2017 Book #46 – According to a Source by Abby Stern

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: According to a Source
Author: Abby Stern
Date finished: 5/21/17
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: May 23, 2017
Pages in book: 304
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Ella Warren loves her job working for celebrity news magazine, The Life, as an undercover reporter. Her evenings are spent using her alias to discreetly attend red carpet events, nightclubs, and Hollywood hotspots like the fabulous Chateau Marmont, where her eyes are always peeled for the next big celebrity story.
When Ella’s new Devil Wears Prada-type boss starts a not-so-friendly competition among the reporters to find an exclusive story or be fired, the stakes are higher than ever. But is being in Hollywood’s elite inner circle worth jeopardizing her friendship with budding actress Holiday Hall and her relationships with her boyfriend and her family? As the competition grows fiercer, her life becomes intertwined in a public scandal that may cost her everything.
A juicy, big-hearted novel about a young woman who loses herself in a fast-paced, glamorous world where finding your authentic self isn’t easy.

My rating: 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Ella Warren, an undercover freelance reporter for The Life, a gossip magazine. Ella’s job involves her going to the hottest clubs and restaurants in Hollywood to search for a new scoop each night. This unfortunately takes her away from her boyfriend of seven years, Ethan. And then one night all of a sudden Ethan decides he’s had enough. He moves out the next day and Ella is left adrift. But between her heiress best friend Holiday and her college best friend Jessica, Ella manages to pull the pieces together and actually even finds a new boyfriend. Her new editor at the magazine though has started using a points system to decide who gets fired or not, and so Ella is under more pressure than ever to get the biggest and best scoop, no matter the cost.
Overall I liked this book a lot. It reminded me a lot of the Gossip Girl books, which I loved as a teenager. The gossip about all the celebrities included code names instead of real names, which made sense because I think otherwise it would have been too hard to keep track of who was who with the celebrities. The pace of this book was great and there was a good amount of scandal and intrigue. There was also betrayal and romance and family drama. I can’t imagine how anyone could have fit anything else into this book, it was bursting with interesting events. And while I liked it, there were pieces of it that I didn’t love. I thought Ella was just too self-absorbed for my tastes. Even after she turned things around at the end she still seemed a little too all about her. Other than that though I really liked the book and I would recommend it.

The bottom line: This was a funny and entertaining book. It reminded me a bit of Gossip Girl with the code names. I didn’t love the way the ending was set up but I liked the book overall. I would recommend it.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

18Oct2016

2016 Book #99 – The Boy Is Back by Meg Cabot

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, For the love of books, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: The Boy Is Back
Author: Meg Cabot
Date finished: 10/18/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: October 18, 2016
Pages in book: 368
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Edelweiss NOTE: I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

In this brand new stand alone novel for adult readers, a scandal brings celebrity golfer Reed back home to the small town, the crazy family, and first love he once left behind.
Reed Stewart thought he’d left all his small-town troubles-including a broken heart-behind when he ditched tiny Bloomville, Indiana, a decade ago to get rich on the pro golf circuit. Then one tiny post on the Internet causes all of those troubles to return with a vengeance.
Becky Flowers loves her small-town life, her small-town business, and especially the small-town wedding she’s planning. She hasn’t thought about her no good high school ex, Reed Stewart, in years. Until suddenly-thanks to a news story that goes viral on every gossip site on the Internet- Reed comes bursting back into her lifelike an Indiana summer twister.
Now everything Becky and Reed thought they knew about themselves (and one another) has been turned upside down, and they – and possibly the entire town of Bloomville – will never be the same, all because: The Boy is Back.

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book is about Becky Flowers, owner of a moving consultant company in rural Indiana. Becky’s life is going along fine, she’s in her late twenties, owns her own business, and has a devoted boyfriend. If things are going so well though, why can’t she stop thinking about her high school boyfriend Reed Stewart? And even worse, when he comes back to town to help his parents, why can’t she seem to resist being near him?
Reed Stewart hasn’t stepped foot in his hometown in 10 years, ever since his father told him to leave and never come back. All this time though he’s kept tabs on Becky through online and through his family to make sure that things are going well for her, never thinking much of his need to keep track of her. But when he comes home to help his family through a crisis, he must come face to face not only with Becky but also with his lingering feelings for her.
Overall I just loved this book. It was hilarious, I was laughing out loud the whole time I was reading. I really just love Cabot’s sense of humor in this book and the other two similar novels she’s written about Boys.I also really just so much enjoy the epistolary style of writing and I think Cabot specifically does a great job at this, compiling a variety of written mediums to form a well-rounded novel. The cast of characters was endearing and entertaining, especially Becky and Reed. I also really liked Cabot’s use of some specific pop culture items like auto-correct and Facebook. This was a great read and I would definitely recommend!

The bottom line: I loved this book, I couldn’t stop laughing! This is one of my favorite writing styles too, similar to her other books Boy Meets Girl and Every Boy’s Got One. Great read and I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

5May2014

2014 – Book # 35

Posted in Book reviews, Historical Romance by rebeccabook17

The thirty-fifth book I read in 2014 was A Dash of Scandal by Amelia Grey. I finished this book on 5/4/14. I rated this book 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This was the second book I read by this author. This book is about Miss Millicent Blair and Chandler, Earl of Dunraven. Millicent has been called to London to assist her aunt who recently took a very serious fall. What she doesn’t know is that her aunt doesn’t need help getting back on her feet, she needs help collecting gossip from each evening’s parties for the Lord Truefitt gossip column.

At first Millicent is horrified by what her aunt needs help with, but after some needling her aunt finally convinces her to help. As Millicent makes the rounds at all the ton’s best soirees, she meets Lord Dunraven, one of the ton’s Terrible Three. Dunraven has made a name for himself as a terrible rogue, and since Millicent’s own mother was run out of London after her own scandal twenty years ago, Millicent knows she must not fall under Dunraven’s spell. Try as she might though, she can’t seem to resist Dunraven’s charm. And the more Dunraven gets to know Millicent, the more he can’t seem to stop thinking about her. No one has ever gotten under his skin before, and he finds himself absolutely smitten.

During all of this, Dunraven is searching for the “Mad Ton Thief,” as is London’s police force. He enlists Millicent’s help to investigate on their own. Together they try to piece together the clues to figure out who the thief is and all the while become more and more infatuated with each other. Overall this was a cute story with a lovely heroine. A couple points were slow/dry but overall was a good plot.

Link to author website: http://www.ameliagrey.com/main.html

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dash-Scandal-Amelia-Grey-ebook/dp/B005J4OZRQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399247638&sr=8-1&keywords=a+dash+of+scandal