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Prologue
Lord Richard Copeland, erstwhile baron and fugitive from the King’s justice, nursed a brandy in his right hand, his left occupied with squeezing the hip of the blonde lounging on the arm of his chair.
There was barely any story in the first book, so what I really wanted to read was of Lisa being terrorized by the disgraced Lord Copeland. SAID NOBODY, EVER.
“The necklace isn’t merely valuable, it’s priceless.” Copeland dangled the hook.
I mentioned this during the first book, but the problem is that any moron can go to a pawn shop and say “these pearls used to belong to the Queen of Scotland!” Nobody would fucking believe you. Those pearls only have value in context. Outside of that context, they might be worth a little bit of money, but not “start over in a new country” money.
“To take possession of what is rightfully mine—the necklace and the girl, both worth a fortune in the right circles, a fortune I am willing to share—I’ll need some assistance.”
Prologue summary: Since there wasn't enough drama in the first book (sarcasm), we apparently need to add Lord Copeland as more than just a minor hindrance now. He sits around and thinks about how he hopes he doesn't accidentally kill a prostitute he's brought to his bed, because he's that angry at the world. You know, in case you needed a reminder that he's the bad guy.
He then sits and talks with an unknown man about the plot of the first book, although only from his own perspective. He thinks that Lisa hid out all of those months with his governess, which is the rumor that Lord George spread around about where she'd been. However, Richard is determined to make George's and Lisa's lives a living hell.
Chapter 1
Discovering the young maid he had taken as his mistress was actually the gently raised daughter of one of his father’s oldest friends, on the run from an unscrupulous baron and in fear for her life, had explained a great deal about her behaviour. In particular, her squeamishness over the role he’d offered her.
Two chapters in a row that rehash the plot of the first book. I can hardly contain my joy.
With his attention captured by the way the pearl necklace gleamed against Lisa’s creamy skin above the neckline of her gown...
I see that the author really hasn't learned what pearls are between writing the first and second books...
Facing their sovereign, Nathaniel straightened his shoulders and prepared to face the next obstacle in their path.
Chapter 1 summary: Nathaniel basically stands around and thinks about the plot from the first book. He had thought that he could never be truly happy with Lisa, either subjecting her to 1) live in the shadows of his legitimate family 2) never marry at all, and just live with her as his girlfriend and baby momma or 3) denounce his titles, run off to France, and be penniless but married.
But everything magically worked out, and now he has to propose to her. He does, and she says yes. However, they're still so certain that King Bill is going to forbid them from marrying, despite the long conversation he had with Lisa about how he would like for them to get married anyway. Ugh.
I don’t think I’ve done this before, but I will here because it was just . . . something I had to do.
The reviewer, here, makes a very good point that the story to that point (chapter five) was disjointed. Because I said in the author’s notes that there was a story proper but to get my readers to the place where they needed to be, I was posting a series of vignettes to flash through the intervening years in the AU.
Some readers liked that. Others didn’t. That’s okay.
But here, it just made me shake my head. “...disjointed, like it’s a series of vignettes...”
Please, read the author’s notes, Reader. Thank you.
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Chapter 3
She looked like the stereotypical Goth: black hair, black nails, and more than her fair share of tattoos. I’m pretty sure that if you saw her on the street the last thing you would think is that she made clothes for a living.
[Image description: A graph with a scatter chart. All of the dots are all over the graph. It is captioned at the top with “No correlation”.]
She explained that the department kept detailed records of everyone’s measurements so that when something new needed to be made for a performer, it could be done without a consultation.
Which is well and good, but even adults change slightly. No need to remeasure arms, but a double-check of the bust, waist, and butt every once in a while is good.
Mac slowly walked up to the door of the fitting room. He could hear Lil chattering away—mostly gossip, as usual.
Are you for real right now?
1) Story written in first POV
2) random POV switch... into third
3) The entire thing is written in ITALICS.
None of this does no help change my opinion that a 12 year old wrote this.
Mac could see Zade standing in nothing but her lace underwear and bra as Lil pulled a measuring tape around her narrow waist. Both pieces were black and nude with lace trim and the panties, which were a high-waisted cut, framed Zade’s body nicely and showed off her curves and small waist.
This might have been written by a woman, but it stinks of “men failing at erotica”.
