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Friday, June 7, 2013

Trouble Brewing - Jane Tara: A Review


 



BOOK TITLE: Trouble Brewing

ISBN: -

AUTHOR: Jane Tara

GENRE:  Young Adult/ Fantasy

NUMBER OF PAGES: 270

FORMAT: Adobe DRM e-book

SERIES / STANDALONE: The Shakespeare Sisters #2

REVIEW BY: Dhivya Balaji

HOW I GOT THIS BOOK: A net-galley request to read resulted in this most intriguing book.

REVIEW:

          A romance genre novel always holds some sort of intrigue and promises a united happy ending. That is the main purpose of most novels in this genre. The fairy tale like ‘happily ever after’ endings, people realising their follies and finding true love and companionship are part of almost all the stories. I took up the second book of the Shakespeare sisters series, by Jane Tara expecting a different personification of the same ‘psychic clan of sisters’ story. I did not expect much deviation or edge of the seat thrills in the narrative, considering the previous instalment, Forecast, in this series. (Review here :)

          But Trouble Brewing pleasantly surprised me. Yes, it was a romance novel, and yes, there are more instances of intimacy, but the novel managed to pack in a few punching twists and turns. It also has a few ‘other worldly’ moments, entrances into faerie worlds, fables and prophecies, fauns and other mythical creatures in abundance. The London based clan of redheads are more exotic and Calypso, the lead protagonist, rues the loss of her One True Love, his unexpected change of mind and the turn of events that led her to her current state.

          An expert traveller and potion maker, Calypso helps everyone else’s love, all the while mourning her loss. She lives with her mother Batty, father Alf and sister Nell, in their famous pub. Calypso tries to drown her depression by a series of relationships that she always find lacking compared to her One True Love, Scott, Who was, according to tradition, an unreadable enigma to her otherwise flawless psychic abilities. Soon after Scott’s sudden departure, enters Taran, another man that she could not read.

          Calypso meets him by chance in her cousin’s shop and involves herself for a one night stand and gives him the slip. He follows her across the globe, unable to face rejection by any woman. Soon she finds herself unable to refuse the fact that she has found another man who she could not read. Another man, who might be her true love, has arrived out of tradition. Calypso feels that by loving again she will betray the memories of her past love. Taran imposes himself on her relentlessly, until Calypso decides to distance herself from him citing her father’s illness.

          The fear of loss of loved ones is portrayed well as the emotional moments tug at the simple readers heartstrings (well, at least, that was how it was meant to be for the fans of this genre). Taran follows Calypso who likes him but still distances herself for the fear of being too involved. Just when she decides he is the one, another loss threatens to present itself. And she distances herself from committing with Taran. But with the support of family and friends, Calypso decides to give another chance to love in her life.

          And, *spoiler alert*, Taran decides to move on with a past girl friend who had approached him, just when Calypso swallows her ego to reach out to him. In a reeling moment of shock, she closes up her shell, and Taran follows her to win her back, shortly after which another shocking revelation makes Calypso decide to lose her life. How she comes back to living a life and how she realises that not all Shakespeare women have only one true love forms the plot of the story.

WHAT I LIKED: A myth-magic story line and a perfect rain read for Romance fans. Of course, there is the thoroughly unexpected set of twists in the plot. A special mention to the author for choosing her book covers fittingly.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: Loose editing, and again a lesser usage of a rare psychic ability.

VERDICT: A rainy read and feel good book.

RATING: 4/5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jane is from Bondi, Sydney. She has traveled extensively and has lived in Tokyo, London, Vienna, New York and various parts of Australia. Her first book Forecast was first published in 2007 by Dorchester, but they went out of business .So FORECAST was re-released in May. And the long-awaited sequel, TROUBLE BREWING has also just been published. She has over twenty children’s picture books published in Asia, and has written travel articles for many publications worldwide. She has transformed her “itchy feet” into ITCHEE FEET, which publishes travel books for kids.
 

EDITIONS AVAILABLE: Kindle

PRICE:  Rs. 216 for Kindle edition

BOOK LINKS: http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Brewing-Shakespeare-Sisters-ebook/dp/B00BMFEWME/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380127492&sr=1-1&keywords=trouble+brewing+jane+tara

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