The Cinderella Moment by Jennifer Kloester

Rating: ✪✪✪✪✪ out of 5 Stars

My thoughts:

Even though I don’t normally read YA romance books—I’m normally a sci-fi, dystopian reader—this book was a refreshing breath of fresh air.  I will admit to being quite the fan of America’s Next Top Model and the fashion world. And I shall certainly put my hand up to share that I watch Mad Men for the clothes.

But I’d never thought to read a book set within this world.  Well silly me, because this was so much fun. I love the setting in Paris and author of The Cinderella Moment, Jennifer Kloester, certainly knows how throw almost insurmountable problems at her characters who are then ingenious in finding determined ways around them.

The protagonist Angel is a wonderful character and I love her determination to succeed. She rather reminded me of Emma Harte of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s A Woman of Substance, one of my favourite heroines.  I just love tenacious women; they are so inspiring.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves fashion, a page-turning read and a fresh take on a classic fairytale.

Book Blurb:

A love of fashion.

A couture competition.

A once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Angel wants to be a fashion designer, but without money or connections, it's going to be a challenge. So when she gets a chance to head to Paris, Angel grabs it – even if it means masquerading as her best friends Lily. That can't be too hard, can it?

But faking things doesn't come easy, and when Angel meets her very own Prince Charming, things start to get complicated. She needs to stop her secrets unravelling if she wants to live happily ever…

From exciting talent Jennifer Kloester comes a modern fairytale of high society, mistaken identity, love, betrayal, friendship – and great clothes.

Release Date:                      July 2013

Author’s Website:              http://www.jenniferkloester.com/

Purchase Book:                  Amazon

Publisher’s Website:         Penguin

About the author:

Jennifer Kloester loves to escape into a good book. She began writing her own stories in primary school and was living in the jungle in Papua New Guinea when she discovered Georgette Heyer's wonderful historical romances. Those books took her to London, Paris and New York and inspired her to write her two novels The Cinderella Moment and The Rapunzel Dilemma. After spending three years living in the desert in Bahrain, Jennifer now spends most days writing in a book-lined study in an old manse. She is also the author of two books on Georgette Heyer: Georgette Heyer's Regency World and Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller.

Blue Into The Rip by Kev Heritage

Rating: ✪✪✪✪✪ out of 5 stars

My thoughts:

Blue Into The Rip is quite a different YA book. It doesn’t have vampires, it’s not about the end of the world, has no bows and arrows, and there is no magic to be seen anywhere. It’s a sci-fi adventure in a similar vein to Ender’s Game with time travel thrown in for good measure.

What a fantastic debut novel from Kev Heritage. Blue Into The Rip has everything going for it: time travel, interesting characters, suspenseful situations, good guys, bad guys and camaraderie.

Blue finds himself four hundred years in the future thanks to a rip in time. The world is a very different place. Our fifteen year old protagonist ends up in the academy of a mysterious military organisation called SEARCH. This is where the action really starts, where Blue makes friends and enemies and begins his own search to find a way home.

There is also an environmental message thrown in about the possible future of the planet with global warming. It certainly is a great premise for a series and I really look forward to spending more time with Blue. So few stories are written aimed at middle school boys and older with an interesting premise and this certainly fills a gap there.

If you are an adult, don’t let its YA tag stop you reading it.  Blue Into The Rip is well written, creative, and just shows you that Independent authors are creating work as good, if not better than traditional publishers. I highly recommend you join Blue for a rollicking, thought-provoking adventure.

Book Blurb:

Blue didn’t want to be in the future
They didn’t want him there either…

A rip in the fabric of time, a far-flung globally warmed future, a flooded Earth and the only remainder of civilisation – a militaristic organisation living underneath ‘Desert Amazon’…

Getting back home to rescue his little sister Annie was the only thing that mattered to messed up, mixed race teenager, Blue (named after his stupid, googly blue eyes) – and that was the problem – home was over four hundred years in the past.

Ripped forwards in time from his odd hippy parents, their peculiar house and his lonely school life, Blue had only one thing on his mind: return. But how does a lowly cadet in a militaristic Academy living in a post-apocalyptic future achieve such a goal, especially with the distractions of girls, pilot training, spacewalks and his almost constant unpopularity?

The more Blue found out about this flooded, gung-ho annoying future, about himself – who and what he was (was he even human?) – and the equally disturbing and shocking truth about his ‘parents’ – the more he realised getting home was the only solution. Wasn’t it? If Blue knew one thing, it was that he would at least try.

 

Release Date:                   January 2014

Author’s Website:          http://www.kevheritage.com

Purchase Book:               http://www.kevheritage.com/blue-into-the-rip/ 

Publisher’s Website:   Independent Author