REVIEW: The Domino Effect by Jill Elaine Hughes

Received free courtesy of the author

Finished: September 10, 2013
Rating: 3.5 stars

The Book
336 pages
ebook (mobi)

21-year-old Nancy Delaney is finishing up her third year of college when her magazine-editor roommate asks her to go review an art opening in downtown Cleveland. The artist is mysterious international playboy and eccentric Peter Rostovich, and the art is like nothing innocent, virginal Nancy has ever encountered before. Multimedia artist Rostovich has created an erotic art installation all about S&M bondage — complete with a live sculpture that’s so realistic, it gets the whole exhibit shut down by the Cleveland police.
Aspiring journalist Nancy’s nose for news smells a hot story idea, which she sells to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But as she works to get her story, she soon becomes intimately entangled with Rostovich, who finds her irresistible. Rostovich becomes Nancy’s ticket to sexual awakening, and she soon discovers she has an appetite for bondage, too.
And there’s far more to Rostovich than just his art — he’s involved in a strange, violent criminal underworld that kidnaps Nancy and spirits her halfway around the world, where she’s held prisoner and made to serve as private Dominant-for-hire somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Will the sexual powers Rostovich helped awaken in her be Nancy’s only hope for escape?

My Opinion
Okay so I'm conflicted. I'm not sure that I really liked it but I didn't hate it.

On the plus side:
It is well written and edited. It's not just erotica - although I have to say: errmaggherd - there's a lot of suspense and mystery in the story that raises curiosity. I would love to finish the series.
There is a plot, although it becomes a bit shaky from time to time, it's mostly strong. There's consistency and it's easy to follow.

The characters are great. Nancy is a very interesting character. I like her. She's relatable in a sense. She's rediscovering who she is and the reader is making that journey with her.

On the other hand:
* I was confused about the whole Bluschencko thing but that was resolved (a little) towards the end.
* When Nancy was examining the pictures Rostovich gave her after the "interview", she said the woman in the picture was dead but she's also the same woman who was live at the exhibit.
How is this possible. Maybe I missed something.
* Nancy keeps saying that Rostovich got her into the mess she was in, even when Bluschencko said he had been watching her friend then her for months

Also I saw a lot of similarities with Fifty Shades of Grey.
- Naïve <poor> college student (woman)
- Super rich <secretive> guy with dark/shady past
- Meet by chance thanks to girl's best friend
- Studying English or something related
- Woman in early 20s

All in all I enjoyed the book.

I couldn't find any links as to where you can get the book but if you want to get a copy, you could contact the author on goodreads

**image and book summary from goodreads

REVIEW: Me, Cinderella by Aubrey Rose

I got this free from the author

Read: August 02, 2013
Rating: 5 stars

Fate told me I wasn’t a Disney princess, and I agreed. When the other girls at school wanted to play in imaginary royal palaces built out of cardboard and imagination, I went along.
But I was never the princess. I was the funny sidekick lobster that helped the princess get the prince.
What I never saw in myself—what nobody ever saw in me—was the slim grace of the hand that rests the tiara on her brow. Instead, I looked to the older legends, to the stories my mother told me about the goddesses: their vengeances, their fury
Me, Cinderella? A dainty, feminine orchid, destined to be plucked?
No. I was Artemis, strong and intelligent and cunning.

I once thought that happily ever after was only true in books. Now, I’m beginning to see how the future might play out if my dreams continue to pale before reality.
Every sentence I could think of has already been said a hundred times over, by people whose words come out perfect and beautifully formed, where mine die on the tongue or straggle out onto the page, mangled and imperfect.
But my story isn’t perfect, because I’m not perfect. Nothing is perfect except maybe in math, in the line that extends forever in both directions. Math is beautiful, I have always known that, but so is life. And I have grown to accept imperfection

The Book
Brynn Tomlin could never afford to follow her heart. But when she sees a stranger shivering in the snow outside of the college library, an inexplicable urge leads her to buy him a hot cup of coffee. It’s just a small act of kindness, a few words of conversation.
Brynn should be focusing on her finals, after all, not on the man who looked up at her gratefully with piercing blue eyes. He could have been anyone - a janitor on break, a graduate student, a bum. But the man standing outside in the cold turns out to be Dr. Eliot Herceg, one of the most brilliant minds in mathematics and heir to a fortune. After years of reclusive isolation, he now finds his heart awakening to the kind girl whose name he does not know. Brynn has spent her life trying to forget her desires, and Eliot’s deep wounds have taken nearly a decade to heal. After so much hurt, will either of them be able to open their hearts again?

My Opinion
I don't know what I was expecting but this was better than anything I could think of.
I loooooooooooove this book. Eliot and Brynn are so cute. It was too sweet. I just loved how you could get lost in their relationship. Like there was only the both of them.

The science in it was cool. Different. Not your usual romance. The heroine was decisive unlike the ones you usually read about in other romance novels

I have nothing bad to say about the book. The plot was great. It was well written. The characters are loveable.

I don't even know what so say again. It's just so sweet and beautiful and lovely and I teared up a little.

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