Book Review: Diamond’s are a Teen’s Best Friend by Allison Rushby

Title: Diamonds are a Teen’s Best Friend (Living Blond series #1)
Author: Allison Rushby
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Allison Rushby
Publication Date: November 1st, 2013
Pages: 138
Rating: 3.5 stars

Synopsis (from goodreads):
Nessa Joanne Mulholland, aka Marilyn Monroe’s No. 1 teenage fan, is used to moving house. This time, however, she’s relocating in movie-star style—crossing the Atlantic on board the Majestic, headed for Paris from New York City. And it really would be in movie-star style if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s bringing her cringe-fest professor dad along for the ride (Dad’s specialization: human mating rituals—need Nessa say more?). Oh yeah, and sharing a cabin that’s five decks below sea level and next to the engine room. Still, at least Holly Isles is on board. Yes, really, that Holly Isles—star of stage and screen. Suddenly, things are looking up. Looking a little Marilyn, in fact, because events are strangely mirroring Nessa’s favorite movie of all time, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Watch!
As Holly Isles, world-famous actress, confides in Nessa over mocktails.
Listen!
As Nessa coaches Holly in the amazing “Nessa’s Lesson’s in Love”—the ultimate man-catching rules to finding true and lasting lurv.
See!
Nessa fall for Holly’s too-cute nephew, Marc. . . and
Cover your eyes!
As it all goes terribly, horribly, embarrassingly wrong.

There’s no doubting it. This is going to be one pitchy crossing.

My Review:

Nessa Joanne Mulholland is just a teeny bit obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. But when she finds Marilynisms all the time in her daily life can she really be blamed? On a cruise ship with her dad, Nessa meets thirty-something Holly Isles, a world-famous actress and someone Nessa feels like might be a kindred Marilyn fan. Holly has three broken engagements to her name and after bonding over mocktails and maraschino cherries, Nessa starts to believe that her real life is starting to feel a lot like her favourite movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Nessa takes it upon herself to be the Lorelei to Holly’s Dorothy, the Marilyn to her Jane, and comes up with Nessa’s Lessons in Love. She’s going to find Holly’s Perfect Man before the cruise is over!

This book is very cute. Nessa is an engaging main character with a lot of passion for her beloved Marilyn. At thirteen (almost fourteen!) years old, I thought there were times when he behaviour was a little unbelievable but lets face it – becoming BFFs with a movie star is a bit of a fantasy too and this isn’t a book to take too seriously. I love the idea of this book – that even 60 years after Nessa’s favourite film being released, it’s still enjoyable and somewhat relevant to modern life. The parallels from the film to Nessa’s life are beautifully done – you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy Nessa’s antics but if you have seen it I think you’ll like how Nessa relates them to her own situation.

I love a good love story but I didn’t really connect with Marc – Nessa’s sort of love interest. He felt old beyond his years organizing and looking out for his aunt – but this only made the gap between the almost fourteen year old Nessa and the seventeen year old going on forty Marc seem even larger. That said, as eye candy for the Marilyn obsessed, he was okay and did a good job at keeping Nessa a little off-balance. Holly is lovely if not a little odd. She’s fun but I couldn’t quite imagine the educated adult woman to be taking love and life advice from a teenager she just met. But like I said before – this isn’t supposed to be real life. This is a sweet story where you shouldn’t let realism (or lack there of) get in the way of a great novel.

Fun, cute, sweet and fairly short – I’d recommend this book for younger teens. It’s clean and amusing with a quirky and entertaining main character who lets her imagination get away from her – and gets her into trouble! Diamonds are a Teen’s Best Friend is the first book in a trilogy and this is a series I definitely want to read more of – can’t wait to see what Nessa gets up to next!

Note: I decided that I need to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes after reading this book and I had such a great time imagining Nessa as Lorelei Lee – this movie maybe from 1953 but it’s a lot of fun. Thanks Allison for inspiring me to watch a Marilyn film!

Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

Purchase the novel from:

Amazon

To celebrate the release of her book, Allison is hosting a Rafflecopter giveaway. You can win one of twenty gorgeous “Marilynette” wristbands from the Etsy Marilynette Shoppe. This is open internationally and if you want to enter, please click on the Rafflecopter link below. This giveaway is open until the end of December.

