Divine by Mistake

unbelievable, wish fulfillment soft soap masquerading as fantasy

Oklahoma English teacher Shannon Parker finds herself in another world ("a cross between Scotland and ancient Greece") when she purchases a vase at an estate sale. The Goddess Incarnate has cast a spell to trade places with Shannon, so she can visit the modern world and escape from the imminent attack of vampire-like creatures called Formorians (and her centaur betrothed) in her own world. After some initial confusion, Shannon fits right in to her new world, donning the mantle and tiara of Lady Rhiannon, marrying the centaur, and leading her people against the Formorians.
This take on the supernatural genre, although a real mish-mash of legends, magical characters, and spiritual traditions both ancient and modern, kinda works. The central conflict is suspenseful, and the sub-plots are used to successfully tie the narrative together and enhance the plot. My only complaint is the "teen-speak" with which Shannon/Rhea tends to talk. She's 35, and yeah, she hangs around teens a lot being a teacher, but it sort of rang unrealistic to me. It didn't sound really genuine. Shannon is a great character, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next in Divine by Choice.

I am *so* not sure what to rate this book. While the world wasn't amazing, I absolutely loved the main character. I wanted to spend every waking minute with Shannon/Rhea. She is snarky. She is realistic. She is passionate. She is lovable. She has a heart of gold. Make no mistake: this is a chick book. Males should probably pass on by.

As the synopsis clearly states, Shannon finds herself transferred to another world where she is the "chosen" of the warrior goddess. She also finds that her counterpart was a bit of a . . . Shrew. So, Rhea spends a great deal of time making up for that.

There are a great many pop culture references. She either dreams about, or hopes to dream about, people like Tom Selleck, Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery. A girl after my own heart. She was a high school English teacher, and uses these skills frequently as she continues to 'impersonate' Rhiannon. There are also frequent Star Trek and Star Wars references. These were so much fun because I felt like I was in on an inside joke. These were always clicheish, yet appropriate, and mostly hysterical.

She enters this world as, unbeknownst to the people, a race that is considered 'pure evil' is about to attack. She, and her band of fearless followers, must quickly build a defense to defeat the monsters. While this plot is not the strongest plot ever devised, it works as a vehicle to spend time with our intrepid heroine. Which is where the strength of the story lies. Most other characters are not nearly as well flesh out, but it *is* told in first person, so this is not really a weakness, just a fact. I knew Shannon was the perfect heroine when she re-wrote the end of The Phantom of the Opera to please her enthralled audience.

Rather than a romance, I think I would classify this story as a love affair. There is no love triangle. There is no romantic suspense. It is just there and wraps you in its arms. This is definitely, then, a love affair with a bit of fantasy thrown in. A little more lovey dovey than I typically enjoy, but Rhea is just so much darn fun it does not matter.

Oh, yes, did I mention centaurs? No vampires. (Even though the evil beings are characterized as being "vampire-like".) No werewolves. But CENTAURS! This, alone, makes this book worth reading.

Well-written; just not my cuppa.

I really liked main heroines sense of humor and comments.

I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would starting out. The beginning was pretty weak and just not compelling at all. Shannon felt so whiny and pretentious. I was about to give up on the book is she made one more ''pun'' (which was always followed by an explanation as if the reader is stupid) or compared any other random thing to a book or poem she'd read. It was just so irritating and pointless.

Once she got to Partholon though, it got really, really good. I thought it was fascinating watching her try to fit into the new world and act as if she belonged there. ClanFintan was a really interesting character and his conversations with Rhea were always amusing. I thought the plot was pretty good though I don't think the main conflict was developed enough and sort of just fizzled out at the end.

In comparison with The House of Night series, it is written a lot better and the characters are not as stereotypical.

One thing I would like is to see how Rhiannon is getting on in Shannon's world.

I could have done without the monster-rape and monster-rape birth scenes.
But the rest of it was incredibly well done and brilliant.

First in a series. An average American woman finds herself swapping places with a high priestess in a parallel fantasy world. Within hours she's married to a centaur, having out-of-body experiences and battling hordes of vampiric monsters - not to mention ministering to smallpox victims. Life's never dull, eh?

I'm a freshman in high school, so my opinion might not mean much to everyone commenting here because I'm not an adult, but i've read enough adult books to know what makes a good one.

Unfortunately, the problems i find in "Divine by Mistake" are the problems i find in pretty much all of the books I have read by P.C. Cast (Marked-Burned)

HER CHARACTERS SOUND LIKE THE ANNOYING BITCHES IN MY CLASS BACK IN GRADE 5.

