House of Secrets by Marie Robinson – A Book Review

Posted March 30, 2019 by Booksandblurbs in PNR, Reverse Harem, Reviews / 0 Comments

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House of Secrets

(Beautiful Secrets – Book 1)

by Marie Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fast Burn, Paranormal RH

Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited

Down and Dirty

Won’t blow you away, but its an interesting introductory book to a new RH series. Worth looking at.

What is it about?

(Blurb from GoodReads)

I’m no Cinderella. My princes? Far from Charming. Let the masquerade begin…

Every girl dreams of being the princess at the ball. For me, going out in public is forbidden. No man could love this scarred face.

But when a masked ball gives me the opportunity to lose my inhibitions with three powerful men, I take the chance. Hiding my true face from them is easy—hiding my heart is harder.

They promise to kill to protect me, so I can regain my birthright from my wicked stepmother. A girl couldn’t ask for better champions: a deadly vampire, a powerful warlock, and a brooding lycan warrior.

I’ve entrusted them with my life. But when things get complicated, I’ll have to decide if I can show them who I really am—and give them my heart, scars and all.

Can three powerful heirs love a girl born of embers, longing to rise like a phoenix from the ashes? Unmask a reverse harem modern fairy tale full of secrets you can only begin to guess…

Thoughts

This is a Paranormal take on the Cinderella tale with an RH tale. I want to say it’s well done, but the narrative doesn’t flow quite as smoothly as I would like – though the overall theme and story is quite entertaining.

Instead of a shoe, you have a mask, and the ‘Princes’ never lose their girl, which adds a unique and worthwhile flair to the familiar story. Add in the facet that one of the step-sisters is almost loving and that the step-mother harbors resentments that are almost understandable, if not sympathetic, and you have a Reverse Harem offering that just might lead into a better Book 2.

Perspective

First Person, Multiple POV

Ending Type

Cliffhanger

Steam Level

Fast Burn, Triple X for fun and groupings.

Pros:

Unique World Building.
Familiar story, unfamiliar direction.
Thankfully, this is not Grimm, and no one loses a foot….
The veils are a nice touch.
Brom is one of the sexier vamps (even with that name) I’ve read about recently.

Cons:

There are moments of ‘Info dump’ – as many Book 1’s suffer, yet there are other times when there is a decided LACK of information given!
I get the speed of their joining plot wise, but still felt a bit rushed.
Ok… so the blurb indicates ‘phoenix’, or alludes to one at least, metaphorically. Also, I am pretty sure I ran across a Facebook ad that used ‘phoenix’ in the script…. yet the ONLY place in the entire narrative where a Phoenix is referenced is the VERY LAST LINE! That’s fine, but it seems the story chose to serve this up as a surprise or a hook… so why have it in the blurb or the ad at all? Leave it out and preserve surprise (though they never actually say that she is a phoenix… ugh, just read it, you’ll get what I am saying here.)