Click here to enter: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review: Play With Me by Piper Shelly

Title: Play With Me (Grover Beach Team #1) 
Author: Piper Shelly 
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance, Young Adult, Fun 
Publisher: Self-published
Publication Date: December 2012
Pages: 190
Rating: 3  stars

Synopsis (from goodreads):
Ryan Hunter’s parties are legend. And tonight she’s going to be there.

Liza Matthews anticipates the return of her best friend and only love since kindergarten from soccer camp. But when Tony finally shows up, his mind is more focused on another girl. And worse, she’s a soccer player. Fighting for the attention Liza craves, she’s just a hairbreadth away from making a very stupid decision. But when extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, she’s prepared to play ball to get her man.

The tryouts are hell, the first match ends bloody, and the morning after the selection party she wakes up in the worst place possible—in the arms of the captain of the soccer team. The hottest guy in school. Ryan Hunter

My Review:

Sweet Sixteen and never been kissed – but Liza knows who she wants her first to be. Tony Mitchell – the boy she’s been best friends with since forever. But when he comes back from soccer camp there’s something different about him… and not just his sudden liking for Red Bull. Determined to get his attention, Liza tries out for the soccer team and finds herself way out of her depth. Lucky for her, the gorgeous team captain, Ryan Hunter,  is willing to take Liza under his wing. Are his intentions honourable or does he want something more than just to teach Liza about the game he loves?

Play With Me is short and sweet. It’s a novella and just under 200 pages, this story was a fun one to read although fairly predictable. The characters are a little simplistic but enjoyable to follow. Liza is the slightly naive girl who has a long time crush on her BFF, Tony – who seems to have no idea about Liza’s true feelings. Ryan is a bit of a spoilt rich kid who has money, good looks and girls following him around at all times – except for the one he wants. These people may be slightly stereotypical but I liked reading about them. They’re cute and I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next.

I have to admit  wasn’t the hugest fan of Liza – she’s clueless and slightly irritating in her complete obliviousness to Ryan’s advances however that has just made me even more eager to read the companion novel, Ryan Hunter, which is the story of Play With Me from Ryan’s perspective. I didn’t quite believe Liza’s complete turn around from painfully naive to make out queen but that’s just a minor quibble.

This story was fun and sweet. I enjoyed reading it and recommend it for fans of Miranda Kenneally’s Hundread Oak’s series.

Purchase the novel from:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

(check it out now! It’s free as an ebook from Amazon and B&N for the month of October 2013)

AUTHOR BIO

The quick-and-dirty:
I’m a cool girl with a passion for writing.
The genres you’ll find me hanging out at are contemporary and paranormal YA, but I’m also snooping into some adult paranormal right now. All of them romances…of course.
The nitty-gritty:
I’m an Austrian lass—totally uncomplicated and up to anything fun.
I grew up in Vienna, not by free will but because my parents decided to move there when I was only 4 years old. I. Hated. The. City. Everything about it. So right after graduation I moved back to Upper Austria, where I settled down with a nice husband and an awesome laptop.
I’ve been a storyteller all my life. Already in kindergarten, I came up with the most exotic fantasies and tales. My teacher would call me a liar. I call it the cornerstone of my writing career.
People always told me you can’t make a living with being an author. So when my first novella PLAY WITH ME came out and shot straight to the stars within the first week, I was totally dumbstruck. Took me a while to realize what was happening, LOL.
And the personal stuff:
At the (awesome) age of seventeen, I met the love of my life. But he was a playboy, and I was so not going to be his next trophy. It took him another four years of fighting for me until I finally decided to give that “couple-thing” with him a shot. I’m now married to this man. 😉

We have an eleven-year-old son, and together we travel a lot…although I sometimes wish the trips were shorter because I can’t wait to get back to my laptop and my many stories. Unless we’re in Disneyland. No stress to go home then…

If you still want to know more about me, my FAQ page is the right address for you. 😉

http://pipershelly.com/faq/

Author Links:

Website | Goodreads | Facebook 

 

Book Review: Here by Ella James

Title: Here (Here #1)
Author: Ella James
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Publisher: Barkley’s Books
Publication Date: February 2012
Pages: 210
Rating: 3.5 stars

Synopsis (from goodreads):

Milo Mitchell’s life used to be charmed, but that was before her father died, she went a little crazy, and her best friends started acting more like strangers. One Saturday morning as she roams the land around her family’s Colorado wind farm, tagging deer for a project that used to be her father’s, Milo makes a big mistake: a dart from her stun-gun takes down a teenage guy.

