[Warning: This review is chock full of spoilers for the prequel to this book, Divine by Mistake. I am not joking.]

[Note: Have I mentioned I’m a PC Cast fangirl? Seriously, kids, this is about to get embarrassing. For me. There is some serious, creepy-ass fan-gushing about to commence up in here.]

Grade: B+

Technically, there is nothing wrong with this book. I just couldn’t read it. Not that it’s bad. Oh, no, it’s far from bad. But I read it halfway through, set it down, and didn’t pick it up again for 2 months. Because I couldn’t read it. In fact, I had to force myself to finish it. I couldn’t read it because it physically made my heart hurt to read. I’m not kidding. I was so anxious about how it was all going to turn out in the end, biting my nails and tearing out my hair, that I had to put it down or lose my mind. Again, not because it’s bad. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

This is a sequel to one of my favorite romance novels—nay, my favorite books—of all time, Goddess by Mistake. It was later republished by Luna and retitled Divine by Mistake. In those books, an English teacher from Oklahoma named Shannon Parker was plucked out of her world and thrust into a world called Partholon where she is the Chosen and Incarnate of the goddess Epona. She switches places with a horrid spoiled brat named Rhiannon (her mirror image) and has to learn how to live in this new world PLUS earn the trust of the people that Rhiannon had spurned in the past (most of whom are mirror images of the people Shannon loved in her world). One of those folks is a really hot, really cool centaur named ClanFintan, a High Shaman. He and Rhiannon were supposed to get married, but she was really mean to him, but to Shannon… well, he’s a hunk’a-hunk’a burnin’ love (for me, too). Wow, you guys should really read that book first ’cause otherwise, you’d be totally lost reading this book. In fact, I require you all to read that book. GO. STOP READING THIS REVIEW AND READ THAT BOOK NOW. This is not a joke. Your life will not be complete and fulfilled if you don’t read that book. This book is a direct sequel to that book. Anyway, Shannon and ClanFintan fall in love (yes, he remains half a horse, which is pretty kickass), Shannon learns to be the best goddess Incarnate EVER, and she and ClanFintan band together to defeat an “evil booger monster”. And succeeds. Or so they think. Seriously, you guys, you should really read that book first. I cannot stress this enough. In this book, Shannon is ripped away from the world she has come to love AND THRUST BACK INTO HER HOMEWORLD WITHOUT HER BELOVED HUSBAND. Which is why I couldn’t read this book. ‘Cause I love Shannon and ClanFintan together so much. *sobs* Seriously, go read that book NOW.

Rhea nee Shannon Parker is the beloved Incarnate of the horse Goddess, Epona. Everyone loves her, she loves everyone… y’all, it is a veritable lurvefest. Everything is going wonderful! wonderful! with Rhea’s new life. She and her husband ClanFintan are in lurve, the roses are blooming, the birds are singing, the sun is shining… everything is nauseatingly happy. Everyone in Partholon is also getting ready for a festival in which Epi, Rhea’s horse and Epona’s horsey Incarnate, will be impregnated by a stallion and thus give birth to a baby horsey. Rhea’s pregnant too, with a baby girl, and she could not be more happy. BUT… oh yes, but… not everything is so CareBears perfect, after all, and Rhea is the only one who can sense it. All of a sudden, she can’t taste the food, the air is cloyingly sweet, and she’s sick and paranoid all the time. Oh and she vomits maggots (thanks, Ms. Cast!). At first, she chalks it up to nerves brought on by her pregnancy, but Epi, her horse, is spooked too. One day, Rhea and ClanFintan go out to the clearing to investigate and Epi totally loses her shit. Rhea tries to soothe Epi, but there is something beyond the trees that’s creeping her out. Rhea walks over to check it out—WHY, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!?—and gets sucked into a MOTHERFUCKING TREE, yo! When she wakes up, she is in a forest that is definitely no longer Partholon, the air smells distinctly of Oklahoma, and she is looking at the face of her husband, only he’s got human legs. And his name is Clint Freeman. According to him, he performed a ritual to yank her out of Partholon because he heard it is a horrible, horrible place. Oh, and he is that evil bitch Rhiannon’s ex-boyfriend and Rhiannon is currently wreaking havoc in Shannon’s former life. Rhiannon means to take over the world as Shannon knew it and Clint figured he could stop it by sending Rhiannon back to her homeworld and yanking Shannon back to hers. Stupid, stupid Clint.

As it turns out, Shannon has been feeling decidedly odd because of the crap Rhiannon’s been pulling in her homeworld. Rhiannon has summoned an ancient evil (SPOILER: Shannon had defeated the guy in the past) in order to do her bidding and help her to take over the world. But that’s not the only thing she’s done. She has also alienated everyone that Shannon has ever loved in her former life, ditched Shannon’s job as an English teacher, married a guy old enough to be her grandfather for his money, and is planning to pose for Playboy. In short, Shannon’s previous life as she knew it is gone, baby, gone. As if that’s not enough, Shannon is a little confused about how she feels about Clint, because he looks exactly like her husband (except fully human), sounds like him, and is good and noble like him. She can’t exactly get mad at him for yanking her out of her home because he truly thought he was doing the right thing and really does need her help in cleaning up the mess Rhiannon has been leaving all over the place. Shannon wants to stay true to ClanFintan, but according to Epona, because Clint is ClanFintan’s mirror image, he was born to love Shannon, too. Even as the two of them become friends and work together to defeat the evil that Rhiannon has summoned, Shannon is forced to make a decision: does she stay in Oklahoma with Clint or does she go back to Partholon to be with Clanfintan?

