Would You BUY or PASS? The Last Challenge by Sharon Karaa #FridayFiveChallenge #Paranormal #Romance

 

Welcome to the ‘Friday Five Challenge.’

Would you BUY or PASS if you had only a thumbnail image and five minutes to decide?

Welcome to the #FridayFiveChallenge.  The original idea comes from Rosie Amber, and you can join up at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com

The rules are laid out at the end of this post if you fancy having a go.

Here is my contribution for this week:

A couple of weeks ago, Barb spotted Halfway Dead by Terry Maggert on her Friday Five search, and I had hit the BUY button before reaching the end of her post.  Due to this recent purchase, I received a host of magic related book recommendations from Amazon.  I couldn’t resist having a look (as you do!) and I liked the look of this one:

The Last Challenge (A Paranormal Romantic Comedy) by Sharon Karaa

Blurb:

Did Lauren Rutherford believe in luck? Absolutely. After all, he lived in her house and his first name was Bad.  Did Lauren Rutherford believe in magic? Absolutely not. But sometimes life just loves to prove you wrong.  Lauren Rutherford knows she is a woman of many failings.  She can’t cook, she can’t hold down a serious relationship and she can’t manage her money worth a damn.  

What she doesn’t know is that she’s the last descendant of a long line of witches.  She needs to learn her craft, and fast, because the only thing between her and certain death is Agnes, her long-dead ancestor who has a foul mouth and a passion for G-strings, and Daniel, a sexy as hell male witch who drives her to distraction. Lauren is the victim of a four hundred year old curse.

Her life depends on her surviving a challenge set down by three damned souls, a challenge that will take her to hell and back.  Literally. And Satan doesn’t do tea and scones!

My Analysis:

Cover – I love purple!  It’s one of those colours I fail to ignore (yes Rosie, I am starting to move away from the black clothing).  Add to this a witch’s hat, black cat, and a necklace made of skulls – I googled where to buy one of these and found this article – and I was hooked.  Always up for a ‘challenge’, it seemed that this paranormal romance was my perfect match (oh dear, my puns are getting worse, sorry).

The book blurb – One of my favourite feel-good films is Practical Magic, starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman and this book has a similar theme to it.  I love the last line of the blurb; ‘And Satan doesn’t do tea and scones!’  Romance is not my usual go-to genre, however, paranormal fiction is, so I think this could be a good story for me.  The Last Challenge is the first in the Northern Witches series (3 books). 

The Stats – There are 287 pages, and the Kindle price is £2.61 (also available in paperback and audio).  It is also enrolled on Kindle Unlimited.  There are 18 reviews on Amazon.co.uk, all of them three stars and above. There are 96 reviews on Amazon.com, 88% of these are four and five stars.  Here is an example of a five-star review from Amazon.com:

I really enjoyed this. I like the funny, sexy, hot, light hearted books like this. It gives you something more than just reading a romance. It can be funny and you gotta have a sense of humor in life especially in dire circumstances like this. The characters were great! LOL. 400 year old Grandma was a hoot. She made me laugh the most. The things that came out her mouth were so funny. Mostly profanity but that’s ok and sometimes that is the best thing ever! I did feel bad for Jacks brother Simon I think that was his name. He seemed like a really sweet genuinely good guy who liked her. He wasn’t meant for her though but Daniel was. Can’t wait for the next book!

BUY or PASS? – My TBR pile is the biggest it’s ever been, but I just can’t resist adding to it, and after reading over some of the reviews, plus taking advantage of the ‘look inside’ feature on Amazon, it’s going to be another BUY from me.

The Last Challenge – buy your copy.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Take a look at who else has taken part in the Friday Five Challenge:

Rosie is hunting down a Parcel.

Cathy finds a debut Thriller.

What is the Friday Five Challenge?

In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions on small postage stamp size book covers (thumbnails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they spend making that buying decision?

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

The Challenge is this… IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES…

1) Go to any online book supplier,

2) Randomly choose a category,

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,

4) Read the book Bio/ Description of this book,

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,

6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?

(then write a little analysis about your decision)