Goddess of the Rose

Goddess of the Rose by P.C. Cast
From the back cover...

With the Goddess Summoning series, "mythology has never been so fun"* Now return to this "mythic world of humor and verve:** with a tale that mixes one part Beauty and the Beast with one part Sleeping Beauty - and ten parts steamy romance...
*Romance Reviews Today
**Puglishers Weekly

So basically, Mikki (Mikado) is descended from a long line of women who are high priestesses, in the Realm of the Rose, to the Goddess Hecate. Mikki of course doesn't know of the priestess part (initially) but she does know of the family secret that is used to keep the families roses in award winning blooms every year. A secret she's quite uneasy with as it is something that 'normal' people don't do (mix a bit of blood with the water on a full moon and watering the roses). She takes great pains to hide this family 'recipe' from the world, taking care of her roses and performing this ceremony in secret. She also has never been able to find a man that can hold her interest.

On her way home from yet another horrible attempt at blind dating, she wanders through a park where a play is being rehearsed. When the lead actress can't be found for a sound check the crew convinces her to take the place of that actress...bringing us to the point where she inadvertantly performs a sacred ritual (that only works because of her family bloodline) and wakes the Beast (Guardian of the Realm of the Roses who'd pissed off the Goddess and subsequently turned into a statue until the next priestess could waken him) and is taken to the Realm.

THIS is the point in which I truly started enjoying the story. P.C. Cast has an incredible talent for choosing the perfect words (most of the time *g*) that weave a truly fantastic story. Once I reached this point (which I only reached because I KNEW that it had to get amazing. P.C. Cast couldn't do anything un-amazing...it just took a lot longer in this story than it usually does) I could NOT put the book down.

The book actually started out quite good. I was really enjoying myself and was prepared for another fantastic read ... but then during the date it happened. The Rant. The part of the book where Mikki slammed the idiot blind date dude with words defending the romance novels she loved and he'd deemed 'trashy romance novels'. Yes I agreed with what Mikki said. NO I did NOT want to read about it in the novel I was reading. It totally took me out of the story in a WTF moment of epic proportions.

After I re-read the offending passages with a 'she really wrote that there???' frame of mind I decided to get over it and keep on reading. Thank god Ms. Cast was done with the ranting *g* I was able to re-immerse myself into the world she created and thoroughly loved the rest of the book.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books in the romantic fantasy genre (or who would like to try this genre out). Just keep in mind that you'll have to get through a few pages of rant dialogue *s*