Review: Your Favorite Girl, by Steph Sweeney

Title: Your Favorite Girl
Author: Steph Sweeney
Rating: 4/5 Stars

“When Melissa Reed, a twenty-two-year-old housewife, discovers her millionaire husband Ted has been cheating on her with a recent high school graduate from down the street, she begins to investigate his private life. In his little black book, she finds a single address and phone number: that of Your Favorite Girl, Inc.

Assuming it’s an escort service, Melissa dials the number, only to find she’s stumbled upon a secret corporation dedicated to engineering the most erotic sexual creatures in the history of man.

And Melissa can’t resist making a purchase.

Your Favorite Girl is best described as an erotic romance thriller, the first in a three-part series.” (description from Goodreads)

Your Favorite Girl ended up being a very refreshing novel to read. It’s very different from other books I’ve seen recently, and I’m very glad I read this one.

What I really liked about this book is that I didn’t know where it was going to go next. The story just keeps unfolding and unfolding with more and more plot points that kept me flipping the pages needing more. Just when you start getting a handle on the situation, there’s another slight twist. This book is part mystery in the sense that a main goal Melissa has is uncovering just what Your Favorite Girl, Inc is. It’s part romance, but it’s a difficult romance to place, and that made things fun. It’s also part erotica. When you have Your Favorite Girls in the mix, there’s no way things can get sexy…and this novel is sexy.

I think Sweeney did a great job in setting up the characters in this book. They’re very well-developed and each play a role in the story’s progression, no matter how small of a point. There are even some minor characters that I grew fond of, even in the short time that they were part of the story. I hope that others, who seem to have a larger, but still unknown  role, come back in book 2 to play their part.

While I enjoyed this book from beginning to end, I felt that there were only a few things that fell flat. In no way was this a bad book, but there was some room for a little extra umph during some key plot points.

Despite the rare dull moment, there was a plethora of great material in Your Favorite Girl. Book 2 can’t come out soon enough. I was left NEEDING the next installment, and that’s always a good feeling (even if it’s torturous at times).

You can grab a copy of Your Favorite Girl from:

Amazon | Smashwords | Kobo | B&N

*Note: This book is free from all retailers linked above, at the time this review was posted.*

About the Author:

Hi!  I’m Steph, a new erotica author.  My debut novel, Your Favorite Girl, an erotic romance thriller, hit the Amazon Erotica Bestseller list in its first week, and now I’m at work on the next installment in the three book series, His Favorite Girl.

I write with an emphasis on realism and aesthetics.  I want it to feel real.  Sometimes this calls for explicit descriptions and language.  I urge you to pass my work by if you are offended by open sexuality.

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Review: What the Kid Says 2, by Jessica Park

Title – What the Kid Says 2: At Least He Asked
Author – Jessica Park
Rating – 5/5 Stars

“This second WTKS edition delivers all new humorous conversations that I have with my son. Topics include: first crushes, school lunches, word confusion (Concord vs. conquered), clones, swearing while driving, the pros and cons of television, and the kid’s interpretation of holidays. With plenty to make you laugh, and a bit to make you cry, this download has something for all those who love kids.” (description from Goodreads)

This is the second What the Kid Says collection from Jessica Park and it was just as great of a read as the first one.

At the expense of sounding like I’m copying my review of the first collection, What the Kid Says was a hilarious and touching read from beginning to end. Park is able to take her everyday conversations with her son, and bring a smile to the fan of readers.

I was able to fly through this little book in a sitting and even in its brevity, it’ll stay with me for some time. Through the humor, there are moments of hope for a child’s future, fear of missing his/her childhood, and many more moments that parents tend to cherish. I think it’s that dual play on emotions that turn this book into such a great read. You might even end up wanting a mom like Park!

You can grab your copy of What the Kid Says 2 from:

Amazon

And if you’d like to check out the first collection, here’s my review of that one (purchase links are at the end of the review)

About the Author:

Jessica Park is the author of the young adult novels FLAT-OUT LOVE and RELATIVELY FAMOUS; five Gourmet Girl mysteries (written as Jessica Conant-Park); and the e-shorts FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD and WHAT THE KID SAYS (Parts 1 & 2).

Jessica grew up in the Boston area and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After spending four years in the frigid north, including suffering through one memorable Halloween blizzard, Jessica hightailed it back to the east coast. She now lives in (relatively balmy) New Hampshire with her husband, son, bananas dog named Fritzy, and two selfish cats. When not writing, Jessica indulges her healthy addictions to Facebook, Rick Springfield, and super-sweet coffee beverages.

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Review: What the Kid Says, by Jessica Park

Title: What the Kid Says (and Sometimes What I Say)
Author: Jessica Park
Rating: 5/5 Stars

“A collection of weird discussions that I have with my nine-year-old son, taken from my blog and centralized in one downloadable location to be easily used against him when he is a teenager. Conversation topics include: God and hoodies, whether or not I killed the Thanksgiving turkey, rooting through the neighbor’s recycling bin and discovering a Victoria’s Secret catalog, anthropomorphizing food items while I’m cooking, butlers, how to get girls, and the kid’s obsession with hot tubs.” (description from Goodreads)

For those who’ve read some of Jessica Park’s novels, it’s known that Park can write some humorous dialogue. What I found in this short collection is probably the source of some of that humor.

This is a collection of conversations and musings that Park has with her young son. Doesn’t sound particularly spectacular on the surface (doesn’t sound boring either, don’t get my wrong). Though, once I read the first one, I couldn’t  put the book down. I found myself laughing out loud many times (that’s something I almost NEVER do for any book). I found myself going “awww” in many spots. And on the whole, I was left with a great feeling because this book shows a great relationship between a mother and son.

