A Paranormal Women’s Fiction novel with a bit of class, and a lot of sass, for anyone who feels like age is just a number!“Happily Ever After” wasn’t supposed to come with a do-over option. But when my husband of twenty years packs up and heads for greener pastures and my son leaves for college, that’s exactly what my life becomes. Do-over. This time, though, I plan to do things differently. Age … plan to do things differently. Age is just a number, after all, and at forty I’m ready to carve my own path.
Eager for a fresh start, I make a somewhat unorthodox decision and move to a tiny town in the Sierra foothills. I’ll be taking care of a centuries old house that called to me when I was a kid. It’s just temporary, I tell myself. It’ll just be for a while.
That is, until I learn what the house really is, something I never could’ve imagined.
Thankfully forty isn’t too old to start an adventure, because that’s exactly what I do. A very dangerous adventure that will change my life forever. I have a chance to start again, and this time, I make the rules.
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A hot new series and genre celebrating midlife and older women who crave a little adventure by USA Today Bestselling author K.F. Breene. Perfect for fans of Shannon Mayer, Jana DeLeon, Darynda Jones, Robin Peterman, Elizabeth Hunter and Denise Grover Swank.
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A fun paranormal romp with a seasoned heroine.
LOVED this book. Many laugh out loud moments
One of my favorite lines in the book has the main character debating with herself whether it’s neck to navel or navel to neck before she decides sideways will do. I woke my dogs up several times laughing out loud at this book.
K.F. Breene has long been a favorite of mine. Her latest series staring strong women in their mid-life crises is fantastic! I love that these fantastic writers have created such vivid characters who are real adults. Total Must Read!
I laughed all the way through K.F. Breene’s book, Magical Midlife Madness. Jesse, the heroine, is a self-effacing middle-aged woman in crisis mode. Down on her luck as a result of a man, she takes the job of caretaking a seriously- spooky mansion so she doesn’t have to live with her parents and deal with her father’s nudity. The woman has spunk and sass and is so darn relatable to, you love her within a few pages. I cheered and cringed for her through her whole adventure. The book is an Amazon bestseller at the moment and first in the charts in several categories.
What I like about it most is that the main character’s spunk. She kicks middle-aged female angst to the curb and takes on the world on her own terms. My next favorite thing is the mansion. It’s deliciously mysterious, magical and haunting.
The book is funny, poignant and uplifting. K.F. Breene’s characters are highly unique and engaging, and the plot is mesmerizing. It’s flashlight worthy.
I highly recommend this book for
or anyone who likes Paranormal Women’s Fiction, Vampire stories, funny tales, or well-written genre fiction.
This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I was completely pulled into the story from the first chapter. Although I am past midlife I love having a heroine who is closer to my age than most of the usual main characters in many of the paranormal books today. The characters are likable and well developed, the story engaging and the snarky dialogue made me laugh. I will never look at begonias again in the same way.
The characters and easy to like, and it’s nice not having a silly teen mentality to deal with in the main character. This is a fun introduction to K.F. Breene’s new paranormal adventure.
Magical Mislife Madness by KF Breene is the first in the Leveling Up series.
Jessie, recently divorced and living with her parents is ready to start living her own life. When her friend recommends a job as caretaker for a house in another town, Jessie sees this as her opportunity to start over and start finding herself.
As the town’s secrets and magic start to be revealed, Jessie’s life may never be the same!!
Intriguing storyline and very quirky characters, this was a fun story to read. Looking forward to the next in series!
This was my first K.F. Breene read & I enjoyed this book so much I am now a full-fledged fan! I already ordered the next book in the series & have every intention of reading her backlog. I am not exaggerating when I say there were lines that Jessie spoke that I swear came from my own mouth- & of course those were the lines that made me laugh the hardest! I feel a kinship w/ this character & the author who conjured her up. This is a fun fast-paced adventure about a woman in her 40’s finally starting to live the life she was always meant to. It is full of heart, humor, hope, a little heat & a lot of magic! K.F. Breene
This was a pretty awesome story full of mystery and magic, with a bunch of strange characters full of secrets and a dark, magical old mansion full of magic. A 40 year old women, recently divorced with a son at college, jumps at the chance to escape her parents house and become the caretaker of house that she never forgot from her childhood. Something are different though. The people in the little town speak in strange ways and have an odd way about them. An intense attraction that us very much unwanted to the “alpha” of the town unsettled her further. It’s exciting and interesting and full of promise and I cannot wait for the next chapter in this fascinating magical tale!
Great surprise to have a middle age heroin totally apart from the magical world as well as characters that are old but all trustful. A funny and wise opening for a story that from the very beginning grips the reader. K. F. Breene brings a fresh version for the magical world allowing the adults to mirror themselves in the caricatural characters. Let’s go for the second book.
Jessie is over 40 and newly divorced… Her son is in college so she decides to move back in with her parents until she figures here next move… well that last one day what with her dads new penchant for nudity…lol Talk abut laugh out loud this whole book had be in stitches…
So Jessie lands at Ivy House to become the new caretaker… But there is more to Ivy House than she could ever have imagined, I mean magic is NOT real right???
I have to say my favorite and most freaky part of the story was the dolls… freakishly hilarious…
As a first in a new series i couldn’t have imagined a better first read and now I just want more…
Ohh I absolutely love this story!! All the characters!!
This is another fantastic book written for the #PWF and I just love it. I’m not in my 40s, but I was able to enjoy Jessie and the characters throughout the book. Jessie is looking to create her own path and she decides to take it upon herself to be a caretaker. Little does she know she’s in store for a fabulous ride.
I especially love the interaction between Mr. Tom and Niamh. I really hated that this book ended. I highly recommend the audiobook. Its narrated by Nicole Poole and she just breathes life to the characters!! Can’t wait to read the next installment.
