I love Abigail Reynolds, but..
925750
I have adored all the Pemberley variations by Ms. Reynolds but this has been my least favorite thus far.  It's too quick, Darcy is too pushy, not enough tension between Darcy and Lizzie, but plenty of everyone else not wanting the match (Mrs. Bennett naturally excluded). I do love the idea of Darcy moving more quickly to right his wrongs after his disastrous proposal, and I do love the family tension.  I do not like the premarital sex, although I do enjoy the sex scenes in general.

It is an enjoyable read for sure, but somewhat anti climatic.  There are truly some fabulous elements to the story.  If I can offer my opinion, I would have loved to see the wedding proceed smoothly with proper propriety and as a couple win the family members over.  I would have adored for the Fitzwilliams and Georgiana to be more deeply developed and possibly some sort of crisis allowing Elizabeth and Darcy as a team  to shine to all their relations.  Maybe this petulant Georgiana would be the root..
2194656
I love this series and just completed the last three back to back.  But,  I'm begging you,  stop using deadpanned everywhere.  I can't even count how many times I've read it in 4 days.  It is unnecessary.  Anyone reading your books,  is doing it for the sarcasm.  We fully understand that the characters are being sarcastic and to read Thistle deadpanned, Landon deadpanned, Aunt Tillie deadpanned, is frankly making me want to stop reading.  Otherwise,  I LOVE your stories.  Sadly,  that is nearly enough to drive me away at this point.  Book 8 had me to the point that I was actually almost afraid to turn the page and see deadpanned yet again.
1325822
Although the character of Abigail Adams remains endearing, this entry in the series is not as engrossing as the previous two.

One reason for this might be because most of the events take place in Cambridge rather than in Boston.
Another could be the loss of the British officer Jeremy Coldstone, who was in the previous books and made a much more interesting sidekick for Abigail than her nephew Horace.

Hopefully, he'll be back in future books!
3697149
I loooove this book, Ive reread it several times. I just don't like her epilogue, I believe we as fans pressured her too much to finish it. Also, in the epilogue I wish she told us way more detail on what happened to each character. I know she has pottermore now and uses that to explain characters but I just wish she explained more in the book and also went into more detail about what happened after the battle of Hogwarts and the emotions that entailed that major event.
4926044
There were so many avenues to explore here. Court intrigue, the drug and the effects on humans vs. Fae, the relationship with her father and friends, etc. But it feels the same. For $8 we see Alex running around tired all the time, being propped up by a guy, and harrased by mean old women. Then of course, she is still torn between Falin and Death while not one but TWO other men want to marry her. Winter, and Shadow suitors. I'm getting weary of Alex, a strong witch and planeweaver being the constant damsel in distress who can't seem to ever do her own shopping or even laundry. I feel bad for her dog. She seems unable to care for herself, how is she managing to care for a little dog when she goes blind or passes out all the time. Oh, and is only eating when a man cooks for her or takes her to Bloom. It is a real waste of a very strong potential character. She's been reduced to a damsel who needs recusing from the mean insane fae, or the mean insane fae males.

It's been done. To death. I'm tired. About as tired as she seems to be. So now, she gets her independence but for saving the court of winter, oh just a year.

I wonder what Caleb did to get his.

