Rhoda Baxter's Blog, page 20

Book review: End of Magic by Mark Stay

The End of Magic by Mark Stay My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up because I’ve been listening to the Bestseller Experiment Mark Stay (and Mark Desveaux) does. I’ve been meaning to read it for a while. I figured that if I can listen to him talk for so many hours, I’d be fine reading a book written in his voice. I was right.

This is unusual take on the usual fantasy trope in that this is a story about coming to terms with the loss of powers, rather than people coming into their powers.
Sander Bree is...

A Convenient Marriage – the book that took 17 years to get to you

A Convenient Marriage is published by Hera Books today. This book was about seventeen years in the making. I wrote a Twitter thread on it a few weeks ago, which people seemed to like, so I’ve expanded on it here.

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Every writing career starts with one big idea. My big idea was about an arranged marriage between two people who would never be able to fall in love with each other. I had the idea in my early twenties, when my friends from Sri Lanka were getting married and a friend from Oxford told me...

Blog Splash for #AConvenientMarriage

A Convenient Marriage by my alter ego Jeevani Charika is released on Thursday and, in order to celebrate, a few of my author friends are joining me in a blog splash.

We are blogging around three main prompts. Since I set them, it’s only fair that I answer all three:

1.       Both Chaya and Gimhana make huge decisions in their lives to please their families. What’s the strangest thing you’ve done because of your family? …

This was really hard. It’s not strange, as such, but one thing I did was study science. I was good at English an...

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Cover Reveal for A Convenient Marriage

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My new book A Convenient Marriage (written as Jeevani Charika) is coming out on the 14th of November. I started writing this book in 2002/2003. It’s taken a long time to get to this point, so I’m very excited about it.

Here’s the blurb:

It was the perfect marriage… until they fell in love.

Chaya is a young woman torn between her duty to family and her life in the UK. While her traditional Sri Lankan parents want her to settle down into marriage, what they don’t know is that Chaya has turned away the o...

One Night In Shining Armour – new short story

Last year, while I was in the midst of writing A Convenient Marriage (more on that soon, I promise), I decided I needed a break, so I wrote a very silly short story about a hero who was shorter than the heroine. It’s a friends to lovers story which involves an office costume party, a wardrobe malfunction and some truly terrible knight puns.

An early reviewer called it a ‘romance canape’. I like that description.

[image error] One Night In Shining Armour

If you want to check it out it’s 99p at all good eb...

Book Review: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this book up because a friend of mine kept going on about it.
Four genius women invent time travel. The travelling triggers a breakdown in one of them, so she is excluded from the time travel. The other three go on to develop a huge organisation called the Conclave.
The Conclave has its own laws, its own way of dealing with currency and its own conventions.
In the present day, someone in found murdered in a loc...

Review: A Question of Us by Mary Jayne Baker

A Question of Us by Mary Jayne Baker

Clarrie and Simon have been best friends since primary school. Clarrie doesn’t particularly want to grow up. Simon … well, Simon keeps asking Clarrie out. She keeps saying no. It’s a long running joke between them. Isn’t it?

This book revolves around a pub quiz league and a group of quiz enthusiasts who are almost, but not quite, grown up. I loved the banter between the friends. I spent my mid teens in West Yorkshire and this is exactly the way my friends...

Book review: The Mysterious Stranger by Ainslie Paton

The Mysterious Stranger by Ainslie Paton

I had already read One Night Wife and when I heard that Rory was getting her own happy ending, I knew I had to rush out and read this. I begged an ARC off the author. (She was looking for readers, I didn’t just accost her in the street).

After she screwed up the last project, Rory is keen to prove herself again. This time she’s working with her lifelong best friend Zeke and they’re going to infiltrate a doomsday cult! Rory adores Zeke, but he’s strictl...

Book review: The Love Solution by Ashley Croft

The Love Solution by Ashley Croft

A book set (partly) in a biochem lab – I’m up for that.

Molly and Sarah are sisters. Molly is a scientist, working on a thing that can help two people fall in love (possibly). Sarah is a jewellery maker who makes tiaras, who has just found out she’s pregnant.

There are two romances in the story. Molly and her grumpy boss Ewan … and Sarah with her love triangle. Molly is a little prickly, but I liked her scenes. Ewan running hot and cold on her was frustrating...

Book Review: Tiny House, Big Love by Olivia Dade

Tiny House, Big Love by Olivia Dade

This book is a little explosion of delight. Open hearted Lucy is looking for a tiny home that fits within her budget. To make matters more intense, she’s doing it on screen as part of a reality TV show about tiny houses. Helping her with her choice is Sebastian, her best friend.
Where Lucy is open hearted and generous with her feelings, Sebastian has learned to keep his feelings closed off. He adores her, but he can’t bring himself to tell her. When he doe...