From Sourcebooks Casablanca, Sinfully Ever After follows the practical Rebecca Sherringham as she finds lust and love with Captain Lucius Wainwright, while the Book Club Belles read Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Monday, December 1, 2014
Spotlight Tour: Sinfully Ever After by Jayne Fresina
From Sourcebooks Casablanca, Sinfully Ever After follows the practical Rebecca Sherringham as she finds lust and love with Captain Lucius Wainwright, while the Book Club Belles read Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Someday Maybe by Ophelia London
Someday Maybe by Ophelia London
Entangled: Embrace
Book 2 in the Definitely Maybe series
New Adult, Romance
Published October 20, 2014
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Kobo
Why I picked up this book:
I really liked the first book in the series.
Blurb:
Some guys are impossible to forget.
Rachel Daughtry has a 10-year plan that leaves no room for mistakes. Or not-so-serious boys—including Oliver Wentworth, the freshman boyfriend she's never forgotten. Now she's back in San Francisco with an awesome-slash-scary new job. Unfortunately, The Plan doesn't cover things like meeting her best friend's new “secret” guy...Oliver.
Fortunately, no one knows that Rachel and Oliver were ever together, and endless bikini wax torture couldn't make Rachel hurt her friend. But it's killing Rachel. She's not over him. Not even a little. And as her 10-year-plan crumbles around her, Rachel realizes that maybe—just maybe—Oliver feels the same way.
Now Rachel is on the verge of losing all control. And her best friend. And the love of her life...
My thoughts:
I cannot talk about Someday Maybe without talking about the first book in the series. I loved Definitely, Maybe in Love when I read it last year. I love Pride and Prejudice and I thought London's adaptation was excellent.
Unfortunately for Someday Maybe, I've never read Persuasion, which I gather is Austen's tale of love lost and found again. So it didnt come with that added boost of joy as I compared storylines and anticipated moments and so forth.
So... Rachel and Oliver both seemed like pretty honest characters. Rachel had made some poor decisions and was trapped by them, but she didn't *want* to hurt anyone. She was also conscious of the fact that she'd kind of sucked when it came to handling Oliver and her relationship during freshman year, and that made me like her even more. Making a mistake and realizing you've made it and regretting it are all good character development things in my book.
Oliver was a bit harder to get a fix on, manly because I missed having Oliver's perspective - the back and forth of perspectives by chapter in so many new adult books has really spoiled me! Having to be more clever than our heroine and read into his actions? Geez! Maybe I'm becoming a lazy reader.... Regardless, he seemed like a good guy, and I'd kind of like to spend more time with him in future books in the series, to get to know him better.
One thing I didn't really buy into was the friendship with Meghan - Meghan didn't seem like a particularly great friend to me, and I was surprised by the lack of 'air-clearing' between these two. I'd like to think that such great friends would at least attempt to address things when things felt a little weird, right?
Now, story-wise (clearly secondary to characters for me), there's the present storyline and then flashbacks to tell us the story of Oliver and Rachel *before.* I did find that the flashbacks dragged a little - I didn't care so much exactly how things went down, as long as I had the gist of it. But I do think that overall, these bits were necessary to really develop the relationship between Oliver and Rachel in the present, so do power through them!
Bottom line:
Someday Maybe is a solid contemporary romance. It was a relief to read a new adult without the characteristic uber-angst - sometimes the parade of damaged characters in this genre can be exhausting!
I can't really speak to it as an adaptation of Persuasion but I can say that overall, I found the book pretty entertaining!
4 stars
For fans of Ophelia London, new adult, contemporary romance, second chance at love stories.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Fall for You & When I'm With You by Cecilia Gray
The Basics:
Fall for You and When I'm With you by Cecilia Gray
Gray Life, LLC
Books 1 and 3 in the Jane Austen Academy series
YA
Published November 6, 2013
Blurbs:
Dive into the fabulous, fun lives of six Academy girls as their friendships are tested, torn and ultimately triumph.
