When this book came in my email box (I adopted this author, sight unseen for Adopt An Indie month), I really didn’t know much about it. I knew it was chick lit and the cover looked cool (yeah, I know, but I at least admit that I judge books by their covers!). So, I went into this without any real preconceived notions.

The writing is supremely clean and polished. It flows nicely and was obviously very well edited. The author does an exceptional job of giving each character their own “voice” so that you knew who was talking at all times – none of that awkward “lost in the conversation” stuff going on.

Because the characters did have such distinctive voices, I really really really didn’t like one of them. Quinn. I spent part of my time wanting to reach through my kindle and smack him around a bit and the other part cringing by his complete lack of sense. But, he’s a hot rock star, so I guess we’ll forgive him. But still… sheesh!

I’m not sure that it was entirely accidental that I didn’t like Quinn. I mean, it added to the story because I DID care, but I just didn’t like the guy. I really did like the main female character (George, of course!) though. If a bit of a silly “seriously this is not happening” character, she made an absolutely fabulous lead character with depth.

Look, it’s chick lit. It’s not Pride and Prejudice. I go in knowing that I will probably be annoyed by the love story, but I read it because I love it (gosh, does that make ANY sense?). For me, it’s escapism, I can be somewhere else for a while, usually somewhere fabulous with someone even more fabulous. This book delivers on this promise – and is topped with a really nice plot.

I had already figured out the big reveal at the end of the book, but the mini one before that I had NO idea was coming. *Hat tip* to the author – very few times does that kind of thing slip by me.

I would highly recommend this for chick lit readers. You’ll enjoy it. But ya know, even though just want a quick escape read, you’ll enjoy this too. It’s a great story, give it a shot.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2011: 57

If such a rating existed, I would give this one 3.5 stars. I’m rounding up because I like the way the author has laid out the next book in this series of trilogies. She seems to be taking us on a journey to somewhere.

First, let me say that it’s a bit too meandering for me. I kinda wanted her to get to the point, it was really overly wordy. I think a good content editor could have gotten the book down about 10% and it would have been for the better. While I understand these are stand alone trilogies, I still missed the magic of Cain and Felicity. My hope is to follow the author and trust her to make it all okay in the end. *laughing*

The good news is that, at the end of it all, I did honestly care about all of the characters and am interested enough to want to see where the 5th book is going to take us.

I recommend this book for paranormal romance fans, but know it’s quite long, so get ready to settle in. I could see this being great for those long Winter nights of reading.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2011: 47

First the bad – the current cover for this book doesn’t do it justice at all and really has very little to do with the content. I must say that had someone not pointed this one out to me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it, much less purchased it. Yes, I judge books by their covers.

I am really glad that a friend of mine did point it out to me because this book was just what I needed to get me out of a reading slump that I found myself in this Summer. It was reasonably light and beachy, but had enough of a plot line and a few serious issues to keep me interested in the storyline.

I was actually quite surprised by the plot and how the authors managed to weave the serious issues between and with Rod and Judith into a lighter read. In some ways, it was sad, yet also made it feel just a little more real.

The writing was great, I saw one little error where Tammi answered Rod’s phone and then just seemingly a few hours later, he couldn’t use it because it ran out of battery the night before, but if that’s the biggest content edit problem I found, we’re doing pretty good. The grammar was well done and it was overall very well written and edited.

This is highly recommended for those that enjoy chick lit, but also like a little meat with it.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2011: 44

I believe this author was giving this book and I saw it on Twitter. Maybe I bought it. I don’t remember how I found it, but I did earlier this month and grabbed it because… okay, because I liked the title, okay? I mean, seriously!

These are a few short stories and all were fun and light and would be perfect to sit out on the beach or by the pool, chill out and read for a bit while ignoring your children and trying to lose yourself in something that makes you forget that you have sand creeping in places that it doesn’t belong.

I won’t go into each story except to say that the title one was my absolute favorite. They are all a little far-fetched, but you get exactly what you are expecting in this quirky little book of short stories.

The only real problem I saw was that a couple of the stories seemed unfinished, even for short stories. I wanted just a little bit more.

I recommend this one for the ladies that can laugh, smile and not take their reading too terribly serious. This is fun.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2011: 40

Last month, this book showed up in my mailbox along with some others and I kept it to the side because (okay, honest here) I liked the cover. I had read a bit of the author here and there, but the cover art kind of grabbed me. So there, you know I judge books by their covers. So, it went into the “maybe read one day” stack.

A week ago, I was going through the stack and I picked this book up and then flipped it over as I was looking through them. Then I caught the name “Beauchamp”. You see, that is MY last name. Which, of course, meant that I had to read it immediately. I do wish I kept envelopes because I kind of want to know who sent it and if they giggled too.

The book itself is really well written. The writing flows very well, and the grammar is superb. It’s very steady writing, there’s nothing here that’s going to send you screaming for a dictionary. I love that the author took time to give us some good background on the Beauchamp Family while still building her story. It didn’t feel as though it was an aside, just a natural progression.

My only real complaint is that the ending was rushed a bit. She tried to tie everything up in one or two chapters and it was just too many loose ends, in my opinion. I would have rather there not been so many to tie up or perhaps leave a few for the next book.

I also kind of fell in love with the people and places in North Hampton, where the vast majority of the book takes place. It was so vividly described and so well done that I could have sworn I visited there one time.

I recommend this book for those that enjoy a good book with light paranormal elements, a little tiny bit of romance and a dash of mythology. Well worth the read!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2011: 35

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before:

Big city girl traipses off to some remote location where she breaks a heel, learns a lesson and falls in love… Yeah, okay, it’s been done before. It will be done again. Repeatedly. It’s a formula that works well, but we all know where it’s going to end.

