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You're invited to spend the weekend with three extraordinary sisters... When she was sixteen, Dee Fortune kidnapped her two younger sisters and ran from danger. Now twenty-nine, she's still trying to control her shape-shifting power--no easy task when Danny James shows up one Friday morning with his deadly smile and dangerous questions about the past. Lizzie is determined to save her family from financial ruin by turning straw into gold; now if she could only stop turning forks into bunnies. Then Elric, a sorcerer, appears one Friday--annoyed with the chaos Lizzie is creating in the universeand in his heart. . . . The youngest Miss Fortune, Mare, towers above her sisters but her telekinetic power is dwarfed by their gifts. She spends her days at Value Video!! and her nights contemplating the futility of her existence. But then a gorgeous Value Video!! VPand Mare's long lost love turn up. . .and they all turn up the heat on a weekend that no Fortune will soon forget!… (more)
User reviews
Mare reads so clearly like a Crusie heroine, and I like her quite a bit. Her displays in the video store are inspired, and her speech to eavesdroppers in the diner is gorgeous. Dee's story is bland but adequate; it's perfectly acceptable par-for-the-course romance. I wish she weren't a vergin, but at least the reason she's a virgin is funny.
But Lizzie's story is not at all to my taste. Her man is patronizing, superbly magical, and named *Elric*. Elric! Of all the stolen fantasy names that do not conjour romantic overtones, Elric is right up there, between "Thomas Covenant" and "Grima Wormtongue". On top of that, Lizzie's sections don't trust the reader. Romance novel readers do not need to be told, in so many words, that "shoes ha[ve] a strong connection to sexuality" -- we *know* that, and we know that a heroine with whimsical shoes has hidden sensuality. Finally, Elric is repulsive, everything I hate in a romance hero: smug, patronizing, condescending.
The narrative has some bugs -- motivations aren't always consistent, and the math of the girls' history doesn't work out at *all* -- but for the most part it's still a fun read. Except for the Lizzie and Elric parts, which are really unreadable. If I skip that storyline, it's a fun read. It's no Bet Me, but then, what is?
I’m sorry that I was so quick to judge — this is a very fun and fast-paced novel, one of the hallmarks of a fabulous Crusie novel. At first, I wasn’t able to tell which author wrote each character but as soon as Mare’s story got going, I could pick out Crusie’s voice very easily. That didn’t mean that Lizzie and Dee were not as fun or well-written, but after reading everything I can get my hands Crusie-wise and then reading it again, it was easy to pick out her contributions.
The reason that I gave it an A- is simply that I felt in some ways the stories were just a little too fast. It takes place over a weekend and usually, I can overlook that sort of thing. A great number of romance novels take place over a short amount of time and the mark of a really fabulous author is to make you forget that everything you just read happened in a matter of days. I wasn’t able to get there. Mare’s story was easier to believe because her true love was a man from her past and I could believe her story having a resolution in about forty-eight hours.
But it was hard to buy Lizzie and Elric and Dee and Danny in particular. I just didn’t feel it. I could feel they were very attracted to each other but I just couldn’t see their resolution as neatly. The authors were trying to submerge you into this entire world and I just never quite had a handle on it.
In the end though, it was well-written, the characters were fun and easy to read and I would not have minded longer books (or even a trilogy with a different book from a different author). Even if some aspects of the book were not exactly what I wanted, I still enjoyed it thoroughly and now I have two new authors to track down.
The premise of this book was what first caught my eye: three sisters, all of them
Needless to say, the sisters tend to see their powers as more of a curse than a gift, and they would be more than happy to give those powers up.
Their evil aunt Xantippe (Xan, for short) killed their parents years before while trying to take their powers away from them. Xan is obsessed with youth, beauty and power, and has devised a plan to obtain the sisters' powers which will result in her living longer, growing younger and most importantly being more powerful. How does she plan on doing this? She sends them their true loves with the thought that the sisters would be more than willing to sacrifice their magic for True Love.
The entire book takes place over one weekend, and in the course of three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), the sisters fall in love, have fantastic (and dare I say magical) sex and realize they actually want their powers.
Aside from the storyline I was also intrigued by the fact that this book was written by three different women, the sisters' stories intertwined rather than being separated into three short novellas. As a writer I was intrigued to see A) if they could pull it off and B) how they pulled it off if they did.
They definitely pulled it off.
This book is a great example of voice and POV. Each sister definitely has a distinctive voice (each writer told one sister's story), but they're woven together so well that it's very difficult to tell that the book was written by three different people. There are also seven Points of View--the three sisters, their true loves and Xan. That's pretty much unheard of in romance--unless you're Nora Roberts. The POV's are done extremely well, with no head hopping whatsoever. There was one place where I distinctly remember being pulled out of Lizzie's POV, but I was so wowed by the book as a whole that I can't even remember what about it pulled me out. Yes, this book was that good.
