Kind of sappy and predictable
587865
This is the third novel in the Twelve Houses series and my least favorite so far. It's basically about Justin the taciturn king's rider, and his love affair with a convent girl Elynnor.  Justin is sent to spy on Coralinda Gisseltess, a crazed zealot who is using fear and hysteria to track down mystics and kill them... Believing them anethema to her goddess. Justin is sent to spy on her and in the process falls for Ellynor who is from a bizarre insular clannish culture who protect their women to the point of challenging their boyfriends to duels to the death.

....Spoiler Warning.....

I found this novel pretty sappy. Justin is sort of a bland character. His MO is to be stoic, and sarcastic and grumpy and it got old after a while. He is sent to do a job- spy on the lestra, and yet it seems he spends far too much time pining after Elynnor who was likewise a bit of a sue and neglects his duties. There isn't a lot of tension, or surprises in their relationship, and I would've much rather the author dealt with the reason he was sent to the town in the first place- to spy. I also feel in hindsight, it would've made a much better story to have made Ellynor a true follower of the Pale Mother. It would've made the love affair more interesting and intense. Instead Ellynor has her own secrets which took a lot of the potential tension out of the relationship. I'm sure there are some good worshipers of the Silver Lady. It would've been interesting if Ellynor had been one.

I disliked a bit how sue-ish the characters are becoming. No one is more powerful than Cenneth... No one stronger than Tayse.. No one prettier than Kyra etc. It gets a bit dull when the whole troop is filled with people who are the best.  The conflict is likewise pretty black and white. I'm sure Coralinda does good things and mystic do bad things, but you wouldn't think so. I'd like to see the villains and good characters get some more development to make them cardboard and more realistic.

On the positive note, it was nice to see Kyra again, and the rest of the crew, although I was disappointed there was no fallout to the events of the previous book.  The ending was too sappy for my taste and entirely predictable. I was glad it was over, to be honest.

I listened to the unabridged audio edition of the novel, so my apologies if names aren't spelled completely right.
2868366
The scenes about falling in love, being in love, etc. are just not very realistic for the short period of time in the story of acquaintance of the characters. I found this to be a bit sappy. Is this a new author?  I can't fault the setting and she did have most of the historical items pretty good.  However, at one point she described the mountain range "looking east toward the mountains" when actually they had to be to the west.  Having lived in Colorado for nine years I am familiar with the terrain and I assume that this small point was missed by the editors.  I will read the sequel and see if it gets any better.
2490836
I am almost done reading this book, and I found that for the size of the book, not very much has happened.  Although some lovely moments, so much of it was predictable and had me rolling my eyes!  I found the characters to be really annoying, especially Ivan, the invisible friend.  I just couldn't warm to him, and found him to be sappy.  The writing is @

