Book Review: The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back by Sariah Wilson

Everyone knows how all those fairy tales go. The princess gets beautiful, nabs her prince, falls instantly in love, lives happily ever after and leaves her evil stepsisters in the dust.

But what happens when you’re the ugly stepsister and your obnoxiously perfect—read pretty, smart, and, worst of all, sickeningly nice—stepsister is dating the charming, tall, devastatingly handsome guy you’ve had a thing for since you were nine years old?

Quirky, artistic and snarky Mattie Lowe does not lead a charmed life. Her mother is constantly belittling her on Skype. Mercedes, the school mean girl, has made it her personal mission to torment Mattie. But worst of all? Her stepsister Ella is the most beautiful, popular girl in school and is dating Mattie’s secret longtime crush, Jake Kingston.

Tired of being left out and done with waiting for her own stupid fairy godmother to show up, Mattie decides to change her life. She’ll start by running for senior class president against wildly popular Jake.

Ella can keep her Prince Annoying. Mattie’s going to rule the school.

And no one, not even a cute and suddenly flirty Jake, is going to stop her.

The Ugly Step sister strikes back by Sariah Wilson takes us into the world of two teenagers Ella and Mattie. Ella is of course cast as the Cinderella stepsister by Mattie and the book opens with Mattie listing her grievances against the pretty, kind, sweet (etc) Ella. We also meet Prince Charming, or is he Prince not so charming when Mattie tells us about the love her young life Jake.

My first thought when I started reading Sariah Wilson’s book was “wow this Mattie is a bit of a whinny mean girl.”. I think that is what your supposed to feel until you get to know Mattie a bit better the Ugly Step Sister Strikes back is indeed a journey for the reader for for Mattie and Ella. A journey that I found myself really invested in for both girls.

Both Ella and Mattie find out things not only about each other but about themselves. They find out that while they both made some sore misjudgments about one another they also wanted a relationship. I personally really enjoyed the journey that they took and by the end of the book I really loved both Mattie and Ella. Not to mention I love the take on the mean girl spirit of the book and well I don’t want to ruin the story but you have to enjoy the outcome of everything concerned.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Spin the Plate by Donna Anastasi

Synopsis of Spin the Plate: Jo is a survivor of a bleak and abusive childhood who roams the city streets at night as a powerful vigilante. Francis is a mysterious man she meets on the subway train. In this story, the average-guy hero battles to win the battered heart of the wary, edgy, less-than-perfect heroine. “A fast-paced, edgy, darkly comic tale of resilience, romance, and redemption that breaks over you in waves.” – Holly Robinson, author

Spin the plate is not a book that is for the faint of heart. The content is of course emotional and gripping with the past the Jo has. However for every bit of darker emotional edge you also see a spirit that is a fighter one that despite everything she has been through wants to battle back and find sense of normalcy again. In Jo you find a character that you can really admire. She has been through so much and yet she is a fighter both in the thought of the word and literally with her vigilante justice she serves out.

The book is well written and a really good read. I like a book that gets me emotionally involved and this one does it. While I connected more with Jo I think Francis is also a good character and very relate able for readers which always makes for a great read. I would recommend this one for anyone who likes a story that not only has a romantic angle, because it does have that. Francis is a great guy trying to win the heart of his battered lady. But a story about fighter who take abuse that she has suffered and comes back in a very kick ass way. The writing is solid and the plot takes a nice progressive curve with the pacing. So as long as your not scared of a little bit of the dark side with some dark comedy wrapped around it, give Spin the plate a try, I promise you will not regret it.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Spying in High Heels (A High Heels Mystery #1) by Gemma Halliday

L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears – along with AUD20 million in embezzled funds – and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD’s sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300 pound psychic and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer. But can she catch a killer before the killer catches up to her…

One of the best things about the free Kindle downloads is that some of them do take you out of your normal comfort zone so there is always a chance that you will find a new author or genre that will then tempt you to purchase more of the same. This book did not do it for me at all. It was rather like listening to one of those teenage girls that just blather on and on about nothing with a few kernels of bits that do matter- with some meaningless and inane bits of TMI. Sadly, I don’t have any patience with these personality types (I am working on it!) and I did not have any patience with this book at all and I am glad that none of my hard earned cash went to actually purchase this masterpiece. The heroine is awful, the plot really thin and I am just so far out of the target market that it seems a bit unfair to rate it as “I did not like it” – but for me – no, no,no, and not many redeeming qualities. If you saw my Musing Monday you know I could not even finish it.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Unlovable (Port Fare #1) by Sherry Gammon


Port Fare, New York, has fallen into the clutches of true evil. The Dreser brothers have arrived with a scheme to increase drug sales in the area by whatever means possible. Seth Prescott is part of MET (Mobile Enforcement Teams) a branch of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). He’s been assigned to work undercover at Port Fare High, and things aren’t going very well, until senior Maggie Brown enters the equation. He’s harbored a secret crush on her from day one, and now that she is in the center of the case, he’s trying to stay clear and objective while walking the line between business and unrequited love.

