Stobie Piel

Blue-Eyed Bandit has been on my reading list for quite some time, and based on good reviews and other things I’d heard about it, I’ve been looking forward to giving it try. I’m happy to report that it didn’t disappoint. It’s a very fun, enjoyable story about Emily, a young woman who eavesdrops on a conversation between Adrian and Cora, a married couple in her book store. They were looking for information on the fate of a man named Darian who lived in the Old West, and whom they act as though they personally knew. After discovering that Darian was hanged as an outlaw, they tell Emily a tale of traveling through time using a mystical whirlwind. She doesn’t really believe them, but the romantic side of herself she thought she’d buried when her former love betrayed her wants to believe. After the couple tells her what a wonderful man Darian was and how he didn’t deserve his fate, Emily allows them to train her for the time jump in hopes of saving his life. When the magic whirlwind dumps her right at Darian’s feet, her first impression of the man is that he’s nothing like what her new friends described. Not to mention, the stubborn man insists upon continuing along the same path despite her dire warnings of what the future will hold. Emily sticks by his side, though, and what she finds is a man who is actually more than he seemed at first glance. She finds herself falling for him, but can she save him?

Emily is a woman who’s nursing a broken heart. The man she thought loved her married her and then walked out of her life without a backward glance within a mere week of the wedding, leaving her devastated. She’d given up on love and romance until a blue-eyed bandit renews her faith in men and reignites her passion. On some level, Emily is definitely the adventurous sort to agree to the harebrained scheme of traveling back in time, when she isn’t even sure she believes it’s possible. Admittedly she doesn’t have the best reasons for going along with the plan, but once she’s there in the Old West, she throws all her energy into trying to save Darian, who in some ways, is his own worst enemy. The more she falls for him, the more determined she is to keep him alive at all costs. When they first meet, Emily is a little prickly toward Darian, finding him irritating, when I thought he was rather charming. But luckily it doesn’t take too long for her to warm up to him, and once she does, she turns her ire toward more worthy subjects. I really like how, with Darian, Emily is able to open her heart once more to the magic of love and find healing in his arms, along with a more daring and passionate side to her personality.

I loved Darian almost from the minute he appeared on the page. He’s a born leader who was given command of a regiment of soldiers in the Civil War at the tender age of eighteen, but he proved himself more than worthy of men following him. That’s why when he discovered that one of the generals over him was corrupt and decided to mutiny, a small group of his loyal men went with him. Ever since, they’ve been traveling around Arizona, looking for proof of the general’s perfidy in order to clear their own names of the mutiny charges, while inadvertently getting themselves into trouble and earning the name outlaws. I adored Darian for being the absolute perfect gentleman in all circumstances, even when holding up a stagecoach. It made for some genuinely funny moments, while at the same time, being utterly sweet and charming. One of the reasons I was so looking forward to this book is that I’d heard Darian was one of the rare virgin heroes in romance, which I typically love. At first, he’s actually something of a prude, but it gradually becomes clear that he harbors a deeply passionate side. He just needed the right woman to unleash it. That’s part of why I enjoy virgin heroes so much. When written well, they exhibit an innocent enthusiasm for bedroom activities that can be very romantic and appealing, as well as sexy, which was something Darian certainly possessed. What I loved most, though, is his sense of honor. For him, his entire mission is all about restoring honor to himself and his men. There’s just something about a genuinely honorable man that is extremely attractive and utterly sexy to me.

Overall, Blue-Eyed Bandit was a joy to read. It’s light-hearted and funny, but at the same time, there’s a deeply emotional side to the story. It’s very well-plotted, and aside from a few odd words choices that could have been smoothed out, it was well-written, too. Darian and Emily’s falling in love and marrying comes about perhaps just a tad too quickly, but in general, I was OK with it, since the emotional connection between them was definitely there, especially as the story progressed. The love scenes were completely perfect with just the right amount of steam. I adored Darian as the hero, and once Emily got over her prickly phase, I really liked her, as well. Darian’s men were a great group of guys who I liked a lot, too, and the townspeople of Tucson brought even more life to the story. Having the book set in my home-state of Arizona was the icing on the cake. Before reading Blue-Eyed Bandit, I didn’t know it was connected to another of Stobie Piel’s stories. While reading the advertising blurbs in the back of the book, I discovered that Adrian and Cora’s story is told in Free Falling, which actually comes first in this untitled series, and Darian plays a role in it. I’m not sure what happened to Ms. Piel, as she seems to have dropped off the radar more than a decade ago, but after a great reading experience with this book, I’m very much looking forward to reading Free Falling and checking out more of her work.… (mer)