'ok' if that, and it seems to ramble on and on in so many areas.
461381
Meh. Well-written, but just sort of predictable. This one tries to be funny and misses the mark in a few places. I finished it, but won't be checking out the rest of the series.
1946216
I would give this book a two-two and half. Maybe two and a third. Maybe just a two. The story was pretty predictable and the characters were pretty shallow, but the premise was interesting. I found the idea to be interesting but the author never really followed up on some of the more interesting aspects of things. It is mentioned that the Seasonal Spirit People (my name for them) are on Dawn's world to give balance to it, but it's never mentioned why. To be honest, I love anything that has to with winter (my season, lol) and that's a huge bias for me; I'm more likely to rate this higher because of it. There was a lot of inconsistencies occurring in conversations, and people kept acting different that how they were being described as. Sometimes authors do this to show the narrators', or the main character's, own bias; I don't think that's what this author intended, and even if she did, it didn't work very well. Another point against this book is that I really did not like the characters. They were really under-handed at times, (it wasn't all bad, just a bunch of things that kind of made me dislike all of them at least once.), and I felt the love between the two mains to be a little...bland. They declared their loves for each other but I wasn't really feeling it. The writing was a little repetitive, to say the least. Also, there were a LOT of grammar issues. Almost made me stop reading because of the incorrect tenses, (now, I can stand a little mistake here and there, a misspelling or {always, pretty much} an incorrectly used piece of punctuation, but even I cannot stand when the author messes up a tense so much that they make a new word. Think the changing of 'was' {as in 'am'} into something like 'wasses'. Like that. 'I wasses here.', instead of 'I was here.' It actually physically {fisically} hurt me. I'm kidding but it was a shock.) All in all, I have read better and I couldn't recommend this book on a good conscience. Again, just kidding, but not really; I did not like that predictable ending.
4545983
But all in all readable - just. Chick flick thru and thru with some naivety of the genre. There are some issues there that squeeze a tear or two mainly relating to a lost baby and following marriage breakdown but a bit too romantic and sugary with the main character seemingly intelligent young woman in pursuit of an unexpected new career and romance but in so many ways such a silly goose. Her ex husband and a father of the lost baby comes back to town to patch things up and is such a saintly great man yet the silly goose doesn't seem to notice. That he's in love with her and is the best man for her is so obvious to the reader from almost his very first appearance yet the main character holds stubbornly onto her past and looks for love elsewhere. The owner of a charming Edwardian manor sweeps her of her feet - that bit is boring and predictable and barely digestible. Also proves she's not that smart after all, instead of looking at a man's character she's swayed by the superficial. And yes, she's at times schoolgirl antic silly. I gave it a three stars because it will do for a light read and out of respect for the author's better novels.
2702925
I don't want to say it was a bad book. It wasn't but it was highly predictable and typical making it easy to guess what would happen and what would follow. Sure she tried to add some spice and dramatic effects like autism and infertility but made it difficult to feel bad for the characters. An easy light read for the beach I suppose but not a book club read. Ironically
2560297
PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S SPY is a decent enough read. However, overall, I was disappointed. There aren't many surprises in this novel; I was hoping for a bit more twists and turns but instead found it predictable. I was not a fan of the way the narrative jumps around; I'd have preferred not to know who was working with the Nazis before Maggie did. The "mystery" was weak, and there were elements that made me wonder how suitable Maggie was for a spying life because she missed a lot of things. All this I could have lived with, though, had there been depth to this novel. The characters and the relationships were flat. I didn't care about any of them, and I didn't think they cared about each other either, regardless of what they might say. You always hear "Tell, don't show," but I don't think I've seen such a perfect example of WHY you should tell and not show until I read this book. I don't even have much of a handle on Maggie; I had no idea how she felt - except when the narrator informed us that she was "surprised", etc - and she's the main character. Additionally, the historical aspect is not woven into the narrative seamlessly but is more dumped, and it just hardly ever felt like the forties, although I did enjoy the quotes from newspapers/radio/etc that MacNeal included.

I read this book quickly, so it was a pleasant read and honestly, I think it'd make a considerably more enjoyable film. Also, I have not read the first book in this series. It's clear that I missed out on some of the backstory, but I had no problem catching up. Unfortunately, I have no interest in backtracking or continuing on with the series.
1946073
This story is  too drawn out and  redundant.  Most of the plot was predictable. Similar to a Hallmark movie, the women were sappy, trite characters.
3781823
This book was rather simplistic and predictable.  No great plot, no remarkable characters.  Just a simple mostly feel good story.  I enjoyed it but I wouldn't rush out to read another book similar to this one.  I downloaded it for free on my Kindle.  Glad I didn't have to pay for it as I would have been disappointed.
4146355
This story was just ok for me.  I like that the heroine had a sense of humor and some sass, but her backstory was pretty shallow.  I'm the beginning, she seemed super confident in her sexuality, all about not wanting love or commitment, and her reactions to the hero didn't feel believable at all.  It would have been more in character for her to have gone after a sexual relationship with him because she was attracted and knew he wasn't going to stick around, instead of trying to resist the attraction.

I didn't feel like the author really developed the hero at all.  He was just back and forth, more wishy-washy than dominant.  I feel like he would have been more intriguing if the story didn't include his view-point at all, so I'd have been able to wonder about what he was thinking instead of feeling like his thoughts and feelings weren't really supported in the story and his actions didn't really mesh either.  The love scenes were forgettable, with terrible dialogue, like "Yes!, please", and "I'm coming".
2133584
This is really more of a 3.6 rating than a 4.