Maggie is truly the poster child for Heroin Chic, complete with jutting bones and dark-ringed eyes, but is she an addict, or is there another reason for her appearance? She struggles with her feelings for Seth, fearing he is just another person who will eventually let her down, as everyone in her life has done thus far.

Maggie has spent her life caring for her alcoholic mother. A task that has left her heavily burdened and alone. Before long, her mother’s health takes a turn for the worst, sending Maggie’s life into a tale-spin.

While Seth works relentlessly to inject fear into the dealers and flush them out into the open, Maggie fights to stay alive as the hunt turns deadly.

Seth and Maggie’s romantic journey is one of humor, heartbreak, and self-discovery.

I’m not overly familiar with ebook titles, so I assume the frequent errors I picked out in this novel were some fault of digital transfer, because it seems to need a more thorough editing. I found spelling mistakes and grammar errors, but the set-up also seemed rather choppy. It wasn’t properly divided by chapters and really was an overall mess to look at. In comparison to my experience with other ebooks, anyway, that were so clean and trimmed.

For all this, though, I had no trouble being swallowed by this book. It was so charming! It was easy for me to gain respect for Maggie, and her temperament – honestly, with a mother like hers, I’d go crazy. Maggie’s patience is saint-like. I loved Seth as well, sweetheart that he was. It’s a fairytale that someone with such a dreadful life like Maggie would meet a constant hero, but alas, it’s a welcome fairytale. The romance was flawlessly executed. A rare treat, yay!

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: The Cry of the Dove by Fadia Faqir


Timely and lyrical, The Cry of the Dove is the story of one young woman and an evocative portrait of forbidden love and violated honor in a culture whose reverberations are felt profoundly in our world today. Salma has committed a crime punishable by death in her Bedouin tribe of Hima, Levant: she had sex out of wedlock and became pregnant. Despite the insult it would commit against her people, Salma has the child and suddenly finds herself a fugitive on the run from those seeking to restore their honor. Salma is rushed into protective custody where her newborn is ripped from her arms, and where she sits alone for years before being ushered to safety in England. Away from her Bedouin village, Salma is an asylum-seeker trying to melt into the crowd, under pressure to reassess her way of life. She learns English customs from her landlady and befriends a Pakistani girl who is also on the run, with whose help Salma finally forges a new identity. But just as things settle, the need to return for her lost daughter overwhelms her, and one fateful day, Salma risks everything to go back and find her.

I desperately wanted to like this book. There were parts of it that were beautifully written. My heart wrenched for Salma — the main character of this piece. Still, it took me a good two or three reads of the first few chapters to even determine what was going on and in what time period — which was aggravating.

The story also had a tendency to move at an extraordinarily slow pace leading to an outcome which was plainly obvious from the very beginning.

I’d be interested to hear other’s thoughts on the novel and so even though I didn’t like it, I’d still recommend it to friends.

The novel centers around Salma, a Bedouin woman who flees her native country after becomming pregnant outside of marriage. She ultimately ends up in the United Kingdom where she must start a new life after escaping various tragedies in her old one.

It really opened my eyes to the struggles and challenges of those who choose to start new lives in new places, which I suppose means that my own disagreement and dissatisfaction with this novel was worth it?

 

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Lucinda, Darkly (Demon Princess Chronicles #1) by Sunny

For centuries, Lucinda has endured her agonizing reality. As daughter of the High Lord of Hell,she rules over nothing, retrieving the occasional wayward demon and feeding off of the savage Mon�re-of whom she was a member before she died.

Then she encounters the Monre warrior Stefan, who offers himself to her. She is moved beyond measure by her desire for him-and soon finds herself drawn back into the heady eroticism of the Monre. There, she must carve out a home between the jealousy of the dead and the violence of the living, if she is to keep her newfound love-and life..

This book was disappointing. Sunny’s world is derivative to begin with, reading like cross-over fanfiction between Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry and Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels, with some original concepts and quasi-original characters. The Mona Lisa books were at least an entertaining read, if I didn’t think too much about the ethical quandry behind lifting so much of other authors’ work (which she all but admits to in one of her acknowledgments) … this one, frankly, bored me. I couldn’t care about Lucinda, and her “males” were uninteresting at best. I’m not sure why I finished it.

