mlboyd20's review against another edition
5.0
First I would like to thank the author for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Doing such does not sway my review in any way.
When I was a child, I loved reading about different legends and lore. This book brought back those years to me, spun a contemporary take on them and gave me comfort in the creepiness of the story. Comfort of the known and comfort with the fact that this author didn't just tell me about the legends but treated them with honor and respect.
The author breathed a new life into the legendary characters and stories. She provided a means to bring them all together while creating a story of her own. She is spot on with the mannerisms of the era's and you can feel the historical attributes as if you were right there at that time and place. The story flowed so well and the interactions of all the characters felt like the author fine tuned each and every one of them before she even wrote it, giving each their own persona and sculpting it to perfection which meshed all the different layers together in a way that not many storytellers can.
The story itself is dark but mixed with character cockiness, stubbornness, sarcasm and humor. I found myself laughing out loud, wanting to hide in terror, ready to punch a little punk who was claimed by "The La Brea Tar Pits of asshole-ism," call the white coats, silently creep on the neighbor because he's like everywhere, and more. Any story that can take you through all these emotions and not lose you as a reader plus take it back and forth from past to present seamlessly is a keeper and one to shot praises of it from the rooftops.
This book is not for younger children, but I can see teens through adults glued to the pages. I can see this book being shared from one booklover to another to another and so on. I look forward to further legends books by Ms. Rourke and I think I'm going to do some catching up on those that I loved as a child.
When I was a child, I loved reading about different legends and lore. This book brought back those years to me, spun a contemporary take on them and gave me comfort in the creepiness of the story. Comfort of the known and comfort with the fact that this author didn't just tell me about the legends but treated them with honor and respect.
The author breathed a new life into the legendary characters and stories. She provided a means to bring them all together while creating a story of her own. She is spot on with the mannerisms of the era's and you can feel the historical attributes as if you were right there at that time and place. The story flowed so well and the interactions of all the characters felt like the author fine tuned each and every one of them before she even wrote it, giving each their own persona and sculpting it to perfection which meshed all the different layers together in a way that not many storytellers can.
The story itself is dark but mixed with character cockiness, stubbornness, sarcasm and humor. I found myself laughing out loud, wanting to hide in terror, ready to punch a little punk who was claimed by "The La Brea Tar Pits of asshole-ism," call the white coats, silently creep on the neighbor because he's like everywhere, and more. Any story that can take you through all these emotions and not lose you as a reader plus take it back and forth from past to present seamlessly is a keeper and one to shot praises of it from the rooftops.
This book is not for younger children, but I can see teens through adults glued to the pages. I can see this book being shared from one booklover to another to another and so on. I look forward to further legends books by Ms. Rourke and I think I'm going to do some catching up on those that I loved as a child.
addy1991's review against another edition
2.0
It started out promising but by the middle of the book, I began losing interest as the plot line grew less clear and the main character (Ireland Crane) became less likeable. That should have been my signal to stop reading. By the end, I was quite dissatisfied with taking the time to read this book until the end & won't be reading any more in this series. Such a shame because this started out with a unique variation on the Sleepy Hollow story but I felt the author tried too hard to force certain elements and they just didn't feel right.
chrissyp's review against another edition
3.0
Not my usual type of book, but I enjoyed the story!!! It took me a while to get into the story, but I think that was only because I don't usually read this genre. I found the plot interesting, and I liked the characters. I felt bad for Icabod and Katrina :(, but at least they found each other again....I'm a sucker for happy endings. I think maybe I was a little put off by the back and forth between time periods, but I understand the necessity. I just prefer to read modern day stories. Surprisingly, though, I wasn't put off enough to stop reading and I still enjoyed both parts of the story.
sheilaokeefe's review
3.0
Disclaimer: I was provided this audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator in exchange for an unbiased review via AudiobookBlast.com
I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. The idea of telling the story behind the headless horseman is fascinating, even if it's been done several times recently. Unfortunately the story told doesn't quite add up. Questions are hinted at but not answered. Maybe that's because this is the first of a series, but I didn't like the characters enough to plan on reading the rest of the series and wasn't satisfied with what ending/explanation I got in this one.
Mainly I didn't like the characters because they're more types than individuals. The main character has fairly stereotypical reactions to most events, especially meeting good-looking men. She also does a little too much of the standard refusing to talk to people, ask questions and/or ask for help to be believable.
I don't want to sound so harsh. I am giving this book three stars and did enjoy a lot of it. The story moves along and kept me wanting to find out what happens next. I think if you can overlook stereotyped characters or are a little more inclined to love-conquers-all tales than I am, you'll really like this book.
