Power Unbound is another light and enjoyable romance from Ms Murphy. As the second book in the series we are now familiar with the world that has been built for our ‘gadda’ so it has lost some of that initial feeling of originality, but this also means that we’re straight into the story rather than trying to work out who is who and what is what. However, I do wish we had a Celtic pronunciation guide (I can never remember how to pronounce ‘b’) and a short glossary (as I forget which role each person has and what they actually can do).

Romance fans will again enjoy the ‘guaranteed’ happy-ever-after ending the Ms Murphy seems to be making as her trademark with this series. Although we do have some conflict and a little ‘soap opera style’ hit and miss in the love affair that brings Ione Gorton and Stephen O’Malley together, the main twists come from the continuing search for the missing, deadly (and appropriately named) ‘forbidden texts’. I didn’t enjoy Stephen as a hero (thought he was a bit of a pratt actually), but I adore Ione and she made up for his short comings (we may have needed a B&D scene to really make a ‘mark’).

I am certainly enjoying the developments in the ‘Forbidden Texts’ aspect of the plot, which is providing a nice bit of mystery as the underlying theme to the series. Although, sadly this time we don’t get to spend time in Australia, as both Stephen and Ione are based in the gadda community, but Ms Murphy does manage to sneak in a few subtle Aussie culture references.

One aspect that really struck me was the lack of euphemisms in the ‘steamy bits’; I have to say it rather threw me to see ‘penis’ rather than ‘rock hard member’, not in a bad way, but certainly made me pay attention.

Overall, Power Unbound is just relaxing and enjoyable, it’s a little predicable and very light, but you can read it in a sitting, be amused and entertained without any effort required, but I did feel that it’s a little pricey in the NZ market for what it is (RRP NZ$28.99 A-Format at time of this review).

I am undoubtedly looking forward to book three ‘Rouge Gadda’ to see how Ms Murphy ties off the series, should be fun.