Renaissance Faire by Jane Stain

Series: Dall and Emily #1 (Published as Serials; This is a Bind-Up)

Publication: April 17th 2015 (Self-Published)

Source: Received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review from ebooksforreview.com. Thank you!

Goodreads Summary: When handsome highlander Dall takes Emily up on stage at the renaissance faire for some Scottish dancing, the butterflies in her stomach are not from stage fright. But Dall never drops his 16th century speech patterns, and there aren't any jeans or sneakers in his tent. ~Complete Romance~ ~Sweet and Clean~
Goodreads Page

My Thoughts:
 
I’m really quite torn about this book. I enjoyed reading it for the most part and the idea of it is something I think is quite interesting; however the writing was just very poor and not for me.

The characters are quite one-dimensional and lack any real substance or personality to them. There’s not much description given about any of the characters as well so I was left wondering how Emily and Dall even looked. While the book is very clean and lighthearted, the characters are stripped of realism in many ways such as that the characters never get frustrated with each other or upset ever.

Many aspects of the plot didn’t make sense to me but perhaps some of my questions will be answered in the further serials that the author has been releasing these in. It was a little unbelievable to me that Emily jumps to the conclusion that Dall is from a different time period so quickly with very little information given. And by the ending I was left wondering why they even let Emily travel back in time with Dall or why they even sent Dall away in the first place. Like I said, these questions may be answered in later volumes but as for this anthology, I was left with many questions.

Lastly, it’s just not professional or polished in any way. The grammar errors and spelling errors were pretty bad, including the author not even quoting Shakespeare correctly as well as referring to university/college as “teacher school.” I could go on but you can’t really expect much out of self-publishing/indie writers anyway.

However, I did enjoy it and it was a book that stuck around in my head for the rest of the day and I found myself thinking about it which is always a good thing after finishing a book. I also finished it super quickly because it’s an easy read which is always nice as well.

Likes: Renaissance Fair setting. Easy, lighthearted read.

Dislikes: Not polished in any way. Didn’t make sense for the most part. Characters were unrealistic.

Overall:
Recommend? If you don’t mind books with grammar and spelling errors and are more interested in lighthearted plotlines, then I’d say this book would be a good choice. However if you like more polished, well-written books, this won’t be for you.
Reading the Next One? Most likely not. I’m too much of a grammar freak to be able to overlook poorly written work.