Showing posts with label ADULT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ADULT. Show all posts

Monday, December 14, 2015

Dirty Deeds by Megan Erickson


Title: Dirty Deeds (Mechanics of Love #3)
Author: Megan Erickson
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Release Date: December 8, 2015
Source: ARC from Publisher
Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo
Alex Dawn is saying no to men. No to bad relationships, disappointments, and smooth-talkers. Focusing on her family and her job at Payton and Sons Automotive keeps her mind occupied and her heart content. She doesn’t really miss a man’s touch, until one night, a man shows up with the body of a god and a voice from her dirtiest dreams.

L.M. Spencer is only in Tory, Maryland, to scope out the town as a possible site for one of his company’s hotels. The British businessman didn’t expect his car to break down or to find the hottest little American he’s ever seen holding a tire iron, piercing him with bright blue eyes.

They agree to one hot nigh, one dirty deed to burn out the chemistry between them. But rom their first kiss, Alex can’t stop saying yes to this man. And when Spencer’s company threatens everything she cares about, they must make the choice to stand together or apart.

In the last year, I’ve read seven books by Megan Erickson and each one has been just as good as the last. Every time I see that she has a new book coming out, I become extremely excited and start counting down the days until I’ll have it in my hands. And it was no different with Dirty Deeds.

Alex has decided that she’s just going to stay away from men from now on. Other than the ones she works with, and who happen to be taken, Alex is happy live a life without men. Especially if it saves her from heartbreak and disappointment. She’s happy to just focus on her family. But when Spencer shows up at the garage where she works, Alex thinks that one night with him couldn’t possibly hurt anything. After one night, she’ll just go back to avoiding men. But one night with Spencer is not what Alex expected. After spending one night with her, Spencer can’t get Alex out of his mind. He should be looking forward to leaving the small town of Tory, Maryland to return to New York, but instead he can’t stop thinking about the hot mechanic. They can’t stay away from each other. But soon enough, the reason for Spencer’s stay in Tory might be what will tear them apart.

In the year and a half since Megan Erickson’s first book came out, she has quickly become one of my go-to authors when it comes to romance. To put it into perspective, I’ve read seven she’s written in the past year. SEVEN. And I never get tired of them. There’s just so much about her books that I love. And in the last little while I haven’t been able to get enough of her Mechanics of Love series. Every time I start reading one, I pretty much read it in one sitting. I get sucked into the story and don’t want to stop reading until I’m done. It was no different with Dirty Deeds. I loved this story. I fell in love with Alex and Spencer and I loved reading their story. The whole time I was reading I either had a goofy smile on my face or I was worrying about what parts of this story was going to do to my heart. But at the end of the day, this story made me really happy. But it was also a little bittersweet because I don’t want this series to end. I would be happy reading about the Payton and Sons family forever. Because I have a MAJOR soft spot for everyone in this series.

I loved Alex pretty much from the moment she first walked into Payton and Sons in the first book in the series. So I was excited about reading her story. Especially after everything I found out about her while reading Dirty Talk. There was just so much about Alex that I was curious about, and I wanted so much for her to get her own happy ending. Because she more than deserved it. And I’m happy that she got that happy ending with Spencer. Because Spencer was so not what he looked like. I mean, sure he was a successful businessman, but that’s not all he was. Once you scratched the surface a little, you realized that he had a whole lot more in common with Alex than I would have originally thought. So yeah, Alex and Spencer were a really good match and seeing them together totally put a big smile on my face. And as with any book in a series like this one, I loved being able to see all the characters I’ve loved in the other books make an appearance. Pretty much any time Violet made an appearance, my heart melted a little…especially if it involved her interacting with Brent. And even though Dirty Deeds is the last planned book int his series, I’m still holding out hope for more books, especially one that would be about about Delilah and Davis.

Needless to say that I absolutely loved Megan Erickson’s Dirty Deeds. I’ve loved the Mechanics of Love series and this book has only solidified my love. And I can’t help but hope that there will be more books in this series. Though if I’m being honest, I’ll read just about anything Megan Erickson writes.