Nothing quite like some wish fulfillment.
His grin revealed two rows of perfect, white teeth.
Thank you for explaining to us that his mouth is full of the normal amount of teeth. Instead of, say, an army of tiny squid.
For real: you don't have to spell things like this out for the reader. People know that there's supposed to be teeth in mouths. You should only describe things in these situations when something is out of the ordinary. (ie, that mouth full of tiny squid soldiers.)
Knowing you have possibilities—and getting to see where those possibilities take you.
Chapter 3 summary: We skip over a week, where Zade fills out all of these forms. Not only to work with Charles, but the entire act is technically employed by the casino, so she needs to be aboveboard and on file for them. After getting cleared and officially hired, she then goes to get measured and fitted for costumes. As she does that, the narration returns to the “stream of consciousness” style writing. Literally nothing of value happens during this.
We then switch over to Mac. He's about to go into the dressing room, but sees the door wasn't properly latched. Mac can peek through and sees Zade standing in her underwear, getting measured. He knows that he should turn away and leave, but he can't seem to make himself do it. Tad (another stage hand) comes over, sees what Mac is doing, and kind of makes a joke about the entire thing. Mac is angry, and keeps saying over and over that he doesn't have feelings for Zade. Which... you do realize that “anger” is a feeling... right?
We switch back to Zade just as she finishes up getting measured. As she's leaving, she literally runs into a man, who catches her. Zade goes out of her way to explain to the readers that Jackson is insanely good looking, but the narration doesn't go into half as much detail as it did over Mac. However, there's no doubt in my mind that he's going to be the other side of the love triangle. Jackson says that he volunteered to show Zade around, now that she's officially been hired on. The entire thing is so painfully awkward to read, and written even worse.
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Chapter 13
“I don’t hate you. I just believe that people should pay their dues. I had to, yet you walked in and were treated like you owned the place.”
She's not wrong.
Whoops, do I like Sofia now?
Charm just flowed out of him the way most people sweat in the sun on a hot August day in Tennessee. It got hot in Vegas, like 124 degrees hot, but it was a dry heat and let me tell you it was not as sweltering as a humid ninety degrees in Tennessee. You will sweat buckets without even lifting a finger the moment you step outside.
I had to read this and so do you.
Also, I live in Arizona, and the weather is pretty similar in Vegas. It only gets that hot in the middle of July, and probably only just for a few days. This is why most people stay inside.
Don't @ me.
I laughed a little to myself, smiled, and waved back. I then turned around and disappeared out of sight.
Chapter 13 summary: One day when Zade goes in, she's confronted by Zeb. He's never liked her, and he makes some bizarre comments about how she “doesn't take the craft seriously”. For a moment, I think that he's talking about magic, but he seems to be talking about the show. Zade asks him for help, and he accepts this, and leaves.
Zade then hears Sofia singing in the dressing room, and compliments her voice. She asks why Sofia doesn't like her, and Sofia spells it out for her: because you show up and people trip over themselves to give you shit that you don't deserve. Zade then says that she's been working on an illusion with Charles, and would you please sing while I perform it? Sofia agrees.
Later, Zade and Mac go to a park after the show is over for the night. He asks for info about her background, and she starts to tell him some stuff. But then she says that she would prefer stuff like that be told naturally, rather than directly asked and then given in an infodump. Which... fair enough, for a story. Nobody wants to see this stuff within the span of a single page.
The next day, Zade goes into the theater to work on her new illusion. When she's leaving for her lunch break, she physically runs into Jackson. As he's putting the charm on her, a random mother and daughter show up, gushing about the show. Zade poses for a picture with the little girl, before the two of them leave. Jackson continues to flirt with Zade before she leaves to get her lunch.
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Chapter 7
He hadn't said anything last night, maybe too tired to demand an explanation for last night's fiasco...
Look, I don't like any of these characters. But I'm also not going to sit here and let David drag Neil through the mud simply because Riko thinks that threatening to murder people is a personality trait.
"Tell me why someone who came here early to get away from his parents and who flinched away from me the first time he thought I was going to strike him goes so far out of his way to offend someone like Riko Moriyama. I would have thought you'd have better survival instincts."