She makes her characters say some of the cheesiest, childish things like "poopie" and the fact that Shannon is supposed to be a middle aged woman, she says things like "Epi" as short for Epona? COMMON! Thats an insult to the goddess Epona!

And she does that with Zoe from The House of Night series as well.

Both Shannon and Zoe come off as spoiled bitches who love themselves too much. She's always talking about how Shannon has the perfect body, her stomach is flat, her boobs are big, her legs are nice. I think characters should have flaws, its what makes them amazing characters, but when they talk about how they're hot, fun, friendly blah, blah it gets too cookie cutter.

Within the first 2 pages, I thought she resembled my science teacher, after a couple more sentences, the resemblance disappeared. I was hoping for a more sophisticated, collected, cool character.

The book was overall alright, the characters really ruined it for me though. I dislike the fact that she always tries to maker her characters special and different, and eventually everyone warms up to them.

To be honest, I probably would have liked the book better under Rihannon's POV.

Unfortunately, I was utterly disappointed with this series of books. The synopsis on the back of the book, with its promise of high fantasy and centaurs and Epona, a world with a somewhat medieval feel – why, that’s right up my alley and really had me hooked. The book’s protagonist, Shannon, is meant to be a thirty-five year old woman. However, the majority of the time she acts like a spoiled, whiny teenager. Now imagine having to sit and listen to said spoiled, whiny teenager through 500+ pages. Yes, folks, Shannon is the narrator.

What really got me, however, was the writing. I tried very hard to get passed the obnoxious and immature sounding voice of the narrator, but the short, choppy sentences and simplistic vocabulary really just made it impossible for me to fall in love with the story. What made that even more unbearable to me is that Shannon is supposedly a High School English teacher!

Kudos, though, to anyone who can churn out that many words, get it published, and make money off of it. In that regard, it’s a win.

I read all three of the series (Divine by Mistake, Divine by Choice, Divine by Blood) in a weekend…and I will never read them again.

Really disappointed with this, the premise of the book sounded fantastic - time slipping into a world of goddesses. Unfortunately it never becomes a good book. The writing is poor and the characters are one dimensional. The main character behaves like a giddy teenager instead of a 35 year old. If I could describe it as anything it would be sub-Diana Gabaldon and sub-chick lit. Two genres which have obviously heavily influenced the book. Recommended only for when you need a book where you don't need to engage your brain.

I thought the idea of this book sounded quite good – I’m all for medieval type worlds and centaurs and enemies and castles and so I was pretty sold on the blurb on the back of the book. But I found the main character fairly annoying, and given she was the one telling the story, it was quite a drawback.

She was supposed to be 35, but rarely ever seemed it throughout the book. The narrative was definitely more teenage-esque. She was also incredibly laid back about being switched into another world and there was almost no panic on her part, or disbelief, or anything that would’ve made it remotely credible. She even handled the ‘handfasting’ (wedding) to a centaur - centaur! - with barely an eyelash flicker whereas most women would’ve totally freaked.the.heck.out. But then again we’re led to believe that Shannon (the protagonist) is truly the beloved and chosen of Epona (medieval-type world’s goddess) and therefore, able to adjust and adapt on a whim. Which seems a -lame- way to avoid having to deal with a realistic reaction to being transported into another world.

The author tries hard to establish Shannon as being different to Rhiannon (who orchestrated the switch and now resides in ‘our’ world in Shannon’s place) and that Rhiannon was pretty much, a world class bi*ch and Shannon is much fairer, more sympathetic, a better choice to be the chosen vessel of Epona. While Shannon certainly lacked Rhiannon's inherently nasty and selfish streak, she didn't really strike me as a believable choice for pretty much what equatedsto a high priestess of a goddess. The book does have its good points – ClanFintan, the centaur handfasted to the Chosen of Epona (Rhiannon originally, now Shannon) was quite endearing. The vampire-like enemy threatening them were believably eerie. But overall, I was pretty disappointed. From all I’ve read, praise wise, about this author, I expected better writing. Instead a lot of the time it felt like I was reading the English Creative Writing assignment of a horse mad 15yr old with a fascination with the Narnia novels.

My usual reading is YA lit, but I loved Cast's writing in the House of Night series, so I wanted to give this one a try. Plus, the premise intrigued me. Now I have to admit, I was a little nervous going in. With my normal MC being a high school student, I didn't know how I would relate to a high school teacher. I was afraid she might be stuffy. This was certainly not the case!

I loved Shannon! She was real and funny and never took herself too seriously. It was her sarcasm though that won me over. She is the type of person that makes the best of her situation and has an optimistic attitude, which made her easy to like. I enjoyed hearing about her friendships with her closet friends in her "first life". They were exactly like girlfriends are with each other.