I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. The idea of telling the story behind the headless horseman is fascinating, even if it's been done several times recently. Unfortunately the story told doesn't quite add up. Questions are hinted at but not answered. Maybe that's because this is the first of a series, but I didn't like the characters enough to plan on reading the rest of the series and wasn't satisfied with what ending/explanation I got in this one.
Mainly I didn't like the characters because they're more types than individuals. The main character has fairly stereotypical reactions to most events, especially meeting good-looking men. She also does a little too much of the standard refusing to talk to people, ask questions and/or ask for help to be believable.
I don't want to sound so harsh. I am giving this book three stars and did enjoy a lot of it. The story moves along and kept me wanting to find out what happens next. I think if you can overlook stereotyped characters or are a little more inclined to love-conquers-all tales than I am, you'll really like this book.
heatheray's review
5.0
The first time I saw Crane was in a giveaway on Facebook. I threw my name in the hat because that cover is awesome. I won that giveaway! I didn’t have a book on tour for today so I skipped it ahead of all the books I have bought and dived in yesterday.
It turns out I don’t just love fairy tales retold, I love legends retold also. Crane is awesome. Ireland is hilarious from the get go. She has the best retorts to just about anything anyone could say to her. I adored her as a character and I loved how she interacted with all of the other characters.
I loved all of the men in the book in the roles they played: Ichabod Crane, Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle, and Noah. They all had me laughing at some point.
So you now know there is humor and sarcasm, and just quick wit throughout the book. What else is there?
It is creepy.
Seriously creepy.
I loved that.
Crane kept me on my toes as I was reading the moments from in the past and jumping to the future. It was dark and foreboding at times. I read this in one day and did not want to put it down. My kids wanted to go outside to play and I was groaning inside because mama wanted her book. I took it out with me and snuck in a few pages here and there in between making sure bike helmets were on and nobody was breaking the neighbor’s window with a soccer ball. (I actually failed at that part, but it wasn’t one of my kids, it was our soccer ball though. I feel bad.) Then at bedtime I was at 60%. I put my kids to bed and finished the book.
The only thing that bothered me, and this is incredibly technical, probably flat out picky, and does not effect my rating (5 stars) at all because I loved this book so much, was when I was reading along in the past and one of the characters mentioned the words “Wiccan education”. It jarred me back to reality for a moment. I am obsessed with why people believe what they believe. I have spent a lot of time reading/studying different religions, (I am not an expert by any means) including Wicca. Washington Irving lived during the late 1700s to the mid 1800s. He published his works about Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane in 1819/1820. When the book is speaking in the past, I assumed that they were living in a time before those works were written, and more specifically, all 3 men had served in the Revolutionary War which was from 1775-1783, so after that time period.
The people we credit with using the word the way we do now are Gerald B. Gardner who wasn’t born until 1884 and Doreen Valiente who was born in 1922, both after the time period set in the book.
Wicca, in the way we use it now, referring to the pagan religion, has been traced back to the 1960s. The term Wica (an apparent misspelling) has been traced back to the 1950s. It did however come from the Old English term wicca (male witch) and wicce (female), so maybe that is why it was used in this sentence? I would think back in the early 1800s they would have used the term witchcraft or sorcery. It is such a modern term that it just bumped me out of that place you go when you are immersed in an amazing book, it took me a moment to get my reading groove back on.
There is my über technical technical difficulty that I had over 2 words out of almost 300 pages. Don’t ask me why those 2 words bothered me enough to highlight and make sure that I had my facts straight on the timeline, but I just had to.
Amazingly creepy retelling of the headless horseman and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series Raven! If it is listed on Goodreads, it is going on my TBR now. I am dying to know what they find out in NY!
It turns out I don’t just love fairy tales retold, I love legends retold also. Crane is awesome. Ireland is hilarious from the get go. She has the best retorts to just about anything anyone could say to her. I adored her as a character and I loved how she interacted with all of the other characters.
I loved all of the men in the book in the roles they played: Ichabod Crane, Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle, and Noah. They all had me laughing at some point.
So you now know there is humor and sarcasm, and just quick wit throughout the book. What else is there?
It is creepy.
Seriously creepy.
I loved that.
Crane kept me on my toes as I was reading the moments from in the past and jumping to the future. It was dark and foreboding at times. I read this in one day and did not want to put it down. My kids wanted to go outside to play and I was groaning inside because mama wanted her book. I took it out with me and snuck in a few pages here and there in between making sure bike helmets were on and nobody was breaking the neighbor’s window with a soccer ball. (I actually failed at that part, but it wasn’t one of my kids, it was our soccer ball though. I feel bad.) Then at bedtime I was at 60%. I put my kids to bed and finished the book.
