Vicky Loebel

While contemporary romance isn’t my cup of tea, I absolutely loved Loebel’s paranormal/urban fantasy novels. So I decided to give her contemporary romance novel a try. I did enjoy it even if it didn’t wow me like her other novels.

Brideacuda! Ha! I love that phrase. Anna finds herself entered into the contest by her best friend but it means she can leave the Milwaukee winter for the tropical beaches of St. John’s island. Plus, she can bring one ‘stylist’ with her and she chooses her dad who has recently survived cardiac surgery. So right away I liked Anna.

Meanwhile, on St. John’s, the Andersons have cooked up this crazy idea of how to boost interest in their vacation hotel (the Paradise Resort) – host a contest to win the hand of the handsome Ryan Anderson! Chris Anderson isn’t too thrilled about it. He rather stay in the background and keep on fixing air conditioner units but he also knows that the resort needs the promotion. Ryan ends up eloping with the shows producer, Bobbie, so Chris gets stuck being the stand-in groom. He was none too pleased.

This story borders on being a romantic comedy, which I liked. There’s no slap stick comedy or totally ridiculous situations yet there still is humor. After all, we have these potential brides doing crazy stunts for each stage of the contest. Then there’s Chris with his Danish ancestry, humor towards Ryan, the secret Danish p0rn stash, and a tragedy that left him a bit scarred. I liked Anna’s character too but I felt we got more background on Chris.

So not all the potential brides are witches. Loni right away does Anna a favor and the two remained friends throughout the trials and tribulations of the show. Yay! It was good to see that not all the female side characters were horrible people.

There’s obvious sexual attraction between Chris and Anna right from the beginning and I really liked how it built and built. I didn’t care so much for the misunderstandings and apologies, etc. but that seems to be a requisite for this genre. I was a little sad that we didn’t get any sex scenes. Sigh… But I imagined that they had a very good time.

The ending is sweet and charming. All told, I did enjoy this story despite it being a contemporary romance. 4/5 stars.

The Narration: Emily Beresford did a great job with this narration. She’s perfect for Anna. I also liked her voice for Tiffany (the evil brideacuda). Her peppy, professional, commanding voice for Bobbie the show producer was spot on. Her male voices were masculine and all her character voices were distinct. She sounded engaged throughout the entire novel. There were no technical issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Vicky Loebel. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.… (mais)

My original Keys to the Coven audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Keys to the Coven by Vicky Loebel is an urban fantasy novel with a touch of romance set in current time. Max is a demon. Hundreds of years ago when he died in utter despair, instead of his soul leaving in the beyond, he became the demon that he is today. As a demon, his job is to intervene in magical cases to prevent situations from breaking the rules of the underworld. His latest task is to break a curse on the Woodsen family. The heir, currently Felicity, inherits the sorcery that is present in their family, but a curse ties the heirs of the family for generations seemingly inextricably to the arch-demon, Roxashael. Max must help Felicity, who has only recently become aware that magic exists and that she has power, by finding the artifact that connects her family to the arch-demon. If he doesn’t complete his task to the best of his ability, his soul will be foresworn, but if he does, he may end up losing Felicity forever.

Loebel has created a complex and dark magical structure in Keys to the Coven. There is not only the political hierarchy amongst demons and also angels, but also the rules are well defined. The structure and rules are slowly introduced as the some of the characters learn about them. All the relationships, sibling, romance, or parental, in this novel are complicated and changing, which makes the story engrossing. There is a bit of romance and sex, which seemed to come at inopportune times and is heavy with responsibilities. The plot moves along at a fast clip with lots of action, betrayals, and stubbornness driven drama. There are a lot of little revelations about characters’ motivations that I didn’t see coming, which was a pleasant surprise. While I loved the end of the novel, it did seem a bit too convenient and tidy. But at the end, it’s uplifting.