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Thursday, June 4, 2015

Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot


Title: Royal Wedding (The Princess Diaries #11)
Author: Meg Cabot
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Release Date: June 2, 2015
Source: ARC from Publisher
Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Princess Diaries series, comes the very first adult installment, which follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding—but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare.

For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with living in New York City, running her new teen community center, being madly in love, and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements, Mia’s gorgeous longtime boyfriend Michael has managed to clear both their schedules just long enough for an exotic (and very private) Caribbean island interlude where he popped the question! Of course Mia didn’t need to consult her diary to know that her answer was a royal oui.

But now Mia has a scandal of majestic proportions to contend with: Her grandmother’s leaked “fake” wedding plans to the press that could cause even normally calm Michael to become a runaway groom. Worse, a scheming politico is trying to force Mia’s father from the throne, all because of a royal secret that could leave Genovia without a monarch. Can Mia prove to everyone—especially herself—that she’s not only ready to wed, but ready to rule as well?

Meg Cabot is one of two authors who are responsible for me reading YA. And even after all these years, the Princess Diaries series still remains one of my all time favourites. When I found out that a new book would be coming out in the series, I was a whole new kind of excited. Having now read, Royal Wedding, I can say that my excitement was more than justified.

Mia has spent the five years since she graduated from college doing her duty as the Royal Princess of Genovia and running her teen community center. And being in love with Michael of course. But with her twenty-sixth birthday right around the corner, everything is threatening to fall apart. Her father is arrested for reckless driving, protesters are camping out in front of the Genevan Consulate, and paparazzi are constantly hounding Mia. The only bright spot is Michael, the love of her life. Except the tabloids are trying to ruin that too by publishing story after story about why Michael won’t marry Mia. But that all changes when Michael proposes on an exotic romantic getaway and Mia couldn’t be more excited to say yes. Until they return to the city and find out Mia’s grandmother has leaked the proposal to story to the press in the hope of hiding another royal secret. With everything being close to falling apart once again, Mia has to step up and prove to everyone that she’s ready not just to marry Michael, but to become the ruling Princess of Genovia.

Here’s something you might not know about me. Meg Cabot is one of my all-time favourite authors and I’ve been reading her books since I was 12 years old. So I’ve spent literally half of my life reading her books. I can still remember when I picked up the first book in the Princess Diaries and immediately got hooked. And then I read all the ones that were out, until I hit the point where I had to wait for the next one to be published. The last time I read a Princess Diaries book was my senior year of high school. And I hadn’t realized until I started reading Royal Wedding, just how much I had missed reading these books, and Meg Cabot stories in general. Royal Wedding was exactly what I had hoped it would be. I loved being thrown back into the Princess Diaries world, with all the characters I had grown to love over the course of the previous ten books. Honestly, the story could have been about anything and I would have read it, just to be back with all these people. As it was, the story made me so incredibly happy. I’m pretty sure I had a goofy smile on my face the whole time I was reading. There were even moments when I couldn’t help but full on laugh out loud (thankfully, I was home and not somewhere I would be getting weird looks) because that’s just how awesome, and obviously funny, the story was. And there were even a few times when I found myself to be tearing up because things were happening that made me emotional in the best way possible. Before I started, I had no doubt that I would love Royal Wedding, but I’m so incredibly happy that I loved it as much as I did.

Reading a new story about Mia, Michael, Lilly and everyone else was like being reunited with old friends. It took no time at all for me to get reacquainted with them all. Mia was still her adorably quirky and slightly nutty and hypochondria self and I loved reading her diary once again. And she was just like I remembered her. Just the grown up version. Which, obviously, because it’s been 6 years since the last book. And much like Mia was just like I remembered her, so were the other people in this story. Her grandmother is just as crazy as ever, if not even slightly crazier. Michael is still adorable and totally willing to do whatever for Mia. Tina is just as obsessed with romance novels as she’s always been. And Lilly was still her outspoken, take no bullshit from anyone self. So yeah, it was just like old times with the whole gang back together. And honestly, that’s what I loved most about Royal Wedding. The fact that I got to spend a short amount of time with these characters that I spent so many years reading about. And it felt like no time had gone by at all. 