It’s like KF Breene took off her filter for a publication, and it couldn’t be more enjoyable. No holds barred. I can truly see how she could have had some of the conversations between the main and secondary characters; especially the bar scenes. This book revolves around a woman going through her own midlife crisis and embraces all the things that nobody wants to talk about, but the reality of what women face during this golden age of their lives. She beautifully gives a sense of empowerment instead of just bitching about all the negative aspects of these changes she’s going through emotionally and physically.
I will say that the beginning is so normal and frankly “human” that I was starting to doubt there was anything magical about this book. It’s the only part where I almost wanted her to get to the action and main plot already. But after finishing the book, I realized that the first normal piece was actually setting up a great baseline for Jacinda as a character. And my other critique is having two secondary characters with such similar names (Earl & Edgar), that are two different supernatural species. I had to sit and think throughout the book about who was which any time she mentioned one of their names. And then one of them asked for a different name to set up a new identity to make it more confusing.
It amazes me how Breene can create new characters in a new world that are the same species, but in name only. She keeps you on your toes and changes some or all of their characteristics of supernatural and to me at least, makes it more interesting. I keep wondering what new spin she’ll put on things as the books progress. By the end of the book, I was hooked as usual, and can’t wait to read the next book in the series!
Every woman of a certain age ( remember 50 is the new 40 ladies ) should read this book , husband gone , no worries , child flown the nest , tick , decide to set off to relive better times from years ago & get a totally unexpected adventure , sign me up. Jessie is to say the least clueless as to what is happening in & around the house /mansion she’s house sitting ,but that doesn’t stop her one little bit , this book hits some truths with women of a certain age & had me nodding my head & totally agreeing with Jessie more than once but it also mad me laugh out loud so many times my family started thinking i’d lost the plot , about time we had a heroine who wasn’t a fit , toned 20 something , well done K F Breene can’t wait for more.
Breene really brought her A game with the start to this series. I love all these characters and found myself laughing out loud to all their antics and wicked banter. I completely related to Jess and her feelings about herself. I mean, we’re our own worst critics but she accepts herself and owns her struggles as we all should. Easier said than done that’s for sure. Needless to say this book is fun and once it got started I was eager to see where it would all go. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book!
This book gave me all sorts of feelings!!!
Jessie is a 40yr old recently divorced newly empty nester that has decided to stop fading into the background and find her true self again. I think most women around this age who have taken the mantle of wife and/or mom will feel the connection to Jessie, whether divorced or married, kids at home still or empty nest, it’s all to easy to lose yourself identity when you take on wife and mom duty so for that I instantly connected with Jessie.
With Jessie’s new freedom she is looking for fun and adventure, and oh man does she find it at Ivy House! Nestled near the Sierra Nevada mountains is a magical little town called O’Briens it is here where Jessie goes to start over. New friends, new (old creepy) home, and a new lease on life what more could she ask for?… or maybe what less when her new life flips everything she thought she knew about life on its head and she is faced with magic and power and of course danger Jessie must navigate her new reality and claim her true place in this world.
Let me start by saying, this book was AMAZING! Honestly, I’m just a bit under the targeted age for this new sub-genre… but I still absolutely loved it! So much of what was in this book, I could totally relate to and the things I couldn’t, I still found hilarious and refreshingly honest! Jacinta may not be the heroine so many would ask for, but she is the heroine we ALL need! I am almost done with my third read-through of this and it is every bit as awesome, funny, and witty each time through. I really cannot wait for the next in the series! The supporting cast of beautifully colorful characters are so easy to love as well. The dialogue between Niamh, Earl (Mr. Tom to you), Edgar, Austin, and Jacinta is pretty much the best banter I have ever read, hands-down. I cannot stress enough how much I loved this book! A definite, must-read, you will not regret it!
Mid-life Powerup?
I’m giving Magical Midlife Madness 4 ½ stars. KF Breene surprised me with this one. Being a fifty-something that loves to read and write in this genre, a genre that usually showcases young female leads as they discover their destiny, this book was pleasantly unexpected. I could relate to Jessie on so many levels. Yet, I thought that forty was the new thirty? I’ll leave that there for just a minute.
What I loved about this story: snarky humor, Jessie’s “Ha” moments are hilarious, her wine addiction is definitely something that I can get behind, and then there is the simple fact that Breene is able to showcase an “older” crew that makes up all the main characters. Well done! They are all, in fact, quite likable and showcases the fact that no matter what your age, you can still embrace adventure.
What I struggled with: for me the story started off a bit slow but quickly picked up pace, then there were all the references to Jessie’s age and her creaking bones and what-not. Forty is not that old! Seriously! Poor Jessie should maybe see her PCP, she may have rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia. That being said, I get where she was going with this in trying to engage a younger reader crowd and I’m only willing to ding this book a ½ star for that reason.
Long story short? This book showcases Breene’s snarky humor that I adore and I can’t wait to see what is in store for Jessie, and her unexpected mid-life family.
K.F. Breene has done it yet again. In this first book in her new Leveling Up series we have a forty year old divorcee who has given over half her life to an ex-husband who had decided to “trade up”.
Our heroine, Jacinta, or Jessie as most call her, instead of being devastated as most women would be, is ecstatic. Now, finally, after supporting her ex for twenty years and seeing her son off to college, will finally get to discover herself and be the woman she wants to be.
When Jessie is offered a position as caretaker at Ivy House she accepts. She hasn’t been to the house since she was ten but she remembered that the house was intriguing and full of secret passageways that she and her friend Diana had discovered. The house had called to her at ten and called to her now.
Little does Jessie know what role the house has chosen her for. But the question is, will Jessie accept the role? Is Jessie capable of opening her mind to accept that magic may indeed be very real?