Leafing Through Pages – The Other Side of the Coin (Poppy’s Coin #3)

Stars: 4 / 5

Recommendation: The story deals with lots of comedy and confusion. At the same time each understand the other through heartache as well. Never utter a wish when holding something strange in your hands.

The Other Side of the Coin is the second novella in The Other Side Anthology in January of 2010 in which Nora published her novella with four of her recurring authors – Mary Blayney, Patrcia Gaffney, Ruth Ryan Langan and Mary Kay McComas.

In the anthology book The Lost, we see that Robb’s regular anthology author Mary Kay McComas is clearly absent and missing for the book. No writeup was given why she is missing in the book. But she came back in this book, which means J.D. Robb had to make the anthology series a five author one, since she introduced Patricia Gaffney in the previous book.

In this less than 100 pages novella, Mary Blayney takes us on a journey with her characters – Earl of Fellsborough, Lord Harry, and his wife Countess of Fellsborough, Bettina, who wish that each live in each other’s shoes on a whishing coin. This is the third story in Poppy’s Coin series by Mary Blayney. This was however was published only as the anthology The Other Side.

It reminded me of the so many Hollywood, Bollywood (- Hindi) and Tollywood (= Telugu) that involved the spirits exchanging between two parties, typically a male and a female, where each other is forced to live the other’s life. But, it reminded me of the 2003 American fantasy comedy Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, a mother and daughter pair.

It is charming that we see how Harry and Bettina live while the characters experience each other’s lives. It a historical romance written in the Regency period, like most of Mary’s novels in this series. Although I wasn’t so good with the other books, Mary has charmed me with this. Probably because I was able to relate to it with movies that I saw.

Their protagonists desperate search for a solution was funny, as were the insights they got into each other’s problems. A very good story-telling style made it more funnier. The last pages seem to have a story of itself. A follow-up perhaps?

The story deals with lots of comedy and confusion. At the same time each understand the other through heartache as well. Never utter a wish when holding something strange in your hands.