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The leather binding gleamed like the skin of black plums and cherries. Her lovely touches of humour are there too: I meant endowed with looks and intelligence. Have I allowed enough room in the rise? View all 17 comments. Feb 19, willaful rated it it was ok Shelves: The fantasy elements in this series have gotten more blatant with each book, from the delicate suggestion of magic in the first to actual witches performing actual spells in this, the fourth.
I had no major issues with it in the previous books, but I felt that Kleypas bit off more than she could chew in this one. The fantasy and reality mix just didn't gel.
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- Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor, #4) by Lisa Kleypas;
I was also disappointed with the hero, who starts off mysterious and intriguing and then quickly morphs into every other hopelessly in love, The fantasy elements in this series have gotten more blatant with each book, from the delicate suggestion of magic in the first to actual witches performing actual spells in this, the fourth. I was also disappointed with the hero, who starts off mysterious and intriguing and then quickly morphs into every other hopelessly in love, uber-protective hero ever.
And I never saw what was so wonderful about Justine that would inspire such intense devotion. Two stars because it was readable and had some good moments, but I'm tempted to go for one because I honestly didn't like it. View all 16 comments. Images of Friday Harbor, Washington. Let me reassure you; I loved this one also. Tanya Eby returns to narrating this enchanting series and does a nice job. I did really like Ms. I kind of shrugged off the southern accents for some of the characters; I thought TB made them sound a bit too ignorant, but I tolerated them.
Justine finds out there was a spell cast on her, so that none of her romantic relationships work out. While not as adorable as her partner, Zoe, she is no less deserving of love. Kleypas usually provides in her males.
La chica de los ojos color cafe / Brown Eyed Girl
There are certainly more than a few scenes in this book that made me smile, and the BDSM scenario that I worried so much about was fine. This one is more Paranormal Romance than Magical Realism that the previous books in the Friday Harbor series fall into; however, it was light, not heavy-handed, and flowed easily. It was nice to see Ms. Kleypas stretch her writing prowess into this area. I did have one or two little quibbles with plot points, but nothing major.
Still, as I said, I should probable read it again to see if I feel differently about it, now that I know all is alright with Mr. There is an Abridged version, that is only 5 hours and 42 minutes instead of the Unabridged version at 8 hours and 52 minutes, which is the one I heard. I'm done with these series. I loved the hot, sexy scenes and the way the characters connected. Jason was a controlling, self-absorbed, super rich ass and I couldn't stand him.
There was some BDSM elements in the story, elements I'm not familiar with, elements I wasn't looking for in a sweet family story. Friday Harbor series started as a romantic book for the holidays and ended up as a Paranormal series. I've heard Kleypas is a goddess in Woman Fiction but I'm sorry to say the paranormal elements didn't feel right. This should teach me, enough is enough. View all 11 comments. She has penned some of my very favorite books: These are books that have become comfort reads.
They have helped me through difficult personal times, and are books that continue to beckon me for re-reads time and time again. For this I will always be grateful. With all that being said, Crystal Cove was a very difficult book for me to read and the first L. Please understand that this is just my opinion and my own personal feeling after reading this book. I know many others will love this book and be excited with the new avenues that Lisa is exploring. Crystal Cove's plot centers around pagan religion.
Witchcraft, Wiccan beliefs, spells, and magic ect. I am usually able to read and enjoy paranormal books because I am whisked away to another world a fictional world. Pagan religion is real, practiced today, and is something that goes against my own personal spiritual beliefs. Because of this, I never felt at ease while reading this book. I absolutely loved the character of Jason Black.
He alone gets all the stars that I gave this book. He was a traditional Lisa Kleypas hero in that I fell in love with him almost immediately. The lines he has in this book that made my heart clench and my stomach flutter are too many to count. He was simply amazing and yet his character was written without a soul Again, my belief is that we all have souls.
I just couldn't reconcile this Crystal Cove is the most sensual and sexual of all the Friday Harbor books and Lisa Kleypas explores bondage in this book. I didn't have a problem with this part of the book However, it's another indicator that Lisa is exploring new doors and challenging her writing, which are both great things. I simply wasn't prepared for this, and it's something completely new for her writing and her readers!
This book explores the idea of "soul mates" and Justine and Jason fall in love almost instantly. This was a contradiction to the man who was initially introduced to us as reclusive, private, and mysterious. Jason met Justine and became an "open book" emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I would've liked to see more of a gradual awakening between them. This book was definitely not for me. Again, I realize this is a personal preference and a personal belief system that influenced my feelings on this book. Many will love this book and appreciate it.
For me, I will revisit old favorites and hope that this book was an experiment and not the new face of L. View all 22 comments. I'll tell you a little secret. This is my first Lisa Kleypas book. I generally don't read contemporary romance, but the description on this felt a little PNR-ish and I have long heard positive things about this author. So I figured this was a great opportunity to give her a try.
