Cassie

This is one of those books that I just never wanted to stop reading.  I admit to being a bit weird in that when I don't like a book, I read it as fast as I can but when I love a book, I slow down and take my sweet time with it.

I basically really like the synopsis on the back so I picked it up without even bothering to read any of the reviews.  Oh boy, was I rewarded.  I enjoyed this book to no end.

Daphne Wade has lived many places around the world with her father working on excavation sites by repairing the antiques that are found in each dig.  Her mother died when she was young and then her father dies, her mother's father(a baron) denies her existence and she is left alone in the world.  She heads to England to do a job her father had accepting before he died with the Duke of Tremore, Anthony.  

Daphne believes she has fallen in love with Anthony as she spies on him working at a dig site shirtless.  That all ends when Anthony sister comes to visit and she hears a discussion between the two of them.  Viola, Anthony's sister, wants to help Daphne find a husband since she has befriended her.  To do that, she wants to do a sort of makeover and take her to London for a season.  Anthony scoffs at this calling Daphne a stick bug and a machine.  No one would want someone so plain in his mind.  

Daphne is heartbroken at the time but the next day she takes things into her own hands.  She tells Anthony she is quitting and will be going with Viola to London to find a husband.  She basically takes Anthony to task and tells him where he can stick it.  Anthony is shocked by this new Daphne that he has never seen.  The Daphne he knows stutters her words, is shy, works hard and does everything he says without complaint.  This new one tells him how arrogant he is and that she want to work reasonable hours.

At first he is not happy with this new Daphne but he needs her for the next five years and especially the next 7 months for his museum opening in London.  He at first bribes her to stay 3 months by offering her triple pay, bonus money for a dowry, and an extra day off work each week.  Then he starts trying to charm her, eking out more time by teaching her to dance and such.  Along the way, they fall in love.

I loved Daphne.  She was strong and held her ground against Anthony.  She didn't instantly forgive him.  She also realized that what she felt for Anthony at first wasn't love but infatuation.  Anthony is a sweetie albeit an arrogant one.  Once he finally sees Daphne, he starts falling in love with her.  

Their romance is what captured me.  Daphne hates Anthony for quite a while and Anthony tries to charm her to stay longer.  Slowly Daphne and Anthony find a friendship in each other.  There was always an underline attraction between both of them but both chose to ignore it for different reasons.  Daphne because of what he said and Anthony because he doesn't want to ruin Daphne and he is also afraid of love.  I enjoyed that their love and friendship was built on more than just lust and attraction but also that they had things in common with each other.  

In many romances there is a suspension of belief usually regarding how long it took for the couple to fall in love.  But in this book, it actually takes them months of slowly circling each other to fall for each other or to at least realize that they have fallen for each other.  Anthony makes tons of mistakes but I think that what made him an attractive hero and also very realistic.  He wasn't perfect but he did try to make amends.  I loved that he was the one chasing after Daphne in the end.  How he wooed her was so sweet.

Definitely one of my favorite romances of all time. 

I really can't believe I finished this.  The characters sucked and truthfully I really didn't understand their so called romance. This is my very first Kristen Higgins book and my last.

Faith dated this guy, Jeremy, for 8 years where with the encouragement of his friend Levi, Jeremy dumps Faith at the altar because he is gay.  Faith moves to San Francisco but has no luck with any guys, they are either gay or married, then comes home when her sister tells her a gold digger is sniffing around their father after being gone for 3 and half years.

Faith is a woman who is obsessed with marriage.  She fully admits that she would have married Jeremy even though he was gay.  When the book starts, she is stalking a guy whom she has been on a date with 2 or 3 times.  She is sitting in her car watching this guy's house and him as he is watching sports on T.V. while trying out their names together, Clint and Faith, Faith and Clint, Faith Blount.

Then she goes on a date with this guy to find out he is married when his wife comes storming in with their 2 year old child and she repeatedly calls Faith a whore.  I mean, she must have said whore like a dozen times and at the end her child calls Faith a whore.  

Faith doesn't want to swear in front of the child(yeah because his mother is doing a good job of doing that) so does a piss poor job defending herself. I felt this scene added nothing but surely annoyed the hell out of me. 

Anyways Faith goes home, forgives Jeremy extremely quickly but holds  a major grudge against Levi.  Jeremy feels guilty and he seems like a nice charming guy but WTF? He wasted 8 years of your life and you're just like let's hold hands and be besties.

Then there is Levi, the hero.  So he knows Jeremy was gay from the first time they met which was a little before Jeremy got together with Faith.  Don't really get how he knew Jeremy was gay from just looking at the guy but whatever.  The thing is, he could have told her or forced the issue with Jeremy but he chooses not to until the wedding.  Better late than never, I guess.  I completely blame Jeremy for the timing.  Why couldn't he have done it before the wedding, before they got to the alter.  Instead, he had to publicly embarrass Faith. Actually, there is a lot of embarrass Faith scenes in this book which I felt completely unnecessary.  