Dressed in a Brinoi tux and armed with a perfectly starched handkerchief, the guy looks like a young James Bond – or some country’s missing, playboy prince. Trouble is, he could be either. Mr. Mystery has no idea who or where he is. Afraid her dart caused his amnesia, Milo takes him in, names him Nick, and tries to get used to a hot guy sharing her bedroom.

But Milo’s Nick is more than he appears. Soon the pair find his face in a newspaper obituary, and Nick beings to have memories of Milo–who is sure she’s never met him. If ‘Nick’ survived a plunge off a steep cliffside on his way to a family camping trip, why did Milo find him dozens of miles away, wearing a freshly pressed tuxedo? If he’s just a high-school athlete, why does he have moves like Jason Bourne? And why does he feel more for her than his surviving family?

When a train of black SUVs shows up on Mitchell property, Nick and Milo run–toward a shocking conclusion that could destroy both their worlds.

My Review:

Whilst tagging deer for a project, Milo Mitchell never expected to come across anyone in the woods. Let alone a gorgeous stranger dressed in a tuxedo… and perhaps shooting him with her dart gun by accident wasn’t the best way to make a good first impression. To make things stranger – after having been shot, the well dressed stranger can’t remember anything about himself – not even his name. Milo takes in the stranger and giving him a change of clothes, a new name – ‘Nick’ – and a place to stay till they figure out what to do next. The stranger appearance of Nick isn’t the only weird thing happening in the small town of Golden. The electricity starts acting up and Nick finds himself knowing things that should be impossible to recall.

Milo and Nick start a quest to find who he may have been before they met in the woods. But Milo and Nick aren’t the only ones looking for answers… and things are not going to go well if they find Nick before he finds out who he is.

I love the vibe of this novel. It’s such a fun and quick read. Milo’s a little lost in the world after he father died but she’s keeping it together well. If you call hanging out in the woods tracking deer a good thing. She still manages to have a group of good friends, hobbies and a fairly healthy social life. She’s responsible and I like the mixture of level-headedness mixed with romantic wonder that she has. She’s brave and a great match for Nick.

This book is mostly told from Milo’s point of view but every now and then Ms. James switches things up and we get to see the world from Nick’s perspective. It’s an interesting way to show how things are not quite right for the boy – more than just some fairly extensive amnesia. Whilst I liked the look into him and his thoughts – I think I would have liked him more as a character had he been a bit more mysterious. Because we get to see him confused and vulnerable but only in short snippets – I didn’t really find him a desirable male lead. He’s not a bad boy nor is he the boy next door or any of those other categories that I like my leading men to fit into. He’s just a little lost and for the most part a little bland.

That said – I loved the action. This book is well paced with some characters that amused me and made me want to keep reading. Milo is sweet but a little damaged and I feel like Nick has potential to grow into someone who I really root for. This is a book I’d recommend for fans of Jennifer L Armentrout’s Lux series and not just because of the scifi-ness they have in common. It’s a well written exciting book and there is no doubt – I will definitely be reading the second book in the Here series.

Purchase the novel from:

 Amazon | Barnes & Noble

 

Teaser

I shouldn’t have come to Milo’s house, but I was riding for my life, and when I thought about it ending, all I’d wanted—literally the only thing I thought about—was her.

It was startling, the clarity, the sense of purpose, because shortly after I saw Milo’s concert, I got mind-jacked. I didn’t know by what, but the presence had a serious hard-on for calculus and physics, other things I shouldn’t know or care about. I had a freaky suspicion that it was the Real Me, and that the Real Me was some kind of wizard/astrophysicist.

I spent two days in my bed after it happened, hung over on numbers, figures, but by the third day I could handle it. And my superpower had come back, stronger.

I knew intuitively how to control the van, how many meters away the Harley was when I landed, how to start it, how to drive it.

I ran for it as the van spun, tires screeching as it turned to come back for me. It had been modified, was faster than the bike, but I knew the town grid completely, and I’d clogged their fuel injector, which meant that ten minutes after our little chase started, I had lost them.

I doubled back, took an indirect path to get to Milo’s house. I didn’t want to leave an easy trail. When I pulled up and they were nowhere to be seen, I thought I had evaded them, told myself I had gotten away. But it wasn’t until I saw Milo that I realized what I’d done. I should have added to my lead, driven far away, stolen another bike, a car, hopped a train, gone anywhere but were I was. Where she was.