Take a look at the blurb. Frankly, she had me at "Man-Without-A-Soul. I think the description of the story is accurate, but let me tell you abou I'll tell you a little secret. I think the description of the story is accurate, but let me tell you about some of the things it leaves out.
This is not PNR. Maybe everyone else already familiar with Lisa Kleypas knew that. This is a contemporary romance with paranormal elements. That may sound nitpicky, but for lack of a better explanation, the two genres have a very different feel. And I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be. Readers looking for PNR are going to unsatisfied, and I am not sure that anyone looking for a contemporary will love the magic woven in. It's an uncomfortable blend. The hero is a conceited, self-absorbed ass. He is heavy handed. He lies to Justine. He makes choices that satisfy his own needs, and she is expected to just get over it and accept it.
Yeah, he tried to make a noble sacrifice at the end, but it was still to get what he wanted, which --by then-- was Justine. There are BDSM elements in the story , which both surprised and perturbed me. I don't like BDSM and actively avoid it. I'll tell you what I told them Let's look at the cover and read the blurb again. Did I miss something?? There was absolutely no reason to believe that these two are in love. Jason goes from wanting Justine for her magic to being in love with her instantly.
There was no basis for it and they were proclaiming their love within just a few days. I just couldn't invest in the romance. I didn't like the hero. And I didn't enjoy the sex. Not a winner for me. View all 10 comments. Dec 19, D. Check out this review and others at badassbookreviews. I ended up rating it 3 stars barely because the denouement was surprising, even if it was a tad convenient. Jason shows up in Friday Harbor with the apparent purpose to close a business deal. However, he has other nefarious plans in mind, involving Justine.
She has something he wants and he will stop at nothing to get it. After Justine breaks the curse, they both feel this pull that tells them that they are meant for each other, forever and ever. Even though Jason came up as sort of creepy and manipulative in their first two encounters, Justine is quickly bedazzled by who knows what.
A man hating curse! The witches make a show of being close to nature so it was unbelievable that a precept of their covenant perverted the cycle of creation. The whole witchcraft angle was really weird. All they did was talk pagan and eat organic. I had so many other issues with Crystal Cove. I could go and on. This was the one thing about him that seemed real because it permeated different aspects of his personality.
Not because I have anything against witches or magic I read pretty much everything but because the premise is just too flawed in my eyes. View all 3 comments. This review contains mild spoilers. This book was a little weird. And a little awkward, bordering on clumsy. Designated Love Object Jason Black is super-rich, aloof and distant, and cold. And he just happens not to have a soul. Jason seems just as controlling at the end of the book as at the beginning, although the story makes a game attempt to make his intentions seem to be to behave differently in the future.
Justine is only marginally less passive by the end of the story. And seeing how Justine has a perfectly awful mother with no redeeming qualities, and Jason has a matching father, I really hope these two are heading for some serious couples counseling and individual therapy before they have children. On top of the weakness in failing to answer its own question, the supernatural elements in this story also never quite meshed for me. Two witches get around this by falling in love with each other; no shortened life for anyone in that case!
And therein lie the stakes of the plot, which did actually engage me enough that I wanted to know how it would all get solved. And I liked the ultimate ending as far as this part of the story went. My biggest complaint about this book is how dreary and grim most of it felt. The atmosphere felt chilly, damp, and dank.
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It really needed some fun moments, or at least more of a sense of humor, to break up this bleak mood. Hmm, maybe it was also trying to be Wuthering Heights? I can see this as being really enjoyable and far more convincing on the screen than it is as just words. If you have a problem with that, feel free to unfriend.
I have a motto about most things in life: LK certainly went big in this one. She should have gone home. I can honestly say this is the first time I've ever considered not finishing a story of hers, and I wish I had gone with my gut and not finished it at all. The synopsis, for once, is fairly dead on, so I won't rehash that. It's the story and characters that ruined it for me. Justine is a natural born witch. I should have stopped right there. I don't subscribe to anything about witches be they natural born, white, black, evil, good, don't wanna be witches Even before I became a Christian and before you accuse me of anything - I do read paranormal and erotica - I just don't do witches or demons I had no use for them or desire to read anything about them.
Barring that, Justine is the worst kind of character besides being a witch - she's careless and at one point, even dangerous - because she can't find the time to be thorough. She's not interested in being what she is, but when it suits her, she forges ahead with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop and could have seriously hurt Jason. She dislikes Priscilla for "meddling" when in fact all she was doing was helping her boss. I realize that's a judgment call, but one Priscilla needed to make, not Justine. I think Priscilla had Jason's best interests in mind.
