Review: Special Delivery (A Romantic Comedy) (Kindle Edition)

Review: Special Delivery (A Romantic Comedy) (Kindle Edition)

Author: Traci Hochenstein

Amazon Description:

Meet Dr. Hope Love. She’s a beautiful, single doctor who delivers the babies of Hollywood's hottest stars. Her perfect, glamorous life is turned upside down when her father, a retired doctor and her partner in the practice, hires Dr. Brad Whitford to assist Hope in the ever-growing medical office. Hope doesn’t want or need the new guy—until she begins to fall in love with him. Her best friend, Venus Vanderbilt, is a best-selling romance novelist and should be able to offer good advice—but Venus is traumatized because she suspects her husband is having an affair. When Hope learns that Dr. Olivia Campanelli, a renowned heart surgeon, already has her trained eye set on Brad, she realizes she might have missed her chance with the new doctor. Can Hope juggle a successful medical practice and win the man of her dreams?

Special Delivery is the first novel in the Hollywood Hill series. It is approximately 33K words and is what I term a "novellini". Perfect, delightful story for those who want to read a light, funny book while at the beach, or in the tub with a bottle of bubbly, or snuggled up in front of the fire sipping hot cocoa. Enjoy! 

Review: 

A cute story with really no substance.  Hope is a rather typical heroine-smart and successful, she is of course single and approaching 35.  The plot is simple-Hope's father adds another doctor to their practice and he is of course smart and handsome.  Hope begins to develop feelings for him rather quickly and finds that she has some competition from another doctor.  The ending is of course predictable.

The biggest qualm I have with this book is that the romance isn't developed-like many romance novels, after the couple falls in love or starts dating the book jumps to marriage. Very unbelievable. However, I treated the book like what it is-something to pass the time while you're at the beach or so.  3 stars because it's readable and cute but nothing substantial (aka character development, plot) here.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Review: Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (The After Cilmeri Series) (Kindle Edition)

Review:Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (The After Cilmeri Series) (Kindle Edition)
Author: Sarah Woodbury

Amazon Description: 

A medieval man with an uncertain destiny, Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales, faces treachery and deceit at the hands of friends and foes alike ...

A modern woman with a troubled past, Meg's life is in tatters when she slips through time and into medieval Wales ...

Only by working together can Meg and Llywelyn navigate the shifting allegiances that threaten the very existence of Wales--and create their own history that defies the laws of time.  

Review:

I wanted to like this book-I really did.  The premise was so enticing-a modern day woman whose life has not been great so far ends up being transported to the 1200s to the court of  Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales. However, what started off as a great premise just falls flat.  The character development is unfortunately just not there-we know the character as well in the beginning as the end and the author does not give us any reason to like them or hate them.  The plot was also hard to follow-at times it read like a military novel with a lot of talk of battles, etc and unless you have a very thorough knowledge of Welsh history was difficult to follow.  Although I didn't care for the plot, it could have been salvaged with a different ending-the book ends abruptly with Meg being whisked back to modern day Pennsylvania.

As a romance, this book isn't one. There are no love scenes or kissing. The characters romantic development is flat and hard to believe. Literally, Meg arrives in the 13th century and then seemingly marries Llywelyn a few days later.  As a fantasy, the book is always not one. The premise could be great for a novel-how would a modern day woman act in Wales? What could she contribute? Once again though, the book doesn't go as far as it should-Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales, seems to accept Meg without any question and Meg doesn't contribute much except what she remembers from history.  She seems to accept life in Wales in the 1200s without much thought or trepidation.    

Overall, the book gets two stars because I could finish it but needs some help.  I get that the author loves Wales and her Welsh history but decide what the book is going to be-if you want it to be a romance, make the characters fall in love, not just say they're married.  If you want it to be a time travel fantasy, make it somewhat believable-what was the purpose of this story? I'm going to skip the rest of the series.