The Rise
(Hollywood #1)
by Shari Low and Ross King

Usually he could talk his way out of anything. His teachers said he talked too much. His mum said she couldn’t hear herself think for him sometimes. Even his gran would deliberately take out her hearing aid when he’d been in her house for more than ten minutes.

It was a bad day when the nobodies in this town cut off ties. Even the pizza delivery service wouldn’t return his calls. He was toxic.

Pippa had been around for a few months– a remarkable achievement given that his girlfriends usually had a higher recycle rate than the paper bin in his office.

Having Hollywood’s top scandal hound as a friend had many advantages– great insider info, fast news and a network of spies that could rival the CIA during the Cold War.

This was the kind of one-off event that journos talked about until someone scattered their ashes over the news desk.

My Review:

This tale was an interesting balance of clever snark, angst, fragile facades, edgy humor, toxic family drama, and the every ratcheting sense of impending doom. The characters were uniquely obnoxious yet oddly endearing, I couldn’t help but care about them – even when they were annoying me. The storylines were gritty and tense and kept me intrigued yet on edge. I was primed for any little tidbit to uncover the mystery of what had caused the trio of friends to implode. I conjured and tossed several theories, but was only partly correct by the conclusion. I love when that happens.

Favorite Quotes:

“Josie, just… don’t move. You could have broken something.” Colten flies down the stairs after me. I broke something alright. My pride, her sister Dignity, and Dignity’s cousin Self-Esteem. It’s taken Colten less than a week to reduce me to the young, shattered-ego girl I was the day I left for college. He’s a perpetual thorn in my side. He’s necrotizing fasciitis— a flesh eating infection that can’t be contained.

Now, I’m imagining the largest penises I have ever seen and mentally placing them onto my dad like part of a Mr. Potato Head. I’m ruined. Scarred for life.

His gaze sweeps over my face, the way someone takes in a breathtaking view. I feel it everywhere.

My Review:

Jewel-E-Ann is found treasure, she churns out heart-squeezing and intricate tales featuring complicated, infuriating, and endearing characters with profoundly poignant insights and breath-stealing romance. I am enamored and captivated with her latest couple and have vastly enjoyed their verbal sparring and clever quips.

Weaving in and out of their childhood histories, past and present romance, and their lives apart, were threads of family drama, intrigue, and a centuries-old crime with a paranormal twist. Yikes, I wasn’t expecting such a heinous cliffhanger which has me stamping my little foot in pique! Thankfully the wait is just a few weeks, I might not be able to bear it otherwise.

Winnifred Gobaldi and Byron Visser are not best friends.

Yes, they’ve known each other for years, but they’re not even friendly. Winnie considers them more like casual, distant acquaintances who find each other barely tolerable, especially when he’s being condescending (which is all the time).

The truth is, they have nothing in common. She’s a public school science teacher with stars in her eyes, and he’s a pretentious, joyless double PhD turned world-famous bestselling fiction author. She loves sharing her passion for promulgating women in STEM careers and building community via social media, and he eschews all socialization, virtual or otherwise. She’s looking for a side hustle to help pay down a mountain of student debt, and his financial portfolio is the stuff of fiduciary wet dreams. So why are they faking a #bestfriend relationship for millions of online spectators?

When a simple case of tit-for-tat trends between nonfriends leads to a wholly unexpected kind of pretend, nothing is simple. Sometimes, it takes a public audience to reveal the truth of private feelings, and rarely—very rarely—you should believe what you see online.

Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend is a full-length, complete standalone, adult contemporary romantic comedy.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Byron Visser was the human manifestation of caution tape holding a red flag and a flare while setting off a smoke alarm.

I expelled his name, rancor commensurate to the surge of resentment within me permeated each syllable. Shutting my eyes, needing a moment, I wished I’d installed a trapdoor beneath wherever he presently stood, leading to a dungeon complete with giant bloodthirsty crocodiles. Perhaps donning laser beams atop their heads.

Winnie was a reprieve, not an obsession. She wasn’t air, she was a cool breeze. She wasn’t sunshine, she was a rainbow. She wasn’t water, she was rain.

Nothing is ever certain. There is no concrete flooring in matters of the heart. It’s all sand.

He’s got banana pants for you.

You feel like what I imagine bliss would if I could manifest the word as a tangible, touchable thing.

My Review:

Another delightfully consuming read from Penny Reid, I never fail to become hopelessly enamored with each and every one of her adorable yet complicated, highly intelligent, and multi-textured characters. I tend to savor rather than devour her deftly witty yet unpredictable tales as they typically include several deliciously contrived conundrums to solve.

I quickly lost myself to these characters’ brilliantly constructed vortex and when forced to emerge from their world into mine, I ruminated on their insightful inner musings and shrewdly plotted encounters until once again able to rejoin their engrossing chronicle. I covet Ms. Reid’s highly amusing storytelling skills and marvel at her wickedly clever pacing that kept me reeled in while taunting and teasing my curiosity, as well as frequently smirking and gleefully entertained. Penny Reid continues to hold the top spot on my list of favorites.

When Amaya is invited to Kaavi’s over-the-top wedding in Sri Lanka, she is surprised and a little hurt to hear from her former best friend after so many years of radio silence. But when Amaya learns that the groom is her very own ex-boyfriend, she is consumed by a single thought: She must stop the wedding from happening, no matter the cost.

But as the weeklong wedding celebrations begin and rumors about Amaya’s past begin to swirl, she can’t help but feel like she also has a target on her back. When Kaavi goes missing and is presumed dead, all evidence points to Amaya.

However, nothing is as it seems as Jayatissa expertly unravels that each wedding guest has their own dark secret and agenda, and Amaya may not be the only one with a plan to keep the bride from getting her happily ever after…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Often, things we were in awe of when we were younger feel oddly unimpressive as adults. I used to think my house was a palace. I used to think my mother was the tallest woman in the world. Food laid out for me was a feast. Things change as you grow. As you understand the world for what it is. That we overcompensate in our memories because we didn’t know any better at the time.

Why was I like this? Why could I never be the Amaya that existed in my head? The version of myself that never made an entrance when I most needed it, instead of this watery, half-boiled counterpart?

A little mountain of, of course, Louis Vuitton clutch bags was nestled on the table between them, and they were all dressed in some variation of colorful, flowy maxi dresses. I couldn’t have felt more out of place— a crow in the middle of a flock of exotic flamingos.

Why was it so wrong that I tried to seek out a trophy husband? The only difference was that my golden trophy turned out to be cheap old brass underneath his glossy exterior…

It’s all a bit cliché now, of course. I didn’t see it at first. It was almost like, well, like those rocks that get shaped by the river. How could something as soft, something as beautiful as a river have the ability to change the complete structure of something as hard as a rock?

My Review:

Silly me, I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this one but I was soon sucked into a baffling, prickly, complicated, and distressingly compelling vortex filled with a vile and shallow cast of characters. This was an uncomfortably intriguing tale with storylines that eventually connected and entwined.

I was tossed into an intricate and unfamiliar caste system that had me looking in one direction and then another while no one was above suspicion and everyone was disappointingly annoying and guilty of at least subterfuge. I wanted to stick pins in fetish dolls for every one of them.

The main character was critically OCD and constantly looking for numerical patterns to determine if the time was going to be lucky for her or not by whether the numbers were repeated or sequential while she took deep breaths and counted to five. She also distracted and amused herself by visualizing the somewhat gruesome demise of people she found vexing. There must be something wrong with me to have found that entertaining, but I deflect all blame to this author’s sly and evocative word craft.