He's not wrong. Considering that Neil keeps wanking off about how he has to keep his head down and survive, he sure is going out of his way to do the exact opposite. Signing to a college sportsball team, going out of his way to be around not only Kevin, but also Riko.
Neil is so fucking stupid, and I can't deal.
"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" Wymack asked, coming to rejoin him at the table. "Your parents must be something else."
Coach David: I'm going to have a team of nothing but children who are troubled. They deserve second chances.
The children: *act out because they've never had a positive influence in their lives, and don't know any better*
Coach David: *surprised pikachu face*
"I didn't know," Neil repeated. "Until Coach told me about the Moriyamas this May I knew nothing about Riko's family. After that I thought maybe that's why we met so long ago. I thought Riko's father and mine were discussing territories and borders. But last night Riko said my father belongs to the Moriyamas. What did he mean by that? Why did he say he bought me?"
"Don't lie to me," Kevin said. "We are in enough trouble as it is."
"My mother didn't tell me why we were running," Neil said. "I never asked her why she finally had enough. I was just glad to get away. We never talked about anything real after that. It was always about the weather or our current language or the local culture—the next time she had anything meaningful to say to me was when she was dying. Even then she didn't talk about my father. Not once did she mention the Moriyamas. If she had, I wouldn't be here right now, would I? So tell me the truth."
I get that Neil was a literal child when all of that happened. But after drilling into Neil's head about needing to be on the run, of needing to keep his head down... AND SHE COULDN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO EXPLAIN TO HIM WHY HE NEEDED TO DO THAT?!
Like Neil isn't smart, but I'm honestly blaming a lot of that about his mother failing to teach him fucking anything.
"You were a gift, another player for the master to train. You had two days to win him over: an initial scrimmage with us to show off your potential and a second scrimmage to prove you could adapt to and implement his instructions and criticisms. If afterward he decided you weren't worth his time you would be executed by your own father."
Neil swallowed hard. "How did I do?"
"Your mother wouldn't risk failure," Kevin said. "You never made it to the second practice. She disappeared with you overnight."
The heat in Neil's stomach could have been nausea or rage, but he didn't know who he was angry at. His mother had hated his fascination with Exy his entire life. She'd told him over and over he'd never touch a racquet again but she never told him why. He couldn't understand why she had never explained the totality of what they were running from.
ONE FIVE MINUTE CONVERSATION, AND THIS ENTIRE SHITTY SITUATION COULD HAVE BEEN 100% AVOIDED.
COMMUNICATION IS FOR FUCKING SQUARES.
By 'the girls' she meant her stage sisters. Dan, aka Hennessey, had gotten a fake ID back in high school so she could work as a stripper in a nearby city.
Casually mentions child sex workers like it's not a big deal.
"Listen up. There's obsession and there's dysfunction. You can't make Exy your end-all be-all. This won't last forever, okay? You'll shine bright, then you'll retire, and then what? You gonna spend the rest of your life at home alone with all your trophies?"
Somebody had to fucking say it.
Neil thought of his mother's heavy fists on his skin and her fingers knotting in his hair. She'd told him time and time again girls were dangerous.
So his mother beat him until he didn't like girls, but couldn't be bothered to do the same thing about liking exy?
He dragged his attention back to the task at hand and vowed never to listen to Nicky again.
Chapter 7 summary: Neil wakes up on David's couch. He thinks about sneaking out to avoid the confrontation he knows is coming, but decides to get it over with. He tries the old “he started it” route, but David doesn't buy it. When Neil brings up how everybody is of the opinion that Seth was killed, David calls him out on his bullshit. That Seth was a junkie, and Andrew should keep his BS conspiracies to himself.
They go to the stadium, where Neil has his conversation with Kevin. Says that he gambled on Kevin not remembering since Kevin showed no sign of acknowledgment when Kevin went with David to recruit Neil. But he goes on and says that he didn't know about how his father “belonged” to the Moriyamas, and didn't know why he and his mother went on the run. Kevin explains to Neil about how nepotism topples empires, and the head of the Moriyama family wanted for Neil to earn his keep. Wanted Neil to become another little Kevin and Riko. But Neil's mom freaked out over the thought of them murdering a literal child and took off before the guy could decide if Neil would be worth living or not. As I keep saying, it sounds like all of Neil's current shit falls back on his mother's inability to inform him of important stuff.
