Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

DNF Round Up: Frisk Me, Charmed Thirds & Corrupt

Posted May 16, 2017 by Rowena in Reviews | 8 Comments

DNF Round Up: Frisk Me, Charmed Thirds & CorruptReviewer: Rowena
Frisk Me by Lauren Layne
Publisher: Hachette Books, Forever
Publication Date: July 28th 2015
Pages: 384
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DNF

Officer Luc Moretti had no idea that his dive into the East River would have him drowning in a media frenzy. No matter how many times he tells reporters he was just doing his job, they're determined to make him into NYC's newest hero. Coming from a long line of NYPD's finest, Luc knows that being a cop has nothing to do with headlines and viral videos, and he's more than ready to get back to life away from the cameras—until he meets the gorgeous but jaded journalist assigned to film a TV special on him.

Ava Sims may be the only woman in NYC who isn't in love with Officer Moretti. That's why she's going after the real story—to find out about the man behind the badge. Ava's determined to keep things strictly professional, but the more time she spends around Luc, even she has to admit there's something about a man in uniform . . . and she can't wait to get him out of his.

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. I DNF’d my first Lauren Layne book and I’m still pretty surprised about it. If you know me then you know of my love of all things Lauren Layne. I adored her Oxford, Sex, Love & Stilettos and Wedding Belles series. I am enjoying her Love Unexpectedly series. There hasn’t been a book of hers that I absolutely hated (I have hated some character antics and thought processes but I haven’t hated any books) so imagine my surprise when I just couldn’t get into this book.

This book follows Luc Moretti, a New York Police Officer who is being praised for being a hero and Ava Sims, the reporter who is covering his story. Ava and Luc do not like each other and Ava’s attitude pissed me off too much for me to continue on. The way that she yelled at Luc, who was giving her a parking ticket because she was parked illegally on a public street pissed me off because she was yelling that he was violating her freedom of speech. WTF does that even mean? She was working so she’s above the law now? I’m sorry but…

Don’t even get me started when we get to the present time and she sees Luc again for the first time in three years. On top of Ava’s attitude, she’s a reporter and I have a love and hate relationship with reporter heroines so after some convincing from my besties, I stepped away from this one. I’m sure she got better as the book wore on but I just couldn’t do it so that was my first DNF.

DNF Round Up: Frisk Me, Charmed Thirds & CorruptReviewer: Rowena
Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Publication Date: January 1st 2006
Genres: New Adult
Pages: 361
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DNF

Jessica Darling's in college!

Things are looking up for Jessica Darling. She has finally left her New Jersey hometown/hellhole for Columbia University in New York City; she's more into her boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, than ever (so what if he's at a Buddhist college in California?); and she's making new friends who just might qualify as stand-ins for her beloved best friend, Hope.

But Jessica soon realizes that her bliss might not last. She lands an internship at a snarky Brooklyn-based magazine, but will she fit in with the uberhip staff (and will she even want to)? As she and Marcus hit the rocks, will she end up falling for her GOPunk, neoconservative RA . . . or the hot (and married!) Spanish grad student she's assisting on a summer project . . . or the oh-so-sensitive emo boy down the hall? Will she even make it through college now that her parents have cut her off financially? And what do the cryptic one-word postcards from Marcus really mean?

With hilarious insight, the hyperobservant Jessica Darling struggles through her college years--and the summers in between--while maintaining her usual mix of wit, cynicism, and candor.

I’ve been wanting to read Charmed Thirds since I finished Second Helpings…the only problem with that is that I read Second Helpings years ago and I don’t know if it’s my old age but Jessica Darling was exhausting to read about and I was disconnected from everyone (including Marcus and I loved him before) so after a while of not really caring what was going on and wanting Jessica to take a breath, I just stopped reading this. It just didn’t hold my interest so I moved on.

DNF Round Up: Frisk Me, Charmed Thirds & CorruptReviewer: Rowena
Corrupt (Devil's Night, #1) by Penelope Douglas
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: November 17th 2015
Genres: New Adult
Pages: 460
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DNF

Erika

I was told that dreams were our heart’s desires. My nightmares, however, became my obsession.

