The Reinvented Miss Bluebeard

by Minda Webber

Inventing a husband to regain some semblance of respectability, Eve, the daughter of legendary pirate Bluebeard, leaves home to run The Towers, a psychiatric clinic for paranormals, where she meets a colorful cast of characters and the man of her dreams. Original.

Genres: Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Romance, Fiction, Humor, Historical, Fantasy

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 2007

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible. Very corny humor that relies on bad puns.

[Barbara ★ · Rating 2 out of 5]

After caring for her crazy ailing werewolf grandmother, Eve Bluebeard decided her life's ambition was to run an asylum for the supernaturally insane. After med school she opened The Towers with an ogre butler, an ogre gardener and a varied group of patients, including a vampires bride afraid of blood, a lunatic leprechaun forever burying a non-existent pot of gold, Frederick Frankenstein who has an inferiority complex, Jane Van Helsing a famous vampire hunter married to a vampire, a gargoyle afraid of heights and Hugo a hunchbacked dwarf with a bell fetish. And if these characters didn't provide enough levity, Eve has created a husband to satisfy society (after all a single woman cannot run an asylum all by herself, heaven forbid!) When said pretend husband appears on the doorstep and commences to interfere in patient treatments and her private life, Eve is beside herself. Her father, Captain Bluebeard himself, has sent an actor to impersonate her husband in an effort to get her away from the crazy people and back on the high seas having babies.

I was enjoying this pun-laden book until Adam Griffin appeared. I didn't find him amusing at all. As a matter of fact, I found him condescending and nervy as hell not to mention the fact that he has absolutely no respect for Eve or her profession. And don't even get me started on his interfering in patient treatments...after all he wasn't a real doctor. I certainly understood that he felt that Eve was his soul mate but IMHO he went about snagging Eve completely wrong. I totally lost interest in Eve and her plight and had to force myself to complete the book.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a come-and-go fan of Minda's, I was pleasantly pleased with this title. It wasn't "great" but wasn't "bad" either. My biggest complaint is that there was too much focus on Eve learning to "trust" her hero rather than any real romance going on. In that case, the romance, when it did hit, felt rushed and contrived. How a woman can spend 3/4 of the book mistrusting a man and then in the course of one page, trust him...left me feeling "yeah, right". Thankfully, the story is peppered with lunies and excentrics that leave you giggling at familiar antics of monsters we know and love and yet are placed in the vein of being a bit "looney". A flashing werefox, a hole-digging lepercaun, and a bell-ringing nutjob highlight the antics and lets not forget the clean-obsessive widow that cleans a vampire out of his native soil! Hilarity unfolds at every turn. Just wish the romance was more solid.

[Graceann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eve Bluebeard has decided not to follow in her infamous father's footsteps. Instead, she is helping Frankenstein's monster get over his fear of talking to girls, and providing marital counseling to a Van Helsing who has fallen in love with a vampire. Papa Bluebeard wants grandchildren, however, and to that end, he throws a spanner into the works with results that are unexpected by all involved.

Minda Webber has written a funny little romp, full of horror story/literary references and witty wordplay. Sometimes Webber tries a little too hard for the joke, but for the most part she can be forgiven because the end result is satisfying. She is feisty and reasonably intelligent, her father is an amusing foil, and the other characters are delicious seasoning.

There is romance here, and some explicit description so those who are easily offended may not care for it, but even though the sex was in one aspect implausible at best, it was was still fun to read.

[Michelle]

The Reinvented Miss Bluebeard
Minda Webber
Paranormal Romance
310 pages
copyright: 2007
isbn: 0-505-57206-5

Kooks, Spooks & The Infamous Dr. Bluebeard

When your father is not only an infamous pirate but the husband of six vanished wives, respectability's hard to come by. That's why Eve invented herself a husband. How else was a nineteenth-century gal to follow her dreams and become one of those newfangled psychiatrists? Certainly she'd never be running The Towers, London's preeminent asylum for potty paranormals. She wouldn't be seeing famous outpatients such as Frederick Frankenstein (he has a screw loose) and treating Jan Van Helsing's blood phobia. But now, whackier than the warewolves and loonier than the leprechaun she's already treating, something new is taking shape--and he has the name of her never-before-seen husband and a body to drive a girl absolutly batty....

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though Eve Bluebeard runs an asylum this book isn't quite as funny as Webber's others. It is really quirky and enjoyable though.

[Karen Desmond · Rating 2 out of 5]

2

[Brynna Schiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

hysterical!