Review: Good story!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 21, 2014
Jumping in Puddles is a straight romance novel, I do read a few of those! The new book Barbara Elsborg has released, Bloodline, is a gay romance novel and follows one of the characters from Jumping in Puddles. I am reviewing both.Wow. Jago is a mess! His life has fallen apart,  along with the nasty old mansion he’s responsible for. His father ran the family estate in to the ground, then had the nerve to die, along with Jago’s mother. His drug addict brother continued to destroy the old place, spending money and selling items, until Jago goes home and discovered what was happening. He ships his brother off to South America, quites his job and moves back home. He doesn’t understand what compels him to try and save Sharwood Hall, but every time he decides to sell it something bad happens and he changes his mind. The only thing good going for him is Henry, the caretaker of Sharwood Hall. Jago gets a letter from his brother and has reached the end of his rope about the time Ellie shows up…Ellie and her family are faeries that due to an ancestor losing a collection of jewelry called the kewen, they have banned from their homeland and are stuck in this realm. The first child of each generation has to spend 50 years searching for the jewelry. It’s Ellie’s turn now. Ellie repairs jewelry for a living and keeps an eye out for pieces that are part of this missing collection. She sees a ring at an auction that is part of the jewelry, learns were it came from and heads on out to Sharwood Hall, where the ring came from, to see what’s what. Ellie show up on Jago’s doorstep in time to see him lose what little grasp on his sanity he has. She realizes he’s the potential love of her life, and has a moment of panic. Jago acts like a jackass, and takes off. Ellie settles in with Henry, and begins to work.That is the set up to get our two main characters together. And where I began to have issues with the plot. There may be some spoilerish stuff here… So Ellie wants access to Sharwood and sent Henry a flyer advertising herself as a life coach. Henry calls her, she convinces him to invite her up, and she offers to help Jago for no money, only asking for a reference. She moves in with Henry and takes over Jago’s life. Finding people to do free work on his house, setting up this whole open garden thing with no money invested and all sorts of help donated, all while sneaking around the house looking for jewelry. Jago and Henry occasionally question things, but not seriously enough, and she keeps at it. All while sleeping with Jago. She also uses her faerie powers, and no one question’s that either. Jago notices, but never seems to really think it’s odd that she does these things. Eventually it all falls apart, as you know it is going to, but it does have a good ending. I know this is a fantasy novel, but I had a really hard time accepting this plot for probably the first half of the book. As I continued to read, I relaxed, suspended my belief in reality, let go of my issues and did enjoy the book.Overall it was a good book. The plot was goofy, but quick and fun, the sex between Jago and Ellie was hot and flirty, and I liked the additional characters. The background stories of both Jago and Ellie were interesting. The ending was very nice, although what occurs in the epilogue was so very predictable. The writing was good, clever dialogue, a quick moving plot, good characters, and good sex. I liked it!A copy of this book was provided in exchange for an honest review. The original review posted at [...]