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A review by suzjustsuz
Witching For Grace by Deanna Chase
4.0
4+
This is the first Deanna Chase I've ever read. I went into listening to this book thinking it was Dianna Love (also someone whose work I have not read but have heard positive things about). I'm not sure how I confused that in my head but when I sat down to dig a bit I realized my mistake.
I have to say this is one of the better PWF books I've read so far. I'm loving the genre in general, but stand outs are able to create a story in which the age factor is present but doesn't need to be pointed out all the time. Usually the challenges the protagonists, and even antagonists, are facing seem typical of the sorts of challenges one might expect for the age group. The way the characters respond to said situations also often speaks to the age of the character. I am finding, as I move through more of the PWF genre, that the stories I like best are the ones that allow those elements to speak the loudest about the age of the character/s. It seems to create a sense of fluidity that is easy to sink into and allow yourself to be carried away.
That doesn't mean that there are no overt age related issues in this book. I have to say that Chase does an admirable job of presenting the situation of an older woman dating a younger man for the first time. I empathized with it quite a lot. Chase did an excellent job of developing and addressing that issue without it becoming too maudlin or melodramatic while making sure it still had weight and significance.
This is the first PWF that I've read in which the format for the series seems more like a PNR series, aka one couple per book format. So far all I've read are more typical to UF in that there is a MC and you follow that MC through the series. In this series Chase presents us with a coven of women and each book is about one of the women. Sounds like a romance series, right? Well, it's not that cut and dry, at least not in this book. The entire book read like an urban fantasy book that also had a romance. The romance was a small part of the things happening to the MC.
The epilogue is entirely next-book set-up. The author could have done without it and I would have liked the book just as well, perhaps even more given my feelings about cliff hangers and marketing gimmicks. That said, she didn't leave me feeling like I'd been manipulated. I don't know why, but it didn't.
I liked it well enough that I'm bummed that I have to wait for more audiobooks, even though currently the first three are out with a publishing date of next year for book 4. I am going to await the audiobooks, I think.
This is the first Deanna Chase I've ever read. I went into listening to this book thinking it was Dianna Love (also someone whose work I have not read but have heard positive things about). I'm not sure how I confused that in my head but when I sat down to dig a bit I realized my mistake.
I have to say this is one of the better PWF books I've read so far. I'm loving the genre in general, but stand outs are able to create a story in which the age factor is present but doesn't need to be pointed out all the time. Usually the challenges the protagonists, and even antagonists, are facing seem typical of the sorts of challenges one might expect for the age group. The way the characters respond to said situations also often speaks to the age of the character. I am finding, as I move through more of the PWF genre, that the stories I like best are the ones that allow those elements to speak the loudest about the age of the character/s. It seems to create a sense of fluidity that is easy to sink into and allow yourself to be carried away.
That doesn't mean that there are no overt age related issues in this book. I have to say that Chase does an admirable job of presenting the situation of an older woman dating a younger man for the first time. I empathized with it quite a lot. Chase did an excellent job of developing and addressing that issue without it becoming too maudlin or melodramatic while making sure it still had weight and significance.
This is the first PWF that I've read in which the format for the series seems more like a PNR series, aka one couple per book format. So far all I've read are more typical to UF in that there is a MC and you follow that MC through the series. In this series Chase presents us with a coven of women and each book is about one of the women. Sounds like a romance series, right? Well, it's not that cut and dry, at least not in this book. The entire book read like an urban fantasy book that also had a romance. The romance was a small part of the things happening to the MC.
The epilogue is entirely next-book set-up. The author could have done without it and I would have liked the book just as well, perhaps even more given my feelings about cliff hangers and marketing gimmicks. That said, she didn't leave me feeling like I'd been manipulated. I don't know why, but it didn't.
I liked it well enough that I'm bummed that I have to wait for more audiobooks, even though currently the first three are out with a publishing date of next year for book 4. I am going to await the audiobooks, I think.