dragon_lion64's review against another edition
3.0
This is the 8th book in Paranormal 13.
Such an enchanting and charming book! I know! That sounds kind of cliché but those are the words that keep sticking in my head. I didn’t think I would like this book when I first started reading it because it was obviously targeted towards a younger audience but I kept reading and found myself enjoying it.
Petra Baron and her best friend, Robyn and Petra’s younger step-sister, Zoe, are at the annual Renaissance Fair that her school puts on every year. From the description, this fair was pretty elaborate for a high school fund raiser, obviously not on school grounds since beer was being sold. Petra had received an anonymous note telling her to meet them at the fortune teller’s tent. She believes it is from her boyfriend so he can ask her to the prom in some grand gesture. But when she enters the tent, the fortune teller tells her some sort of nonsense and basically cackles at her but she doesn’t get a chance to hear more because there is an earthquake. When she exits the tent, the world has changed.
It seemed to take forever for Petra to realize that she had traveled back in time to what the author kept calling “Elizabethan Times” but to be accurate, it was just after Elizabeth 1 in the time of King James. Petra left the fortune teller’s tent and everything was different; dirty smelly people with rotten teeth, a cock fight, and everyone spoke with a British accent but it took her more than a day to realize or convince herself that she had traveled back in time. For such a smart girl (the author kept repeating that Petra had high SAT scores and took advance courses), it took her long enough to figure it out.
Petra thinks she sees Kyle, her boyfriend, riding away on a horse, looking arrogant and ignoring her so she picks up a turnip from a vegetable stand and chucks it at his back. She missed so she picked up another but was stopped by a guy who she recognized as someone she had seen just before she went into the fortune teller’s tent who her friend had called “cute horse guy” because he had a horse with him and he had winked at them. He explains to her, when she insists the guy on the horse is Kyle, that it is not Kyle but the Earl of Dorrington.
She ends up wandering around what she finds out is Dorrington, England where everyone seems either poverty ridden or mean like the men who keep looking at her lecherously. Cute horse guy or Emory as she becomes to know him, takes her under his wing and tries to help her find her way home even though he is reluctant to do it because he is entwined in his own problems and he believes that her home is nearby, not 200 years in the future and on another continent.
Emory’s problems soon become Petra’s problems. She knows he has secrets and when he gets stabbed through his stomach with a sword and then miraculously heals, she knows something weird is going on but the more important thing is to help him with his mission which is to stop a man named Chambers from ruining King James’ plan of distributing the Holy Bible to the masses. Chambers, like many people back then, thinks only priests should be able to read the Bible but his motive is greed not religion. Emory and a few of his friends are secretly following Chambers to expose his plans.
Meanwhile, Petra is trying to find a way back to her own time but is also falling in love with Emory. I like the way the author portrays Petra as a little spoiled and how through living the hardships of existing in 1610 England, helps her grow up a lot and how she realizes that she really never liked Kyle for himself but she liked him because he was popular. I also liked the slow development of her feelings for Emory. Some authors try to do the love-at-first-sight romances that don’t usually work for me but this author worked out the romance perfectly. She had me wanting Petra to stay in 1610 and not go back to 2014 because that meant she had to leave Emory but at the same time, I knew she needed to go back to her family.
Although I enjoyed the book which true to all the books in Paranormal 13 so far ended with a cliffhanger, I probably won’t read the rest of the series. It’s tempting but it is a bit young for my taste. I think it would be great for young adults though.
www.paranormalromanceslut.com
dreamerfreak's review against another edition
2.0
For me, Beyond the Fortuneteller's Tent offered nothing special or unique that drew me in. I found myself somewhat annoyed with Petra as a protagonist. And somewhat uncomfortable with the developing romance between Petra and Emory. While the story had some interesting plot and mystery to move it along, my dislike of Petra made it so that I didn't really care what was happening. I found her too stubborn and strangely naive to be likeable. A younger reader might appreciate this book more than I did.
If you love time-traveling teenagers and need some more to feed your craving, by all means, give this a try. Otherwise, you can probably spend your time reading a different book. I don't plan to bother with the rest of the series.
[I received this book for free through First Reads and was not required to write a positive or any other type of review. All opinions stated herein are solely my own.]