His name is Michael Crist.

My boyfriend’s older brother is like that scary movie that you peek through your hand to watch. He is handsome, strong, and completely terrifying. The star of his college’s basketball team and now gone pro, he’s more concerned with the dirt on his shoe than me.

But I noticed him.

I saw him. I heard him. The things that he did, and the deeds that he hid…For years, I bit my nails, unable to look away.

Now, I’ve graduated high school and moved on to college, but I haven’t stopped watching Michael. He’s bad, and the dirt I’ve seen isn’t content to stay in my head anymore.

Because he’s finally noticed me.

Michael

Her name is Erika Fane, but everyone calls her Rika.

My brother’s girlfriend grew up hanging around my house and is always at our dinner table. She looks down when I enter a room and stills when I am close. I can always feel the fear rolling off of her, and while I haven’t had her body, I know that I have her mind. That’s all I really want anyway.

Until my brother leaves for the military, and I find Rika alone at college.

In my city.

Unprotected.

The opportunity is too good to be true as well as the timing. Because you see, three years ago she put a few of my high school friends in prison, and now they’re out.

We’ve waited. We’ve been patient. And now every last one of her nightmares will come true.

***Corrupt can be read as a stand-alone. No cliffhanger.

Corrupt was a book that was brought to my attention by well, everyone. I’ve been seeing such good things about this author and this book in particular that I bought it and prepared myself for an interesting read. There’s a darkness to this book and to the hero that I just could not get behind. I tried three different times to get past what the hero and his friends were doing, to get past what they blamed the heroine for and though I was told that not all is what it seems, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t finish it and it was messing with my reading mojo so I stepped away from this one. Who knows if I’ll pick it back up later, I just know that I can’t do it now.

Have you DNF’d any books lately? Share your DNF stories with us. Which books should we steer clear from? Help a sister out!

DNF


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Review: My Soul to Keep by Melanie Wells

Posted February 22, 2008 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: My Soul to Keep by Melanie WellsReviewer: Rowena
My Soul to Keep by Melanie Wells
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Publication Date: January 21st 2009
Genres: Fiction, Suspense
Pages: 352
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four-stars

As nasty as I knew Peter Terry to be, I never expected him to start kidnapping kids. Much less a sweet, funny little boy with nothing to protect him but a few knock-kneed women, two rabbits, and a staple gun…

It’s psychology professor Dylan Foster’s favorite day of the academic year–graduation day. A day of pomp, circumstance, and celebration. And after all the mortar boards are thrown, Dylan and some of her best friends will gather around a strawberry cake to celebrate Christine Zocci’s sixth birthday. But the joyful summer afternoon goes south when a little boy is snatched from a neighborhood park, setting off a chain of events that seem to lead exactly nowhere.

Police are baffled, but Christine’s eerie connection with the kidnapped child sends Dylan on a chilling investigation of her own. Is the pasty, elusive stranger Peter Terry to blame? Exploding light bulbs, the deadly buzz of a Texas rattlesnake, and the vivid, disturbing dreams of a little girl are just pieces in a long trail of tantalizing clues leading Dylan in her dogged search for the truth.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

I’ve sat on this review for a little bit because I had to form an opinion, one that I can actually write about. I mean, I liked this book and thought it had a great storyline and everything so I don’t even know why it’s taken me so long to get this review up, this book definitely needs some pimping.

So on with the pimping…

This book is part of a series. It would have been nice to have read the other books first since we meet characters and find things out, things that are discussed in this book but it wasn’t too bad. I still thoroughly enjoyed this book and thought Melanie Wells will definitely get read again in the near future.

I don’t want to give a run down of the book since this isn’t a romance but a mystery and it will ruin the story if I gave too many details away but I will say this, the pacing of the story is fantastic, the storyline itself is great and easy to follow and the characters are very likeable. All in all, this book is a great read and I will definitely be checking out more of her stuff. Many thanks to Melanie Wells and her people for sending us a copy of this book to review. I enjoyed it and I know that anyone who is in need of a good mystery will enjoy this book, so seriously…check it out.

four-stars


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Review: Mr. Maybe by Jane Green.