You can grab a copy of What the Kid Says from:

Amazon

About the Author:

Jessica Park is the author of the young adult novels FLAT-OUT LOVE and RELATIVELY FAMOUS; five Gourmet Girl mysteries (written as Jessica Conant-Park); and the e-shorts FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD and WHAT THE KID SAYS (Parts 1 & 2).

Jessica grew up in the Boston area and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After spending four years in the frigid north, including suffering through one memorable Halloween blizzard, Jessica hightailed it back to the east coast. She now lives in (relatively balmy) New Hampshire with her husband, son, bananas dog named Fritzy, and two selfish cats. When not writing, Jessica indulges her healthy addictions to Facebook, Rick Springfield, and super-sweet coffee beverages.

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Review: Smacking Back, by Laura Bradley Rede

Title: Smacking Back
Author: Laura Bradley Rede
Rating: 5/5 Stars

“In a future where everyone wears an avatar and the internet connects to your brain, cyber bullying has reached a whole new level – and one victim has reached her breaking point. This thought-provoking short story by Writers of the Future award winner Laura Bradley Rede is a must for fans of YA science fiction and dystopian. This edition includes discussion questions and links to bullying-prevention resources for use in book groups and in the classroom.” (description from Goodreads)

As can be found in the description, this story’s main theme is bullying. What caught my eye was that it’s a sci-fi story as well. That was a fun combination because it showed that it really doesn’t matter what the time period or society in question is, bullying is always an issue.

Even in the world of Smacking Back, where information can be fed directly into someone’s brain, there are people who feel the need to take advantage of others just so they can get away with not doing their work. This is the classic situation of a bully getting the weaker kid to do his/her homework, but with a futuristic flare.

While the bullying is the theme in the forefront, and I feel that it was well executed without being preachy, I also enjoyed the technology that Rede threw into the story. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to think that being so physically connected to the net is in our near future. It also, like many great sci-fi stories, brings up possible issues that could arise with the advance in technology. There are always consequences to go along with the benefits. This works to aid the creation of the bullying situation, as well as hints at the question of what other issues could this future society have through this technology.

This story brings up an issue that’s been around for thousands of years, but one that seems to be a big focus in our culture today when we look to eradicate it. I think that getting into the mind of the victim in this instance gives good insight into the victim mindset. It also leaves the reader questioning the actions of everyone involved, not just the bullies.

You can grab this story from:

Smashwords (free at the moment)

Amazon ($0.99 right now)

About the Author:

Laura Bradley Rede grew up the oldest of nine kids in a small town in Maine. She now lives in a little hippie-punk neighborhood of Minneapolis with her wonderful partner, their three amazing children, one Great Dane, one dachshund, and four city chickens. She is a winner of the Writers of the Future Award for fantasy and science fiction and the author of the YA paranormal romance DARKRIDE, and its upcoming sequel CROSSFIRE, as well as many YA short stories. She often quotes Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula, who said “I have never met a vampire personally, but I don’t know what might happen tomorrow.”

After all, a girl can dream.

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Review: The Island, by Jen Minkman

Title: The Island
Author: Jen Minkman
Rating: 4/5 Stars

“Leia lives on the Island, a world in which children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they are ten years old. Across this Island runs a wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it are not amenable to reason – they believe in illusions. That’s what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors. 

But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same. Is what she and her friends believe about the Island really true?

Or is everyone in their world, in fact, a Fool?

(Please note: this novella contains a few references to the famous sci-fi movie Star Wars which are pivotal to the plot. None of the characters in The Island are in any way related to the characters in the movie.)” (description from Goodreads)

*Review of an ARC

The dystopian genre has always intrigued me, and now that it’s a popular type of book to find, there are many choices to read. It’s also because of this, that I try to be a bit picky when choosing which to read. I’m glad I came across The Island.

What I found interesting for The Island is that the author took on the dystopian genre in the form of a novella, and it turns out that it used the length well. While the story in question could easily have been written into a full-length novel, I think as a novella there wasn’t room to fluff it up. That fluff might have ended up being more of a romance story, and I’m glad it wasn’t. The focus was the conflict in this society and the discover of what’s really going on, among a few other important factors.

A society in which at 10, a child moves out of his/her parents’ house and into a collective of other young children in order to grow up, get married, and continue the cycle…well, that was definitely something to ponder. And this is how the story starts out. Soon after, the world building expands, the island is established,  and there’s mention the others, the Fools. When I already had questions as to how things came to be, more questions arose with the inclusion of more people, separated from a society already foreign to me.

I found myself drawn in by Leia’s account of what was occurring. While she’s knowledgeable, there is room for her to grow and she does; on her own and through others. The other characters, like Luc (Leia’s twin brother), Ando, Sol, etc also added to this story in many ways. While there might be a lack of in-depth developing of most characters, I feel that there was enough given in the short length of being a novella, to be effective.

I think I should make mention that due to not fully reading the blurb for The Island, I missed the note about there being a major sci-fi movie as an element of the plot. And to be honest, I’m actually glad I missed that. When I made the connection even before the full reveal of what’s going on, I got a little amused. This movie wasn’t used in a cheesy way. It was a great device to show how influential a story can be, and how with the right conditions, stories of our modern world can become the mythology in the world of tomorrow. Even today, many of our fictional characters and stories are a mythology just like the gods and heroes of Greece and the stories in the Bible are a mythology of the times in which they’re from. This has been an area of interest for me due to my enjoyment of Greek and Roman myth. I was pleased to see how this came to be for this world, and the effect it took over the years.

You can purchase a copy of The Island from:

Amazon

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