WARNING DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!!

WARNING!If you see the following book in the bookstore, bypass it. Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel."

It's not worth the purchase price. I bought this book having been sucked in by it's cute title and without reading at least the first page and woe is me. Why am I do aganist this book you ask?
Well, let's start with the first page. This is a quote from the second paragraph. "What would Oprah do?" Katy asked aloud." Some of us believe in a higher authority than a day time talk show host. And to write a romance where a major secondary character is Oprah is an irony that I believe Lisa Cach has missed. Oprah has trashed romance novels in the past and been bombarded by angry romance readers and writers. When was the last time a romance was an Oprah book pick?

Okay that was only the first objection to this book.
Second, the heroine is clueless. She tries to be sophisticated but only ends up looking pathetic and naive. She jets off to London (she's unemployed BTW)in search of Prince Charming. (That's a major objection for me.) She wanted to be saved because she doesn't know what to do with her life. She books into a B&B in Mayfair (didn't know they allowed them in Mayfair.)because she liked the name. (Just stupid) And it was cheap. In Mayfair? Are you kidding me?
She mistakes a Bentley Rolls Royce for a London cab. She wasn't planning on seeing the sights and shopping in London. She was going to the night clubs and hot spots to pick up titled British guys. So of course she does her research and chooses as her fashion icon Queen Elizabeth II, on the belief that no one dresses more aristocratically than the Queen. Maybe that was logical in the 1600's, but times have changed. Katy must have missed the whole tenure of Diana, Princess of Wales. Needless to say her outfits didn't fit in. Despite that fact she manages to get invited to a major nightclub with part of the in crowd. So she goes shopping. To Harrod's and Fortnum and Masons and Selfridge's. She's shocked to find she can't afford any of the clothes sold there. A basic London guidebook would have helped you out there. So she gets help from a salesgirl. She does wonder why Melanie is helping her when she knows there's no commission in it. She should have walked away then and hit the sales, consignment shops and vintage clothing stores. But no. She agrees to Melanie's scheme of taking embarrassing photos at the nightclub. Melanie then sells all of Katy's photos to a tabloid. (Katy doesn't get a cut of the profits either)And then Katy has more invitations and needs more clothes and has to take more photos. Some at Ascot and some at a fancy houseparty. Then at the fancy houseparty (which somehow Melanie got invited to) the little shop girl turns around and betrays Katy to her new crowd. Mostly for the press. But being a romance Prince Charming does come to the rescue and in the end Katie marries her savior. Who turns out to be a Duke.
Let's hope Lisa Cach learns a little about plotting before she publishes her next book.

Reading list

This is not a full list of what I read this month. I don't usually remember that much.
1. Now I can die in Peace-Bill Simmons. About the Red Sox. Very funny and informative for all you baseball people.
2. What's A Ghoul to Do- Victoria Laurie. The jury's still out on this one. Interesting overall, but I didn't like either male secondary character and there was just something missing. Not as good as her Abby books.
3. The Trouble with Magic-Madeline Alt. A paranormal cozy set in Indiana. Fun and interesting, but I thought it tried too hard to be typical Mid-Western. I got the feeling that the author is a British transplant. She uses some heavy handed stereotypes and that isolated the main character.
4. A Charmed Death-Madeline Alt. The second in the series. Better. Less British and more interesting with the 'witchy' stuff. Still a little stereotypical. Maggie seems more wishy-washy with her family and friends in this one.
5. Rescue Me-Elda Minger. One of the last Harlequin Temptations. Good book. About a resurging action hero who saves two people from a gunpoint robbery. One is a young boy and the other a woman starting a new life. Yes, cliched. But a quick easy read with some fun and good sex.
6. The Prada Paradox-Julie Kenner. The final book in her Play.Survive.Win trilogy. This time it's set in L.A. They are making a movie about The Givenchy Code when the heroine of this book is targeted by the game. She's a former child star who was stalked and attacked by a crazed fan. After rehab and therapy she trying to make her way back. Until her attacker resurfaces and she gets a note in a Prada bag(I love that part!) telling her she must play or die.
7. The Key trilogy-Nora Roberts. Key of Light, Key of Knowledge and Key of Valor. It's a few years old, but worth the read. Three women are chosen to find three keys to free the souls of the Daughters of Glass. A Celtic myth. Vintage Nora. Funny, intelligent, well paced, and plotted. Main characters are strong and the secondary characters likable and forward the plot. Some people should take a lesson!

September Book

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I'm sending it out early.

I'm choosing: Last Whisper, by Carlene Thompson

I've read all her books and find them fun little reads. They're stand alones. They have a little thriller, romance, little mystery. Great vacation reads!

This book comes out on the 29th of August, so you'll either have to buy it or read it in the store. It'll be fun. Splurge.

Here's the back of the book:
Someone is tracking her every move.A killer who knows that true nightmares never end...And that the perfect murder is always worth waiting for...Brooke Yeager's childhood ended the night she crept downstairs to find her beautiful, gentle mother, Anne, lying in a pool of blood. Standing above Anne's shattered body, a gun aimed right at the terrified little girl, was Brooke's stepfather, Zachary Tavell. Luck saved Brooke that night, and in the years since, she's managed to build a good life in Charleston, West Virginia, secure in the knowledge that Zach is behind bars. Until the night another woman is murdered-a woman who looks just like Brooke. Zach Tavell has escaped from prison, and this time, Brooke will need much more than luck to survive. As the police search for Tavell, Brooke is shaken by a string of gruesome deaths and disturbing messages linked to her mother's murder. Everyone she has ever cared about is in danger. And soon it's clear that the nightmare that began fifteen years ago won't be over until Brooke comes face to face with a monstrous evil that's closer, and more cunning, than she ever imagined....

Crazy Hot, by Tara Janzen

A friend passed this book onto me after she picked it up at a conference(thanks!) She thought since I am a fan of romance I might find it interesting.
I did.
Crazy Hot is the first in a series set in Denver, CO. It centers around a chop shop which is really a special Special Forces unit.
Known as the SDF(Special Defense Force) Steele St. does things that the government doesn't want to know about. In order to get those things done they recruited a motley crew ranging from an Air Force pilot to a convicted murderer.

Quinn Younger was a Captain in the USAF until he was shot out of the sky by Iraqi missiles. He now works for Steele Street again. It's just this time he isn't stealing Porsches. He's tracking down a small time gun-runner who wants to make it big at the expense of Steele St and the Russian mafia.
Regan McKinney had a crush on Quinn when they were teenagers and he was sentenced to working for her grandfather one summer.
Now her grandfather, noted paleontologist Wilson McKinney, is missing and Regan's only clue is a note in his journal leading her to Quinn and Steele St.
The action is very fast paced and we get a glimpse of all the characters in the preposed series. The plot and sub plots are woven together well. In fact it's hard to call the secondary characters stories sub-plots. They work together to advance the main plot. It's just a slightly different point of view.
There is great humor in the books. I personally liked the fact that all the cars have names. The whole story about Quinn stealing and returning a classic Mustang was one of my favorites.
It's a good sexy exciting read. I'm looking forward to the next few.