If you are a fan of Meg Cabot and the original Princess Diaries books, then Royal Wedding is an absolutely must-read. It was just like the books you read all those years ago, just with more references to sex and drinking. And it was absolutely amazing. 

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Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan


Title: The Royal We
Author: Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: April 7, 2015
Source: ARC from Publisher
Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo
“I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they’ll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next.”

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune. Yet it’s Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain’s future king. And when Bex can’t resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick’s sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier an more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he’s fated to become. 

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the even of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she’s sacrificed for love—her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself—will have been for nothing.

I’m not going to lie, I basically didn’t know about The Royal We until I was offered a chance to review it. I might have seen it here and there, but it was never a book that I paid attention to. But once I read the description, it sounded like it could be a lot of fun. What I didn’t expect, was how much I absolutely loved this book.

The last thing Rebecca Porter expected when she decided to study abroad at Oxford was to fall in love. In going to Britain, she was looking for adventure, for new experiences. Not romance. The one thing she was definitely not looking for was living down the hall from Britain’s next king, the prince she just so happens to fall in love with. But after spending time with Nick, Bex can’t help but fall for him. But being with a prince also means being thrown into a world Bex never thought she would be a part of. Dating Nick isn’t simple. As much as she just wants to spend time with Nick, Bex also has to share him with the rest of the world. A world that doesn’t exactly think she’s what’s best for the future king of Britain. Together, Bex and Nick find a way to make it work, but on the day before they are set to get married, things are about to fall apart as Bex starts questioning everything she’s had to sacrifice to be with the person she loves.

I’m kind of a sucker for anything involving royalty of any kind. I blame it on the fact that I spent most of my middle and high school years reading Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series (to this day, it’s still one of my favourite series of all time). But despite my love of all things royal in books, I hadn’t really heard about Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s The Royal We. When I did finally hear about it, I thought it had the potential to be a book that would be right up my alley. So I gave it shot. I started reading. and the next thing I new I just couldn’t stop. I knew I was very likely to enjoy the story, I just didn’t expect to love it as much as I did and to get so caught up in it. I was having trouble resisting the urge to just read it while I was sitting at my desk at work, trying not to count down the minutes until I would be able to read it again. This was just such a fun story. I loved the way it was set up, how it was spread out over the course of seven years and I got to see Nick and Bex’s entire relationship, the ups and the downs and everything in between. It made me that much more invested in their story, made me want to root for them that much more. But the other great thing about the story was just how fun it was. So many times while I was reading, I would find myself laughing at the situation the characters were in, at something Bex would say, or at Freddie’s antics. I just had a good time while reading The Royal We.

Be was seriously the best. I loved reading this story from her perspective. She just came across as very genuine. When the story starts, she’s just a girl looking for adventure while studying abroad. And then she met a prince and things got infinitely more interesting. But the thing that I loved about Bex was that she wasn’t in love with Prince Nicholas, she was just in love with Nick, the guy who lived down the hall from her and who she watched horrible supernatural soaps with. Granted as the story moved forward she had to accept that being in love with Nick also meant being in love with Prince Nicholas. And Nick, well he was a prince, so there’s that. But really, I loved Nick when he was just being Nick as opposed to forced to be Prince Nicholas. And he and Bex were just great together. I loved seeing them together and seeing their relationship develop, even though it wasn’t without it’s ups and downs. But as much as I loved Bex and Nick, the character who stole the show was Nick’s brother Freddie. Any time Freddie was in the story, a smile just broke out on my face, I couldn’t help it. He was easily my favourite character in the story, and honestly I want him to have his own book. I would love to see everything that goes on behind the fun and goofy facade he puts on for the world. Any time I got a glimpse of what was behind that facade, I loved him even more. So Freddie needs his own book, simple as that.

Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s The Royal We was unexpected. It’s the book that I didn’t see coming and took me completely by surprise. I enjoyed every single page of this story and if you’re looking for what has got to be one of the most adorable love stories I’ve read recently, than give The Royal We a try. Odds are, you’ll have the best time reading it.

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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Blog Tour - The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms by Ian Thornton

Today I have the pleasure of Ian Thornton here on the blog to answer a few questions about his debut novel, The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms. While this book is not one I would normally pick up by myself, it is proving to be quite the entertaining and interesting read. So here is what Ian Thornton had to say.

Where did inspiration for The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms come from?

I read an article in a Sunday newspaper in England back in the early 90s about a young man in Sarajevo who left college one Friday evening and by the time the weekend was over, he had set in motion a chain of events, which has affected the lives of everyone on the planet today. Many great men spend their lives trying to alter a city block, and here was one young chap who just wanted to be left alone for the weekend and drink coffee and read books, maybe a newspaper, but instead set fire to the twentieth century. That is powerful stuff. Imagine the turmoil, the horror of dealing with that. This kernel always stayed with me, and when I decided I was going to write, there was never any discussion in my mind that this would be my subject matter. 

I guess too, in hindsight, there may have been some sub-conscious mirroring of events with those in my own life. I too had made some rather stupid decisions, and was running away from them. Maybe I empathised with this poor boy more than I realised at the time.

The book covers an entire century's worth of events. How did you decide when to be faithful to history and when to create your own version of history?

I attempted to create a moving, amorphous life against the rigid backdrop of historical events. I have not read Flashman (it is NEXT on the list, given the recommendations I have had) but I suspect parallels, though his fidelity to history seems to be legendary. I have actually avoided George Macdonald' Fraser's work while I was writing for the natural fear of mimicking what may already be of a similar feel. I think the real artistic license comes when the tale passes from the macro to the micro. Established and well-known events are solid and immovable. The minutiae of individuals movements and lives are pliable and malleable. These two positions merge when Johan's story becomes that of the planet and her trajectory, i.e. Sarajevo June 28th, 1914. This I will explain in a second.

First however, I think/hope it is quite clear from very early on that it is a fantastical tale. The line about 'the exaggerations of two old men and the DNA of the cadaver known as the tale' is a key one, explaining how this story is third-hand and told through a prism.

Yes, June 28th, 1914. The newspaper story I mentioned earlier planted the seed of doubt about who the chauffeur was. When I spent time in Sarajevo several years ago, the eminent professors there could provide no absolute answer and no overall consensus as to whether the driver was Loyka or Urban. So this, along with my memories of the newspaper article, allowed for enough room for conjecture, for fiction and for a third possible culprit.

Hemingway, Paker and Orwell were all in Spain at the same time, though quite unlikely to have been in Monreal del Campo on Hemingway's birthday in 1937. I guess it is the definition of historical fiction; an imagined story set against the immovability of history. Historical fiction in this regard does seem oxymoronic. The line may move as to where one starts and the other ends, but if the reader knows he or she is not reading non-fiction, then that license is understood, and one assumes Coleridge's willing suspension of disbelief.

On that note, how much research went into writing this story?

This is a good question. It is my first book, so I have no real measure, no yardstick. It seemed like a lot, I hope it comes across as such. I spent a lot of time in Sarajevo, Southern France, Vila di Bispo, the 'end of the world' in Portugal, Spain, London and Minehead.

Things like clothing, the architecture and the language I picked up osmotically through a raging love of early and mid-century cinema; English, European, you name it.

A lot of Johan's experiences were my own, transposed. I guess they were therefore in effect research, though I did not know it at the time. If this seems like a cop out by hanging out in these places and calling it research, then I guess I am guilty. In hindsight, it was a quite effective way of utilising many lazy and happy days for a more sensible and career-minded end. Don't they say 'write about what you know'?

