mignon mykel { reviews }: review || HOMECOMING

Sunday, November 2, 2014

review || HOMECOMING

Homecoming by Jackie Sexton

Publisher: Moon Flower Press (6/20/2014)

Series: Love Michaelson, book 1

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Source: NetGalley

Buy It For Your Kindle || Goodreads

My Rating: ★★★★

Ariane Michaelson is always the quiet girl in the room, the one that her kooky mother and three sisters lovingly call the wallflower. After graduating from college she finds it more than a little difficult to find the graphic design job of her dream...or any job, really. She’s more than given up on painting, and a terrible run-in with her twin sister’s fiancé makes each day harder to keep a life altering secret.

Liam Ashdown was just the moody small town nobody, with one friend and a busted pickup—until he moved to LA. Spotted by famous actor and producer Michael Jennings during a late night shift at the bar, Liam is transformed seemingly overnight into Tinsel Town’s hottest bad boy. The life Liam once knew is turned upside down with models and mayhem...and there isn’t much down time in-between.

The only thing that keeps him sane is the paintings. Beautiful ocean portraits that remind him of home, painted years ago by some friend of a friend.

What he wouldn’t give to know her. To tell her that her art saves him everyday.

The engagement of his childhood friend, Todd, brings him back home to Craryville, to deal with a drug-addicted mother and an ailing grandmother. But it also brings him hope—somewhere in the bridal party is the woman who has been his calm and respite in the storm of fame.

The only question is, can she save him?

- - -

Connect with Jackie Sexton || Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

- - -

Liam is Hollywood's bad boy.... much to his true dismay. It's not what he wants. He accidentally became an actor -- he left Craryville to pursue his dreams of writing screenplays, not acting in them. Coming home for a wedding both makes him happy and terrifies him -- happy to be out of the limelight (or so he hopes), but a bit scared because he left home for a reason.

Ariane is the 'wallflower' daughter, the one no one really expects a whole lot from. Her perfect boyfriend just broke things off with her -- and if he doesn't want her, after years together, surely no one else will.

She loses herself in her paintings, paintings that will never see anything other than the back of her closet -- or so she thinks. One of her sisters has shown them to her fiance, who texts them to Liam. The first one made Liam want to see more; now, everytime one is completed, Todd is sure to send the image to Liam.

While Ariane feels that she has nothing in life, truly she is Liam's lifeline.

He feels she's too good for him, often equating her to a goddess or angel, yet she feels he's way above her; he is an actor and Hollywood's bad boy, after all.

Their romance was semi-fast in my opinion. I get that you can feel emotion from a painting, but to go from that to full-fledge 'I love you' seems a bit quick. So when they go away for the weekend... well, it was just too fast for me in the context of the book.

Putting that aside, the story was cute, which moved it from a heavy 3.5 to a 4.

No comments:

a quick note from { mignon } ...

I AM NO LONGER ACTIVE IN REVIEWING

The last two years has been incredibly rewarding, giving me the opportunity to pick up new-to-me authors, as well as new-to-the-world authors. I have enjoyed supporting publishing houses as well as the indie author, and in doing so, I learned a lot about the marketing aspect of writing a book and selling it as a self-published author.

I have re-focused my journey to more writing-minded. I still read and review! But not nearly at the rate I was; three books a day has turned to three books a month.

I will no longer be accepting individual review requests (unless it's specifically author-to-author, then it will be highly considered).

I will definitely be posting reviews for commitments I have already made, though.

Thank you for understanding, & thank you to all those I have worked with over the last year plus!

~ Mignon

http://mignonmykel.com

GOODREADS updates

Dirty Saint: A Secret Baby Sports Romance by Vesper Vaughn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book almost failed to get my attention. Why?

The hero.

He is the exact public person I despise. You know the type -- all biblical with publicized praying and verses all over his public persona. Great. Good for you. Bet you're not like that behind closed doors...

Which is exactly what Esther thinks of him.

Saint and Esther attend the same super religious college. Esther is on the fast track to becoming a nun, and no I do not kid, and Saint, given name Francis, can do just about whatever he wants, because he is the star athlete and the school knows he has connections. What in the world can these two have in common? The actions of their parents.

But where Saint does what his father says, usually, because his father is pushing him toward a pro-football careers, Esther follows her parents (father) because if she didn't... Her life would literally be a living hell.

I really enjoyed these two, once we started to get to know Saint a little bit better. My only drawback with the book would be the last half goes by in super-fast time. While it helped to keep the story moving, I would have liked to see more of that time drawn out so the feelings and emotions of our two characters felt more genuine and real -- rather than simply a two month courting that their lives demanded.

I'm giving the book the full 5 stars because it came out of left-field for me. It was a book that I didn't expect to like, but the author wove it in a way that I fell hard for our characters both as individuals and as a couple. I liked watching Esther grow and find her voice in life, just as I liked watching playboy, always for the chase Saint, settle down and find a person to be terribly protective over. I loved him most in the last two chapters.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review

Everything by Erin Noelle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here's something you may know about me if you've followed my reviews -- I'm an epilogue reader. I will almost always read the epilogue first. Call me a spoilsport or no fun, or whatever but that's how I've been reading books for years. It's no wonder that when I write books, I tend to have the epilogue all figured out before I even start with "Once upon a time...".

That said... I read this epilogue and while I liked it, I just couldn't get past the ages of our characters. Couldn't do it. So I read the beginning. Still... If anything, the age of our characters was even more pronounced. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read this. You see, I have an issue with "Happily ever after" and the hardly-twenty crowd, let alone an eighteen year old.

But that's my hang-up.

Another thing you may know about me? I will sometimes read a book in what I call a inside-out fashion. I jump all over the place until I find a snippet of story that absolutely grips me. And people -- there are a few of those parts in Everything. So because I found those gripping parts, I put my faith in Erin Noelle, and I started from page one -- and I gave Everett and Belle a chance.

And I'm so glad I did.

Everett and his twin sister have been making music forever -- literally. They're the children of a rockstar; music has always been their life. When their father's group decides to get back together (dad always said he'd go back when the twins were done with school), Mason tells the label -- if you take me, you're taking my kids: thus, giving Everett and Ashlynn the opportunity to take their music to a larger level than they have before.

Along the way, with a local gig, Everett meets Belle -- and so begins their story.

This is a story about growing up. This is a story about following your heart -- be it for a person or a career, or even both. It is about learning to trust the person you are giving your heart to, and about taking the ever-looming jump into unknown feelings. When you put your life, your wants, your desires in someone else's hands, the world opens up -- and it certainly does for Everett and Belle.

The part I most appreciated was that the author made Everett true to his age and situation. Belle was too, yes, but it was Everett and his new lifestyle that had me wanting to see true characterization for. He's a guy; he's a musician; he's new to love. He makes mistakes. And for those mistakes, I truly got on board with this story.

Everett and his Tinker Bell were incredibly cute. I liked that there's a decent time jump at the end, further allowing -- you guessed it -- growth of our characters. I'm excited to watch more of them when (if?) Ashlynn's story comes out.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review

View all my reviews

Pages

Sunday, November 2, 2014

review || HOMECOMING

No comments:

Post a Comment

Contact { mm:r }

FTC Disclosure

Total Pageviews