Abandoned by Booklikes

Long story short, I liked this one much better than "The Third Circle." I am still not thrilled about the lack of a true ending with these books though. The way that Amanda Quick/Jayne Anne Krentz, etc. wrote these, is that you have to read contemporary and regency books in order to follow this series. I tried to read one of the contemporary novels before, and I was not a fan. So I just tend to stick to the Amanda Quick titles.

This book follows Lucinda Bromley and Caleb Jones. Readers should be familiar with Caleb by this point since he has appeared in the previous Arcane Society books written by Amanda Quick. I have to say that I liked his character in those books, gruff, and didn't seem to be about any nonsense that I could see.

Lucinda is still weathering the gossip that says that she poisoned her father and fiancee. Lucinda is a member of the Arcane Society and has the psychical power to know what poisons if any were used on a living being. She is also gifted with plants. So I guess you can think of her like Poison Ivy.

Caleb was discussing setting up a psychical investigation agency after the events in "The Third Circle" and appears to have done so now. He is called upon to work for Lucinda when she realizes that a recent poisoning by a high member of Society is linked to one of her rare plants.

The mystery aspect of the book really didn't appeal to me. If you have read these books you already for the most part know who the bad guys are, and Ms. Quick always includes chapters/sections that show you who the bad guys are, so you as a reader are waiting for the hero/heroine to catch up and catch the bad guys. I read these for the romance aspect of it. I think that Ms. Quick did a better job of setting up the romance between Lucinda and Caleb. It was a definite slow burn and I loved it. Probably because Lucinda is a woman of independent means, she really didn't need Caleb for anything. And I liked that she didn't let him keep her from investigating and still doing what she did. I hate it in romance books when the hero tells the heroine to stay out of trouble and then she is kidnapped and he has to save the day. I loved the fact that Lucinda saves herself in the book over and over again.

There is a secondary romance included in this book, but I don't think that Ms. Quick did a great job of setting it up. I wish she had and excerpted the sections dealing with the villains.

We also get some glimpses of former characters. I really hate though that we only get the men interacting with the main characters in this book for the most part.

The ending though we do get our Happily Ever After (HEA) just sets up another cliffhanger/chase that I am not sure I am going to keep reading. I do know from a friend that there should only be two more books for me to complete the Arcane Society Historical books so I may get back to them eventually.