Hello everyone!
I've started yet another book trilogy to read and review for you, although granted I'm sure many of you have already read these. Or maybe not. If not, I hope you give them a try!
Serenity Woods is, as per usual, one of my favourite go-to authors when I need a HEA and just to spend a few hours immersed in a different life than my own. It's kind of funny in a way, and maybe kind of sad too, but it is what it is.
I'll admit that I've had her Sensual Healing trilogy on my computer in electronic version for a while, but never actually got around to reading it. I was always either too busy, or it didn't spark my interest, or something else came along and distracted me.
But when you're digging through old files and find books like these, well, you just have to read them at some point, right? Right.
So let's begin where you usually would: at the beginning, with An Uncommon Sense.
As you all know, I've read (and reviewed) quite a number of Ms Woods' books by this point in time. I'm also thinking the column down at the bottom of the page is literally getting too long for comfort, so what I'm going to do is this: I will be grouping together books from the same series (by this I mean that, by the time we get to book three in Sensual Healing you'll have links to the previous two books at the bottom) and the last one of Ms Woods that I'd read, because sure enough at the bottom of THAT one you'll find a comprehensive list of reviews.
Someday, I'll sit down and make a separate post about that, maybe on a lazy Saturday, who knows?
It might be a good idea.
In the meantime, back to An Uncommon Sense.
Grace Fox is a teacher. And by teacher, I mean she dresses like an old school marm (with hair complete in a knot on top of her head) and makes sure she's always prim and proper and helps her students however they need it.
In contrast, Ash Rutherford is a medium. That is, he can talk to the deceased.
Which our down-to-Earth teacher disbelieves, because, really, how can ANYONE talk to someone who's no longer alive? That's just scientifically impossible.
What's a bit more possible is Jodie, Ash's daughter, needing some extra help with her school work. And Ash asks Grace if she'd like to tutor Jodie over the weekends (for cash, obviously), although granted, him looking like a Viking and accidentally seeing Grace's sexy lingerie doesn't prevent the chemistry happening here.
Did I say prim and proper teacher? Only on the outside, natch.
Anyway, Grace accepts, ignoring her best friend's ribbing that she's going to have swear-out-loud sex with, conveniently, Ash Rutherford, because he was the first guy to walk through the door after that prediction.
It also doesn't help matters that she really doesn't believe his job of choice.
BUT she believes in education and in helping Jodie, which goes along swimmingly, all things considered.
It's after Jodie leaves with Ash's sister that it's time for alarm bells, because, seriously, I don't think there's ever been a couple in a book written by Serenity Woods who'd have so much trouble keeping their clothes on (and no, Grace, keeping your underwear on while having sex doesn't quite count!). But again, it's not just insta-lust, either, because if it were then Ash might have jumped her the second he got a chance.
He takes the time to get to know her, and to explain what it is he does. In return, she learns about his deceased wife, the struggles he's faced since switching from doctor to medium, and what it's like to raise a teenage daughter alone.
Meanwhile, Ash is annoyed at the idiot who told Grace she was terrible in bed, because that's made her just a tiny bit nervous when it comes to sleeping with anyone else.
Ok, not quite tiny bit, more than a tiny bit.
Still, Vikings are a persuasive lot, and the pair of them enter a physical relationship that neither seems to be able to control. Equally, however, Grace still has reservations, predominantly because she just doesn't get Ash yet.
On his end, he's still having trouble with Jodie, who seems to space out more often than not and, while at one point saying she's ok with her dad dating again, two seconds later she seems indifferent or even passively hostile.
But that'll all be moot point if Grace can't get over her disbelief, as her best friends and house mates point out. Especially if, considering the fact that it COULD be true, the only thing holding her back from a relationship is that she can't let go of her staunch beliefs in science. It doesn't help matters that her father's deceased, her mother is a strict Catholic whose approval Grace has always wanted (and who always finds fault with Grace anyway) and that she writes sexy novels on the side, some of them even published. Oh yeah, she's got hobbies, let me tell you!
Freya and Mia, her house mates, convince her to attend one of Ash's events, where (as all readers can anticipate) Ash picks out Grace after a little while.
And all his deductions and statements, coming from the spirit of her father, cause Grace to faint.
Well, that's one way to get a guy's attention!
Ash and Grace settle that there are things they should still work out - but they're willing to do so. Until Jodie has an uncharacteristic outburst about hating that they're together. Ash has a long conversation with his daughter and she admits that she's inherited her father's gift - she, too, can hear the dead. Most notably, she can hear her mother, which was the cause for all her inner trauma over the rest of the book.
She also feels mortified about the way she acted, and asks her father to invite Grace over so she can apologise - which she does, on top of cooking the would-be couple dinner (and tells them they can happily start making babies and she'll babysit them later, but that's beside the point).
At which point Ash decides teenagers are way worse than terrible twos, and Grace figures, she could be a part of this family after all.
There are some lovely scenes which include Ash's sister and how Grace stands up to her own mother, finally (and a LOL sentence where Grace tells her mother 'I write sexy stories, and they're published!' and the lady deadpans 'Well, it could be worse - you could have a spread in Playboy!'), as well as hints that Freya, Grace's mate, and Ash's manager Nate might have some sparks flying between them, too. Coincidentally, book two, Making Sense, is all about them.
I was perhaps skeptical about how this paranormal thing would be added into the mix, but I needn't have worried; if anyone, then Serenity Woods can weave it into her story without blinking an eye, and make it believable, too.
Highly, highly recommended, as per usual when it comes to this author!
xx
*image not mine
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