Anyways back to Levi.  Levi and Faith hate each other, sort of.  Faith is definitely pissed at Levi for not telling her about Jeremy being gay and Levi has a stick up his ass because his family was poor and he hate rich people, a.k.a. Faith.  Faith is too bubbly and people pleasing and do gooder for him.  Levi is an ass and a bit of a chauvinist.  Grew up poor, served in the military and now is the chief of police in their small town.  He really likes Faith's boobs, like a lot.

So their relationship/romance was pretty shitty.(Spoilers Ahead) 

They meet a few times in the first 50% of the book but usually only to argue and get at one another.  The rest of time is filled with their families and friends.  Faith moves right across from Levi and becomes his neighbor.  She has a seizure(she has epilepsy) and her dog gets Levi.  Levi takes care of her for the night then kisses her in the morning and then calls it a mistake.  Faith is pissed and they argue some more.  The Levi kisses her again and she is confused.  Some more shit happens with family, Levi is nice to her and then they are having sex(no hot steamy sex in this book T-T.) Anyways they have lots of sex, go on one date and then Levi's ex-wife shows up.  Levi shuts down and doesn't see Faith for a couple of days.  When he does decide to show up, she is packing because she has a job in San Francisco that will take 4-6 weeks but she plans to move back.  He gets mad that she didn't tell him.  She didn't tell because she just found out a couple days ago and he wasn't talking to her, and so he dumps her.  After weeks, Levi decided he made a mistake and hops on a plane to California to only find out she is back home.  He finds her, tells her he will work on opening up more, and proposes to her.

Yeah, arguing and sex makes a relationship. *heavy sarcasm*  Not to mention that they went on 1 date and he proposes to her.  

A lot of the humor is belittling of others.  A transgender being called a she-male.  There was an uncomfortable scene when Faith goes on a date with someone who is into BDSM. I really don't think anyone in the BDSM lifestyle would ask some random person if they liked being spanked and submissive unless they knew they were from the same lifestyle or at least curious about it. Sometimes it was just too much.

So far, I have really liked this series and I will continue the rest of it but I can't even think about continuing reading this wreck.  Usually I would try to read through this book because it's part of a series but when all you want is to do is punch the heroine then it's no good.  Also I feel love triangles in a romance book suck.  I can take them in UF or fantasy or any other genre but put it in my romance and I'm already marking the book down.

So Sophie, our heroine, and Wyatt met twelve years ago where Wyatt and his best friend, Hugh, both tried to woo Sophie.  Hugh won because he was hawt and dashing and Wyatt was just the poor dependable guy. Sophie marries Hugh and Wyatt is the best man, what? That was just cruel. 12 years later, Wyatt is still pining after Sophie. I hated that.  Hell, I wished he got together with the woman, Carrie, in the beginning of the book. At least she saw him as a first choice and not a second.  I didn't understand his fascination with Sophie.  I mean seriously, she was boring and a goody two shoes.  

Sophie calls Wyatt after trying to call her ex-husband after her daughter was almost kidnapped but her friend was.  That's what I got from this book, Wyatt was always second, never first, to Sophie.  Fuck, there was even another stupid love triangle between another flashy guy who wants Sophie and Wyatt. I can see the author seeing this as redemption for the heroine, for her to finally make the right choice but fuck it, I'm done.  I skimmed to the end but no matter what I read, I only viewed the heroine in a bad light.  She didn't deserve Wyatt.

I've been kind of feeling like I've been in a reading slump lately.  I couple of DNFs and some other books that just haven't really impressed me.  Then this book came along, and oh boy, I'm trying to hold myself back and not turn all fan girly.  I promise to try to hold back my gushing praise and OMGs  to a minimum.

 The start of this book was amazing. I was so upset when college finals were interrupting me from reading this amazing book. I was shocked that the author was a male, my very first romance written by a male. The first 16% had me intrigued. Forbidden romance, tough male and female leads and amazingly detailed action scenes. Count me in! Then I got beyond 16% when Emily gets her new mission. Sadly the book crashed and burned after that.

Now the good.  The writing was decent.  I loved the banter between Emily and Mark.  And Mark was an amazing hero.  One of my favorite scenes was him trying to write a letter to Emily.  How he kept on deleting and rewriting the salutation was hilarious. 

But I couldn't take how perfect Emily was anymore.  She was extremely smart, valedictorian at West Point.  An amazing pilot getting nominated for the silver cross.  She can out cook professional chefs.  She is gorgeous and every guy is basically drooling after her. She comes from a rich family, grew up and is friends with the President of the United States.  Emily is the biggest Mary Sue I have ever read about and I seriously felt sick every time someone mentioned another one of her great achievements,

Being this was supposed to be a romance book, I wasn't very happy about how much time the hero and heroine weren't together.  35% of this book had the heroine and hero separated from each other, on totally different continents.  This is just one big chunk of of them not being together and there were a lot more smaller chunks after that.  I can't really call it a romance if they weren't together.  And in that 35%, there was a lot of repetitiveness.  Emily and Mark keep thinking about their one small kiss and Emily keeps on wailing about how she hates that she is being forced to be a chef/bodyguard for the first lady.  She wants to fly.

And no steamy sex scenes. T-T The horror!

