The Charmed anthology brings together four stylistically different authors under one common theme: romance at Halloween. Jayne Ann Krentz (writing as Jayne Castle, her futuristic romance pseudonym) takes us into the future to the novella that began her Harmony series of books, Lori Foster gives a passionate spin to treasure hunting and ghosts with a story that's part of her Winston brothers novellas, Julie Beard travels back in time to King Arthur and Eileen Wilks has a slightly gothic flair to a paranormal contemporary with djinn and witches.

Of the four stories I definitely enjoyed Castle's the best. I've been a fan of her Harmony books for several years now, but had not read this particular novella. There's less cohesion to the world, with more flair for the dramatic then usually found in the books, but the couple Sam Gage and Virginia Burch are sizzling. It was fun to see the guy so uncertain about where he stands with a woman and wanting love, not just sex. Virginia, also wanting love, but willing to settle for the sex if need be, is feisty and stubborn, but their respect for each other is apparent.

Foster's was the hottest of the four and gives the phrase 'grand passion' a literal meaning. I loved Allison. Hands down she was entertaining. Casually arguing with a ghost while trying to keep her wayward--and explicit--thoughts to herself and battle the flirtations of her long time crush sparked some interesting comments. Chase was very aggressive at first, but its understandable given the amount of frustration he must have been feeling. There was an unnecessary thread, involving an ex of Allison's, that was just kind of there as added 'danger' at the end, but overall this was a fun and often amusing story.

I enjoyed Beard's story the least of all the stories included. It was too pat, too predictable. It started out really well, with a crazy fortune-telling lady and misfortune and Woden's Curse, but devolved into a standard romance rather quickly. Tristan is entirely too nice and understanding for a guy in King Arthur's time, Katherine takes her time traveling really well (as well as the marauding Saxons) and the development of their relationship is pretty much off screen so to speak. Various mystics tell them both, about each other before they meet so they're already pre-disposed to falling in love. There is a clever trickery of words used, but even then the romance that develops from that is just so-so.

Wilks' story was a little confusing, and involved more psychological thinking then I usually like in a romance, but it was pretty basic. Dora and John, two seemingly dependable and staid people, are hiding secrets from each other. Which turns out to be an issue since Dora's secret puts her at risk because of John's secret and both together just makes them combustible. There was more wordplay trickery involved in here, which was funny but not discussed overmuch. The ending is a little abrupt with the consequences of their actions occurring and then lovely discussion begins, but it was fun. Plus I like romances involving djinns.

Overall this collection was entertaining and fun, but other then Jayne Castle I don't believe I'd read any of the other authors separate works based upon what I read here. ( )

TBR

I think I actually read this about ten years ago (or whenever it came out). Still, it was fun the second time around! ( )

I picked up this book to read just one of the four novellas, "Pandora's Bottle" by Eileen Wilks, because I've enjoyed her Lupi books. Honestly, it was the weakest of the four. (Seriously—why would a djinn's magic be tied in any way to Halloween?) Ordinarily, I would have moved on to another book right away. Charmed is very clearly a romance anthology, and I'm not a romance fan.On the other hand, I was doing something involving a lot of waiting, and Charmed happened to be the book that was in my hands. I decided to try something new for me, so I read the other stories and tried to judge them as romance stories. Failing that, I tried to at least be less annoyed at the standard romance "stuff" (look, it's almost 5am and I do not know where my thesaurus is).So—Jayne Castle's "Bridal Jitters" was set in a world I'd like to know more about. The relationship barrier was a bit contrived, but at least it was relatively fresh (to me).Julie Beard's "Man in the Mirror" started with a handicap: I detest all those modern-person-goes-back-to-good-old-days stories, especially the romances. She saved the tale from total suckage by turning things around a bit.Finally, "Tangled Dreams" by Lori Foster is our obligatory ghost story. The ghosts are the good people here, and they're matchmaking merrily while trying to warn the living occupant of their house that all is not well. From her prose, I have to wonder if Ms. Foster really thinks that the scenes she describes are "kinky" to most people? There's nothing to get your harness in a knot over, though, just a little light bondage.So the volume wasn't torturous, and it did provide me with some distraction. Changing my attitude almost certainly helped me enjoy these stories a bit more. I don't think I'm likely to start seeking out romances, but with so much "paranormal romance" all over the shelves, I should probably get used to having somebody's romance in my fantasy. ( )

Bridal Jitters: An entertaining story, but entirely too short. Of course in a novella collection like this, there isn't enough space alloted to tell a whole story. Castle, however, is ambitious to try to convey the entire world of the Curtain and Ghost Hunters in this brief tale. A lot of questions are left hanging, and one hopes that other books in the series will clear them up. Virginia seems lame, but I'd like to know more about Sam.
Man in the Mirror: Terrible. F.
Tangled Dreams: Decent. Kinky.
Pandora's Bottle: Pretty good, actually. ( )