Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Made Marian Mixtape is a collection of stories set in the world of the Made Marian series. It would be best enjoyed by readers who are already familiar with those characters and the world of Marian. All of the Marian favorites are here in one book from Blue and Tristan’s night out on the town, to Simone’s wedding, to a longer story featuring Ammon, scenes with Teddy and Jamie, as well as a new face or two. Some of the stories are quick glimpse scenes and some are a bit longer. If you are missing the large Marian family, there’s an assortment to choose from here.
Club Mix catches us up with Blue and Tristan, the couple that originally started the series off in Borrowing Blue. Here, we find them married with a child and seeking a night of adult fun. The men are still as in love as ever and when Blue remembers a fantasy Tristan had mentioned a while back, he sets out to make it a reality.
Beach Music reunites us with a short scene from Beau and Mav having everything they ever wanted.
Hard Rock is one of the longest stories in the book and features Ammon, who appeared in Delivering Dante and is one of the more recent adoptees into the Marian family, and Mark, a bodyguard working in the family business. I enjoyed seeing these men fall in love as Mark accompanies Ammon on a stress-filled task, and they are sweet together. However, the ending sort of veered off for me as there is no resolution given to the situation Ammon was called into.
The first story in the book features Jude and Derek getting married. The issue here is that Jude and Derek had already gotten married in a previous book in the series. The author posted on social media that she forgot they had gotten married and to consider this an alternate wedding for them. However, Jude and Derek are also featured in another story in this book where they are already married so the continuity was way off for me. The stories are also not put into any type of chronological order, as Simone gets married in one of the earlier stories, but then she’s not married yet in a later story, and the lack of structure in that area didn’t work for me as well.
In Poker Face and Waking Up in Vegas, we get more back story on Tilly and Harold. The story shows what happened with Tilly many years earlier and fills in some of her background. Tilly has never been a favorite character of mine. Her lack of tact and decorum with walking into occupied bedrooms constantly and her unsolicited comments on characters’ bodies and performance in bed never appealed to me and there is also the addition of Granny and Irene. If you are a fan of Tilly, then this story should work better for you.
The idea of the title of this book is cute, but it reads as overly dated for me for a current book where almost all of the characters (the exception being the older women) grew up after the mixed tape era. It was fun seeing the Marians again, but this collection read as a lot of filler and was certainly mixed for me.