But I won't continue to read. I think I can finish it a better way in my imagination rather than pay someone to write about a good strong woman who is weakening. Not fading, just weak.
2633089
I love the Rylee Adamson series with one exception, the F word is used too much and detracts from the story. It's as if Miss Mayer is trying to get it in her story, I suppose because someone has told her " that's what sell books". I beg to differ with " said" people. I owned a new and used book store for 22 years and the main complaint I got was about the unnecessary swearing, with the F word leading the complaints.
2594204
I absolutely love this series but felt that Season Two/Part Two was poorly written. The cast was too talented for the lame material provided to them. The episode where Abby neglected the feelings of Susan and husband, Tom, while galavanting off with Susan's bf (whom she generously offered to help with a statistical report), turned me off to her character. Instead of recognizing how awful she'd been, she threw a hissy fit and guilted the Bradfords. Made me miss the original mother, who'd unfortunetly, passed away in real life! Later seasons were much better.
4541979
...but that said, she falls short of creating great fiction.  Her male love interests for her characters in her books are fiction indeed and the reader is painfully aware that a woman is describing a fantasy man: overly solicitous with unbelievable dialogue.  I've found her works to be so close to being good, both the premises and the characters, but in the end Ms. Picoult doesn't either do the extra work or have the chops to write anything more than a page turner.  "Plain Truth" is an enjoyable page turner and her research about and presentation of the Amish way of life is instructive and in context.  A writer with more restraint would have had Ellie, the big city lawyer who is forced to live with an Amish family due to bail conditions, behaving with a little more restraint in the beginning.  For a woman paid to weigh her words, the lawyer never did.  And while so many people have referred to the surprise ending they never saw coming, the clues are there and obvious.  Perhaps if this had been my first Picoult novel I would not have picked up on them either, but since I had read "Salem Falls" previously, I felt like I had Picoult's formula down and the ending was what I had expected it to be.  This was a good summer read, but it never lived up to its potential to be a great book.
3042567
Abigail Reynolds is, in my opinion, one of the finest author's of P&P variations around. Unfortunately, By Force of Instinct, did not live up to my expectations. Around two thirds of the way through the characters became almost completely out of character, to the point of being almost unrecognisable. Before that, the premise of the story showed some potential, but the ending was, for me, unsatisfactory. In saying that, it was worth reading if only for the sheer romance of some of Darcy's actions towards Elizabeth (absolutely melt your heart and sigh moments), but I would recommend reading other works of Reynolds before this one.
4386304
I want to cry in desperation. I thought the follow up to Blow fly would somehow redeem the Scarpetta series but I was grossly mistaken. Trace is worst. What's wrong with Lucy? I thought it would be her and Nic but now she has a psycho for a girlfriend. How could someone as smart as her could do the most stupid of things? What was Cornwell thinking when she was writing Trace? I used to be proud of having read her novels but now I'm no longer sure she still has the gift of  good writing. All of the characters I've grown to love since reading Postmortem are so different now that I just feel depressed reading about them.
4507146
I started out loving this series, and I still like some of the elements.  Strong, sexy, flawed heroes and unconventional heroines are a favorite trope of mine.  But a barrister of gentle birth marrying the governess is enough of a stretch without having to also suspend belief in the matter of her Cockney background (which was both unbelievable and inconsistent - No Cockney of the Regency Era would be well-educated enough to instruct the children of the working class, let alone the gentry).  That said, I liked Bertie, and since I read for escapism, I just decided to go with it.  But this book did not have the resonance of either of the other McBride books in the series, nor the brilliance of the Mackenzie books, especially the first one.  Lord Ian is still my favorite, and the best parts of the book were where he and Bertie connected.
1214903
I absolutely loved the first two books and This is one of my favorite series, so I was dying to read this book. Unfortunately there was one thing that bothered me so much that I could hardly enjoy the story: AURORA'S CLUMSINESS.

THEY SAY THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.... Aurora always meant well, she always wanted to help, but there was NEVER a time when her plans were actually well executed, not once!!! she would always tripped, fall, miscalculated, misunderstood and so on. Seriously, her clumsiness was just too much, it wasn't even funny anymore, three books into the series and other than the fighting skills (affected by her clumsiness as well), I did not see any growth or improvement in her character and that killed me, because she used to be one of my favorite heroines.

Now, I still liked the book, I still loved the ensemble of characters and the witty dialogue. The hex boys were the hex boys, which is to say they were amazing as always and I loved Cristiano and all the new characters. I will be reading the next book and hoping to see some kick-ass-Aurora, an efficient heroine who can get things done!
4757914
This is the first of the series that I've picked up, and though I liked it well enough, I have one serious problem with it:

I hate having to have read all the books previously in a series to get what's going on!

