About The Book
When Lily Jacobs was born, she inherited Fazire – a genie. Her family had three wishes and they’d only ever used one so Fazire was stuck in the human world. This worked since he’d become a member of the family anyway.
Even with a genie, Lily’s young life wasn’t perfect. To escape the kids making her miserable at school, Lily buried herself in romance novels. One day, when the teasing was just too much, she used one of her wishes. She told Fazire she wanted to find a man like in her books and she made the most complicated wish Fazire had ever heard. Her wished-for man had to be impossibly handsome, virile, fierce, rugged and ruthless (amongst a dozen other things).
He also had to think she was beautiful and he had to love her more than anything in the world.
Nathaniel McAllister wasn’t born to a life where there were such things as genies granting wishes. His life was filled with drugs, crime and neglect. He was running errands for a gangster before he was in his teens and, even though life and hard work led him to wealth and respectability, he always knew, deep down, he was dirty. When Nate met Lily he knew he was no good for her but as virile, fierce, rugged and ruthless as he was, Nate was no match for the pull of sweet, innocent Lily.
Unfortunately, Lily’s wish included that she and her hero go through trials and tribulations to test their love. And Fazire wasn’t only a good genie, he loved Lily – so he gave her exactly what she wanted.
My Review
First Impressions
Three Wishes is one of the few standalones that this author has written. I am not sure how this one flew below my radar, but I saw some booktagrammer’s raving about this one here. I am not sure how I didn’t even know that this book existed as I adore her standalones! They always end up being my favorite books, and even though this one was a bit different than what KA usually delivers, it knocked my socks off. I know that nothing in my review will bring this book enough justice, it was just a beautiful romance and KA definitely worked her magic in this one that I devoured in. This is one of her more supernatural romances but still has a solid Contemporary Romance feel to it. So I do think readers of the Contemporary genre, will still want to read this one, it just has a slight magical element to it. Three Wishes was a very unique story and really was so endearing in many ways that will endear readers more to this author than ever before.
Summary
In Three Wishes, our story begins with a magical genie. The matriarch of the family, loses her husband in the war and she somehow awakens a genie from a bottle, who offers her three wishes. What she ends up wishing for in the end is a beautiful girl who will be humble but beautiful and sweet and intelligent. Well we see that girl in her teen years, who is bright and draws everyone to her but is a bit plain in her appearance (but will be beautiful in her adult years as the genie wanted her to stay humble), and she wishes for her dream man who will love her fiercely, and they will have to overcome struggles to reach their HEA. Well our heroine grows up, and finds her dream man but our hero, has a difficult past, and while he has wealth and power and parents that love him, he feels shame for how he grew up and what he had to do to survive. Some events will cause our pair to get torn apart, but through fate they are brought back together and find a beautiful love and a family worth fighting for!
What I Loved
Three Wishes was such a powerful read that I loved every single moment of. I honestly, was so drawn into this story. Now the magical element of the story is the “Genie” which made for such a unique quality to the story. I will say that if you are a KA fan, I advise you to not go into this book with your regular expectations of this author because she adds something so much more different than what you can expect. In fact, its just not her traditional style in how she writes her stories most of the time, so go in with that expectation. I have found that her supernatural books tend to be a little bit different than what she does with her contemporary books, although this book still feels like a contemporary. So Contemporary readers….I highly recommend this one! I found Three Wishes to be such an emotional story. I will say that there are some tropes that readers will either love or hate in this one here. I actually loved how the author really brought the elements together and she made it work out so well in the end. There is some fabulous chemistry and so much heart that is delivered. And even though it has a secret baby situation (don’t worry I loved how it was done, and y’all know how picky I am about that trope) I also really enjoyed the family connection that is delivered. The sense of family is very strong within this story and I really adored both characters. They are both strong and so easy to relate with. The author does a wonderful job in capitalizing on the character growth that has you cheering them on. This story delivers in every one on deep emotion, so make sure your tissue box is handy, you will need them.
What I Struggled With
Nothing much, it was a bit slow in the beginning, but picks pace very quickly.
Overall View
I found Three Wishes to be such a stunning romance that fed my heart in such a brilliant way. Three Wishes is a unique read that is guaranteed to captive your attention and tug at your heartstring in a empowering way!
Title: Three Wishes
Author: Kristen Ashley
Genre: Contemporary Romance w/ Magical Elements
Format: eBook
Source: Library
Length: 432 Pages
Book Links
Amazon| Barnes and Noble| Kobo| Goodreads| LibraryThing| StoryGraph| Literal Club
Book Evaluation
Storytelling Quality: 4.5
Story Itself: 4.5
Character Development: 5
Writing Style: 4.5
World Building 5
Feels + The Romantic Heart 4.25
Pacing 4
Plot 4.5
Cover Art 4
Ending 5
Book Ratings
Overall Rating of the Book
Steam Level
Simmering—soft warm touches and light intimacy
Warm- a medium level of sexual tension, a balance of sexual and emotional intimacy, lighter on the details in the sexual moments.
Steamin’ up the room -the sexual content is more explicit in the language and tone, heavier amount of sexual scenes.
Blazing fire to the building-The prime focus is the sex scenes, scorching hot, and could burn one. Less focus on the emotional intimacy to the relationship.
About The Author
Kristen Ashley was born in Gary, Indiana, USA. She nearly killed her mother and herself making it into the world, seeing as she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck (already attempting to accessorize and she hadn’t taken her first breath!).
Kristen grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana but has lived in Denver, Colorado and the West Country of England. Thus she has been blessed to have friends and family around the globe. Her posse is loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write.
Kristen was raised in a house with a large and multi-generational family. They lived on a very small farm in a small town in the heartland and existed amongst the strains of Glenn Miller, The Everly Brothers, REO Speedwagon and Whitesnake (and the wardrobes that matched).
Needless to say, growing up in a house full of music, clothes and love was a good way to grow up.
And as she keeps growing up, it keeps getting better.
Wow, this sounds different for KA. I’m not a fan of magical elements in contemporary stories and magical realism rarely works for me. I guess I’m a purist who wants to keep them separate. LOL Sounds like it was a big hit for you, though! I always appreciate it when an author can write such great chemistry between the MC’s.
I like the premise for this. I’m intrigued now.
Your review of this has me considering trying her work again.
Well this is also the first time that I hear about that one Renee!