Kevin tells Neil to run off and continue hiding. To survive. Neil says that he's tired of being on the run constantly. Says that Andrew seems to think that the foxes constant publicity will keep the Moriyama family from murdering him. Kevin says that Neil knows too much, and that even a TV appearance won't stop them. Tells him to go. Neil refuses, and insists he's going to stay. Kevin promises to keep up their nightly practices. They briefly talk about why it is that Andrew is so obsessed with Neil, without moving the plot along.
Some time passes, and Neil tries to bury himself in practice but ignores the news. Then, because this book is hurting for plot, we get a random conversation with Dan about casual sexism and sex work. The book tries and fails to breathe life into the other background characters. There's this really unholy passage about Nicky and Neil talking about Andrew necking on a cheerleader and it's upsetting Andrew. NOBODY FUCKING CARES.
Nicky then starts to talk about how the twin's mother gave both of them up, one ended with his aunt, and the other in foster care. But none of this is new info to the readers, so... move on already. He also mentions that their aunt died, and thinks that Andrew murdered her. Neil believes this. He also off-handedly mentions about how Andrew saved him from being beaten by some homophobic assholes, but got court-ordered drug therapy as thanks.
He then spends a long time talking about Christianity and homosexuality. And it's a heavy topic for sure, but I'm not sure if this is the right book for this. Especially since this is immediately bookended with Nicky telling Neil that playing sports isn't a personality.
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Chapter 2
“The line to say hello to you after your performance resembled an autograph signing by a boy band.”
The author making zero attempt to hide the fact that Zade is some kind of a special snowflake and worthy of all of the attention.
I stood up slowly and calculated, looking him square in the eye, which probably surprised him a bit, since he was at least six feet tall. I’ve always enjoyed the luxury of being a tall girl. I’m five foot nine inches and so while I don’t usually tower above any guys I know, I can definitely look them directly in the eye. Most girls who at five feet five inches (which, I believe, is an average height for a woman) have to look up. My height was an advantage that I never took for granted and here, again, I was happy that I didn’t have to look up to him—figuratively or literally. In heels I could even be as tall or taller than him and I’ve always loved that part about being the height I am.
I missed something here. Is she tall? I don't think that the narration tells us that she's tall. Do you think that she's tall?
Ugh, I'm reading Catch 22 on Patreon and this is the same level of repetitive bullshit.
“Listen, lady, I don’t know who else you worked for, but we don’t do that Lone Ranger stuff around here. I’m the technical director and in charge of everyone’s safety, no matter how stupid you want to be. You do what I say, and I keep your pretty self from getting hurt. Got it?”
[…]
“And you need to get some manners. I’m not showing you how it’s done, okay? If we have a problem I can go to another show where the technical director doesn’t have a God complex. I’m not a girl who needs a knight in shining armor.”
JFC you self-absorbed twatwaffle. It's everybody's business if somebody gets badly hurt or even fucking dies.
THIS ISN'T ABOUT “TRADE SECRETS”, IT'S ABOUT FUCKING SAFETY.
“Look. It was part of my deal, end of story. I didn’t know Joffrey Baratheon worked here now.”
This is a half-step removed from “everything I don't like is Hitler”.
I wondered if Mac even watched Game of Thrones, but hoped he would get my reference to the child king from the first two seasons who acted like, well, a child given power he didn’t deserve or know how to handle.
Oh boo-hoo. Somebody doesn't want you to fall to your death? HE IS EBUL I SAY!! EEEEEEBBBBBUUUUULLLL!!
I didn’t know if Mac was really a spoiled brat...
ARE YOU FOR REAL RIGHT NOW?!
He was facing the wall, but he spoke deliberately.
“Well, my dear. Tell me everything.”
Chapter 2 summary: Zade is exhausted following her drive up to Vegas, plus the actual audition. She still has paperwork to fill out, but sits down in a theater seat while she waits.
After a while, one of the stage hands, Cam, comes over and makes friendly chit-chat with her about how everybody seems eager to get to know her. After a while, one of the other stage hands, and possible romantic interest, Mac, comes over and tells Cam to get back to work.