The only thing that I can even remotely complain about is that it's hinted that Danny (Dee's true love) has magical powers himself, but it's never explained how he came by them, what they are, if he accepts them, etc. Sure, he accepts Dee's powers (he was firmly anti-witchcraft) and loves her anyway, but when Dee tells him he's also magic he completely rebels against the idea. There wasn't any resolution to that particular thread, and I really would have liked to have seen it. I also kept wondering if Crash (Mare's true love) had any magical powers or if he was just completely ordinary.
I have to say that I absolutely adored this book. I started reading paranormal romance before everybody and their grandmother decided to write it, and I've always had a soft spot for stories about witches. Considering I also like a story that makes me laugh out loud, this was definitely a perfect fit. This was a great collaborative effort between three well-known romance writers (although, I have to admit, I'd never read anything by Stuart or Dreyer before this book), and a great illustration of just how much fun a well-crafted romance can be to read.
Let me repeat: this is a novel, not an anthology. It's one story, written by three authors. Three
The three Fortune sisters have magical gifts, but it hasn't made their lives easier. Ever since the death of their parents, they've only had each other, and they never stay in one place for very long because their aunt Xantippe keeps catching up with them.
And why not? It's not like Dee, Lizzie, and Mare are using their powers. Heck, those powers are making them miserable. If Xan takes those powers, she'd be doing them a favor, really. And if doing so keeps her young and beautiful, well, she deserves to be paid for that favor, right?
So Xan has cast a spell to send her nieces their true loves, giving them a reason to give up their powers. For Dee, there's Danny, who's writing a book about their parents; sorcerer Elric is for Lizzie; and for Mare, there's Jude, a VP at Value Video! where she works, who's offering her a dream job. Except that Mare's ex, Crash, shows up too.
The sisters are all individuals, each with her own niche in the family, and their powers reflect their personalities, or vice versa. The heroes likewise are perfect for each of them. And it's loads of fun watching how Xan's plan backfires when finding true love doesn't make her nieces want to surrender their powers.
Xan is a great villain, too, because she's just so reasonable. She's not evil, she just sticks up for herself, and everything would be just fine if people would only listen to her. And when things go wrong, it's not her fault. Much fun. It's really a shame this isn't the start of a series (it's not--the authors have said unequivocally that there'll be no sequel), because I'd love to see more of Xan.
As with the Crusie/Mayer partnership, each author wrote the scenes that are in her character's POV: Dreyer writing Dee, Stuart writing Lizzie, and Crusie writing Mare and Xan. Since the author shifts coincide with POV shifts, the collaboration was very smooth, and without the three names on the cover, I wouldn't have been able to tell it wasn't written by a single author.
Unsurprisingly, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes was featured in the Cherry Forums Book Club. You can find that discussion archived here.
I'd actually read this a few years back (pre-LibraryThing), and don't recall liking it that much. I must have been in a better mood this time - although it's still not top of my list, it was enjoyable enough.
This was ok. It was easy
These women can construct a romcom to make anyone proud.
personal copy
Dee, Mare, & Lizzie live in a small town and are trying to be as "normal" as possible. Their parents died at the hands of their Aunt Xan(trippe) when the two latter sisters were young...so they have run away & changed their names. All three have magical powers: Dee shapeshifts, Lizzie
Enter Crash, Danny, Elrich, & Jude their Soul Mates......unfortunately they were summoned by Xan....who is no less than unmitigated badness in form of a very seductive older woman.....
This book was well written, suspenseful, humorous & it held my interest. But then I happen to like Jennifer Crusie, very much!
3 sisters with powerful magic, hiding from the Aunt that killed their parents while stealing their powers. A fabulously evil Aunt determined to get the sisters to surrender their powers to her, who attempts to bribe them all by sending them their soul mates; or in one case, a reasonable facsimile thereof. A showdown in a small town whose residents are obviously deaf, dumb and blind in the extreme. Heaps of humor, sass, girl power and HEA's. An absolutely awesome, awesome cat name Pywackt.
I didn't expect it to stand up very well over time. I love a few of Crusie's non-paranormal titles to death, but she's not a consistent writer, her paranormal stuff tends to be over the top, and I remembered this being more romance than chick-lit (fine line, I know). But it did stand up rather well. It's not one of Crusie's best by a long shot - although it's really one 1/3 hers anyway, as she co-wrote it with 2 other authors: Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart, neither of whom I know anything about - but it's fun without being flaky or formulaic. The humor stands up, and there are a few sex scenes which I'd forgotten about that are far steamier than Crusie's other works (making me think that perhaps those scenes represent some of Dreyer and Stuart's contributions).
All in all still a great read when you're in the mood for a literary rom-com.