She's also just stupid. I won't beat a dead horse any further. At first I didn't really care for him and disliked him. He seemed dark and morose. Kind of like Christian Bale in the Batman character. When his reasoning was revealed, I could understand why, but really? That's the best you could come up with LK? At least make it something believable! Jason sort of grew on me and by the end of the book I liked him, even if LK did morph his personality into something that didn't fit him.
Justine's two lady friends on the island sorry I've forgotten their names. Is there a reason why they had to be lesbians? Could they not just be longtime friends? That's not a judgement call against lesbians - simply that it wasn't necessary to the story. At one point she is described as being a Stevie Nicks inspired character, with long hair and flowing skirts and wedge heels. That right there made me want to throw my ereader at the wall. The previous books had some woo-woo in them and that didn't bother me. But if this is going to be the direction LK takes, I won't be reading any more in this series.
Though her signature voice is still very much present, she also delves deeper into the paranormal aspect that has sprinkled this series so far. The paranormal element is played up much more since Justine is a witch and belongs to a coven and her mother has cast a spell on that prevents her from ever falling in love. Now, Justine and Jason are facing a curse that once uplifted could cause dire consequences and quite possibly end all their lives. Is experiencing true love worth the risk? Read this review in its entirety at Fresh Fiction View all 30 comments. She is also a reluctant witch.
She discovers that someone put a curse on her that she would never fall in love. Jason Black is a man without a soul but that doesn't mean he has no feelings. A bit strange for me. I liked it but didn't love it. It didn't grabbed me like Lisa Kleypas usually does. It may have something to do with the whole witchcraft s Crystal Cove is the fourth book in Lisa Kleypas' Friday Harbor series.
It may have something to do with the whole witchcraft scene which I'm not a fan of. We got so see Zoe and Alex from the previous book in the series which was neat. Justine was introduced in the previous book too. View all 5 comments. Feb 13, Cat rated it it was ok Shelves: She's one of my few auto-buys, and has been since her days writing historicals. I greatly enjoyed her Texas books, so I know she can write contemporary well, but if I wasn't reading these Friday Harbor novels on my Nook I'd throw them across the room. Crystal Cove is the most maddening entry into the series yet.
Everyone, even characters we'd met before and had their own books, came across as bland, flat, and stock. Please don't get me started on Priscilla and her charming Souther I love Kleypas. Please don't get me started on Priscilla and her charming Southern fried utterly trite way of speaking.
Things that could have been interesting were glossed over, and everything felt sort of rote and half baked and disjointed. The only times that Kleypas seemed back to her old vivid, tightly written self was during the kayak sequence and the sex scenes. At those points everything became vivid, the characters had focus and purpose as opposed to drifting along from point A to B because they were supposed to, and Kleypas seemed to actually be having some fun.
And that's what seems to be missing from all the Friday Harbor books: The entire series reads to me as something she's contractually obligated to get through, and not something she's personally intrigued or entertained by. Kleypas will remain an auto-buy for me going forward, but I'm looking forward to her leaving Friday Harbor. I love the Friday Harbor series. I love the bit of magic woven into every story that made each of these romances so alive and Crystal Cove was a little different than the other three novels in the series in that it was more magical, perhaps even paranormal than the others.
Justine is a bone fide witch. The hero, Jason, has no soul. There are curses and covens and spells. The story felt different because it was more steeped in the supernatural than the others. The story opens with Just I love the Friday Harbor series. The story opens with Justine discovering that a geas or curse has been placed upon so that she'll never find true love.
From there this witch who has pretty much rejected her magical background, starts to casts spells to break the curse. Which she manages, but although she is powerfully attracted to Jason, she's also reluctant to pursue anything with him. And I think that she was also afraid because Jason demanded and Justine wasn't used to feeling, or at least feeling what she did with him.
And then came the betrayal. And from then on we find out just how cursed Justine is and how that curse will affect Jason, a man with no soul. And the more each of them tried to protect the other, the more messed up it becomes. And yet, magic saves the day. I liked that love and magic made it possible for Justine and Jason to be together.
But I was a bit taken aback by how it all happened. I'm still not sure what it means. I've given it some thought, and I've come to the conclusion that they were fated to be, soul mates, but in a very different way than we might except as readers. I actually think that their love story was meant to unfold in precisely the way that it did, as if it was written in the stars. They are not your typical soul mates in short--because how could they be when Jason began this story without a soul? A lovely tale, rich with emotion and elegantly told.
Yes, but not exactly as I'd come to expect from the Friday Harbor series. It's eclectic and much more lyrical, flowing with fantasy and romance. Read more reviews on My Devastating Reads. No es imprescindible como cierre de la saga, ya que los hermanos Nolan ya tienen todos pareja y apenas aparecen en la historia. Jan 09, Mary rated it really liked it Shelves: I really liked this book but it is different from the others in the series so be aware.