Posted December 27, 2007 by Rowena in Reviews | 6 Comments

Review: Mr. Maybe by Jane Green.Reviewer: Rowena
Mr. Maybe by Jane Green

Publication Date: October 15th 2001
Pages: 368
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four-stars

To Libby Mason, Mr. Right has always meant Mr. Rich. A twenty seven-year-old publicist, she's barely able to afford her fashionable and fabulous lifestyle and often has to foot the bill for dates with Struggling Writer Nick, a sexy but perpetually strapped-for-cash guy she's dating (no commitments – really). So when Ed, Britain's wealthiest but stodgiest bachelor, enters the picture, her idea of the fairy tale romance is turned on it's head.

Mr. Maybe is the tale of her heartfelt but hilarious deliberation, irresistibly chronicled by bestselling author Jane Green. On one hand, Nick makes up for his low bank-account balance by his performance in the sack, or in the bathtub, as the case may be. But life with him means little more than nightly trips to the bar, a dark and grungy apartment, and plenty of dull political tirades to boot. But those blue eyes, and that tender heart...

On the other hand, there's Ed, whose luxurious house and gargantuan bank account are quite tempting to the starving Libby. But his unsavory mustache and bumbling ways make Libby wonder if the platinum AMEX and unlimited "retail therapy" are worth it. He may have fallen in love with her at first sight, but nothing seems to solve his lackluster performance in the sack – even speed reading The Joy of Sex. When the diamond shopping commences, Libby is forced to realize that the time for "maybe" is up.

Taking romantic comedy to a hip, sparkling new level, Mr. Maybe is a classic tale of what happens to one girl when her heart and her head aren't looking for the same thing. With a laugh and minute and a heroine whose struggles in the dating jungle will remind you of your own, Mr. Maybe is a story that all will leave you smitten.

From the Hardcover edition.

A long time ago, Jane Green was pimped to me by my BBB, Ames, and I’ve been meaning to read her for quite some time now but I just never got around to it.

Until now.

And now I have Ames to thank for yet another author I must add to my list of authors to glom in 2008. That should keep me busy because I enjoyed this book so much that I want to read all of JG’s other books in print, so my bank account won’t thank Ames but I’m sure Barnes and Noble, Borders and Amazon will. =) This book wasn’t my absolute favorite read of 2007 but it was a great book that kept me entertained from the beginning of the story until the very end.

This story follows label happy Libby who works as a PR Rep for some no name actresses and other bigger named celebrities. She loves her job but she hates the paycheck becuase she doesn’t get paid enough to live the life that she longs to live.

She works with celebrities that can afford to eat at the most happening of places, who vacation in the most exotic of spots around the globe and wear the most trendy and hottest brands out there. That’s the kind of stuff she wants, so when she meets a guy who seems pretty interested in her and she in him, she’s fine with having him step in as her “Man of the Moment”, Nick is everything she does not want, so it’s okay that she just has him as her “friend” her friend that she sleeps with and has great fun with, he’s everything she’s not looking for in a man, so she’s safe from falling in love with him, it’s perfect. He’s not super rich, he can’t afford to take her to eat at the most fanciest of restaurants and when she’s with Nick, she can’t wear her super trendy threads because those clothes have no use with the casual jeans and tee shirt clad bloke. Nick is a struggling writer and is not ashamed of telling anyone who asks that he’s on the dole. I can only assume that the dole is London talk for welfare. And wow, I’ve never heard of a man on the dole but hey whatever rocks your socks.

So we’ve got these two unlikely people who are in a relationship that isn’t really a relationship and they’re not supposed to fall in love with each other, only they…kind of do. So because they’re not ready for it, Nick ends the relationship but he wants to keep Libby in his life because even though he’s not ready for a relationship, he really fancies having her in his life and he doesn’t want to lose her completely but Libby can’t deal with that because she wants more than Nick is ready to give her so off they go in their own directions.

