kerravonsen | Book review (Reply)

Got another Amazon parcel yesterday and foolishly dropped everything and read it -- until 4am. It was "An Accidental Goddess" by Megan Sybil Baker.

Positives:
It had an interesting premise (woman + ship get caught in timewarp, emerge to find that she's been deified) and the implications of that were reasonably followed through, with some amusing misunderstandings arising also
It kept me hooked enough to keep reading until I finished it; there were plenty of things going on, not just a romance
It has a prettyish cover, though obviously computer-generated; the rendering of the heroine was good, but the hero was too blocky

Negatives:
The romance was half lust-at-first-sight, but at least it wasn't just focused on getting them into bed together, though it did get them into bed with each other, though at least he proposed first, though unfortunately she hadn't said yes, though fortunately there was at least some relational angst and misunderstanding and apology and reconciliation and not just lust. Am I only ever going to get the romances I want by reading Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen and Gillian Bradshaw? I mean, romances where the order is philia or agape, and then eros?
The mix of magic and science was just there, though that could be partly because this is apparently a sequel and maybe the setup was all done in the first book. I wouldn't call it a sequel exactly; from what I've found out of the first book "Wintertide", it's just set in the same universe, and what's more, this is supposedly hundreds or thousands of years later, so they would resemble each other even less.

Overall: has potential. Or maybe I would say "good try". Sort of like a bas-relief instead of something fully three-dimensional. If she'd just gone that little bit further with her world-building, with her characters... as it is, the magic feels generic (even if it isn't), the romance feels generic, the scenario is interesting but could have been treated with more depth, the world-building has some good touches but could have done with more vividness/depth; maybe she just needs a good editor.

Am I going to read it again? Not sure.