Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not my thing, I guess...., September 21, 2007
I was disappointed in this novel. I found it difficult to get into and kept putting it down. The writing was rather...Blah. Not awful, but sort of boring. The story seemed just filler for sex scenes. I thought the sex scenes were pretty good though a trifle repetitive. I probably would've culled them down to three scenes. Jack and Mira (our witch couple) were bland. I didn't care what happened to them... They had sex, trained, fought evil, had sex.... Hmmm....
2 Stars. Perhaps if the storyline had been stronger I might've been more into what happened in the book. As it was, this couple could be any generic romance couple.
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 Klovers! Courtesy of CK2S Kwips & Kritiques, June 17, 2007
Unsuspecting Mira Hoskins is one of the most powerful elemental witches, an Air Witch, born to two Air Witches who met their fate when she was still a young child. Raised by her godmother, she has no idea of her true legacy, much less the fact that witches and magic really exist.
She is even less prepared to meet Jack, the Fire Witch to whom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. Thrown together when Jack is assigned as her bodyguard to protect her from a group of evil witches intent on sacrificing Mira for their own nefarious purposes, desire burns hot between these two. Sure, Fire and Air Elementals are naturally drawn to one another, but the attraction she feels for Jack appear to go uncomfortably further for that. After surviving one bad relationship and broken marriage, Mira isn't in the market for another and is determined to keep this thing with Jack purely physical. Easier said than done.
But Jack has issues of his own - secrets he can't share with Mira, and those secrets threaten to destroy her feelings for him forever.
Bravo! I was already a fan of author Anya Bast after reading some of her eBooks from another publisher, but her new print release through Berkley moves her up my list of favorite authors and cements her as an auto buy! Witch Fire is a bewitching start to what promises to be a fascinating new series - Elemental Witches.
Mira is a perfect romantic heroine - a little broken from a bad marriage, but still warm and caring and ready to love again, even when she does not think so herself. She has a forgiving nature, which proves a balm to Jack's long tortured soul and mind when she discovers the secrets he has hidden from her. Although she was not raised with knowledge of her powers, she quickly accepts her new role and the responsibility her powers bring her.
Jack is strong and heart-breaking as he punishes himself for a past that was beyond his control. Watching him penalize himself for a wrong he believes he perpetrated on Mira's family long ago tore me up, especially as he denied both himself and Mira the love both so desperately needed in each other's arms. But by the same token, this made the happy ending so much sweeter when Jack finally discovers redemption in the arms of his soul mate.
I loved this Elemental Witches, Book 1: Witch Fire, and cannot tell you how excited I was when I read on Bast's blog that she is pretty much done with its sequel, Witch Blood! I will be counting the days until Book 2 of this exciting paranormal series is ready for review... But having read Witch Fire, I learned I cannot begin reading one of Anya Bast's books too close to bedtime, as I will be up all night until I finish it!
Series Order:
Witch Fire (Elemental Witches, Book 1)
Witch Blood
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I just didn't feel the fire, I guess., January 1, 2009
Mira Hoskins is a twenty-something waitress at Mike's Downtown Diner in the downtown Minneapolis-St Paul area. Her divorce has finally gone through, and she's rebuilding a life she hadn't expected to piece back together. Things are looking up, as much as they were looking down. Or so she thought.
She's also an elemental witch. And her call of power? Air, the most powerful of all the four elements. But as a rare breed of witch, and her parents supposedly killed in a car accident, Mira was given the chance to grow up normal by her godmother Annie. Thus, mostly unaware to that whole other world. Including how her parents were really killed, and who she truly is.
Jack McAllister is the thug man for the leading 'good' witch group, the Coven, led by Mira's uncle, Thomas Monahan. As he saves Mira from a brush in with the 'bad' guys, called the Duskoff and headed by his own father William Crane, it's up to Jack to get Mira battle-ready. The plan is to train Mira in her new call of power, and to make sure that she doesn't fall into enemy hands. And for Jack to face the haunts of his past, stop his self-immolation of guilt, and save a woman he can't resist.
What Crane wants is the sacrifice a witch of each element-air, water, fire, earth-in order to close powerful and magical circles, a sort of demonic entry, in order to use the evil that comes through to get the Duskoff whatever they want. Especially employing all the deadly seven sins. And ruling the world.
The Wiccan/witchcraft philosophy is well done, well researched and the only thing that was consistent and solid from beginning to end. The rules which govern magic, the Coven and the Duskoff were interesting. But nothing new.
Unfortunately, this book is overrun with more sex scenes rather than with good character development or attention-grabbing story line, both of which seemed to be just thrown in. Mira and Jack are just two sex-crazed people and little else, and the circumstances surrounding his guilt which concerns how Mira's parents were killed, is just barely believable as well as Crane's overall interest in Mira, besides her rare gift. The balance between plot development and characterization and sex/romance was given second place as Bast focused the main 'action'--sex--away from emotional propulsion with a few mediocre non-sex action scenes. Anyone that's read the later LKH Anita Blake series will know, painfully, it's a weak ploy to use, especially to the point where, what should have been the main plot, of Mira struggling with being a witch after being cloistered away from it, as well as Jack and the Duskoff plot line, or from Jack's struggle to confront his father and forgive himself so he can be with Mira, gets covered up. The setup was there and promising but Blast didn't care. If the focus had been more on Jack and Mira, not Jack & Mira trying to get it on every ten seconds, it could have made the book that extra special something. While some parts weren't badly done, the writing has no bite and it meanders, often times repetitive and bland, scenes which seem to draw out something that really shouldn't. And I didn't find the sex scenes very interesting either...I actually just skimmed over those part, which is nearly half the book.
Witch Fire is more of a mild erotica romp rather than a true romance, though the mechanisms of a romance tale are there. I didn't really take to the characters much and the plotting was weak, the writing just okay. So for me, it was a miss on a lot of levels, but you never know, I just might test myself to see if Book 2 falls prey to the same weakness that made Book 1 so...blah.
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