Yes, there was the slog of library books and increasingly the internet, but a lot of the research came from having lived a life and watched hundreds of movies. I guess the downside of this, is that my next book is likely going to be more study-based. Or maybe not…

How would you describe The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms to someone who knows nothing about it?

The ten second La Croisette pitch? HIstorical fiction, black comedy, love story, buddy story set against the war-torn twentieth century.

The thirty second La Croisette pitch? The fictionalised life story of the man who inadvertently started the Great War, by being the driver for Franz Ferdinand on the day of the assassination. How he took a wrong turn and couldn't find reverse gear when the lead Serb assassin walked out of a café to find, by chance, his target. How he (the driver) blames himself for not only the assassination, but also for the Great War and everything that led from there; the Russian Revolution, the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of Hitlerism, the Second World War, the gas chambers, the atomic bomb, Vietnam, you name it. A.k.a How I started a world war and finally learned to stop worrying about it. Sort of. 



About the book:
A wild, rollicking novel on chance, friendship, love, regret, and the entire history of the twentieth century. 

Johan Thoms is poised for greatness. A promising student at the University of Sarajevo, he is young, brilliant, and in love with the beautiful Lorelei Ribeiro. He can outwit chess masters, quote the Kama Sutra, and converse with dukes and drunkards alike. But he cannot drive a car in reverse. And as with so much in the like of Johan Thoms, this seemingly insignificant detail will prove to be much more than it appears. One the morning of June 28, 1914, Johan takes his place as the chauffeur to Franz Ferdinand and the Royal entourage, and with one wrong turn, he forever alters the course of history. 

Blaming himself for the deaths of the Archduke and his wife, Johan hastens from the seven , and for once his inspired mind cannot process what to do next. Guild-ridden, he flees Sarajevo, abandoning his friends, family, and beloved in the fear that he has caused them irreparable grievance. He watches in horror as the Great War unfolds, every death settling squarely on Johan's conscience. Turning his back on his old life, Johan does his best to fade out of memory.

But the world has other plans for Johan Thoms. As each passing year burdens Johan with further guilt for his inaction, he seeks solace in his writing and in the makeshift family he has assembled around himself. With everyone from emperors to hooligans at his side, and pursued by the ever-determined Lorelei, Johan winds his way through Europe and the Twentieth Century, leaving his indelible mark on both. 

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Monday, August 6, 2012

The Greyfriar by Clay Griffith & Susan Griffith


Title: The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire #1)
Author: Clay Griffith & Susan Griffith
Publisher: PYR Books
Release Date: November 18, 2010
Source: From Publisher
Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository
In the year 1870, a horrible plague of vampires swept over the northern regions of the world. Millions of humans were killed outright. Millions more died of disease and famine due to the havoc that followed. Within two years, once-great cities were shrouded by the grey empire of the vampire clans. Human refugees fled south to the tropics because vampires could not tolerate the constant heat there. They brought technology and a feverish drive to reestablish their shattered societies of steam and iron amid the mosques of Alexandria, the torrid quietude of Panama or the green temples of Malaya.

It is now 2020 and a bloody reckoning is coming.

Princess Adele is heir to the Empire Equatoria, a remnant of the old tropical British Empire. She is quick with her with as well as with a sword or gun. She is eager for an adventure before she settles into a life of duty and political marriage to a man she does not know. But her quest turns black when she becomes the target of a merciless vampire clan. Her only protector is the Greyfriar, a mysterious hero who fights the vampires from deep within their territory. Their dangerous relationship plays out against an approaching war to the death between humankind and the vampire clans.

The Greyfriar by Clay and Susan Griffith is one of those books I've heard about a few times but never really bothered looking into. But then I found out more and my curiosity was piqued. And by the end of the book I was hooked and wanted to pick up the sequel immediately.

Her whole life, Princess Adele has known that as the heir to the Equatorian Empire she would be the one to lead the war against the vampire clans of the north. And her impending political marriage only solidified Adele's future. But that future takes a wrong turn when Adele is taken prisoner by Europe's most vicious vampire clan. Now the only person who can help Adele is the mysterious and elusive Greyfriar. But Adele can't seem to figure out the Greyfriar and soon their relationship could change everything. Especially with a deadly war between humans and vampires looming.