Mac then turns to Zade and asks to know how her trick is done, if only so that proper safety measures can be taken care of, etc etc. It's a legitimate request, but Zade acts as if he's a KGB agent trying to extract state secrets. They get into a huge argument over the entire thing, which naturally draws the attention of everybody else. After Mac leaves, Zade calls him “King Joffrey” from Game of Thrones, but then wonders if Mac would “get the reference”.
After a while, the show manager/boss calls Zade and Mac over. He expresses how important it is for Zade to be safe, but Zade continues to act like a petulant child over the entire thing. Charles had previously agreed to not let anybody know about how she does her various tricks when he'd arranged for Zade to audition. Now he agrees that he'll be the only one who'll know how the trick is preformed, which doesn't exactly calm down Mac any. But he's the boss, so what can you do?
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Chapter 16
...but one wrong move and it can all go to H-E-double-hockey-sticks real quick.
Are you for real right now? Was this actually written by somebody who is literally just twelve?
The tree branches began to rustle and move before a crack sounded as one of the limbs at the top fell and a handsome young man suddenly tumbled out of the tree and landed at Charles’s feet.
The young man landed on his butt, with his legs stretched out in front of him and his dark hair disheveled, looking like he had just been awoken from a long nap. He looked up momentarily at Charles. Not many people realized it, but the boy looked just like what Charles had looked like when he was a teenager.
If the idea is that Zade plucked teenage Charles from the past, then it's 100% lost on people who miss that this is supposed to represent teenage Charles.
I was messing with a particular kind of magick, which I hadn’t quite yet mastered. Chaos magick, is both strong and volatile, as it’s name implies and is by nature very unpredictable. It involves pulling power from sources that are, to a certain extent, uncontrollable—kind of like trying to ride a wild horse. In either case, you can do it—and if you really know what you are doing and you do everything right it may go off without a hitch, but one wrong move and it can all go to H-E-double-hockey-sticks real quick. I wouldn’t be “lost forever” as Charles put it (that was there for dramatic flare) but lots of things could go very wrong—and even I really didn’t know just how wrong they could go.
[…]
I struggled to bring it all back together and bring the energy and focus back to what I had to do. My head was pounding; I finally knew that whatever was going on was bad—really bad—but I also knew that I had to struggle to make it through somehow.
Zade: If you don't know what you're doing, this can go wrong quickly.
Zade: I didn't know what I was doing.
Zade: EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG. ABORT TRICK!! ABORT TRICK!!
“I turned around, and she . . . she . . . uh . . . she just collapsed in my arms,” Zeb offered, still stunned, with glazed eyes. He seemed somewhat upset that I was hurt—which surprised me. Maybe he didn’t hate me after all.
You can not like somebody but still be upset at the thought of anybody getting physically hurt to the point that they need an ambulance.
That’s the last thing I personally remembered from that day. Later, after I’d had some time to rest, I pulled out the memories of what everyone else saw and what happened. When you “pull out” memories using magick, they pretty much feel like they are your memories—but you’re also seeing yourself from that other point of view. This means that you’re only seeing what the other person saw, though—so you might not get a full picture of the information you’re looking for.
I have to say that I don't hate this as a plot device for the first person narrator to get info.
“I am also her . . . ,” he paused, glancing at Mac. “I’m her father.”
Pretends to be shocked.
“No. You need to bring her here as fast as you can. Tell them whatever you want. Just get her down here, and bring that boy, Mac, with you. I may need him, too.”
Dela doesn't actually need Mac; this is just a cheap plot device to get them alone in Tennessee.
Charles nodded confidently. “Needed.”
Chapter 16 summary: Zade goes up to do the new illusion. She's using actual magic to make it look like stage magic. And boy, let me tell you that it is beyond complicated for a fucking magic show. Even a big headline event in Vegas. She uses “chaos magic”, which even she admits she doesn't fully know how to control. But she makes waves in the stage dive pool, then this lightning starts to appear. A bunch of sand shows up, which “makes” a glass statue of Zade. An apple tree grows, full of apples, and then drops a boy down. The boy tosses apples to audience members before he chops the tree down, and “transforms” it into a wardrobe. The statue is supposed to go into the wardrobe, and live Zade comes out. But somewhere around here, Zade gets struck by lightning. She manages to finish the illusion, but collapses into the arms of Zeb shortly after the final bow.
