Its time for mini-reviews. Where I get out a few thoughts on a bundle of books I've read. This week: Naked people on covers and New Adult shenanigans.
Kindle-ebook, 245 pages
October 22, 2012 (Indie-pub)
New Adult-Contemporary Romance
Purchased
3.5/5 Stars
Warning: Drug use, Graphic Sexuality, death, violence
3.5/5 Stars
Warning: Drug use, Graphic Sexuality, death, violence
So...the skinny on Charade: a beautiful Latino girl named Cheyenne just got dumped by her popular frat house boyfriend, not that he wanted to break up, he wanted to keep her and sleep with other girls on the side, you know the whole open-relationship thing? Well our frisky MC wants nothing to do with that and in a moment of embarrassing circumstances she runs (literally) into Colt, a loud mouthed bad boy who runs through women like a sleeve of Oreos, and asks him to pretend he's her boyfriend. She offers to pay him......she begs.....he accepts. Not because shes hot, but because he has a dying mother who has big time medical bills (Que: awwwwsss) and frankly drug dealing is becoming to dangerous. So the two start this relationship charade, but over the course of time discover that each of them have qualities secrets and personality's that attract the other. Slowly but surely Colt and Cheyenne begin falling in love and the big "charade" starts to become so much more.
As cliche as this over done plot-line sounds, Dawn really made her story original. Simple writing and to the point made the book a fun, quick read and surprisingly a very moving account of love, death and friendship.
January 29, 2012 by CreateSpace
Paperback, 530 Pages
New Adult- Contemporary
Purchased (Kindle)
3/5 Stars
Warning: See Below
Carmine: bad boy womanizer, rich son of a well known Mobster and a guy who uses his fists...A lot.
Haven: pretty, quiet uneducated girl. A second generation slave who grew up under the iron fist of her masters.
Now both at the age of 17, life is ready crash into them and its not going to be pretty. Carmines father has purchased Haven for his own and being a GPS'd chipped slave leaves very little chance for her to escape. Over the daily routines of cleaning, cooking and maintaining the household of three men, Haven begins to accept her new plot in life, even her new found friendship with Carmine helps her through the days in this new place.
Carmine at first doesn't really understand that Haven is a slave, he's so wrapped up in violence and the mob, little else is seen. As the friendship grows into love and Carmine and Haven begin a physical relationship, he soon learns her history and circumstances and vows to change her life. As Carmine digs deeper into Havens past and discovers shocking, life altering truths that has the potential to destroy his family and places Havens in direct danger, he is left making some very hard choices, some that should never be made on another persons behalf.
Sempre had an intriguing premise in the world of organized crime and the Italian Mob. A strong background story and a made-for TV drama mini-series feel, I really enjoyed diving into the dynamic of the characters and for the most part, liked the love story. I admired Darhower's serious look into human slavery going on in the US and I appreciate that she didn't downplay anything in this world of the mafia and crime that go's on under our nose.
However...Sempre was so long I think my roots grew out while reading it, much of the story was so redundant that over a 100 pages could have been cut out. Pacing really dragged once the middle hit, and Carmine was a huge pain in the butt for most of the story, also while I understood Haven's insecurity it drove me CRAZY!! Not sure Im a fan of the ending, although overall the book was worth reading and I don't regret experiencing it.
Rating
Recommended to adult readers 18&up and contains: Murder, violence (mild-graphic), strong language, slavery, abuse, domestic abuse, mob/crime boss activities, suicide, attempted rape, drug use, and mild sexuality.
Lost to You by A.L Jackson
January 29th 2013 by Sapphire Star Publishing
eBook-120 Pages
Adult-Contemporary Romance
Purchased
3.5/5 Stars
Warning: Sexuality, language
Lost to you is a short novella telling the tale of Elizabeth and Christian's love story from Take This Regret. If you know nothing of Take This Regret I would recommend that you grab this one first and then find out what happens in the follow up. Without ruining the story Ill just tell you E&C have an intense wild romance which comes to a screeching halt when E winds up pregnant. The choices made change both of their life, some for the better and some for the worse, all those choices come full circle in Take this Regret, but in this book we get to see how the couple met and fell in love prior to the events that rocked their world and all those choices that were made.
Like every book I've read from Jackson, the story and writing were lovely. The background story gave great insight to Elizabeth's harshness in Take This Regret and it also shed a few lights on how Christian made the choice he did. Even knowing the end of the story, I loved reading the beginning.
Fallen Too Far by Abbi Glines
December 14, 2012 by Author (Indie)
Kindle-207 Pages
New Adult-C-Romance
Borrowed
3/5 Stars
Warning: Graphic Sex, language, screaming of Rush's name over and over.
After her mama dies, Blaire hightails it to Florida to find her father who has promised to help her out until she can get on her feet. But old pops has run off to Paris with his new wife and the only one left is her sexy stepbrother (barf in my mouth- I have a stepbrother, ew) Rush, who is of course a bad boy womanizer, but is fast overtaken by Blaire, her radiant blonde hair, innocence and Alabama drawl within a few chapters.
So me and Fallen.......we have a love/hate relationship....I really loved the overall premise of this book and the twisty end was worth reading it. I hated the cover- not really means anything about the story-line but I want Glines inside story to match the outside cover, not scream sleaze fest..and that kissing it just looks ugly. I hated some of the awkward sex scenes and the screaming of Rush Rush Russsssssh, but I really do love Glines style and her writing personality so in the end it was a quick few hour read that outside of the sex had a good storyline.
Awesome! I love mini-reviews. I have a friend who adores Abbi Glines but she didn't really love Fallen.
ReplyDeleteYeah Fallen has a good story arc but the sex is kinda weird, I think my favorite one from her so far was The Vincent Brothers.
DeleteI haven't read abbi or Nyrae but need too. I have heard good things about them.
ReplyDeleteEverything Ive read from Nyrae has been awesome!!! Her What A Boy Wants was really great.
DeleteI just had to google what you meant by New Adult. Seems like I've been out of the loop for too long, and a whole new genre popped up.
ReplyDeleteLOL- yeah it got popular at the end of 2012 and now its exploding the market with naked people kissing on covers.
DeleteLove the mini reviews...but for some reason I'm just not feeling NA...
ReplyDeleteThanks Melissa. I really loved NA when it first started, it was different and gave the Indie authors a voice.....but now its getting over done, recycled and losing the originality.
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