The first forty pages moves a little slow. But when you get to page forty, Shannon is sucked into the world
of Partholon. Good luck putting it down at that point! I fell in love with this world Cast has created. The details are so real. I felt like I was in the gorgeous lands of Scotland, but in the time of greek gods. Some of the descriptions did get a little lengthy. The author was trying to set up this world for the rest of the series. I think what makes this fantasy world so real, is the author's passion for it. You can feel Cast's heart in the words when she is describing Partholon.

The romance was fantastic. Now I usually try to avoid spoilers, but this one I must tell you. Because when I first saw ClanFintan was a centaur, I was like, "What the hell? How can there be a romance if he is a centaur? I need romance in my fantasies!". But I was relieved to find out he is a shape-shifter. As high shaman, he can shape into many shapes. One of those shapes being a very sexy man. I loved ClanFintan. He was always there for Shannon when she needed him, but he treated her with respect and as an equal. He is now one of my new favorite men of fiction. Yes, ClinFintan and Shannon figure out their love for each other rather quickly. But it just fit in this story. They are two adults who know what they what, so it all felt real and not forced to me. It was so obvious that these two should be together that I was glad I didn't have to wait around to see it.

I loved the romance, but the action took center stage in the story. Shannon was thrown into the world where she is High-Priestess. On one hand it's great. She has servants to bring her whatever she needs, all the clothes a girl could want, someone to do her hair and and make up, and a never ending supply of wine. I do have to admit that my girly side was drooling. But as a high-priestess she has a lot of responsibility. The Fomorians are killing and raping her people, and it's all on Shannon's shoulders to stop them. Cast does a great job at pacing the story. I was often on the edge of my seat, dying to get to the next page.

While I usually enjoy pop culture references, and some of them in the story were so funny they had me laughing out loud, I felt that there were too many. I found myself getting a little annoyed at some of them. But the minor annoyance wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying the story.

The ending was great. It tied up the loose strings and left me with a smile on my face. But I still craved to be in Partholon. I was so glad to have the next book in the series on hand. Cast does what not many writers can do, and that is to completely throw you in a different world, where only what flies off the pages exists. Any adult reader that is a fan of fantasy will enjoy this book. And if you are an adult like me that usually stays in the YA genre, I think you will enjoy this one as well.

Having been a fan of P.C. and Kristen Cast’s House of Night series, I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about trying out any of P.C. Cast’s other books. For the most part, I love the House of Night series – would I feel the same way about her other books? While I do try to read many of my books in an objective format that allows me to see the good parts in each individual piece, I was afraid that if I became disenchanted with Cast’s adult books, it might ruin her young adult ones for me as well.

I am pleased to announce that I should have just thrown my worry to the ground and squished it under my shoe. While definitely having a different feel to them than the House of Night books do, the Goddess of Partholon books are turning out to be pretty spectacular. The first in the series, DIVINE BY MISTAKE follows Shannon Parker, a school teacher loving the freedom of summer break, as she discovers an ancient vase that will turn her world upside down - literally. Where there were once cars, there are now horses. Jeans and a cashmere sweater? Nope, let’s try a lovely wrapped piece of silk and some strappy sandals.

What’s a girl to do with no mall, no teenagers to teach, and a world where the impossible walks before her very eyes? Barely awake for more than a few hours, Shannon – or Rhiannon, as she’s known in Partholon – finds herself a key player in a handfast ceremony. Before she can say “Whoa there,” Shannon is married to a horse (centaur) and thrown into a wild adventure.

I’ll admit that the beginning of the book was a little hard to get into. I almost put it down to take a break, but decided to keep on going. You’ll remember that I said the same thing about Stephenie Meyer’s The Host. The beginning was slow but the rest of the book was phenomenal. In this case, it seemed like the beginning of DIVINE BY MISTAKE almost went by a little too quickly. Some things didn’t seem fully explained and other didn’t make sense. I had to ignore my mind as it tried to figure out the spatial aspect of the story as it didn’t always seem like the shapes and sizes of things in the story were described the same as the way they were used. Once I was able to get past this, however, I realized what a great book this really is.

If there is anything new I have discovered about P.C. Cast’s writing it’s that this author is incredibly funny. The House of Night series can be humorous, but in general Zoey and her posse follow a fairly dark path. While there were certainly very dark and very graphic scenes in DIVINE BY MISTAKE, Ms. Cast was able to throw quite a bit of humor in their to lighten up the mood of the book. I can honestly say that Shannon is one of my favorite characters in the stories I have read thus far this year. The author has imbued her with a sense of humor, a modern personality that clashes beautifully with the old-fashioned world she has been transported to, and a set of quirks that just make her adorable.