The narration by Emily Beresford and Nick Podehl were well done. It helped to have female and male narration for the two main characters. And it was nice to hear the voices of all the characters as heard by Max or Felicity. Both did a good job with distinguishing voices for the different characters. The production quality was good as well. I would recommend this to anyone who likes urban fantasy, a little bit of romance, and a lot of drama.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.… (mais)

Note: This book and it’s loosely tied-in sequel, Keys to the Coven, can each work just fine as stand alones.

Set in Falstaff, Arizona in the 1920s during Prohibition, the Woodsens run a speakeasy bar and also sell some of their surplus alcohol to others. Now a Chicago-based mob is trying to move in and run the alcohol trade. They will be surprised at how little pushing it takes to upset a witch. Meanwhile, the youngest of the Woodsen cousins, teen Clara, is desperate to save her beloved movie star Beau Beauregard. She’s willing to break some rules in the name of true love (or her first crush). Her older cousin, Bernard (Bernie) Benjamin, is just the guy to help her out, even if he has to be lured to the basement and tied to the center of a pentagram. Demons and zombies have never had so much fun as they will during the dance competition!

Once again, Vicky Loebel has given me something original and very funny. There’s a bit of sexy (though it’s pretty PG-13 for this book) as well. Clara is a driven character who’s young enough to not know to look at the bigger picture when it comes to love, yet old enough to have just enough responsibility and autonomy to get into big trouble. She’s dead set on saving her ‘beloved’ Beau even if he has no idea she exists (and that’s because they’ve never met). She’s even willing to become a warlock by summoning a demon and striking a bargain with it. Hans is the handsome demon that appears and somehow he talks things around so that his demon familiar, Ruth, will enter a dance contest. The pit just gets deeper from there on out.

With the Chicago mob, Bernie and his personal schemes, Gladys the Golem, Beau’s resentment over the whole mess, zombies, stolen booze, and an older Woodsen sibling arriving soonish, Clara really does have her hands full. It was so funny! There’s plenty of clever lines and each person really has their own agenda in mind. Clara wants love from Beau, and to not get caught. Bernie doesn’t want to die a horrible death (which is surely what will happen when Clara’s older witch sisters find out about this whole mess). The mob want their booze, the money, and control (and they seem constantly surprised when that doesn’t happen easily). Beau is quite angry with his situation and Clara is totally surprised by what he truly wants. Gladys just wants to get back to housekeeping.

I really enjoyed the various magical elements. There’s the demon Hans and his familiar Ruth which have their intricate little dos and don’ts. Then Gladys who is a Golem and rather protective of young Bernie. One of Clara’s best friends is a ghost whisperer and she has a ghost familiar (Gaspar, complete with Spanish accent). Loebel manages to pull each one into the storyline seamlessly. Moreover, she gives each one rules to work with and she keeps them within those rules. With a comedy, it would be easy to have these various magical folk breaking rules, so I appreciated that once the author laid down a law of this is how this type of magic works, she kept her characters in line.

I did quite enjoy all the flirty, sexy behavior that popped up here and there. Demons love to trade on sex because it builds up their karma, which is basically spiritual coinage. Clara knows all this from her older witch sisters and her book on demons. Yet when the offers are made to her, she’s tempted. Bernie isn’t as naive but he’s not as well-schooled as he likes to pretend either. Ruth, being a large hunting cat most of the time, has a sexy confidence all the time, even when she’s totally mangling her dance partner’s foot during practice. There’s plenty of wit and humor with the sexy bits, making them just as fun as the rest of the book.

Having listened to both audiobook set in this urban fantasy world, I really hope Loebel gives us more. The humor is a bit unique and I love the mix of serious situations, magic, and laughter. Not everyone makes it out of this story unscathed. In many ways, Clara comes of age in this tale. Loved it and looking forward to more of it!

I received a free copy of this book.

Narration: Emily Beresford and Nick Podehl once again did a great job on this book. Even though they voiced totally different characters for Keys to the Coven, I read them far enough apart that I didn’t have character echos in my head, as can sometimes happen when you listen to books set in the same universe that have different characters yet the same narrators. These two are great with all the emotions and also delivering straight lines so the humor is left hanging there for the reader/listener to catch even as the story moves onward.… (mais)