The only thing that bothered me, and this is incredibly technical, probably flat out picky, and does not effect my rating (5 stars) at all because I loved this book so much, was when I was reading along in the past and one of the characters mentioned the words “Wiccan education”. It jarred me back to reality for a moment. I am obsessed with why people believe what they believe. I have spent a lot of time reading/studying different religions, (I am not an expert by any means) including Wicca. Washington Irving lived during the late 1700s to the mid 1800s. He published his works about Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane in 1819/1820. When the book is speaking in the past, I assumed that they were living in a time before those works were written, and more specifically, all 3 men had served in the Revolutionary War which was from 1775-1783, so after that time period.
The people we credit with using the word the way we do now are Gerald B. Gardner who wasn’t born until 1884 and Doreen Valiente who was born in 1922, both after the time period set in the book.
Wicca, in the way we use it now, referring to the pagan religion, has been traced back to the 1960s. The term Wica (an apparent misspelling) has been traced back to the 1950s. It did however come from the Old English term wicca (male witch) and wicce (female), so maybe that is why it was used in this sentence? I would think back in the early 1800s they would have used the term witchcraft or sorcery. It is such a modern term that it just bumped me out of that place you go when you are immersed in an amazing book, it took me a moment to get my reading groove back on.
There is my über technical technical difficulty that I had over 2 words out of almost 300 pages. Don’t ask me why those 2 words bothered me enough to highlight and make sure that I had my facts straight on the timeline, but I just had to.
Amazingly creepy retelling of the headless horseman and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series Raven! If it is listed on Goodreads, it is going on my TBR now. I am dying to know what they find out in NY!
sweetcreature89's review
5.0
I am in LOVE with this book. I absolutely cannot wait to continue the series.
Before I get ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning. The cover. Good lord, that cover. Stacey Rourke better kiss her cover designer because that thing is freakin' beautiful. It's fits the story so well and is so eye catching and gorgeous that I just can't stop looking at it. As almost always, it was the very first thing that attracted me to the book. How could I not be interested in a book with a cover like that?
And then the name. As soon as I saw the name, I knew it had to have something to do with the headless horseman and Sleepy Hollow. Please tell me that I'm not the only person in the world that automatically thinks of Ichabod, Sleepy Hollow and it's bloodthirsty hessian when they hear or see the word Crane.
Although I (hate to admit it) wasn't a huge fan of the original The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, I've always found the story fascinating and loved anything related to it. Crane definitely lived up to my expectations and did way more for me than Irving (the writer, not the character) ever did.
It was so fascinating to see how Rourke twisted and weaved each character into the legend and how they each had their very own role to play in the story, how each one of them brought some different element to the events that were occurring.
This is definitely one of those books that I would read again and again. It's creepy and beautiful and pulls you in and doesn't let go. I loved the way we were able to go back and forth, to experience Ireland in the modern day but also witness the legend of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman as it originally played out years before Ireland arrived in Sleepy Hollow.
The book just had such a neat twist on the original story and I loved it just as much as I thought I would. I read the eBook version of it, but I definitely plan on buying a physical copy of it just to have on my shelf.
The next book, Raven, has to do with my favorite writer ever, Edgar Allan Poe, so I'm super, super excited to see how Rourke is going to twist this new tale. So excited!
Rating: 5 Stars.
Character: Ireland, Rip & Noah.
Before I get ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning. The cover. Good lord, that cover. Stacey Rourke better kiss her cover designer because that thing is freakin' beautiful. It's fits the story so well and is so eye catching and gorgeous that I just can't stop looking at it. As almost always, it was the very first thing that attracted me to the book. How could I not be interested in a book with a cover like that?
And then the name. As soon as I saw the name, I knew it had to have something to do with the headless horseman and Sleepy Hollow. Please tell me that I'm not the only person in the world that automatically thinks of Ichabod, Sleepy Hollow and it's bloodthirsty hessian when they hear or see the word Crane.
Although I (hate to admit it) wasn't a huge fan of the original The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, I've always found the story fascinating and loved anything related to it. Crane definitely lived up to my expectations and did way more for me than Irving (the writer, not the character) ever did.
It was so fascinating to see how Rourke twisted and weaved each character into the legend and how they each had their very own role to play in the story, how each one of them brought some different element to the events that were occurring.
This is definitely one of those books that I would read again and again. It's creepy and beautiful and pulls you in and doesn't let go. I loved the way we were able to go back and forth, to experience Ireland in the modern day but also witness the legend of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman as it originally played out years before Ireland arrived in Sleepy Hollow.
