Redeemed series enough for me that I'll be reading the next one. That's not "damning with faint praise"; it's a reaction to how disappointed I was with last book.

I did enjoy the book.

Honestly, though, that was mostly from the last third of book. Beginning, if you've been reading along in the series, wasn't that exciting and way too familiar. Avoided some things that annoyed me in previous books (like Jane waffling over men and trusting the wrong ones). Jane has seen some character development.

I took off a whole star because (a) there was a truth spell she could have used on suspects as soon as a traitor was suspected so why the @&!$*+@ did it take ~2/3 more of the book before going thru using on each student and (b) it did annoy me that Jane persisted in dealing with people she knew she couldn't trust, including Pitt cronies.

I will be very happy if next book is even more of a crossover with her [Fright Court] characters. Sarah had too brief an appearance here. ( )

I actually hadn't looked at the full title of this book in quite a while, so to get on here and see that it is supposed to be a "Humorous Paranormal Romance" is kind of weird, as that is NOT what I got out of it. Granted, I also didn't know that it was #5 in a series, so maybe I just didn't pay that much attention to the title at all. Nevertheless, I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program in exchange for my honest review, so here goes.

This book was entertaining during the bits where there were supernatural threats throwing the very existence of the magic school into question. The rest of the time felt like fluff. It also escalated really quickly from one bad thing to the next. It starts out with a bad thing happening, as it says in the description, but then like a chapter or two later, there's another crazy magic bad thing, and then a chapter or two after that, another one, worse (as far as scale of destruction goes) than the previous two. I get that the author needed to set up what happens in the rest of the book, because pretty much the entire last half occurs solely because of those events in the first half. But it felt like the first half was one crazy thing after another and then the rest was just like, meh. It seriously bottomed out after the first half.

Towards the end, it kind of started to pick back up, but it got real intense real fast for a few pages, and then bottomed out again at the very end. I'm wondering if this is how the whole series is, or if I just picked the wrong book to start on. Because this book apparently doesn't know what a build-up is. It has two speeds - highly intense and drama-filled, or reeeaaaalllly slooooooooowwwww. I was also not a big fan of how Neko, the main character's familiar, is portrayed. He's pretty much the epitome of gay man stereotype. Like the character of Jack on "Will and Grace," except not as funny, but still over the top and fashion-obsessed. I'm not saying it's not possible that gay men and fashion-obsession can't intersect, because they obviously can, but that being pretty much the only trait he's ascribed (at least in this book), other than the fact that he's homosexual made it a little iffy for me.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 5 stars, because during the action-y parts, it was good, but I also won't be reading this again. It also, as previously stated, did NOT deliver on the "humorous" promise in the title. I've read worse, but I've also read better. So, 3 out of 5. ( )

Jane Madison is a witch and has opened a school for witches. She has her students, their familiars and their warders. But there is something or someone out there who doesn't want her school to succeed. Plus she and her warder, David, who she loves, have tried to inform the Court of Hecate about Pitt who has done wrong to a lot of witches, from blackmail to stealing. Jane's nemesis is Tereas who want the Osgood Collection that Jane has.

Three different beasts try to kill or damage Jane and her students. With Teresa saving her from the first one, she demands a boon from Jane. So Teresa gets a book from the collection. But she wants more.

When Jane ends up going to the Court of Hecate, to testify against David, she along with David, are banned from the covens and the Court of Hecate. She travels to where David is (Teresa took David for 24 hours) and finally destroys the one thing that Teresa doesn't want her to destroy--the cornerstone. What will happen to David and Jane, and her students?

I didn't read the first four books and to get what has really happens, I'll have to get books 2-4. I di have the first one now. This is a great little series to read. I won this book in a LibraryThing Early Reviewers Giveaway. ( )

Like many of the previous reviewers have stated, since this is the 5th book in a series, readers will probably be confused if they read this one first. I had read the first Jane Madison book back when it came out, though I haven't read any of the books in the series. It was good to see what she's been up to. ( )

I flaked when I requested this book from LibraryThing and didn't realize that it was something like the fifth book in the series. I think that was the reason that it took me a while to get into the book- I didn't know who any of the characters were and didn't yet have an attachment to them. After a while, though, I did start to get into it and found the plot engaging. Klasky is a good writer and I think the problem was more that I dove into the series at the wrong point than any shortcomings on the writer's part. This worked as a stand alone because everything I needed to know was explained in the book, but I think I would have enjoyed it better had I read the earlier books, as well.

I'm intrigued by the idea of witches and their warders and familiars, as well as the witchy theme. I haven't read a lot of paranormal or books set in the present time, so this was something of a novelty to me. This book made a positive impression on me, so I'm going to go back and read the earlier books in the series. ( )