{"id":21778,"date":"2023-03-31T10:59:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T14:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=21778"},"modified":"2024-07-29T21:06:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T01:06:10","slug":"sweet-sour-spells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21778","title":{"rendered":"Sweet & Sour Spells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sweet & Sour Spells<\/a><\/em> (2023) Jessica Rosenberg<\/a> (Baking Up a Magical Midlife)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The previous books in the series were fine. I kept reading because I was curious about the characters, and the stories were a nice escape.<\/p>\n

It’s not that this one was bad, but I ran into more copy editing errors that threw me out of the story. I also had some serious questions about the actions and behaviors of some of the characters in the story–instead of feeling natural, those actions and reactions felt forced to get the story to move in a specific direction, so I kept wondering why people were behaving as they did instead of just going with the story.<\/p>\n

There was also a “take the main character shopping and with good clothes she sees how gorgeous she is” scene, which… ugh. The author tried to offset that with a bit about self-confidence being beautiful, but it was too little to late to save that for me.<\/p>\n

And of course there was the romance, which, again, felt more like it was being forced in to meet the needs of the story than something organic between the characters. <\/p>\n

So, overall I found it disappointing, as if she was writing to finish a book, rather than getting out a story she already had.<\/p>\n

Publisher: Blue Octopus Press<\/p>\n

Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweet & Sour Spells (2023) Jessica Rosenberg (Baking Up a Magical Midlife) The previous books in the series were fine. I kept reading because I was curious about the characters, and the stories were a nice escape. It’s not that this one was bad, but I ran into more copy editing errors that threw me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[292,2,48,204,148,26,35,16],"tags":[656,707],"class_list":["post-21778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebook","category-fantasy","category-female","category-good","category-queer","category-romance","category-short-story","category-supernatural","tag-bakery","tag-jessica-rosenberg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-5Fg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21709,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21709","url_meta":{"origin":21778,"position":0},"title":"Bitter, Sweet, Magic","author":"Michelle","date":"March 5, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Bitter, Sweet, Magic (2022) Jessica Rosenberg (Baking Up a Magical Midlife) The third book finds Cassie settled into her life in Maine, even though her daughter is still struggling to fit in to a new school and make friends. 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Max, her father and my husband of almost twelve years, decided out of the blue he was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Butter, Sugar, Magic","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Butter-Sugar-Magic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Butter-Sugar-Magic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Butter-Sugar-Magic.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Butter-Sugar-Magic.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":24896,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24896","url_meta":{"origin":21778,"position":3},"title":"Shade Spells with Strangers","author":"Michelle","date":"September 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Shade Spells with Strangers (2025) Sarah Wallace & S. O. Callahan (Fae & Human Relations #3) Set in London in 1814 The sequel to Fire Spells Between Friends starts at the wedding between Emrys Wrenwhistle and Torquil Pimpernel-Smith, where Silas Rook-Worth and his family are creating the protection spells and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Shade Spells with Strangers","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Shade-Spells-with-Strangers-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24341,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24341","url_meta":{"origin":21778,"position":4},"title":"Mortal Follies, Audio Book","author":"Michelle","date":"March 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Mortal Follies (2023) Alexis Hall narrated by Nneka Okoye (The Mortal Follies #1) Set in Bath in 1814 I am that knavish sprite that frights the maidens of the villagery. I am Oberon\u2019s jester\u2014was Oberon\u2019s jester, that\u2019s rather the issue. I am called hobgoblin by some and, contrary to what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mortal Follies","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Mortal-Follies.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5598,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5598","url_meta":{"origin":21778,"position":5},"title":"Deadly Spells","author":"Michelle","date":"December 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Deadly Spells (2015) Jaye Wells This is (possibly) the conclusion to the Prospero's War series. There are other places the story could go from here, but the major story arc--with Kate coming to terms with her past and how she is going to let it affect and influence her present--is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "eBook"","block_context":{"text":"eBook","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/ebook"},"img":{"alt_text":"deadly-spells","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/deadly-spells.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}