Libby’s direction leads her to Ed. A rich man with lots of money to burn and who wants to burn all of it on Libby. Libby is only too happy to let him because this is the kind of life she’s always wanted. She wanted to attend glitzy balls with expensive dresses and she wants to live in that big house and well, Ed’s got a ginormous house that’s waiting for a wife’s touch and Ed wants Libby to be the wife to fix up his house. Libby has already convinced herself that she’s going to settle for the next best thing after love, contentment.

Ed’s not the man that she loves but she can’t have the man she loves so she’ll settle for a life of comfort with Ed. Their sex life is crap, she hates his mustache and he slobbers all over her when they kiss. But he’s nice so she overlooks all of these things and she continues on with her life as Ed’s girlfriend, almost wife. When he proposes, she accepts and she tells him that she loves him too, even though she doesn’t because if she can’t have what she wants then she’ll take what she can have. Meanwhile, Nick is missing Libby and isn’t shocked that she’s moved on because she’s a great girl, why wouldn’t she move on? He’s only shocked when he finally meets the guy she’s moved on to. That guy is oh so wrong for Libby and he’s surprised that she doesn’t see it.

Will these two find their way back to each other or will it be too late?

When I started this book and I’m getting to know Libby, I could tell that she was a bit of a snob but it wasn’t in a bad light or anything, it was cute. Very modern, she was like any normal girl who longs for those Kate Spade bags (I feel ya on that one girl) and those Prada pumps (I’m sure Holly will feel ya on this one, I’m more of a purse girl, Holly’s the shoe addict) but as the book pressed on and Nick falls out of Libby’s life, I got more and more annoyed with Libby. When she was with Ed, she was totally not the person I first met in the beginning of the book. She was a chameleon dater, like Julia Robert’s character on Runaway Bride. She was into the things that the guy she was dating was into. I don’t know if I’m like this, gosh I really hope I’m not but dude…Libby made me want to scream at her for the crap that she allowed herself to get into where Ed was concerned.

It was so obvious to everyone (even her!) that Ed was so wrong for her but because he was “nice” and she liked what he could buy her and do for her that she stayed with him, knowing hot damn well that she was irrevocably in love with Nick. Why fight a good thing? Her reasons for not wanting to be in love with Nick made me want to take a crack at her. Just bop her upside her head but she finally does get things right and they all live happily ever after but the road there is one thats filled with laughter and great secondary characters and a storyline that will have the twenty something ladies nodding their heads over because I could totally relate to Libby even though I hope to high heaven that I’m not quite that bad…because all of the name dropping was getting a bit old for me even though I should expect it with this book being a chick lit book but seriously…who cares if the shoes you got were Addidas, get over it and put them suckers on already, sheesh!

Ed got on my hot damn nerves, I wanted to punch him in his nose. He didn’t love Libby for who she was but for what she looked like. Their relationship was based on what they could give each other and not how much they loved each other. Their relationship was so different from her relationship with Nick that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that they were seriously lacking in the chemistry department but dude, Libby was totally blind to it all…not really blind, just indifferent to it all. Her Mother got on my hot damn nerves too, she was another person I wanted to smack some sense into. Her Father and her brother were great characters, very supporting of Libby and you could totally tell that these two really loved her, just like Jules did. Jules was a fantastic best friend. She listened intently and offered whatever advice she could and you could just totally tell that she had Libby’s back no matter what. I love these kinds of friendships.

Nick’s friends were seriously horrible. I didn’t like them just like Libby didn’t like them but despite them, I loved Nick. He was such a great hero, even though he was on the dole..LOL. He was hot, sexy and he loved Libby, exactly the way she was. Nothing else mattered with Nick but Libby and how she was feeling and I loved how he saw her at her worst and loved her anyway. That’s what us single folks are all looking for, that unconditional acceptance and Nick totally had that for Libby so I was glad that he found his way back into Libby’s life because they were made for each other

Overall, this book was good. It was a great first read and I can’t wait to read more from Jane Green. I enjoyed this book a lot and am excited to read Jemima J when I get home tonight.

Great job JG and thanks bunches Ames! =)

four-stars


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