Fall for You:
It’s obvious that Dante thinks he’s way too good for Lizzie. And Lizzie knows Dante is a snob with a gift for pressing her buttons. But things are changing fast this year at the Academy. And when Lizzie’s quest to stop those changes blows up in her face, taking her oldest friendship with it, she has nowhere else to turn but to Dante, with his killer blue eyes, his crazy-sexy smile, and his secrets… Secrets Lizzie can’t seem to leave alone, no matter how hard she tries…
When I'm With You:
Kat is destined to be a star and her big break has arrived at last! As the assistant to a celebrity classmate on the set of a feature film, she's going to show everyone she has what it takes. That is, until she discovers pursuing her dreams may mean forfeiting her heart. Unless she can find a way to have both…
* * *
The last thing that the girls at the elite Jane Austen Academy need is hot guys to flirt with. But over the summer the school has been sold, and like it or not, the guys are coming. And it’s about to turn the Academy—and the lives of its students—totally upside down…
The Jane Austen Academy series are modern retellings of Jane Austen classics set at a beachside California boarding school.
My Thoughts:
I read these two books back-to-back to get a stronger sense for the series. I love Pride and Prejudice (Fall For You) and have read several adaptations of it, but Northanger Abbey (When I'm With You) was not familiar to me. I was excited to read them because I do love modern adaptations of the classics.
So, I think that When I'm With You (WIWY) benefited from my lack of familiarity with Northanger Abbey. I found it to be a much stronger book. Because I wasn't distracted by the ways in which the story deviated from the source material, I could enjoy it for what it was: a short and sweet tale about a young woman learning to form and trust her own opinions. The romance with a hot, young actor didn't hurt either! I liked Kat's earnestness, her willingness to dive into work regardless of how glamourous it was or was not. I appreciated her observations about the world, and that things didn't always go her way in the moment. Though there are some too-neatly tied up issues in WIWY, overall, it was a cute teen novel that I really enjoyed reading.
Now, Fall for You (FFY) establishes the world of Jane Austen Academy and this might be why it wasn't as enjoyable as WIWY. It has to set the foundation for more than just a Pride and Prejudice adaptation, and that leaves less time and space for the story that we (should) all know and love.
Lizzie is a delight - she's got a full range of strengths and flaws (prejudice! pride!) and I would happily have read more about her romance with Dante. The problem is that so much of the Pride and Prejudice story is dropped. Lizzie doesn't have sisters - instead a friend stands in for Jane, but this friend is also the star of her own book in the series (an adaptation of Persuasion), so she can't follow through to the conclusion of Jane's story.
There were a lot of other elements missing, and the one I missed the most was the mess with Lydia and Wickham. The embarrassment for Lizzie and the emotional turmoil it puts her through were really lacking in this version. I also felt like the relationship with Dante didn't follow the expected ups and downs. It needed to be teased out a little more to get the full dramatic effect. I didn't have that heartmelting moment when Lizzie realizes Darcy is, in fact, a great guy and one she'd like to marry (or date, in the case of Dante).
What FFY did do well, other than the character of Lizzie and establishing the setting, was working with the themes of pride and prejudice. First and lasting impressions are tested as Lizzie realizes that she has to look deeper not only when investigating her newspaper articles but when it comes to people as well. Possibly a little unrealistic that such an eager journalist would accept her impressions of people at face value, but it didn't really feel like a mismatch with her personality while I was reading the book.
Bottom Line:
I liked these books, but I don't think they're strong adaptations of Jane Austen's work. The heroines were well developed and engaging. Henry of When I'm With You was pretty dreamy, and this was the superior book.
Each novel also comes with a discussion section at the end, which seems useful to get the target age group (teens) thinking about different components of the book.
3.5 stars for Fall for You
4 stars for When I'm With You
Fall for You and When I'm With you by Cecilia Gray
Gray Life, LLC
Books 1 and 3 in the Jane Austen Academy series
YA
Published November 6, 2013
Blurbs:
Dive into the fabulous, fun lives of six Academy girls as their friendships are tested, torn and ultimately triumph.
