Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other by Bethany Turner

 

Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other

Let’s begin with the summary:

She’s a sunny morning-show host. He’s a cynical ex-reporter. They're destined to hate each other . . . Aren’t they?

Brynn Cornell has to be stuck in a nightmare. Just last week, she was riding high as co-host of the popular morning show Sunup. She's America's Ray of Sunshine—the girl-next-door beauty who drives up TV ratings while never exuding anything but her trademark positivity and poise. All it took was one huge on-air mistake to expose her snarky side to the world and make it all come crumbling down. Now she’s back in her hometown of Adelaide Springs, Colorado, in a last-ditch attempt to convince viewers she’s not the mean girl they think she is. All she has to do is apologize and capture some feel-good footage reminding everyone she’s just a girl from humble beginnings who’s grateful for her big break, and she might manage to preserve both her career and her image. But this town holds painful memories that she’s not ready to face.

Sebastian Sudworth was on the fast track to the journalist hall of fame. A superstar reporter with a reputation for being in the center of the action, his fearless, relentless coverage of major events around the globe was winning him awards and accolades—until something snapped inside him and he vanished from the scene under mysterious circumstances. Sebastian sought refuge in tiny Adelaide Springs, working odd jobs and trying to blend in as a scruffy mountain town citizen.

When Sebastian is assigned to chauffeur Brynn around town, Brynn is sure he can see right through her carefully cultivated, sunny persona. But she’s determined to do what it takes to maintain her image and save her career—so she’ll just have to charm the socks off Sebastian the same way she charmed her viewers. Easier said than done. It's no picnic to play nice around someone you hate . . . especially when you might be crazy about them.

And now, my review:

I liked that, as the story went on, we could see that the author gave us a twist. The sunny persona is only skin deep. Not the usual sunshine/grump trope.

The story's written in first person. The main characters are intelligent, but they’re also chock full of words. Unfortunately there was a lot of rambling in the story. I skimmed and skipped ahead as scenes, and plot points, dragged on.

One of the reasons the plot dragged was that we spent chapter after chapter in sequential minutes of the same morning.

The premise is that the heroine is forced to revisit, and even champion, the town she condemned. A great hook. She’ll have to uphold her sunny façade, at least publicly, in order to achieve her career goals. But she fails, repeatedly. I did not like her rudeness. It didn’t strike me as funny. I couldn't root for her. Perhaps if we'd seen the reasons behind her dislike of nearly everyone, we could have sympathized with her. But we don't see that until later.

The hero is sort of hiding out, due to his past. I like the concept that each of them will have to come to terms with themselves, their pasts, and their beliefs about the past, in order to become what they want to be. Circumstances motivate them. 

The heroine’s fatal flaw is self-sabotage. Lacking any nobility or consideration, she’s very unlikable. I didn’t really root for her to receive what she wanted from the story’s outset.

One of the themes is being true to one’s self. I like this theme. Other themes included that of a mother’s love, or lack thereof. Even psychological elements, like a description of hyper-vigilance.

I confess I did not finish this novel because of all the rambling, the tedious passage of time, and the rather unlikable heroine. 

This book might best appeal to readers who enjoy a chick-lit style of first-person prose.

The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck by Bethany Turner

The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck

A fellow writer mentioned this book as the author, and she, and I were commenting on an FB post. This mutual friend mentioned loving Bethany’s writing voice, and that intrigued me. So, I was grateful to receive a copy to read for review.

Here’s the summary:

Becoming a Christian is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to Sarah Hollenbeck. Best because, well, that's obvious. Worst because, up to this point, she's made her very comfortable living as a well-known, bestselling author of steamy romance novels that would leave the members of her new church blushing.

Now Sarah is trying to reconcile her past with the future she's chosen. She's still under contract with her publisher and on the hook with her enormous fan base for the kind of book she's not sure she can write anymore. She's beginning to think that the church might frown on her tithing on royalties from a "scandalous" book. And the fact that she's falling in love with her pastor doesn't make things any easier.

And now, my review:

First, a note from me: generally, I do not include any spoilers in my reviews. If you haven’t read the book, consider reading it before reading my review, because this review is a little different—more like a one-sided book club discussion, though I still strove to avoid spoilers.

Our mutual writing friend is correct. Bethany (the author) has a strong writing voice. You’ll feel as if you’ve drifted back a few years to when Chick Lit was popular. The story is written in first person, but the tense keeps shifting from past to present. This is rather jarring and may have been worked out in the editing phase, along with multiple uses of the cliché “couldn’t/can’t help but.” (I read the ARC—advanced reader copy—version.) 