The book just had such a neat twist on the original story and I loved it just as much as I thought I would. I read the eBook version of it, but I definitely plan on buying a physical copy of it just to have on my shelf.
The next book, Raven, has to do with my favorite writer ever, Edgar Allan Poe, so I'm super, super excited to see how Rourke is going to twist this new tale. So excited!
Rating: 5 Stars.
Character: Ireland, Rip & Noah.
nissahh's review
1.0
I must say that I'm very disappointed on what I had read so far, I stopped at 41%, it felt like it was going nowhere and I was almost half way done with the book. I went into this book with high expectations with all the five and four star reviews and found it quite lacking and boring. The characters for me were dull, none of them made me love them or at least like them. Ireland was kind of annoying, her actions doesn't match her inter monologue, she does the exact opposite, knowing it was a dumb thing to do. Also, what really upset me about her as a character, was the way she acted towards a student was beyond uncalled for. I don't understand how she got a job as a school counselor with that attitude. There was a part of me that wanted Mason to tell his father about her.
Okay, so what really threw me off was the whole someone from the past, waking up in the present time. It reminded me too much of Sleepy Hollow and I thought this was going to be different from the show.
I really didn't like the writing style so much and doubt that I read anything else from this author.
Okay, so what really threw me off was the whole someone from the past, waking up in the present time. It reminded me too much of Sleepy Hollow and I thought this was going to be different from the show.
I really didn't like the writing style so much and doubt that I read anything else from this author.
limabean74's review
4.0
My Review:
I LOVE the Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of my favorite stories, this for me was a must read and it did not disappoint. This is my first Stacey Rourke book and I am not sure what took me so long to read her books since I love her writing style and she has a wonderful sense of humor that she adds to her books. (follow her on FB you wont be sorry...so funny) The story is told in the past and present. You read a new fresh version of Ichabod and how he comes to Sleepy Hollow with his friends Irving and Rip and then you read in Ireland Crane’s POV and what is happening to her in Sleepy Hollow. I was never confused and the chapters are tiles with which POV you are reading. Ireland is a great characters, going through so much and coming to this town that suddenly throws her into a bunch of really weird senarios. She handles them very well with help from Rip and Noah. Noah…oh Noah…he is hilarious and I have to give a dreamy sigh too, I love a man with a string sense of humor and a big loving heart. Rip is my favorite, just don’t get him to worked up or you will be carrying him home. It has a good amount of romance, a lot of humor and a nice scary mystery. I didn’t find any part of the story slow, I thought both stories were told wonderfully and really came together. This is one of those books that you can’t seem to put down no matter how hard you try and once you are finished you will have grabby hands for the next one.
The story that Mrs Rourke created is both interesting, romantic, hilarious and different. I found this story to be extremely well done and I think Mr. Irving would really have enjoyed this telling of his story. From the story build to the narcoleptic old man, I honestly adore, love and need to rave nonstop about this book and how much I loved it. Looking forward to the next one.
recommend: 100%
Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my review
Hope you have a great day and Happy Reading!
ashrowe's review
4.0
Love the cover! Might be one of my all time favorites!
Taking on one of my favorites and throwing in some fun twists. I think the author did a wonderful job.
At first I was a little taken aback by the jumping to the past and present but the author kept it by chapter so it was easy for me to get use to and it added more to the story reading about what happened in the past and how it related to the present of what is happening ( at least in my opinion)
I liked all the characters. Ireland at the beginning was not one of my favorites ( That would be Rip) but more towards the end she some how grew on my and I found her sarcasm to be rather funny. Noah was interesting if not suspicious character at the end though he I think really showed his true colors.
The story in general was great. The retelling of it and the mystery of who was killing the people of Sleepy Hollow was fun and kept me turning the pages.
All in all a wonderful retelling of a great legend with some awesome characters that you’ll recognize. Funny and some great action scenes.
booklovinmamas's review
4.0
Full Review posted at Book Lovin' Mamas
Stacey did an spectacular job on creating a different take on a dark twisted tale, but furthermore adding humor and craziness into the mix. I surely was not prepared for the main twist in the story when it came to light.I give this book 4 full moons and look forward to reading more of this legend in the next book because believe me Stacey left the readers hanging. I need to know who was the culprit behind a certain thing with Ireland.
Stacey did an spectacular job on creating a different take on a dark twisted tale, but furthermore adding humor and craziness into the mix. I surely was not prepared for the main twist in the story when it came to light.I give this book 4 full moons and look forward to reading more of this legend in the next book because believe me Stacey left the readers hanging. I need to know who was the culprit behind a certain thing with Ireland.