And what did I get for my utter stupidity?

Milo, wide-eyed and concerned. Milo, rubbing my back, tapping my knee. Milo heedless of the danger. Milo, achingly close.

She was leaning over me now, blowing on the scrape she’d just cleaned. “That feel any better?”

I nodded, my nose and forehead digging into her blankets.

“Good.” I felt her hand trail up my spine, then lift away and land atop my hair.

“You can go to sleep, you know. I’ll keep watch, just in case.”

I shook my head, dizzy from the pill and her soft hand. “I need to…leave…”

 

About Ella James

Ella James is a Colorado author who writes teen and adult romance. She is happily married to a man who knows how to wield a red pen, and together they are raising a feisty two-year-old who will probably grow up believing everyone’s parents go to war over the placement of a comma.

Ella’s books have been listed on numerous Amazon bestseller lists, including the Movers & Shakers list and the Amazon Top 100; two were listed among Amazon’s Top 100 Young Adult Ebooks of 2012.

To find out more about Ella’s projects and get dates on upcoming releases, find her on Facebook at facebook.com/ellajamesauthorpage and follow her blog, http://www.ellajamesbooks.com. Questions or comments? Tweet her at author_ellaj or e-mail her at ella_f_james@ymail.com.

Author Links

Website | Facebook | Twitter 

Book Review: Piece of Cake by Kate Forster

Title: Piece of Cake (from the Smitten series)
Author: Kate Forster
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Realistic, Fun
Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont
Publication Date: August 2013
Pages: 235
Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis (from goodreads):
On the morning that Lola is due to fly to London, her dad’s in an accident. There’s no time to whinge about ruined plans – Lola has to just unpack her bags and act like an adult by taking over her dad’s cafe.

Finding a new chef and working seven days a week is not the gap year Lola had in mind. But then she meets Sam, a hot backpacker and cook extraordinaire with a tragic secret past.

In a whirl of perfect pastries and delicate cupcakes, Lola and Sam start to realise that it’s not just the kitchen warming up. But can their romance handle the heat?

My Review:

Lola loves nothing more than dancing the night away and creating gorgeous cupcakes. But when her father is involved in a car accident she has to step up and take responsibility for her father’s business. Cafe Ambrosia is losing business to the new coffee stop up the road and Lola need help. Luckily one of the waitresses knows a brilliant English chef named Sam, who is currently backpacking his way around Australia and can drop everything to work in Lola’s father’s kitchen.

Things are changing everywhere and Lola isn’t sure if it’s all a good thing. With bills needing to be paid, secrets which have been buried for eighteen years finally coming to light and feelings for a boy she can’t have, Lola has to grow up – and quickly.

This is such a sweet story – and not just because of the sugar filled delicacies gracing the cover. Lola is fun and creative. Whilst she may not be passionate about working in the cafe, she’s brave and would do anything she could for her dad. I loved that she wasn’t afraid to ask for help when she needed it and isn’t too proud to take advice from others. Her passion for baking is infectious and had me craving some of her pavlova inspired desserts.

Sam is a gorgeous character too – body and soul. He’s hurting and come from London to Australia to grieve and try to find himself. I loved how he interacted with Lola and the other characters in this book as well as his well-meaning intentions – he’s not afraid to take the hard road when it’s necessary. His chemistry with Lola was a delight to read. The progression of their relationship – from meeting, to friends to possibly something more was paced beautifully. I liked seeing how things would develop and looked forward to reading their shared scenes.

Babcia, David, Jane and the other supporting characters do a great job of keeping the plot flowing and adding a sense of realism to Lola’s story. These are fun characters who have a life outside of the main character and it was great to see them embrace their lives and living each day to the fullest.

I was impressed with how the plot evolved over the novel. This is not a book with any crazy plot twists and unrealistic drama. Rather – its strength lies in the authenticity of the characters and their down-to-earth problems. Kate Forster does a great job at writing a beautiful story that feels like it’s happening to friends – rather than fictional characters.

Piece of Cake is a fun and sweet novel about a young woman finding her place in the world and perhaps a chance at love too. I’ve not read any other of the Smitten series but after enjoying Piece of Cake so much I know that I’ll be reading more of this series.

Purchase the novel from:

Amazon | Booktopia | Book Depository | BookWorld