If you love time-traveling teenagers and need some more to feed your craving, by all means, give this a try. Otherwise, you can probably spend your time reading a different book. I don't plan to bother with the rest of the series.
[I received this book for free through First Reads and was not required to write a positive or any other type of review. All opinions stated herein are solely my own.]
sangloup's review against another edition
4.0
Extra Book #24 ... not part of the EBN Challenge.
Imagine being an 18 yr old Senior in HS in America and then waking up in 1600's England. What a trip. This was a cute read.
Imagine being an 18 yr old Senior in HS in America and then waking up in 1600's England. What a trip. This was a cute read.
nicnac1666's review against another edition
2.0
~Free Ebook provided by ebooksforreview.com in exchange for an honest review~
I´m a sucker for time-travel stories, so this seemed perfect for me. I really wanted to love it, but unfortunately I did not.
Plot: 2 stars
The premise is interesting enough-Petra, the main character, goes into a
fortuneteller´s tent at a Renaissance fair, and mysteriously gets transported to 17th century England.
Unfortunately the plot just did not convince me. The beginning was hard to get into, and while a lot happened, it just felt random, and very few things that happened were explained or set up beforehand. Towards the end, I was a lot more interested in what was happening and the story really started to pick up, but the ending to me felt so random and unexplained and in my opinion unfitting that it sadly had consequences for my perception of the book.
Setting/Worldbuilding: 3.5 stars
The setting was interesting, and well explained so imagining it was not hard, but it was not by any means perfect and something that would have made it special was missing.
Characters: 1.75 stars
Now to talk about the characters: I was not fond of Petra in the beginning. I don´t know what it was, maybe the way she treated her sister Zoey, or maybe because she seemed a bit spoilt and childish. Anyway, as soon as she was transported into the past, her character really seemed to develop, and I was slowly starting to like her, until the romance-plotline began, because it introduced Emory as the love interest. And Emory was one of my main problems with the book. First off, Petra seemed to lose her brain half the time when she was with him, and the other half they were fighting. Also, insta-love. Urgh, not my thing.
Second, his secret was so unexplained the only thing I was at the end was confused. And bored, because his personality to me seemed like the generic bad-boy I have read in so many YA books it´s not all that exciting anymore-
he was nothing i haven´t seen before, ya know?
The side characters were okay, if a bit underdeveloped.
Writing: 3 stars
The writing was nice, not the best, but definitly not the worst I have ever read.
Total Rating: 2.5 stars
I´m a sucker for time-travel stories, so this seemed perfect for me. I really wanted to love it, but unfortunately I did not.
Plot: 2 stars
The premise is interesting enough-Petra, the main character, goes into a
fortuneteller´s tent at a Renaissance fair, and mysteriously gets transported to 17th century England.
Unfortunately the plot just did not convince me. The beginning was hard to get into, and while a lot happened, it just felt random, and very few things that happened were explained or set up beforehand. Towards the end, I was a lot more interested in what was happening and the story really started to pick up, but the ending to me felt so random and unexplained and in my opinion unfitting that it sadly had consequences for my perception of the book.
Setting/Worldbuilding: 3.5 stars
The setting was interesting, and well explained so imagining it was not hard, but it was not by any means perfect and something that would have made it special was missing.
Characters: 1.75 stars
Now to talk about the characters: I was not fond of Petra in the beginning. I don´t know what it was, maybe the way she treated her sister Zoey, or maybe because she seemed a bit spoilt and childish. Anyway, as soon as she was transported into the past, her character really seemed to develop, and I was slowly starting to like her, until the romance-plotline began, because it introduced Emory as the love interest. And Emory was one of my main problems with the book. First off, Petra seemed to lose her brain half the time when she was with him, and the other half they were fighting. Also, insta-love. Urgh, not my thing.
Second, his secret was so unexplained the only thing I was at the end was confused. And bored, because his personality to me seemed like the generic bad-boy I have read in so many YA books it´s not all that exciting anymore-
he was nothing i haven´t seen before, ya know?
The side characters were okay, if a bit underdeveloped.
Writing: 3 stars
The writing was nice, not the best, but definitly not the worst I have ever read.