What set this one apart is that it has a cause behind it, a cause that the author has researched well. Yes, okay, that has been done too, but I didn’t feel like the author was shoving the walruses down my throat. Her characters had depth beyond just their cause. The cause was part of who they were on a larger scale. The author didn’t make these characters one-dimensional at all and different layers of their personalities.

I thought the editing was excellent, I didn’t see any time line or silly spelling/grammar errors. Either I was too wrapped up in what was going on or they didn’t exist. Either way, thank goodness for that! There’s a great mix of dialogue and narrative.

This is an easy breezy read that doesn’t pretend to me anything more than it is. From reading the description, you know exactly what you are going to get.

Without giving too much away the ending was satisfying, if not a little too satisfying. While I like to know a real true ending to a book, I think the author ended it well… but then went and ended it again. And then again. So, while I was happy to not be left hanging, I could have done without all the extra endings (heh, innings, endings, get it?!?!)

This is a great book for those that like chicklit. It’s a little heavier than your standard toss away book. I will forever remember the scene with the baby walrus and the heartbreak that went with it. Well done.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2010: 96

What a silly, stupid, and pointless book. …

And I actually stayed up late reading that drivel because I could not put it down.

Seriously, this was a lot of fun! It was very silly and pretty darn pointless, but let’s be real… it’s a book about this cat who swaps bodies with a lady, both of which who have murderous crazy people after them. What I liked most about this book is that it didn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is – just a cute little fun break from reality. There was no trying to explain how it happened or how it could be undone or anything like that. It just was.

Silly. Sassy. While I found the character of Sorcha to be a little annoying and a bit whiny but uh, well, she did get turned into a cat. However, Belle made me want to stab my eyes out with a spoon at times. The neediness and stuck-up-ed-ness really got on my nerves. Yeah, she likes tuna. Move on. Having said that, I also really loved the characters. Yes, that leaves me quite confused. They were very much “love to hate” type of characters.

The author’s writing was fantastic, I didn’t feel bored or felt like it went on too long at any given point in the book. I also loved that I didn’t see any glaring errors (yes, yes, yes, I know, silly pet peeve).

Overall, this was a breath of fresh air. There is absolutely no way I would have picked this book up on my own had the author not contacted me and asked me to review it. In fact, this actually went in my secondary “probably not going to bother reading” pile for reviews. I guess it just goes to show that it’s always worth a second look. I simply grabbed this one because I knew it would be light and I could easily put it down. Yeah, not so much. Sucked me in a bit. It still was easy to put down, but it was interesting enough to get me to pick it back up when I sat down to read again.

This book is recommended to people that don’t take their literature too seriously. It’s reading. It should be downright fun sometimes.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2010: 76

This is a sweet little romance story, nothing more and nothing less. I think it does what it says it does. It makes you smile and it’s a easy read with a cute little story. I really enjoyed the story aspect of it.

It’s really not long enough to get too deep into character development and the ending is one of those you can see coming from two miles away. The ending didn’t bother me so much, that’s typical for this genre, but I really wish it had been longer and we had gotten to know the characters a little more. One of the two main story lines seem to wrap up entirely too easily.

There are quite a few typos in here which I found a little disappointing. I will admit that I am not a great grammarian or speller, but I am also not out there publishing books. Even self published books deserve a good read-through with an editor (and no, mom doesn’t count).

Having said that, the author has talent and I look forward to watching what she does next.

This is a worthy read for someone needing something light and predictable. I read it after reading a rough book with lots of bad guys and this was just the ticket!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2010: 68

This the 2nd of the Outlander series and I just finished this one. Like the first, it’s long, excessively so. What makes this different from the first, however, is that it’s really really slow. About a quarter of the way in, I was ready to stop reading it. It didn’t appear to be going anywhere and was starting to make me a little angry, to be honest. I felt cheated by the author. I had invested so much time into the first book and she’s killing me slowly with the second.

It did redeem itself in the end. The story is well done, but really, half of the book could have been edited out and the story would have remained the same. I didn’t realize there’s such a following for these books, apparently entire groups formed around them. I would say they are good, but now the end-all be-all. I think they might be slightly overrated.

Having said THAT, the history that goes into the books is actually kind of impressive. It’s not really my thing, but if you like hearing about the 1800s Scotland, France, etc… this is probably right up your alley and you wouldn’t want to stab your eyes out with a spoon.

I’m debating on reading the third, but will definitely be taking a break from this series to read something a little more light and airy.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2010: 51

This book opens in a very unconventional way. I read some of this of this genre (chicklit) and it can be kind of overly formulaic, but I was surprised and intrigued from the get go, I didn’t yawn once *laughing*. The book held my attention throughout, but it is a bit predictable. I guess that’s the downfall of this genre, it rarely surprises me. HOWEVER, I did like the way it unfolded. The story moved along quickly and interestingly. The merry-go-round was a nice backdrop/side story that I thought was pretty genius to include.

The writing itself flowed well. I found a few grammatical mistakes (lift instead of life, and a few of/if/is/it type of things) in my copy, but nothing that distracted too much from the writing. Nothing too horrible and the story doesn’t suffer from it.

I also liked that the characters felt true, flaws and all. I loved that the male wasn’t all the bad guy. In this genre, it can sometimes get overwhelming with the “boys are bad” mentality. I loved the unfolding of events and realizations of the characters.

Overall, this is a great book if you like contemporary romance without all the throbbing bosoms etc. A great little weekend read!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book count for 2010: 49