I didn't really know what to expect when I started reading The Greyfriar, but I wasn't disappointed by the time I finished reading the book. The story here isn't YA but that didn't stop me from enjoying the story in the least. The story in The Greyfriar was a little slower than what I'm used to, but that allowed me to appreciate different aspects of the story that much more. The descriptions of vampire Europe were incredible and I could picture it all while reading. The world building in general pretty much blew me away and is a large part of what grabbed my attention while reading. And it was a story about vampires unlike any I've read before, and it made for some really interesting characters.

The characters in The Greyfriar were really interesting to read about. There was always more to them than met the eye and that's what I enjoyed the most about them. At first I didn't think much about Adele, she just seemed like a pretty typical rebellious princess. But as the story went on, I slowly discovered that there was a lot more to her than I originally thought. By the end of the book, Adele was someone I really admired and I liked seeing how she was able to become that person. The Greyfriar intrigued me. There was so much to him that I wanted to know that hopefully I'll get to find out in the future. But regardless, he was probably the most interesting character because there was so much to him, and like I've already said, I'm hoping to find out more about his motivations in the future.

The Greyfriar by Clay and Susan Griffith took me by surprise, despite having heard how great of a read it was. Despite not being what I would normally read, I found myself flipping the pages, eager to know what would happen next. And you can bet I will continue reading this series.

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood


Title: Charlie St. Cloud
Author: Ben Sherwood
Publisher: Bantam
Release Date: June 22, 2010
Source: Purchased
Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo
In a snug New England fishing village, Charlie St. Cloud tends the lawns and monuments of an ancient cemetery where his younger brother, Sam, is buried. After surviving the car accident that claimed his brother’s life, Charlie is graced with an extraordinary gift: He can see, talk to, and even play catch with Sam’s spirit. Into this magical world comes Tess Carroll, a captivating woman training for a solo sailing trip around the globe. Fate steers her boat into a treacherous storm that propels her into Charlie’s life. Their beautiful and uncommon connection leads to a race against time and a choice between death and life, between the past and the future, between holding on and letting go--and the discovery that miracles can happen if we simply open our hearts.

I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t have picked up Charlie St. Cloud if it wasn’t for the movie coming out. As a general rule, I try to read the book before I watch the movie just because the movie doesn’t ruin the book. Since I intend to see the movie when it comes out, I decided to read the book. All I had to go on was the preview for movie and when reading the book I recognized some scenes that I had glimpsed in the preview. The book overall was a good read and I really enjoyed it.

Thirteen years ago, Charlie St. Cloud nearly died in a car crash that killed his twelve-year-old brother Sam. Since then, Charlie has been able to see Sam and works at the cemetery where he is buried. In comes Tess Carroll, a young woman preparing to embark on a solo sailing trip around the world. When Charlie and Tess meet there is an instant connection between the two, a connection that causes Charlie to make decisions and feel things he never thought he would have to until then.

I really liked Charlie’s character, if I were able to pick an older brother he is definitely the one I would go for. Either that I would fall in love with him like Tess did. He was just a really likable character. He was so devoted to his younger brother Sam, despite what it did to his own life. Throughout the whole novel you could tell that Charlie was hurting and that he truly felt responsible for what had happened to Sam. But at the same time he met Tess and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to break the promise he had made to Sam but at the same time he wanted a life with Tess.

If you forget the whole ghost aspect of the novel, the other characters were also really believable and you just wanted to get to know them more. Sam was great, sure he was a twelve-year-old but so often it felt like he was so much older, especially when he was with Tess. I also really like Tess. There was just something about her that made her really easy to like, I don’t really know how to explain it. And there was also the fact that she wasn’t what she looked like.