It’s not the worst book I ever read, but there are many others on my TBR that I would’ve read first had I known it wouldn’t hold my interest.

Book Review: Converting Kate Beckie Weinheimer

Kate was raised in the Holy Divine Church it influenced everything from her homeschooling to her handmade clothes. But ever since her unbelieving father’s death last year, she has suspected that there’s more to life than memorizing scripture.

Taking advantage of their move to a new town, Kate to her devout mother’s horror quits Holy Divine. She joins the cross-country team, wears shorts to public school, and even tries a traditional Christian church. As she struggles to come to terms with her father’s death and her mother’s unquestioning beliefs, Kate discovers there’s a big difference between religion and faith and that the two don’t always go hand in hand
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After her father’s unexpected death, Kate begins to question the conservative religious tradition that she has been brought up in. When she and her mother locate to a new town, Kate discovers new ideas, new friends, and is able to gain a sense of peace about her father’s place in her life and his ultimate death.

I liked a number of things about this novel. Kate was a likable character and some of the novel’s minor characters were well-drawn and interesting. However, the novel’s primary focus, Kate’s rejection of her traditional religious upbringing lacked subtlety. In the novel, anyone identified as ‘Christian’ was narrow-minded, ignorant and filled with hate. Non-Christians were liberal and tolerant. I’m sure many teens questioning their religious backgrounds do see things this starkly, but a more sophisticated view, which allowed Kate to question her beliefs while recognizing that there were good, loving aspects of the tradition she was leaving might be more realistic and helpful to teens.

I also found myself distracted by the fact that ‘The Church of the Holy Divine’, described as being a fundamentalist Christian church with cult-like overtones, was actually a thinly veiled version of the LDS Church. I think it might have been a more interesting and honest story if the author had been more open about this. It certainly would have provided a better context for the reader to understand the rich tradition and culture that Kate was choosing to leave behind.

Book Review: Dewey the small town library cat who touched the world by Vikcki Myron

How much of an impact can an animal have? How many lives can one cat touch? How is it possible for an abandoned kitten to transform a small library, save a classic American town, and eventually become famous around the world? You can’t even begin to answer those questions until you hear the charming story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Spencer, Iowa.

Dewey’s story starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director, Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next nineteen years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer with his enthusiasm, warmth, humility, (for a cat) and, above all, his sixth sense about who needed him most.

As his fame grew from town to town, then state to state, and finally, amazingly, worldwide, Dewey became more than just a friend; he became a source of pride for an extraordinary Heartland farming town pulling its way slowly back from the greatest crisis in its long history.

The very first thing that will draw you into Dewey is the adorable cat that is on the front of the cover. This is Dewey himself of course and looking at those eyes you can see the soul within him. I have seen a lot of cat eyes but his are so expressive! How I wish I had known this lovely gentleman for surely he must be a noble soul just look at how he holds himself. We first meet Dewey on the harrowing cold morning when he is found in the book drop box of the library a shivering nearly dead little kitten. Thanks to the good handling of his new Moms however Dewey comes out of his cold daze and recovers to become a very gregarious fellow. Who wins the heart of everyone he meets in the library.

The story of Dewey the library cat is well written and emotional. It will pull at every single one of your heart strings with every turn of the page. I also love another underlying message within the book how even strangers can be part of a community. Dewey’s fame brought people from all over to meet him and he treated everyone the same. The library became a place for people to come again to relax within its walls and spend some time with the sweet soul who managed to find the best in everyone he met. How can you not be touched by that kind of story?

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story and of course those who love animals. If you do not know animals have personality and soul you will by the end of this book. Make sure you have time to read when you start Dewey’s book however because you will not want to put it down.

Book Review: Wedding Season by Darcy Cosper

Seventeen weddings. Six months. Only the strong survive. Joy Silverman and her boyfriend, Gabriel Winslow, seem perfect for each other. Living together in New York City, they have everything they want and everything in common–most important, that neither one wants to get married. Ever. But when Joy finds herself obligated to attend seventeen weddings in six months (including those of her father, mother, younger brother, and five of her closest girlfriends), the couple is forced to take a new look at why they’re so opposed to marriage when the rest of the world can’t wait to walk down the aisle. As the season heats up and the pressure mounts, Joy must confront what it means — and what it costs — to be true to one’s self. A witty, wicked comedy of manners in the satirical tradition of Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh, Wedding Season is an intelligent, laugh-out-loud funny examination of friendship, faith, integrity, and the ideas and institutions that bind us together, shape our lives, and define who we are. “If Jane Austen and Candace Bushnell were to meet for a long drink in a downtown bar, the delightful result might be a contemporary comedy of manners with a decidedly old-fashioned feel. Darcy Cosper has given us just that: a sweet and sharply funny concoction that will have bridesmaids everywhere nodding their heads in recognition.” — Dani Shapiro, author of Family History “Wonderful….Wedding Season is social comedy on a grand scale. A hilarious and urbane primer on getting hitched-or not-in the twenty-first century.” — Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.