While we’re discussing wonderful characters, let’s visit ClanFintan, shall we. I can honestly say that I had never read a story that included any form of romance between a centaur and a human. I didn’t know how it would work and it if would be weird, but the way Ms. Cast created her world and the way she developed her characters made this aspect of the story one of the best. ClanFintan is like any tall, dark, and handsome man we dream of. Only difference is that he has the hindquarters of a horse. What could be better for those of us that never grew out of our princess and horse-lover phase? The author’s descriptions of ClanFintan, his mannerisms, and the personality she gives him really helped to make this one heck of a book.

Fair warning: There are adult scenes and adult themes.

I would recommend this to any lovers of Fantasy, Romance, or any combination of the two. I would recommend this to adult readers as there are some scenes that may be disturbing to younger readers.

Shannon works as a high-school teacher and finds herself at an estate sale and attracted to an urn with a depiction of Epona that looks very much like her. Shortly after buying it she finds herself in another world where she's the high priestess of Epona, about to marry a centaur and finding that there's a war brewing with the evil, vampiric Formorians.

It's not bad but there are places where it just didn't gel properly for me. For the most part I was very interested in finding out what happened and what happened next but there were some places that I just had to wonder why that scene or battle was there as it didn't really seem to serve a purpose.

Not a bad read but felt a bit weak in places.

I picked this book up thinking it would be a harmless read. I enjoy many of the cast away in time, another world, etc. type books and this one looked like it could be entertaining. Boy I was wrong. The characters were cardboard, the storyline was mediocre, but the worst was the action. It was terrible. If you are going to write a fantasy, sword and bow kind of adventure at least know what you are talking about.

Ms. Cast has her centaurs using crossbows a bizarre choice of weaponry for a half horse people (longbows would have been bad but I could have dealt with it that, compound horse bow would have made actual sense) and then had the centaurs shooting those crossbows so rapidly, I thought they must have had clips.

Maybe its because I wasn't expecting a romance novel (I didnt realize Luna was a romance print) but the action components were so bad it just drove me crazy. Further the romance itself was crappy. If I didn't force myself to finish everything I start, I would have never finished this book.

All in all a bad book that I could not recommend to anyone.

It is a revised version of goddess by mistake this is the ebook edition If as Ms Casts claims the proof reading was been cleared up in the revision she must have introduced a whole new set afterwards. I cant compare the two but I suspect the differences are too slight to warrant buying both versions. P c Cast claims amongst other things I gather that some dated pop culture references were revised certainly plenty remain. I would suspect little else has changed other than a little clumsy foreshadowing of future volumes.

so a plot summary our heroine gains a pot at an estate auction that swaps her with her opposite number from a magical world where she is the favoured of the goddess Epona effectively a god-queen/avatar she is also about to marry a centaur. and the baddies who are very bad indeed are massing at the border. We are told you can only pass between worlds once that future attempts will kill. but I suspect this to be left over from the original version and should have been edited out. anyway enough technical stuff its the sort of light fluffy romance where you never have to worry about the ending no matter how bad those nasty baddies are.

Shannon Parker is happy with her world. She has her family, friends and job where she tortures....er...teaches English to high school students. When Shannon receives an invitation to an estate auction and sees an urn (vase/friggin'pot) depicting High Priestess of Epona the Celtic Horse Goddess, who happens to look exactly like her, little does Shannon realize how much things are about to change. And change they do when the urn trades Shannon with the high priestess Rhiannon and brings her to a place which should be the stuff of imagination but isn't. Soon Shannon is faced with the question, has she been brought to this alternate reality for a reason, or is she simply a Goddess by Mistake?

Goddess by Mistake was a fun fantasy read. Centaurs are part of fantasy that rarely get their chance in the spotlight and are usually delegated to secondary characters. In Goddess the Centaur Shaman, ClanFintan, gets plenty of time in the spotlight. All in all the relationship between Rhea and ClanFintan was satisfying if not overly exciting. The book read very evenly and I was content to pick it up and put it down as the mood struck me. It wasn't story that demanded that you finish it in one sitting which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Goddess is a very likeable fantasy story which I would not heistate to recommend, especially to readers of Mary Janice Davidson stories.

Her first book. Wonderful story about an Oklahoma high school teacher who ends up changing places with Rhiannon, the high priestess of the goddess Epona, just in time for her political marriage to a centaur, an epidemic of smallpox, and a war against an army of vampire-like creatures. Fun stuff.