I'm pretty sure this book has every fantasy cliché on record and a score of romance clichés as well (seriously, there's a scene with a ripped bodice). The way it's all written, though, makes the clichés entertainingly cheesy enough that I enjoyed them. While the world-building is all fantasy genre, the character interactions all belong to the romance genre. The romance between Cahira and Aren is very sweet and tender, with little-to-no angst or drama.

However, the identity of the Big Bad is so overwhelmingly obvious, it becomes very irritating that no one seems to recognize it. Well, they say things like "X means well so I'll put up with the gloom and depression that fills me every time I'm in X's company", but Cahira still doesn't pick up on the identity of the betrayer she's been warned about. (It's even worse if you've read the author's other books, because the Big Bad is pretty much the same person in all of them.)

Flaws aside, if you're looking for a light, pleasant, slight-goofy read, this might hit the spot.… (mer)

Eliana Daere is a skilled herbalist with a magical intuition about which herbs to use and when. She's also impetuous, proud, and prone to magical retaliation to perceived attacks--they take the form of pranks, though, rather than death or dismemberment. Damir ap Kora is a sorcerer, arrogant, self-assured, and responsible for the magical protection of the Woodland.They have spent their whole lives, from their time learning magic under the tutelage of the wizard Madawc, both competing against and unwillingly longing for each other.

Start of the first scene: Eliana plans to be-spell Damir for her own, unspoken reasons. Unfortunately for her plans, she ends up swallowing the potion instead -- losing her memory in the process. Damir declares to the amnesiac Eliana that they are in fact man and wife, hoping to gain revenge on her before she regains her memory. However, as they start a new relationship, this time without their mental swords and shields, they gain a new perspective on each other. They learn to be sweet to each other, while gaining a new appreciation for the spice in their old relationship.

Meanwhile, the feared Norskmen, under the control of an ancient, imprisoned Dark Mage, plot to overthrow the Woodland kingdom and Eliana has repeated visions featuring an unknown young man and a coming wave of evil.

There were a few continuity errors and the story kind of went off the rails a bit during the final battle scene, but overall it was a fun ride. It's very much a romance novel in character interactions, but the world building is definitely taken from the fantasy genre--I'm not sure how much you would enjoy this story if you don't like both genres. When I first finished the book, I had no particular desire to read to the second part of the story (in Prince of Ice--different protagonists, same Big Bad), but now that it's had time to percolate in my brain a bit, I think I will hunt it down.… (mer)

Captured and delivered to a mining planet populated by young slaves who lack a spoken language or knowledge of any other kind of life, Aliana vows to escape. She soon finds herself mated to the young leader of this slave group. Despite not sharing a language, the two begin to care for each other. Months pass, and when finally Aliana is able to escape, she is distraught when her lover dies in the escape... or so she thinks. At this point we're done with the first part of a six part book.

In the second part, Aliana and her lover are reunited, but by this point several years have passed and they have to get to know each other again, this time in a very different context. It doesn't help matters that Aliana is the daughter of the head of the Intergalactic Council and her lover is the leader of a band of pirates.

I liked this story I think because it was a nice mix of grounded characters and kind of cheesy scenarios. I also liked that the tone was really sweet (not cavity-inducing, but nice). The villain is pretty easy to identify, and I was annoyed that young-Aliana couldn't see though her, but with age comes wisdom, right?

All in all, a good story. I'm glad I finally dragged it out if my TBR pile.… (mer)