It's after this point, the narration then switches to Zade telling us that she pulled memories of what happened from people's heads. Obviously, everybody was freaking out. Somebody called 911, and EMTs showed up, but they had no idea what was wrong with her, so they got her over to the hospital. Mac and Charles drove over to be with her.
At the hospital, Charles confessed to the doctor that he's Zade's father. Mac is insanely surprised by this, and learns what a fool he'd been in refusing to listen when Zade said that she wasn't sleeping with Charles. Also, the random witch who fought Zade in the parking lot earlier showed up, and made a point to be seen. But that never goes anywhere, so I don't know what the point was. The doctor tells Mac and Charles that he doesn't know what's wrong with Zade.
Dela calls Charles because she sensed something was wrong with her daughter. She asks that Charles bring Zade back to Tennessee as quickly as possible, that she couldn't do anything for Zade when she's in Nevada. And to bring Mac. So Charles tells the doctor that he's going to transfer Zade to a private clinic in Tennessee. The doctor isn't happy, but almost seems secretly glad that he doesn't have to deal with this mystery injury anymore. Mac also isn't happy, and thinks that Dela is just going to “feed her chicken noodle soup”. But Charles says that there's a lot Mac doesn't understand or know.
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Chapter 8
Though, actually, since day jobs are rare in the entertainment business...
No, they're unusual in Vegas. I wouldn't say that they're rare, since there's always SFW stuff to take the kiddos to in the middle of the afternoon.
Hell, Zade herself just said two pages earlier that they have a 3 PM matinee every Saturday.
“So, Zade, you still gonna come see our band play tomorrow?” Jackson asked. He had asked me this earlier when we were eating together in the Employee Dining Room, which we cleverly refer to as the “EDR.” He had told me more about the original band that they had, that played their own songs and what they called themselves.
“Oh, yeah, Plain White T’s, right?”
Oh my god. CAN WE NOT.
Carrot Top and Wayne Newton grinned when they saw me, and I couldn’t help but let a smile spread across my own face as I stopped to greet them.
I know that both of these people are awkwardly dated references, but at the same time... the author suddenly wonders why she gets two C&D letters in the mail.
“You know why guys fawn over you, and some girls can’t stand you?”
It would be one thing if everybody fawned over Zade because of some underlying magical thing.
But we're 8 chapters in now, and she's literally done magic once. The magic in this story almost seems like an afterthought.
And, most importantly, how did she know about my magick?
Chapter 8 summary: One day during a rehearsal, Zade is left standing on the platform with Riley for a long while. She asks him why it is that Mac “Doesn't date other performers”. Riley says that it was before his time, but from what he can gather, Mac fell hard and fast for a girl who wasn't that into him. And the entire thing broke him.
As a bunch of them are leaving for the day, Jackson tells Zade about his band, and invites her to come listen to them. The others complain that the band plays mostly covers, but that their original stuff is pretty decent. Zade agrees to go, although Tad gets jealous when Jackson kisses Zade on the cheek before he leaves.
After everybody else goes, Mac asks Zade what she's doing for the rest of the evening. They agree to ride their bikes through the desert. However, as they're doing this, it starts to rain pretty hard, and they take shelter under the awning of a shop that closed a long time ago. It's chilly, so Mac holds Zade against him, and then they kiss. Zade brings up his rule, but he assures her that he's not doing anything he doesn't want to be.
The next day, Zade goes shopping, and we spend an unholy amount of time with descriptions of the dresses she tries on but doesn't buy. She also tells the interested shop clerk about how she's interested in both Jackson and Mac. After, she goes to get some other items, like shoes and bras. She randomly runs into two minor Vegas-based celebrities, who obviously know Zade. I mean... who doesn't?
As she's heading to the parking lot, she runs into a random girl who starts talking about Zade being powerful. She then blasts Zade against the wall using magic. Zade doesn't know what's happening, and decides to fight back, since it's what the girl seems to want. After pushing the other girl away, the girl seems happy, hops into a car, and zips away like nothing happened.
Lil, one of the costumers from the show, comes by seconds after this fight is over. Zade tries to ask about the weird girl, but Lil hadn't seen anything. This makes Zade even more curious about what just happened.
