TEST
This is the third product of the Mayer/Cruise collaboration, one that has been very hit or miss for the existing fans of Ms. Cruise’s early romance works. Personally, I liked but didn’t love Don’t Look Down. I gave them a second chance and adored Agnes and the Hitman. This newest book was fine but not good, definitely more like DLD than Agnes.
Mary Alice Brannigan (called Mab by her friends, of which she has precious few) restores things to their original beauty. Her cousin Ray hires her to renovate Dreamland, an old amusement park he has invested in, and she is thrilled and delighted to work on an amusement park built in the early 1900’s. The loving descriptions of the park rides and decorations show that the authors too had fallen in love with this type of art.
She is working late one night, not really watching where she is walking, when she runs smack into the front gate clown she has recently lovingly restored. Funfun reaches down to help her up, calls her by name and then walks off when others come to help Mab. Mab can’t help thinking how moving will destroy all the work she did on the clown – those lips were never meant to do anything but bend up in a smile. They were for sure never meant to talk! Glenda and Delpha, the park manager and fortune teller, assure her that that is the least of her worries. After all, hallucinating after falling down can’t be good.
Mab’s injury isn’t the only excitement that night. Ethan John Wayne, Glenda’s son, has come home to die. The sole survivor of his unit’s nasty encounter with the Taliban, Ethan has an un-removable bullet slowly working it’s way toward his heart. So imagine his surprise when he gets shot his first night home! Walking clowns, ninja assassins – what kind of amusement park is his mother running?
Her explanation leaves a lot to be desired. Dreamland is actually a prison for five demon Untouchables. And the reason he survived the Taliban attack is so that he can become one of the elite prison guards of the park, The Guardia. As Mab and Ethan slowly try to come to terms with the idea of a whole supernatural world they never believed in, they run into a wild array of magical beings who turn their lives upside down. Can Mab find love with the mysterious Joe? Can Ethan find love with the mysterious government agent investigating his park?
The whole concept of this book was not well thought out. For example, the keys to the demons prisons are actually pieces of the rides. In other words, the dragon roller coaster has to be missing an eye for the demon to stay imprisoned. Does that make any sense? The park has to have a run down appearance in order for the demons to stay locked up, but the Guardia whine about how the park has to stay open for them to have money to run the prison. This could be a personal issue, but a run down amusement park frightens me. I can’t help thinking that if they don’t have the money for cosmetics, they might not have the money for needed repairs.
That wasn’t the only way in which the whole amusement park as demon prison thing didn’t work. Suffice it to say that this is one of those paranormals that doesn’t try to explain its world, you just have to accept it and go along for the ride.
There were issues beyond the problems in the paranormal setup. Character consistency seemed to be a minor problem also. Towards the end of the book one of the characters does something so TSTL I almost choked on my tea. Had another of the characters done this it would have been understandable but that that particular one did was just poor writing.
I do have one spoilerish warning: Mab goes through two true loves in the course of this book. I know for some people shifting to a second love interest at the halfway mark of the book can be a hot button so I felt I should put that warning out there.
Overall, it wasn’t a terrible book. It contained lots of signature Cruise elements – zany family, plucky heroine, crazy situations – but the plot was so over the top on this that it tipped it toward complete farce territory (and not in a fun way.)
The book just didn’t work for me. It was a fun, light, mindless read but I guess I was looking for a tad more.
Grade: C-
Book Type: Paranormal Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 05/04/10
Publication Date: 2010
I've been an avid reader since 2nd grade and discovered romance when my cousin lent me Lord of La Pampa by Kay Thorpe in 7th grade. I currently read approximately 150 books a year, comprised of a mix of Young Adult, romance, mystery, women's fiction, and science fiction/fantasy.
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.