It was more than just a love story between Tess and Charlie and a story about two brothers. There is just so much more than that to Charlie St. Cloud. The story is really well written and throughout you just can’t help but feel Charlie’s pain and longing for something more than his life in the cemetery. I was pleasantly surprised by this book and it reminded me a lot of some of Nicholas Sparks’s stories. If you want to see the movie I recommend that you read the book first and also you enjoy Nicholas Sparks’s books, you will most likely enjoy Charlie St. Cloud as well. 

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Insatiable by Meg Cabot


Title: Insatiable (Insatiable #1)
Author: Meg Cabot
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: June 8, 2010
Source: Purchased
Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo
Sick of hearing about vampires? So is Meena Harper

But her bosses are making her write about them anyway, even though Meena doesn’t believe in them.

Not that Meena isn’t familiar with the supernatural. See, Meena Harper knows how you’re going to die. (Not that you’re going to believe her. No one ever does.)

But not even Meena’s precognition can prepare her for what happens when she meets - and then makes the mistake of falling in love with - Lucien Antonescu, a modern-day prince with a pit of a dark side. It’s a dark side a lot of people, like an ancient society of vampire hunters, would prefer to see him dead for.

The problem is, Lucien’s already dead. Maybe that’s why he’s the first guy Meena’s ever met whom she could see herself having a future with. See, while Meena’s always been able to see everyone else’s future, she’s never been able to look into her own.

And while Lucien seems like everything Meena has ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, he might turn out to be more like a nightmare. 

Now might be a good time for Meena to start learning to predict her own futures...

If she even has one.

I’ve always been quite partial to anything written by Meg Cabot. I’ll be honest and say straight out that I’ve read just about every one of her YA novels and a great number of the adult novels as well. Wherever Meg Cabot is concerned I always have certain expectations and with Insatiable those expectations were met and in some places surpassed. I’ve never been disappointed by any of her books and this one just fell in line with the others.

The story follows Meena Harper, a young dialogue writer for the soap opera, Insatiable, in New York City. She lives with her recently unemployed older brother, Jon, and dog, Jack Bauer named after the main character from the TV show 24. Meena’s life isn’t what she wants it to be: she was just passed up on a promotion at work, her excessively perky next-door-neighbor is constantly trying to set her up with men from her husband’s office, and her boss wants to have vampires on the show. Basically she’s having a really bad week and it only seems to be getting worse, until she meets Lucien. What she doesn’t know is that though her life may seem to be improving, appearances can often be deceiving.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I just love Meg Cabot. Ever since I picked up the first Princess Diaries years ago I’ve been hooked on her books. Every time a new one came out I just had to have it and it’s been like that for years now. I honestly couldn’t wait for Insatiable to come out. I mean, who wouldn’t? Meg Cabot had written a book with vampires in them, who in their right mind would pass up on that? I had many expectations when I started reading the book and by the time I finished the book, most had been met if not exceeded. The plot was entertaining, the characters were great and the novel was overall a great read.

I think one of my favorite part of the book was Meena. She was just a great character that I took great pleasure getting to know. For once the female protagonist in a vampire story wasn’t some weak girl wanting nothing more than to have her boyfriend change her so they can be together forever. It was a refreshing change. Meena was just extremely likable and, knowing when people are going to die put aside, a believable character. Even though the book was written in the third person, I was always looking forward to the chapters where the focus was on Meena. The other characters, though some were not as prominent as others, were also interesting. At first I wasn’t a big fan of Alaric Wulf but I have to say he sort of grew on me. By the end of the book I was looking forward to seeing more of him. The one character I didn’t appreciate as much was Lucien. Even if he was one of the main characters in the novel, and the love of Meena’s life, there was just something about him that I didn’t like.

Overall the story was really good. There were always twists and a lot of action which made the story go by really fast. The only negative point about the story is that it took a good 50 pages or so for the story to really start. I have to admit I found those first 50 pages long but once I got past them and the story really took off it was hard putting the book down.

If you have ever read a Meg Cabot book and liked it you will most definitely also enjoy Insatiable. If you haven’t read any Meg Cabot then I suggest you go to the book store and pick up one of her books, you won’t regret it.

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