This story answers the question I had after reading the previous book: what does happen to Rhiannon after she is transplanted to Shannon’s world? How does she deal with her new life? Shannon struggled to earn the trust of everyone in Partholon, but since Rhiannon is a crazy psycho bitch, I knew she wasn’t going to do the same for the people in Shannon’s former life. I guess the main question is: when you leave, what happens to the people you leave behind? Ms. Cast definitely answers it, but I was just too much of a coward to listen to it. I did not want Shannon to be separated from her life in Partholon with ClanFintan. I wanted to be sure that once I closed the book, the two of them were going to live happily-ever-after, PERIOD. I feel horrible for saying this, but at first, I really didn’t trust Ms. Cast to lead me to the ending I wanted. In fact, when I got to the part in the book where Shannon is taken away from Partholon, I was SO MAD that I stopped reading (even though the blurb told me it was going to happen). I just felt… betrayed. Isn’t that weird? Lisa Kleypas fans, imagine finishing Dreaming of You, closing the book satisfied with the ending, and finding out later on that your beloved Derek Craven became a boozing, wife-beating, cheating man, and left his beloved wife Sara to run away with the gypsies. That’s not what happens to Shannon and ClanFintan, but I felt betrayed nonetheless. SHANNON IS NEVER SUPPOSED TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ANYONE ELSE BUT CLANFINTAN! *sobs* She’s supposed to love him forever! Period. End of story. She’s not ever supposed to question her feelings for him and consider falling in love with someone else, even if the guy IS her beloved husband’s mirror image. Yes, yes, I have issues.

Okay, enough of that. I’m going to make myself sick. Back to the story: Shannon is the Shannon I remembered from the previous book. She’s clever, strong, and always up for battle, whether it’s with her feelings for Clint or the evil that Rhiannon has unleashed in her homeworld. Shannon is… human. She feels like a real person. She worries about her weight, her hair; she makes mistakes, she doesn’t always say the right thing; in short, Shannon is down-to-earth and very likable. Even when I was screaming at the pages as she began to have feelings for Clint, I understood it. Her situation poses an interesting question: if you fell in love with someone, but he’s taken away from you and replaced by an exact copy who smells, talks, and acts like him, would you be so steadfast in resisting your feelings for him or would you also love him just a little bit? Clint, on the other hand, is Mr. Perfect. My issues with him are the same issues I had with ClanFintan (heh!) from the previous book (although… huh, I didn’t mention it in my review, oddly enough). He is just so damned… good. Compared to Shannon who cusses and burps and vomits like a real person, Clint is just so… bloody saintly. Yes, he was born to love Shannon, but once the two of them get together, she becomes his sole driving force. Since this story is told from Shannon’s first person point of view, we don’t actually ever see what’s on Clint’s mind, but… he just seemed like Mr. Bloody Perfect Ken Doll. So noble and gracious and self-aware. He’s even a decorated war hero, you guys! Yes, he’s a wonderful man, but he just didn’t feel… real. I was not as invested in him as I was with Shannon, with whom I could actually relate and imagine as a real person. I just didn’t… feel him.

The world-building, as usual, is FABULOUS! From her lively description of Partholon to the Winter Suckassland that Oklahoma has become because of Rhiannon’s wrongdoing, Ms. Cast effectively utilizes the scenery to tell the story. I really enjoyed it. In Partholon, for example, she sets up tension when Shannon looks around and notices that something is not quite right. The air is different, the flowers are overly-bloomy, and there is just a feeling of… wrongness. Another thing I enjoyed is the seamless way in which Ms. Cast weaves mythology into Shannon’s narrative. She explains without info-dumping and even though you probably won’t be able to enjoy this book as much if you didn’t read the previous book, there is enough of a backstory here that if you’ve got half a brain, you’ll be able to piece it all together. Just like in the previous book, Ms. Cast allows Shannon to see what is going on with Rhiannon through her Magick Sleep. With that, Shannon is able to float out of her body and is taken to whatever Epona wants her to see. I enjoyed this plot device because it does help build tension and suspense in the story because we get to find out what the hell Rhiannon is up to. We get to know her a little bit and why she does what she does. Speaking of which, another thing I really liked about this book are the secondary characters. I enjoyed Shannon’s interaction with her dad, who is a gruff old guy who immediately understands what is going on with her and even though it hurts him, persuades her to go back to Partholon to be with ClanFintan. Even Rhiannon, who is at first cartoony evil, turns out to have layers of her own. She’s got her own experiences and emotional damage that shaped her to be the person that she is and I thought it was pretty big of Shannon to not just dismiss her outright, but actually try to understand her. After all, can Rhiannon be truly evil if she is Shannon’s mirror image and Shannon is basically a good person?

Now here’s the kicker: this book does not end how you may expect it to end. It ends happily all right and Shannon does end up where she’s supposed to be, but there is a hint of the bittersweet. After I closed the book, I was satisfied with the ending, but I was a little sad, too. See, I think that’s the mark of a good book: when it affects you in a deeper level that you end up thinking about it days after you finish reading it. I’m not sorry at all that I put this book down halfway through because I was so emotionally invested in it that I don’t think I could have handled reading it all the way through the first time. I’ll have to read it again to see if I feel the same, now that I know how it ends. Anyway, if you’re looking for a book with awesome world-building, likeable characters, complex storylines… hell, if you’re looking for a book that truly pulls you in and gets you all teary and emotionally invested, read this book. But read the previous book first. Seriously. Ms. Cast, I’m sorry for doubting you. I shoudda known you weren’t going to lead me astray. The book DOES end the way it’s supposed to end and there’s no other way it coudda. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series. Take me back to Partholon, baby!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 10:42 am and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Romance: Paranormal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.