Title: Love Potions
Author: Michelle McCleod
Published: 2011
Format: ebook provided by author, also available on Amazon
From Amazon:
An incompetent witch, a cursed elf, and the wizard who wants to kill them.
Witch-in-training, Marion, is about to flunk her Potions class because of a serious case of 'love block'. If her love potions keep exploding like stink bombs, she won't graduate to the magical defense classes she really wants to take. A problem because her ex-boyfriend is out of prison and wants to pick up where they left off...with his hands around her throat.
When Marion learns she'll never make a love potion if she doesn't fall in love, she takes a risk on Aidan, a handsome, charming elf with a heartbreaking secret.
First chapter impressions:
We are introduced to Marion and Raven, roommates, presumably both witches. They are also students attending witch school, which seems to be like a college of sorts.
To me, Marion seems a bit mousy, and she is trying to work a love potion so she can move on to magical defense courses. Raven seems wild, and is portrayed as a tad promiscuous.
Moving on...
Here we have a world where magic is everywhere. Witches, elves, wizards, pixies - it's all mainstream and not something of fantasy.
First we meet Marion, a mortal witch. She is shy, a little reserved, and as the synopsis says, incompetent. She needs to gain some life experiences so that she can add that extra bit of knowledge into her magic.
Enter Aidan, an elf in the security guard of the Queen. He is instantly attracted to Marion. With this I had questioned myself, "why?" When he first describes her dancing "... like she was possessed" and that it was "...a frantic desperation of her movements that called to him". He says he is riveted.... Then he tells her she is a good dancer. Maybe I am old (ok, I am). But this to me says that they are younger, maybe dancing like that of a techno rave party. Dancing like you are possessed and frantic is not something I would normally call attractive. However, this is the instance where he first sees her, and you know that instantly, there is no turning back for him.
There was a funny exchange between them, it made me giggle. Marion was asking him if he was an elf, checking to make sure he wasn't a vampire or something worse.
Marion: You look like an elf.
Aidan: I do?
Marion: Well, you have pointy ears. Vampires don't have pointy ears.
Aidan: No, they have pointy teeth.
I just thought that was cute. The moment it was in, the mood that it was set, it seemed to me to be a coy, lovable conversation. It warmed me up to Aidan, that he has some fun wit to him.
Basically this is a novella, a short story. We get a small glimpse into the lives of these people without a ton of backstory. I think that some more backstory in this case would have been nice. In the first quarter of the book I felt there were some unanswered questions that I had, that never really got answered fully. However, I should note that they weren't of anything of real consequence.
Marion is in danger, and Aidan is the guy to help her. We have some lusty scenes, some sweet encounters, misunderstanding, fighting and danger. The only question is, will it all work out for these two? That's something you will have to read (and I recommend that you do) to find out for yourself.