I am so over this.

I might try this again because I love Kresley Cole's IAD series.  I just couldn't get into this book with the whiny, snobbish heroine who thinks she's all that and a bag of chips.  OMG, your boyfriend asks you how you are doing and worries about you and you're mad because he didn't compliment your hair or outfit.  How dare he!  Then he didn't take the hint that you want him to carry your bag all day around school because you didn't want to carry your own shit. Yeah, he just sucks.  You promised you would have sex with him and he expects you to keep that promise. He has totally been faithful to you for the 3 months you were gone at the loony bin, err.. um...vacation.  Yeah, a guy who wants sex...that is so new!  

The hero/love interest isn't looking so good right now but compared to the heroine, he comes out smelling like roses  I can totally understand him calling her a bitch when she was acting like one.  Oh wait, she was going to say sorry, but you know he called her a bitch before she could so she won't apologize for her behavior.   *rolling eyes*  Damn teenage angst and shit.

I liked this book at first but now, I'm not so sure.  I'm not quite so happy about the heroine turning into Mary Sue.  O.k. so she is the first female pilot who ever got into SOAR.  I'll buy that.  But now she is also an amazing chef who needs no recipe but just does thing intuitively. She also knows the President of the United States.  She is gorgeous and has earned respect from all the men who she works with in 2 months. But, you know, she has family issues.  But that really isn't a negative against her, just her family. *sigh*  

Then the repetitiveness is also getting to me.  How many times do I have to hear how sad/mad/upset she is about not being able to fly again because she is forced to play chef/bodyguard for the First Lady.  It's starting to get old fast.  

This is my very first romance that I have ever read that has been written by a guy.  Only thing I really noticed is that there is a little more focus about the heroine's breasts that what I would normally have seen from a woman writer.   Otherwise, I'm totally enthralled with this book right now.  =) This is definitely an interesting read so far.

""You feeling okay?" His gaze was filled with concern. "We can pick up some coffee on the way."

  I shut the door behind me. "Sure. Whatever." He hadn't complemented me on my hair or outfit - my Chloe baby-blue sleeveless dress with the hem no more than four regulation inches above the knee.  The silky black ribbon that held my hair back in curling ponytail, my matching black Miu Miu ankle-wrap heels.

  My diamond earrings and Patek Phillippe wristwatch served as my only jewerly.

  *     *     *

  "I climbed out and collected my book bag, groaning under the weight, hoping Brand would take a hint.  He didn't.  So, on an already stifling morning, I would be schlepping my own stuff."

    *     *     *

"This is my world; my little queendom--"

I love Kresley Cole but this book and I are running into some major relationship issues early on.  I'm only 7%(2 chapters) in and I already want to bitch slap the heroine. I guess she wants a trained pet as a boyfriend, one who will compliment her at every turn and carry her bags for her.  Of course she does, she views herself as a queen. 

So Holly is even more annoying in this book than she was in her own.

Kate is so cloyingly sweet, she is starting to give me a tooth ache.  I understand sacrificing for your family but she taking it too far and is becoming an enabler.  What does she think is going to happen if she's gone for a while? The house will burn down? If she wasn't so mother hen to her whole family, they might actually, you know, grow and be able to do things for themselves. I'm guessing that is what Griffin will be helping her with, *cross fingers* because I don't know how much more I can take of this self sacrificing shit.

So as interesting as this has been so far, I'm totally confused.  I'm sure everything will be cleared up later but I hate being confused.

*sigh* I'm guessing the heroine will totally be interested in sex once she meets the hero.  Don't like that she isn't interested in sex so she married a gay guy.  Why can't she just have been a single girl with some gay friends instead of her friends being her gay ex-husband and his partner. 

Details:

Age 26, Female, US

Activity:

Joined in November 2013

Interests:

Books, Gym, Animals(my two puppies), Cooking, Baking, Competitive Reality T.V. Shows, Walking, Stargazing, Hot Chocolate w/ Marshmallows, Christmas Movies Galore, Hiking, Camping, RPGs, and Eating Healthy.

Favorite Series(no particular order):

• Psy-Changeling
• Fever
• Darkest London
• Downside Ghosts
• Demonica
• Immortals After Dark
• October Daye
• I-Team
• The Stormlight Archive

Book Boyfriends:

• Judd Lauren
• Lucas Hunter
• Kaleb Krychek
• Malcolm Slaine
• Benjamin Archer
• Michael
• Thanatos
• Zsadist
• Jericho Barrons
• Tybalt
• Terrible
• John Pritkin
• Aren
• Lon Butler
• Curran(needs to do major groveling)
• Marc Hunter
• Ian MacKenzie
• Sebastian St. Vincent

About Me:

I'm a goodreads refugee who's trying to kick my addiction to goodreads. 

I love books and reading.

I hate when people interrupt my reading.

I adore HEAs.

I hate tragedies:

I'm a fledgling programmer, working on getting my masters degree.

I curse like a sailor on any given day.

I love Fall, it's my favorite season.

Christmas is my favorite holiday where I indulge in hot chocolate and Christmas movies.