Custodian of the Luima Legacy

by: Gabrielle Poplar

Blurb:  Fastian was the First Minister of Estruchi. He had no living relatives or dependents, except for Meryl, the son of his house keeper, who lived in his house and served as his ward. To the outside world, his life was uncluttered and devoted to serving King Arpad of Estruchi.
King Arpad was determined to free his kingdom from servitude to neighboring Bahadi, and he charged Fastian with the task of obtaining the Light sword that he intended to use to press his claims for freedom.
Fastian and his ward travelled to Bahadi to steal the Light sword, but in the course of carrying out the King’s orders, Meryl’s life was threatened. In a bid to save his ward’s life, Fastian revealed that Meryl was not a servant’s son, and that he was the custodian of an ancient legacy.

Genre: Fantasy

Grade: C

I received this book from a First Reads giveaway on Goodreads.com  When I first received the book, I was underwhelmed by the cover.  Although I've always been told to never judge a book by its cover, we all do it. 

Overall, I did enjoy this book.  It had a very solid storyline, and the author does a great job immersing the reader into their fantasy world.  I was very pleased on Meryl's outcome!  I found myself rooting for him throughout the novel.

Unfortunately, I do have some gripes, which is what lowered the grade of this book.

• The novel started out very slow, and had quite a few dry spots.  I think there was plenty of opportunity for the author to fast forward through time and erase some of these dull spots.
• The quotes. OH THE QUOTES! There were mismatched quotation marks all through this novel. There were parts where what was written was obviously a part of dialogue, but there were no quotes. There were hanging quotes, where the ending quotes were there, but not the starting and vise vera. There were quotation marks randomly where no one was talking. It's as if the quotation mark button was broken on the author's computer, so they were just a mess.
• There were minor grammatical errors. They were sparse, and nothing compared to the quotation mark fiasco.
• The ending was a bit unnerving. Considering the author went into great detail to explain everything thus far in the story, the entire battle consisted of about two pages. There were at least two chapters just for the sword ceremony, but a battle was only two pages? Seemed a bit off for me.

Overall I would recommend this book, even with the problems that it had, because it really was a great story. I do feel that it could be easily improved to be a great, grade A novel.



Infatuation

Infatuation

E. Hughes

Blurb:  An American girl goes to Paris... After Georgie is cast in a French stage play she heads to Paris but quickly learns her shady agent has set her up as a burlesque dancer. She stays with the intent to earn enough money to get home but soon becomes a hot commodity at The Pink Poodle, the cafe where she earns the love of two suitors in sensitive French actor Renard and rich playboy Jake. Her decision is agonizing but she makes a choice. Spurning the love of one for the other, Georgie is seduced on a romantic trip across Europe where she becomes overwhelmed with doubts about her new amour; a stranger from the past threatens to unearth a painful secret.

Genre:  Romance

Grade:  F

I received this book from a First Read giveaway off of Goodreads.com.  Out of all of the books I've won from that site thus far, I was the most excited about this one.  The story line seemed to be unlike anything I've read before, and I felt that there was a lot of potential in this book, just from reading the blurb.

This book was a mess.  I spent the majority of the book just wanting to shake some sense into Georgie.  I mean, right off the bat, Georgie should have realized that there was something that Jake just wasn't telling her.  First, Jake knew Georgie's bully's nickname and the method in which he "killed" her cat before Georgie mentioned it.  Second, Jack mentions that he already knew what it was like to lose her, when he had just met her.  Considering that she had "just" met him, any woman would question how he knew what he did, and what he meant when he said that he had already lost her once before.

The character's didn't seem like they had any depth at all.  She didn't seem like she really truly cared that she had cheated on Renard, and instead of even bothering trying to talk to him, she just left him behind and ran away with Jake.  Considering that she claimed to love him, the reader would assume she'd at least have the common decency to explain to him that she messed up, she was sorry, and that she was leaving.  It doesn't take much, and if she truly cared about him, she would have explained that he just wasn't the man for her.  Not only did she not talk to Renard about why she was leaving him, Georgie was planning on leaving Paris to go home immediately after leaving the Pink Poodle.  Within the time that it took Jake to take her away from the bar, she was already doing stripteases for him and seducing him away from his work.  This hardly sounds like a person that just crushed a man that she "loved".

The biggest part of this book that rubbed me the wrong way was the fact that Georgie was so weak!  I understand that the "bad boy" story is common for romance novels, but it can be done without making the woman a weakling.  Only knowing each other for a short time, Jake already gets physically abusive with her by grabbing her arm and accusing her of cheating.  After, he leaves her in the hotel room, and hires the man that he accused her of cheating on him to drive her to his villa, and give her a tour of Rome.  Seriously?  Punishing her for something she didn't even do.  Any woman with half a backbone would have just walked away right there.  Instead, she goes on to tell him how much she loves him.  She throws out how much she loves him, as well as describing why she loves him, but it has no substance.  She hardly knows him, and overall, he's treating her poorly, yet she still love him?  And what does love even mean to Georgie?  She "loved" Renard about four days ago, but still cheated on him with Jake.

Jack hired a private detective to investigate Georgie?  I understand that he has money, and logically would want to protect his assets, but he saught her out, not the other way around.  Not only that, but he keeps saying that he wants her to rely on him, and throws money at her.  Even if it's just to prove that she had never been married to get married in Rome, that's still insane.  If you have to get a background check to see if someone had been married before, you definitely do not know them well enough to get married to them.  Being pushed into a marriage with the promise to "explain everything back at the villa afterwards," just seems illogical.  I can't imagine any woman not wanting everything explained to them *before* they enter into a lifelong commitment with another person.  Even after the wedding, he still doesn't explain everything, he only explains why they hadn't had sex again.  Even after marriage, Jake got sloppy, crazy drunk and Georgie had to beg to get the directions just to get to where they were staying for the night. 

Another part that really seemed silly to me is her amnesia condition.  It seemed like an excuse the writer used to make a completely illogical story work.  Throughout the entire middle of the book, Georgie was still having a lot of high stress situations thrown at her, yet she didn't lose her memory once.  It can't even be said that it's only during super high stress situations such as getting locked in a freezer or being kidnapped that caused these amnesia blocks to happen, because she had one right in the begining of the book just for stripping for the first time. 

This book had so much potential.  I loved the idea of being led astray and ending up in Paris in a situation that is undesireable.  I expected her to overcome the obsticles and find her true French love, etc etc.  Not meet a guy that she went to middle school with.

This book is an example of what can happen when an obsessive stalker has unlimited resources.