Review: Excuse My Fairy
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 22, 2013
The first thing that attracted me to this book was the title, Excuse My Fairy. I also like the cover and the story premise of a broken fairy sounded fun and interesting. Draybeth (I like that name, too) was banished from her fairy home of Spelza because she is magically "broken". She is now living in Wadestrom where she runs a bar while fighting off the darkness that is growing in her. Bamzar is a realm created for magical beings and is policed by the Lawmen who are called Impassables and not affected by magic. Barrett, Dray's destined mate, is an Impassable.Jivantika (Jiva), Dray's succubus friend, is a fun character and I actually found her to be more interesting than Dray. She is sarcastic and blunt. My favorite lines in the book were usually from Jiva. Dray and Jiva have some good banter at the beginning and she factored into the story quite a bit early on, but then she seemed to disappear about halfway through the story except for one brief reappearance. There seems to be some mystery surrounding Jiva and I wonder if it will be explored more in a future book.The fact that Dray and Barrett are destined mates is revealed to Barrett early in the story without hesitation... thankyouverymuch Jiva! Like I said, she is pretty blunt. The first time Barrett meets Dray he actually stumbles and falls in front of her and I thought that was a cute scene. Dray fights their destiny because it is forbidden as well as complicated because of the "Darkness" that is consuming her. The whole Darkness thing was confusing to me at first, but it's eventually explained...sort of. Barrett seems to quickly and easily accept the whole destined mate thing and it is more Dray's resistance that is the complication.Though I liked the premise of Dray being a broken fairy, it didn't turn out to be what I expected. I thought it would be more quirky, such as any magic she tries goes awry and causes some type of havoc. But it was more like she just doesn't have magic at all and uses parlor tricks to fake it so no one will find out. Her mating magic seemed to be working just fine though ;)Some of the terminology used in this world had a slightly sci-fi feel, such as the "travelator cart" that they used to get around on the "skyway". These more advanced sounding things exist together with more mundane items like metal locks that use a key to open. I thought the world-building could have been better as I didn't really get a good feel for this realm, but I guess it was enough for the story since the focus is more on the romance.The writing style was at times confusing and word choice did not always agree with me and led to some of the confusion. There were also some consistency issues with some scenes and a few things that made me go "huh?"Overall, it was a quick read and enjoyable enough for the escape I look for from a story. I really enjoyed Jiva's character the most and if she ever has her own story, I would give that one a try. I don't think the heat level is as high as the warning in the description makes it seem, so it should appeal to someone who likes a little spice with their romance but nothing excessively explicit or frequent.Quick Quotes (from Jiva, of course!):"Stop succubus slumming, or I'm going to go bat s*** postal on your fairy affliction."~~~"The beast came out. If you don't believe me, wait a few minutes until your memories return, and then you can kiss myass."Word Count: 37,636 (Novella)Kindle Locations: 2039 (story text ends at 96%)Epub Length: 115 pgs (story text ends on pg 108)Print Length:184 pgs (per Etopia Press)124 pgs (per Amazon estimate)Includes Table of Contents(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)