characters and adventures that this reader was most thankful for a page count determined by the story rather than the other way around. If you love magical medieval romances, Traci E. Hall is a must read!

COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATIONS

Perhaps you need to be a lover of Medieval romance, or a lover of magical/paranormal romance, to really like this book. I've read these types of books before, though they are not my favorite types. Patricia Ryan does the type better. I could see merit in the novel, and I kept slogging through, hoping to hit a home stretch. The novel kept dragging and dragging. I read rather fast, but after I had read for a while and the hero and heroine still hadn't left her father's house, I knew it was time to give it up. The premise was good, but my goodness...this story really needed to be moved along. The reader understood that neither of them wanted to marry, the reader understands the basics of why--the setup keeps revisiting itself without getting to the meat of the novel. I just gave up, and that's really unusual for me. It was worth trying, since I got it for free. I've found a lot of new authors and types of novels by downloading free books; this just wasn't one of them.