Total Rating: 2.5 stars
msoblong's review against another edition
2.0
Overall, this book was just silly. I only finished it because it was so short, but honestly if the author had made the book a little longer and taken a little more care with details and explanations it might have been a better read.
caroline_carnivorous's review against another edition
2.0
I didn't find this book particularly entertaining. Sure, time travel to the 1600's is cool, but we are never told how it happened. Some mistakes, both in spelling and historical accuracy, which is a shame. The characters were many and confusing, especially since we are never told much about any of them. And I didn't really understand the plot at all.
writeramyshannon's review
4.0
Beyond fate
Interesting romance that takes place in the past ... a past where a young girl finds herself after visiting a fortuneteller at a Renaissance fair. It's a well written story but it took a little long for me to get into to the story and care about the characters, but I did. I enjoyed the build up of romance as well as the connection between the past and the present. Any questions that I had in my mind about the story were answered and I did enjoy, very much. Shows that love can be timeless, and that there is such thing as fate.
Interesting romance that takes place in the past ... a past where a young girl finds herself after visiting a fortuneteller at a Renaissance fair. It's a well written story but it took a little long for me to get into to the story and care about the characters, but I did. I enjoyed the build up of romance as well as the connection between the past and the present. Any questions that I had in my mind about the story were answered and I did enjoy, very much. Shows that love can be timeless, and that there is such thing as fate.
mloucks's review against another edition
5.0
This is book number 8 of 13 paranormal ones. I was not really sure what to think of this book from the title but I actually ended up really enjoying it. I really enjoyed all the characters and I absolutely loved the ending. I will probably continue this series to see what happens to them and hope he explains his situation better.
behowel's review against another edition
4.0
An 'Outlander' for YA
I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down. I enjoyed the originality of the story and the time-travel twists. The author's writing style took a bit of getting used to, and I had to re-read quite a few paragraphs to understand certain parts of the story, but I didn't mind terribly. I'll admit that it took me a while to warm up to Petra. She's not very likable at first. All in all, I'm very intrigued and will be starting the second book soon.
I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down. I enjoyed the originality of the story and the time-travel twists. The author's writing style took a bit of getting used to, and I had to re-read quite a few paragraphs to understand certain parts of the story, but I didn't mind terribly. I'll admit that it took me a while to warm up to Petra. She's not very likable at first. All in all, I'm very intrigued and will be starting the second book soon.
marissa_writes's review
3.0
Wished for something better...
I was really looking forward to this book. I received a copy in exchange for an honest review. And to be honest, when I read the description, I would have bought it.
It started off with the typical feel of a jr high fiction, and that was fine with me. It was light, but not fluffy. Petra Baron is at a school festival with her best friend and sister, but that quickly changes as she finds her self magically in Elizabethan England, by her self.
She struggles with trying to blend in, fearing punishment of being seen as a witch. Her biggest struggle is that she is used to the comfort of modern times, and she doesn't do well with the lack of conveniences.
Emory Ravenswood is the male lead, and he is full of surprises. Him and his friends create all the suspense and mystery to this book. There were many turns I never expected, but was interested by.
The setting was very vivid which helped to bring the history to life.
However, there was something missing this one. Maybe it was Petra's inability to ever seem normal, maybe it was Emory's overly mature reactions to everything that happened that was the complete opposite of Petra, and always in a good way.... either way this book was lacking for me in the end.
I'm sure for younger readers, this book would be great, but it doesn't translate at all to those who have graduated from high school.
I was really looking forward to this book. I received a copy in exchange for an honest review. And to be honest, when I read the description, I would have bought it.
It started off with the typical feel of a jr high fiction, and that was fine with me. It was light, but not fluffy. Petra Baron is at a school festival with her best friend and sister, but that quickly changes as she finds her self magically in Elizabethan England, by her self.
She struggles with trying to blend in, fearing punishment of being seen as a witch. Her biggest struggle is that she is used to the comfort of modern times, and she doesn't do well with the lack of conveniences.
Emory Ravenswood is the male lead, and he is full of surprises. Him and his friends create all the suspense and mystery to this book. There were many turns I never expected, but was interested by.
The setting was very vivid which helped to bring the history to life.
However, there was something missing this one. Maybe it was Petra's inability to ever seem normal, maybe it was Emory's overly mature reactions to everything that happened that was the complete opposite of Petra, and always in a good way.... either way this book was lacking for me in the end.
I'm sure for younger readers, this book would be great, but it doesn't translate at all to those who have graduated from high school.
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