There really isn't much to say. If you've read a billionaire romance with a poor heroine who needs a hand up in life, you've read this book. There's a nice twist at the beginning with the way the characters meet but after that point it's the completely standard "pretty woman" theme. The main problem with this book isn't that it's formulaic. The problem is that it's too flat. There is really no actual internal or external conflict in the story. After Jaycee and Reed get together, things are pretty much good which can be...boring.

The writing is decent, it's nothing special but the grammar is correct and the book appears to have benefited from editing. The story invokes warm feelings and is cute, there just isn't enough edge to it to really leave an impression.
1548044
This wasn't an exciting read, I'm sad to say. I really was looking forward to reading about what the cast of characters had gotten up to, and while the author tied up their story lines neatly, it was all too predictable. I never felt like anything bad was going to happen because the stakes never felt too high, nor did it feel like there was enough tension for me to believe that something wasn't going to turn out right. I wanted more to go wrong for the characters to have to find their way out of. One of those problems I did like was the coat switcharoo at the party, because it felt like such a silly moment that could happen in real life.

I also noticed more that the author repeats sentences a lot, just wording them differently. There would be a segment of a chapter dedicated to one character's monologue, and they'd say the same thing over again, like Nathan when he met Ellie at the bar. He mentions "given the price of the drinks, it wasn't as if they couldn't afford to pay their electricity bill," then again as he is "enjoying the spectacle of the cocktail-making process (though perhaps you /should/ expect a sh ow at these prices)". I'm not sure why there was so much repetition, because it didn't add anything to the story and I actually found myself skipping over paragraphs waiting for dialogue or action to happen.

As for dialogue, the characters interactions with each other felt more unbelievable and stilted than they did in the first. Almost every pair that was talking to each other (Julie and Sophie, Nathan and Mark, Calum and Nathan, etc) had a knack for trying to finish each other's sentences and then the next piece of dialogue would be what the character would actually say. What I didn't understand was Mary's reactions and actions towards the characters. I think the author was so into trying to stereotype her as an unsavory character for comedic effect that he maybe didn't think of what would be realistic for a grown woman. The part at the party where she formed "a protective fort round the tray with her arms" and shouted "Mine!" and not with a joking attitude was too over the top for me. I didn't mind most of the stereotypes since I've worked in places where people do slot themselves in those roles, but to push it that far was again too much for me.

I enjoyed this book for the fact of getting to see where the characters were heading with the next stages of their lives, but it almost felt like a chore to get through. Do I think this is a great read for lunchtime breaks at work? Yes. Would I read it again? Probably not.
144118
Okay, a little sappy.  A lot of on and off romance which is common to romance novels.  Not overtly Christian, however it is fairly wholesome.
2760601
It was good but very sappy!!! I liked the characters but felt they were too perfect with way over the top mush...I wanted to love the book but I didn't. It's a nice story there are some beautiful moments. But I needed more of an edge. It was some what predictable, except for the end. The beginning and the end were the best parts of the book. I am going to read the second book, maybe it will surprise me....
495913
This book was a quick easy read. But, I can't help but say I found it pretty lame. It was overly predictable and there was little to no drama. It reminds me of one of those cheesy Lifetime movies. And like one of those cheesy lifetime movies, it made for a relaxing fast journey.  I felt no emotions at all reading this, nor did I relate to any of the characters on a personal level at any point in this book. The chemistry between all characters left much to be desired. If you are looking for a book you will remember with clarity on down the road, or reflect back to at some point, this is not the book for you. There was nothing "deep" about this story or the characters. I finished it yesterday and already the character names have slipped my mind. However, if you are looking for a quick read with a touch of Christmas spirit, that doesn't make you tear up, or get all emotional, this is the book for you.
3017134
Just too sappy, too clich, like a Hallmark Xmas movie.  A nice, sweet and sad story, just a little too perfect.  No character development;.