Now, I understand that in a series, there are a few things you can take for granted, and things that can be referred to, as well. However, as I depend on my library for most of my reading material, I can't always pick up the first 15 books in a series to decide whether or not I like them.

There's no real explanation of why the protagonist is a bad you-know-what. There are mentions of his mother, but the author assumes that you're just going to know what it's all about. Same with some of the bad guys. What's a jonah? Why is a jonah to be feared? Some of the questions I had I sort of figured out, but I finished the book with more questions than I had answers.

If this were just an installment of a serial story, fine, I could  understand the gaps, but it's supposed to be a stand-alone book -  part of a series, but definately a book in its own right.

If I come across other books in the series, I may indeed pick them up, but I was sufficiently annoyed by this book that I probably won't go out of my way to find the others.

Bottom line: If you're familiar with the series, it'll probably be a great read. If you aren't, it might not be that great.
3588148
I love the trend towards Female Protagonist/Heroes.  I hate that many of them seem to like to physically fight with their love interest.  What the heck?  Why is this a 'thing' recently?  A man should not hit/slug/batter his love interest - and no woman should do the same.  It's distressing.  "I love him so much and I HATE him therefore we fight - not only with fists but with cudgels!!  Or whatever is at hand"  What a disgusting trope.  Why not fight the antagonists side by side and leave the tension building to verbal sparring.  Good heavens I'm tired of this trend.  And sadly it always seems like this tired trope is perpetuated by female authors.  *sigh*  Otherwise this book and the series are good.  But this thing ruins it for me.
4809948
While I loved the first two in the series, the main character takes a weird behavioral turn.  She almost seems bi-polar with her extremes of I love you/ I want a divorce.  Valentine used to be sensible and down to earth, but now she reads like a emotional high school girl.  Only two-thirds done and frankly I'm sick of listening to her temper tantrums (Audio book version)
3543632
2.5

Sadly, I didn't like this book as much as I was hoping to.  The idea was great, but I don't know that it was executed well.

I really wanted to like Abigail.  She definitely got the short end of the stick with her marriage, but she constantly acts like a child.  She argues with her parents when all they are trying to do is help.  It just rubbed me the wrong way. Shes also very repetitive, and that drove me nuts.

She did grow throughout the novel.  I admired that she started to figure out what she wanted for herself, and realized that maybe she wasn't all that happy with the way her life was before. I did like that her world revolved around her daughter.  Although, I think that at times that was also what was holding her back.

Like I said before, I think the idea was good.  But I think it could have been done a little bit better.

On to the Narrator

I am not a fan of this book as an audiobook.  I think it would be better with actually reading the book.  It doesnt mesh well with the flow of the story.  Seems disjointed at times.  I don't think this one works well in audio.  Its more of a journal, and even though it would be possible to do audio with this type of book.  I think the random entries in the diet journal are what throw off the narration.  There are areas in the dialogue where she lists what she ate and what she does as exercise.  These are the parts that don't blend well.  There isn't really a format in these.  Its just listed throughout the day.

The narrator did a good job as far as reading goes.  She has a strong voice, and puts inflection where it needs to be added.  The best places where this happened is when shes being sarcastic about the situation.  Some of the characters couldn't be distinguished very well, but I was able to pick up who was speaking after a few words.  There were no background sounds.  The only other thing that I think would have been better is if there were small spaces of silence between one scene and the next.  They all just seem to blend in together.

Overall, the narrator did a good job, I just think this one would be better in physical format.
461147
I really love what Abigail R. Gehring does in general when it comes to her lifestyle, but her books seem to all be rehashes of one another. I bought a few of her books, and feel pretty ripped off... You really only need to buy her first book, as all of the rest of them are derivatives of it.  She just got clever by changing the titles and putting on new photos.  And the crafts, recipes, and many ideas feel so "80's" that there is no way I would execute most of the ideas they appeared so stale. I would seriously pass on these books if one is looking for a true country living or homesteading experience.