Fall for You:
It’s obvious that Dante thinks he’s way too good for Lizzie. And Lizzie knows Dante is a snob with a gift for pressing her buttons. But things are changing fast this year at the Academy. And when Lizzie’s quest to stop those changes blows up in her face, taking her oldest friendship with it, she has nowhere else to turn but to Dante, with his killer blue eyes, his crazy-sexy smile, and his secrets… Secrets Lizzie can’t seem to leave alone, no matter how hard she tries…
When I'm With You:
Kat is destined to be a star and her big break has arrived at last! As the assistant to a celebrity classmate on the set of a feature film, she's going to show everyone she has what it takes. That is, until she discovers pursuing her dreams may mean forfeiting her heart. Unless she can find a way to have both…
* * *
The last thing that the girls at the elite Jane Austen Academy need is hot guys to flirt with. But over the summer the school has been sold, and like it or not, the guys are coming. And it’s about to turn the Academy—and the lives of its students—totally upside down…
The Jane Austen Academy series are modern retellings of Jane Austen classics set at a beachside California boarding school.
My Thoughts:
I read these two books back-to-back to get a stronger sense for the series. I love Pride and Prejudice (Fall For You) and have read several adaptations of it, but Northanger Abbey (When I'm With You) was not familiar to me. I was excited to read them because I do love modern adaptations of the classics.
So, I think that When I'm With You (WIWY) benefited from my lack of familiarity with Northanger Abbey. I found it to be a much stronger book. Because I wasn't distracted by the ways in which the story deviated from the source material, I could enjoy it for what it was: a short and sweet tale about a young woman learning to form and trust her own opinions. The romance with a hot, young actor didn't hurt either! I liked Kat's earnestness, her willingness to dive into work regardless of how glamourous it was or was not. I appreciated her observations about the world, and that things didn't always go her way in the moment. Though there are some too-neatly tied up issues in WIWY, overall, it was a cute teen novel that I really enjoyed reading.
Now, Fall for You (FFY) establishes the world of Jane Austen Academy and this might be why it wasn't as enjoyable as WIWY. It has to set the foundation for more than just a Pride and Prejudice adaptation, and that leaves less time and space for the story that we (should) all know and love.
Lizzie is a delight - she's got a full range of strengths and flaws (prejudice! pride!) and I would happily have read more about her romance with Dante. The problem is that so much of the Pride and Prejudice story is dropped. Lizzie doesn't have sisters - instead a friend stands in for Jane, but this friend is also the star of her own book in the series (an adaptation of Persuasion), so she can't follow through to the conclusion of Jane's story.
There were a lot of other elements missing, and the one I missed the most was the mess with Lydia and Wickham. The embarrassment for Lizzie and the emotional turmoil it puts her through were really lacking in this version. I also felt like the relationship with Dante didn't follow the expected ups and downs. It needed to be teased out a little more to get the full dramatic effect. I didn't have that heartmelting moment when Lizzie realizes Darcy is, in fact, a great guy and one she'd like to marry (or date, in the case of Dante).
What FFY did do well, other than the character of Lizzie and establishing the setting, was working with the themes of pride and prejudice. First and lasting impressions are tested as Lizzie realizes that she has to look deeper not only when investigating her newspaper articles but when it comes to people as well. Possibly a little unrealistic that such an eager journalist would accept her impressions of people at face value, but it didn't really feel like a mismatch with her personality while I was reading the book.
Bottom Line:
I liked these books, but I don't think they're strong adaptations of Jane Austen's work. The heroines were well developed and engaging. Henry of When I'm With You was pretty dreamy, and this was the superior book.
Each novel also comes with a discussion section at the end, which seems useful to get the target age group (teens) thinking about different components of the book.
3.5 stars for Fall for You
4 stars for When I'm With You
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