Review: Magnolia Mystic by Lisa Kessler

Review: Magnolia Mystic by Lisa KesslerMagnolia Mystic by Lisa Kessler
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal romance
Series: Sentinels of Savannah #1
Pages: 103
Published by Entangled: Amara on July 23, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Two words: Immortal Pirates. It doesn't get better than that! Sexy, spicy, and so much fun--I can't wait for the next one! - Alyssa Day, NY Times bestselling author

Skye Olson is a psychic like her mother, and her grandmother before her, but a bad break up with the man she thought was her soulmate has left her confidence in her abilities shaken. While she's in crisis, a real estate tycoon from Atlanta swoops in with his eyes on her shop.

Colton Hayes spent his mortal life plundering royal ships with his pirate crew, but one holy relic changed everything. Now he and the rest of the crew protect the port of Savannah from their captain who traded his cutlass for a fountain pen.

When Colton discovers the captain wants to build a hotel in the heart of historic Savannah, he sets out to stop him, but nothing could prepare him for the sexy smile and violet eyes of the Magnolia Mystic.

Magnolia Mystic was previously a part of the Magnolias & Moonshine collection.

Each book in the Sentinels of Savannah series is STANDALONE:* Magnolia Mystic* Pirate's Passion

My Review:

I’m in the middle of a big, deep, slightly heavy book, and found myself looking for something a bit lighter and fluffier to balance it out. Not that I’m not loving the other book, because I am, but there’s so much going on that I need to take it in smaller bites.

Why I thought undead pirates was going to be lighter, I’m not sure. But Magnolia Mystic is certainly lighter and even a bit fluffier than the other book.

Also, the pirates are not undead, they’re more like undying. The crew of the Sea Dog are 250-plus years young, after drinking from the Holy Grail. Yes, that Grail, the one that the Knights of the Round Table were chasing after in the King Arthur stories.

The pirate crew of the Sea Dog actually found the thing. They were raiding a Spanish treasure ship that was supposed to be carrying a fortune in gold doubloons. Instead, there was just one battered chest, containing a cup that refilled itself.

But that was two and a half centuries ago, and a pirate, even an undying one, still has to make a living. Colton Hayes is making his by taking tourists out of the Port of Savannah in his replica Sea Dog.

And that’s where he meets Skye Olson, the woman he’s been fated to meet for all those years. She’s fated either to be his salvation or his doom, and from the first it’s a bit hard to tell which.

She’s in recovery from a really bad breakup – and swears that she’s swearing off men when she meets Colton. He’s literally gobsmacked by seeing that old prophecy fulfilled – the one that said that meeting the violet-eyed woman would bring about both his life and his death.

Because after meeting Skye, the curse or blessing of the Grail (depending on perspective) stops working. Not completely, but pretty darn obviously. One of Colton’s crewmates is in a devastating car wreck. And while the man doesn’t die like anyone else would, he also doesn’t instantly heal the way that the Sea Dog crew always have.

Their immunity seems to be coming to an end – just at the point where Colton has discovered a woman that he loves enough to want to be able to grow old with.

But not every member of the crew is so willing to give up on immortality. And that’s when they discover that the Grail, the cup they’ve been successfully hiding for over two centuries, has gone missing.

And that Uncle Sam wants them to steal it back.

Escape Rating B: This was just lots of fun. It’s also lots of introduction as this is the first book in the series. In fact, I found this one by seeing a promo for the next one, which is due out in November.

I liked Skye as a character and found her easy to identify with. Not the whole seeress gig, not that it doesn’t make sense in the context of the story. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point we discover that it was Skye’s great-great-great-grandmother who made the original prophecy.

But her situation otherwise is one that is easy to be sympathetic to. She’s a smart woman who usually takes care of herself but made a mistake in trusting the wrong man and now doubts her ability to pick the right one – or at least a good one.

However, it’s the situation that Colton and his crewmates are in that really grabbed my attention and kept it. Instead of the undead curse that struck the pirates in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, we have something that might either be curse or blessing. Not undeath, but seemingly everlasting life.

What do you do with all those centuries? How do you keep from falling into depression, ennui, or outright evil? Not that one member of the crew hasn’t become, if not true evil, at least the 21st century version of everyday evil – a ruthless property developer.

That Colton realized that he had to let Skye in on the secret if they were to have a chance – and how he went about it, worked very well. Especially when it wasn’t Colton that she believed, but another one of his crewmates who had been her lifelong friend. That the story went down easier from someone she already trusted made sense.

The ending was where the series takes off and leads to parts unknown. Who knew that the U.S. government had an agency devoted to ferreting out the supernatural? And why wouldn’t they? But the it takes a thief to catch a thief twist at the end is the one that will keep this series going – and I liked it – a lot.

I’m looking forward to continuing my voyage on the Sea Dog with the Sentinels of Savannah next month in Pirate’s Passion.