The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne, narrated by Emily Rankin

Story 4 of 5 stars

Heat 2 of 5 stars

Main character – Helena Pelletier

Listened to audio narrated well by Emily Rankin.

Helena Pelletier is a married mother of two little girls. She has tried to walk away from her past but when her father escapes prison, she will need all the skills he taught her to protect herself and her family.

Helena’s father kidnapped and raped her fourteen-year-old mother twenty years ago. She was raised in captivity in the marshlands, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Taught to hunt and track and revere Indian ways, she knew nothing about the horrors her mother endured. She loved her father, even when he put her in a well for misbehavior.

Dionne has Helena tell us her own story. We relive Helena’s thoughts and feelings as she tells her story of a daughter who loves a father, who is also a monster. As she tells the story of her father and how she came to realize the truth about him, she also looks at the person he shaped her to be. Weaving in past and present, making parallels with Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale – ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter,’ she was told as a child. Helena isn’t always likeable, she’s a complicated woman, with a complicated background.

I thought it was a very engaging read, with the right blend of graphic realism that felt authentic, while also conveying a child’s wonder of the world as taught by her father. I’m curious if the movie can do this book justice.

For more of my reviews follow my blog at https://wyldheartreads.wordpress.com/

If you prefer to listen to my reviews, you can find some of my reviews on Spotify here: https://anchor.fm/wyldheart-reads

#wyldheartreads @wyldheartreads #romancereads #booksofinstagram #romancebooksofig #igreads #lovestory #bibliophile #bookstagram #romanceaddict

#TheMarshKingsDaughter #KarenDionne #EmilyRankin #audiobooks #thrillerreads #FictionReads

Emerald Blaze by Ilona Andrews, narrated by Emily Rankin

Story 4 of 5 stars

Heat 4 of 5 stars

Series – Hidden Legacy

Main Characters – Alessandro Sagredo/Catalina Baylor, Arabella Baylor, Penelope Baylore, Grandma Frida, Runa Etterson, Bern Baylor, Leon Baylor

Listened to audio narrated well by Emily Rankin. She sets a good pace, and brings characters to life with distinct voices.

Catalina Baylor is a Prime and the head of her house. When her family and friends come under attack, Alessandro Sagredo comes back into her life to protect her.

Alessandro Sagredo is a Prime, and is known as a playboy and lesser known as an assassin for hire. He burned Catalina pretty badly in the previous book, but he’s changed some and he’s looking to make things right with Catalina.

Hidden Legacy has a diverse cast of characters that are intriguing on their own, put together they make an incredible story with various arcs.

This installment has Catalina and family fighting on more than one front as they try to protect themselves from attack while investigating a monster that shouldn’t exist and Catalina dealing with her dangerous grandmother and her relationship with Alessandro. Don’t blink you might miss something.

I can’t say too much without giving things away but this story starts slow and picks up steam until the very end. Action, intrigue, mystery and a touch of romance. I would have liked more romance time as I didn’t always feel as strong of a connection that I would have liked between Catalina and Alessandro, But I have to remember that while there are love connections in this series, it’s really about the Baylor family, and their love, devotion and support for each other, as they navigate becoming a House and surviving all the dangers that come with it.

If you like my reviews I hope you will follow my blog.

Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews, narrated by Emily Rankin

Story 4 of 5 stars

Heat 2 of 5 stars

Series – Hidden Legacy

Hero – Alessandro Sagredo

Heroine – Catalina Baylor

Listened to audio narrated by Emily Rankin.

This story is mostly about Catalina Baylor and her family and friends as she navigates being the head of her House and helping a friend uncover what happened to her mother and sister. While Catalina investigates it’s clear someone else wants to shut her down. There’s a lot of death and destruction as these mages don’t play around and Catalina find’s she’s stumbled into House warfare and House secrets.

Catalina has crushed on Alessandro for years and when he keeps interfering in her investigation she alternates between wanting to kiss him or kill him. While I expected a romance to bloom between these two, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

Alessandro comes off as very aloof and plastic to me. Halfway through the book I’m really not seeing any redeeming qualities in him except he helps to keep her alive, as the bad guys send more and more mages after her. hopefully we’ll get to see a different side of Alessandro in the next book because I just did not feel anything from Alessandro, except that he’s a man of mystery and that he has mad, bad ass skills.

There are lots of great characters in this world that we met from the previous books, like Bug, Grandma Frida, Arabella, Leon, her mother and so on and I enjoyed seeing them again. But as dangerous as their world is when their security officer was obviously endangering them I didn’t get the delay in handling that problem.

This book is clearly setting up a new dynamic including new and previous characters from the series it also isn’t the same as the previous three books which may be a hard adjustment for readers.

I’m guessing they plan to let Catalina and Alessandro’s story develop over time, as this first segment was almost entirely from Catalina’s point of view. Catalina spent most of the book fighting her attraction to him, believing it stemmed from a childhood crush and not wanting her Siren powers to escape forcing him to love her. Catalina has a lot on her plate, coming into her own, to lead her house and to make hard decisions how far she’ll go to protect those she cares for. While I liked this book, it wasn’t my favorite, but I am looking forward to the next book in the series to see where the IA team will take these characters.