If you’ll take a moment and glance at the summary above, you’ll notice the MC (main character) begins the story as a writer of steamy romance novels. Then, she becomes a Christian. This is a great premise for a book, and it’s what kept me reading. If you’re a writer, you’ll relate to the writerly side of this story, in some ways. However, there were some unrealistic elements where publishing was concerned. The MC had zero experience in writing novels, but she instantly became hugely successful. Also, the MC bragged at being one to single-handedly revolutionize the CBA book marketplace with her writing. That hit me as self-serving.  

There are some offensive elements at the beginning of the story, before the MC is born again that had me checking on the name of the publisher because I couldn’t believe we’d see those elements in a CBA book. I wonder if they were reworked in the final version. Though those words may have been in keeping with a non-Christian character, those types of elements almost deterred me from reading on.

The MC is “falling in love with the pastor,” (see summary), so wouldn’t she be deeply ashamed of having written erotica? Wouldn’t she feel disqualified from having a relationship with a pastor and being taken seriously by his flock and/or his family, and especially himself? She might even feel humiliated after writing porn. At the very least, apologetic. Instead, her switch to writing a wholesome genre was treated with lack of believability, as if her erotica publisher, with whom she was still under contract, would permit a change in genre to something wholesome and less lucrative. Also, somehow the pastor knows exactly who she is as a porn writer... The fact that he knew her pen name seemed odd to me too. Why would he know the names of erotic fiction authors (and still be an honorable pastor)? And why wouldn't this stand between them? The book’s summary even mentions church members reading erotica and blushing. There seemed to be an assumption that all Christians read the type of books she wrote before she got saved, that there was no shame in that, and that readers would accept that as fact. This struck me as hard to believe.

The main character is a growing Christian, but we immediately read Christianese while in her POV, and we don’t get to witness her character growth/arc. Instead we have lip service about the Christian way to think. That seemed like another missing element.

Since we’re in first person, we had deep POV potential, but we were kept at a distance and ended up with some leaps in logic, which were jarring.

There’s a secret in the story and when we learn the answer we’d been left in the dark so much that we may not care. If there had been development of the involved party, we might have cared, but as it was, I didn’t recall mention of the involved person. So, it didn’t impact me.

Overall, the conflict and setup had big potential, but the follow-through had many missing elements, in my opinion. I respect the author, but this book (in its ARC form) wasn’t for me. Still, I wish this author and her publisher the best. 

Lies Jane Austen Told Me by Julie Wright

Lies Jane Austen Told Me by Julie Wright

Let’s begin with the summary:

Ever since Emma read Pride and Prejudice, she's been in love with Mr. Darcy and has regarded Jane Austen as the expert on all things romantic. So naturally when Emma falls for Blake Hampton and he invites her home to meet his parents, she is positive an engagement is in her future. After all, Blake is a single man in possession of a good fortune, and thus must be in want of a wife.

But when it turns out that what Blake actually wants is more of a hook-up than a honeymoon, Emma is hurt, betrayed, and furious. She throws herself deeper into her work as CMO of Kinetics, the fastest growing gym franchise in the nation. She loves her work, and she's good at it, which is why she bristles when her boss brings in a consultant to help her spearhead the new facilities on the East Coast. Her frustration turns to shock when that consultant turns out to be Blake's younger brother, Lucas.

Emma is determined not to fall for Lucas, but as she gets to know him, she realizes that Lucas is nothing like his brother. He is kind and attentive and spends his time and money caring for the less fortunate.

What she can't understand is why Lucas continues to try to push her back into Blake's arms when he so clearly has fallen as hard for her as she has fallen for him.

Realizing that her love life is as complicated as anything Jane Austen could have dreamed up, Emma must find a way to let Blake know that it's time for him to let her go and to let Lucas know it's time for him to love her back.

And now, my review:

Our poor heroine has decided romance should look like Jane Austen’s depictions. Who wouldn’t want that? Well, some of it, anyway. Sadly for her, she doesn’t find it to be true as modern-day men often do not act like Jane’s fictional heroes. I loved this premise.

The author has a strong writing voice and includes great prose. I liked that the story was written in first person, one of my favorite narrative styles. The heroine’s voice is a mixture of formal and modern, which was well done.

Readers who are familiar with Jane’s characters will get the most out of this book. There was a lot of potential here, but unfortunately, the book didn’t hold my interest past 15 percent. (I read the e-book format.) I wish the author and publisher all the best.