Book Review: Flirting With Fate, by J.C. Cervantes

I accepted a copy of J.C. Cervantes‘ Flirting With Fate for review, as part of it’s blog tour with Literary Bound Tours.

Ava Granados will never forgive herself for being late to her beloved nana’s deathbed. But due to a flash flood that left Ava in a fender bender with a mysterious boy, she missed her grandmother’s mystical blessing— one that has been passed between the women of her family upon death for generations. Then Nana’s ghost appears with a challenge from beyond the grave. As it turns out, Nana did give Ava a blessing, but it missed its target, landing with the boy from the night of the storm instead. Was it fate? Ava refuses to believe so.

With the help of her sisters and Nana’s rather bumbling spiritual guide, she’s determined to reclaim her share of the family magic and set Nana free. For guarded Ava, befriending some random boy is the last thing she wants to do. She’s gotten along just fine protecting her heart— keeping people at a distance is a great way to ensure no one ever hurts you. But as Ava embarks on her mission to retrieve the lost blessing, she starts to wonder if getting close to thunderstorm boy is worth the risk.

my review

This was a super sweet, low drama, young adult fantasy romance (probably closer to magical realism, honestly). True, the whole grandma can’t remember the details, but we have to do X, Y, and Z to succeed felt contrived. But not so much it ruined the story. I loved how solid the sisters’ faith in one another was. I appreciate that the different families had different, though equally valid responses to the trauma of lost family. (Though I 100% didn’t believe Achilles sudden 180° personality shift, even if it was explained.) I liked the way the older generation described fate, and that the book started out from fate’s perspective. The writing was clean and easy to read and the whole thing wrapped up satisfactorily. YA isn’t my go-to genre, but I still very much enjoyed this.

flirting with fate photo

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REVIEW: Flirting with Fate by J.C. Cervantes

Book Review: Tin Cat, by Misa Buckley

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I accepted a review copy of Tin Cat (by Misa Buckley) through Lucy Turns Pages.

A year after the accident that put her in a wheelchair, Amber Gerald has more or less gotten used to living with her impairment. It doesn’t make a difference to running a comic book store anyway, and the customers have been the best support group she could have wished for.

When she rescues an abandoned cat, Amber has no idea that she’s interfering in the mad scheme of a time travelling bank robber. Or that the man that walks into her store dressed like Blade is about to become her bodyguard.

Between being an unwitting owner of an android cat and falling for a cybernetic bounty hunter, Amber finds her life a whole new level of weird as science fiction becomes a very real factual threat.

Do I want to start with the good or the bad? It’s a legitimate question because this book has both. I’ll start with the fact that I really liked the characters. The writing is easy and pleasant to read and the editing seems fairly clean. There are quite a few fun little geeky references. As far as I can tell (as a non-wheelchair user) the disability representation seems pretty good. At the very least, Buckley didn’t commit any of the big faux pas I keep on a lookout for. Plus, there is actual on-page sex between the two main characters. I feel like people who live with disabilities don’t often get to see themselves having the sexy times in books. So, I was thrilled by this.

On the other side of the coin is the fact that everything moves far too quickly. And I don’t even just mean the insta-lust/love. I mean that the plot moves too quickly for the reader to become attached to and/or care about the well-being of the character.The result was that I made to the end of the book without too many complaints, but also with a shrug.

And then there is the cover. It’s just not very good, IMO. Oddly, I’ve seen an older cover and think it’s better (though still a little too DIY to be called good). And—yes, this is a small thing but I am unreasonably annoyed by it—Cat is described as a tabby cat ON PAGE ONE. So, why is there a solid black cat on the cover ?

All in all, I’d call this a middle of the road read for me. It wasn’t bad, but I probably won’t remember it by next week. But I’d read another Buckley book.