Review of Unfinished Business

Cryselle reviewed "Unfinished Business" and gave it four marbles. :) Here's what she said:

This was fun -- the author expanded on a little scene in a larger work (A Hidden Magic). Cal, the apprentice, gets a really funny, sexy lesson on paying attention under duress, and Aubrey, magical adept and Cal's master, provides plenty of hot, hot duress. If every lesson was that much fun, Cal will be an adept in no time at all!

I'd read A Hidden Magic a few months back, so I remembered the set-up for the whole asses-ears business, and that was my only quibble with this story. The beginning feels like a scene that was removed from the book for flow, and it doesn't really capture the purpose of the ears or why they even existed -- as a stand alone story they come sort of out of the blue. As a read with, it just follows right on. Following Cal around the restaurant at the beginning establishes that he's got a life outside magic, but it doesn't set up the rest of the story as well as it could. Asses ears --> creme brulee --> asses ears might have worked better than creme brulee --> asses ears.

All the same, the sex was hot, the relationship between master and apprentice was both loving and responsible, and the ending sweet.

You know, that one bit -- figuring out how much of the set-up from A Hidden Magic to recap, and how to present the info to the reader -- was the one big thing I was headdesking over for a while as I wrote this. I don't know that there's any one solution that would've pleased everyone, but it's a legitimate issue.

That said, though, it sounds like she enjoyed the story otherwise, and that's always very cool. :) Thanks to Cryselle for taking the time to review; I'm glad you liked it!

"Unfinished Business" is available here.

Angie