Love the heroine but it took me a while to decide if I bought in to the reason she couldn't be with the hero. Yes, it is a farfetched, but if you love a story and it's characters and the author is as skilled as Lisa Kleypas you can suspend a lot more disbelief than usual. There is some hot sex and a real love story. And one of my favorite things? This is just a bit spoilery. The relationship be What to say?
The relationship between the heroine and her mother doesn't have a big, unbelievable, happy resolution.
Some things are unforgivable. Read and be happy, I am.
La chica de los ojos color cafe / Brown Eyed Girl by Lisa Kleypas | theranchhands.com: Books
Apr 14, Geo Marcovici rated it it was amazing. O Vrajitoare si un tip fara suflet Un blestem care poate fi fatal! Apr 07, Mersina Seena rated it really liked it. I just finished Dream Lake and I want this installment. I love that we readers are truly the luckiest people out there in our crazy world that we get to read these magical stories! View all 4 comments. I think I was more disappointed in this book than any other LK one.
And Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor set quite a high or low as it were bar on that one. Let's just make two thing clear: I'm a girl who loves magic. I love it in my books, movies, you name it. I've waited and am still waiting for that late Hogwarts letter and have watched Charmed like a thing possessed. The second thing is: I love Lisa Kleypas. I love the Travises and the Wallflowers and I think she's an amazing wr 2.
I love the Travises and the Wallflowers and I think she's an amazing writer. When magic is done I want the whole thing.
I want the complex world and its history, I want various beings and cultures, or in the case of some steamy PNR, I want a hot werewolf. I don't like this magical realism or whatever this is called. This whole series was skewed for me. Dream Lake and Rainshadow Road managed to somehow work, if not thrill, but here maybe because the magic level was so ambitious it simply failed.
Let me explain the story. She's alone, she's lonely, she has mommy issues. She does the forbidden thing with the grimoire that reverses the curse and, naturally, falls in love with the first guy she meets. Which happens to be Jason Black. But you see, there's an ancient something which makes sure all men a witch loves die pretty quickly. Really, there's not much more to say. He was abused, is ambitious and happens to be lacking the ingredient which would lead him to the afterlife.
And he, by chance, runs into a powerful witch. In any case, a few days, a boom, a bang and a few spells later, they are in love, getting married and problem free. Let's just say all that didn't work for me. The Magic I know I already said it, but it needs repeating. The inclusion of magic felt awkward, forced and weird. Its rules, limitations and place in our world were barely skimmed.
I won't even get into the soulless thing. Plus, I think it played too much of a rule here. It was used to bring our couple together, explained them falling in love, served to drive them apart and then save their lives and whatever. All that kept other things blurry. The Relationship I would've said the characters, since I'm not a big fan of how they turned out either, but they were relatively okay, so All their failings could be seen through their relationship. First of all, I totally understand the desire to pin everything on "Love at first sight" and "Soulmates".
Why bother agonizing to make love believable in pages when we can just say it was "meant to be" and pay attention to other stuff? Not to say there's nothing between Justine and Jason. There were some really good scenes, BUT far less attention was payed to them than they deserved. Than we are used to with LK. I think what makes her unique as a writer is creating really strong, believable characters, pairing them off and having them build something real, despite the troubles and doubts they face.
Here, everything was too fast, they go from not knowing one another to love so quickly. Again, yes, there were conversations, but I ended up not buying it And Jason's behaviour sometimes? I admit I have a weakness for Fictional Men of Ice, but c'mon, he was inconsistent. He, the man of ambition, had an ultimate game plan, and then just Fell in love, but decided to be an ass for her, and not for his end goal. I just have no words. Too unstructured and strange. This wasn't quite it. Nor, again, did it feel right for the characters and their situation and personalities.
Lyricism and Humor Reading LK always makes me feel good. Vincent—the most devilishly wicked rake in England. Before long, Phoebe sets out to seduce the man who has awakened her fiery nature and shown her unimaginable pleasure. Will their overwhelming passion be enough to overcome the obstacles of the past? Most debutantes dream of finding a husband. Lady Pandora Ravenel has different plans. The ambitious young beauty would much rather stay at home and plot out her new board game business than take part in the London Season.
After years of evading marital traps with ease, Gabriel, Lord St. In fact, she wants nothing to do with him. But Gabriel finds the high-spirited Pandora irresistible. But soon she discovers that her entrepreneurial endeavors have accidentally involved her in a dangerous conspiracy—and only her husband can keep her safe. Y desde esa noche no ha vuelto a pronunciar una sola palabra. Solo tienes que quererla. Tres vidas que se encuentran en una encrucijada. Patience, por su parte, no estaba dispuesta a sucumbir a las proposiciones de Vane. Kevin pide a su amigo Sam Nolan que salga con Lucy para relajarla y hacerle superar su rencor.
Account Options Sign in. La cueva de cristal Friday Harbor 4: Lisa Kleypas March 16,