I’m sorry, but when a book is titled “Wedding Season” and the cover art is of a row of pastel colored bridesmaid dresses, it has one purpose in life – to be a bit of brainless fluff with a happy ending for me to read when I’m sick. I guess I should admire it for trying to be more than what it is, but it didn’t really succeed, and I was just annoyed that it didn’t know its place. It was nice to read some chick lit with a protagonist who wasn’t obsessed with getting married, and I was glad that it didn’t just end with her changing her mind and drinking the Kool-Aid (nothing against marriage, in fact I wouldn’t mind getting married myself someday, but it shouldn’t be a requirement in modern society), but the conclusion she drew about marriage in the end was just baffling and unsatisfying

Book Review: Exiles in America: A Novel by Christopher Bram

Zack Knowles and Daniel Wexler have been together for twenty-one years. Zack is a psychiatrist, Daniel an art teacher at a college in Virginia. In the fall of 2002, a few months before the Iraq War, a new artist in residence, Abbas Rohani, arrives with his Russian wife, Elena, and their two children.

But Abbas is not quite what he seems, and soon he and Daniel begin an affair. After love throws the two families together, politics threatens the future of both in ways no one could have predicted.
A novel that explores how the personal becomes political, “Exiles in America” offers an intimate look at the meaning of marriage, gay and straight, and demonstrates the breathtaking skill and daring imagination that have garnered Christopher Bram widespread critical acclaim.

That Christopher Bram is one of our finer novelists today is a given (The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes, Gods and Monsters, Life of the Circus Animals, In Memory of Angel Clare, etc). EXILES IN AMERICA is a very astutely constructed novel, one that explores the concept of displaced persons, whether those persons be gay men in a straight homophobic town, artists in a world of grounded minds, immigrant visitors in the land of the free, or Muslims in a path of fear guarded closely by the Christian ethic. Mix these possible people in a country post 9/11 and prior to America’s (read Bush’s) declaration of war on Iraq and there is a story brooding.

For the most part Bram finely tunes this novel with well-drawn characterizations, a gift he continues to elucidate in his writing. But something has entered Bram’s writing mind that is a bit disturbing: he seems to have lost some of the respect for his readers that has never happened prior to his novel. There are moments of ‘dumbing down’ the reader by excessive explanations of obvious knowns and even stumbling at the close of the book to speak not in the voice of the characters he has created but in his own vacillating voice as a writer – a section of this otherwise fairly tense read that breaks the magic and adds little.

Daniel, an artist with painter’s block who now only teaches art in Williamsburg, VA, and Zack, a psychiatrist who has given up his New York practice to follow Daniel to his present college teaching position, have been together as a couple for twenty one years, the last ten years at least of which have been an ‘open marriage’: both men are agreed that transient liaisons outside of their marriage are acceptable as long as they talk about them. Daniel, though in his late forties, has fears of aging and continues to pursue flings, while Zack has settled into a nearly asexual state. Into their milieu come a new guest faculty artist, Iranian Abbas and his Russian wife Elena (a couple with two children who also have an open marriage), and soon enough Daniel and Abbas are lusting after each other in what continues long enough to become an affair. The story is centered on how these four people react not only to each others’ needs and fears, but how Zack and Daniel become enmeshed in the growing American suspicion of Middle Eastern ‘potential terrorists’, a factor surfacing when Abbas’ older brother Hassan arrives from Tehran insisting that Abbas, Elena and their children return to Iran because of the incipient war between the US and Iraq. These conflicts focus the instabilities and consequences of the lifestyles of the four friends and introduces an entirely new attitude to Exiles in all its meanings.

Bram writes brilliantly and moves his story at a terrific pace: EXILES IN AMERICA is a difficult book to put down once started. For this reader the only problem other than the ones mentioned above is the lack of charisma: it is difficult to truly care about any of the people in this book. But perhaps that is another ‘alienation’ Bram wants to introduce – a metaphor for the isolation among people that has been heightened by the current preoccupation with distrust of intimacy and people outside our individual realm. Bram poses questions, delivers the goods, and once again proves that he can create a fine story based on a tough theme.

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