Not up to her usual standard, but still a reasonable read

books:


	• Second Sight (The Arcane Society, Book 1) Amanda Quick G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2006 - 531 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews
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highly recommended

Not up to her usual standard, but still a reasonable read

I like Amanda Quick's books (and also the books she writes as Jayne Castle). I think they're fun, lighthearted, amusing - even if they can be rather samey and a bit, well, cheesy.

Second Sight seemed a little different to her other Regency/Victorian books.
Although the basic story is the same -¬ romance mixed in with a murder mystery and a bit of psychic/mesmerism included as well, like Wait Until Midnight and some other books, this one felt a little... well... stale.

It started off a little differently, with the requisite giving up of virginity to tall, dark, handsome rugged stranger at the beginning of the book rather than halfway through, and somehow the rest of the book didn't quite ever catch my attention fully.

Our heroine Venetia is a photographer and she has a special talent in that she is able to view people's auras. Gabriel Jones, the tall dark rugged man, is a secretive chappie who takes her virginity and then gets himself killed. Venetia pretends she's his widow so that she can make her way in her photographic business more successfully than being a spinster - but then Mr Jones turns up alive and they start investigating murders and missing relics. It's all similar stuff to that which Amanda Quick has churned out before, but it doesn't quite have the magic that some of her other books have.

It's noticeable that the chapters are shorter in this book and that there aren't any real cliffhangers - things resolve quickly, moments of scary fighting only last a page or two, and the resolution trundles along as expected.

Some of the vocabulary in this book is remarkably similar to that in Amaryllis that Jayne Ann Krentz wrote as Jayne Castle. The `hunting', `primitive', `throwback' descriptions of Gabriel Jones seem very like Rafe Stonebraker in that other novel; is she running out of ideas?

Overall this book is a perfectly acceptable read, and none of her novels are great literature, but I usually find them better than this and Ghost Hunter, her latest Jayne Castle, was way better. This is still a step up from the Lavinia Lake books she wrote as Amanda Quick, though.

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Beginning another stage of the Victorian Romance

First, the story was terrific. Second, its obviously a step forward from the previous Amanda Quick time frame. Probably ten to fifteen years. Third, and most importantly, this is the beginning of a new series of really "arcane" ideas that should lead to many more great reads. Progress in time in this series must lead to greatly expanded possibilities in plot. This is the story that began that trend.

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Second Sight - Amanda Quick

Fabulous as always. I think these novels just get better and better. This one was a little easier to work out "who done it" than the others but still a fantastic read. I just wish Amanda Quick released more than one novel per year!!!

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Second Sight

Pretty good book. In the same formula as many of her books, but then again how many different ways can you write about romance?

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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