Effie at the Wedding by Tracy Marchini

This is a very short, cute read. It's simply 13 full pages of a girl, Effie, and how she feels about her older sister getting married, her awful pink dress, and how she ends up locked in the bathroom at her sister's wedding. Effie has a weight problem, no boyfriend, and loves making little lists in her head. 

Was it hysterical as the blurb promised? No. I didn't laugh out loud or fall on the floor or held get a stomach ache from laughing, but I did think it was cute. 


The #1 reason Effie feels her sister should not marry George: "I will never be able to bring a boyfriend home without him also being a good-looking well-mannered doctor. Which means that I am going to be single for the rest of my life, while my sister and her husband make lots of good-looking doctor babies. I will have lots of cats."


Ms. Marchini has a good writer's voice I think Effie has the potential to become a cute YA novel. Four stars.


I was sent this in ebook format from the author.

Death by Honeymoon (Book #1 in the Caribbean Murder Series) by Jaden Skye

Imagine getting married to the man of your dreams, traveling to Barbados for your honeymoon, surfing and enjoying the beach by day, making love all night, and somewhere in that first week, your new husband is murdered. This is what happens to Cindy. Someone kills her husband Clint in Barbados. The authorities say it was an accident, blame it on a riptide, but Cindy suspects it was foul play.

So, who wanted her husband dead? She heads back to the States and begins to suspect her in-laws-from-Hell. They want the insurance money, resented her from the get-go, and are trying to blame his death on her. As Cindy digs into her dead husband's computer and hard files, however, she realizes Clint didn't tell her everything, especially regarding his work..


When her sister almost ends up dead, Cindy goes to the authorities and after at first being told she is paranoid, an FBI agent finally takes her seriously and she must travel back to Barbados to get some answers where she meets a brick wall at every turn.


This is a mystery so I'm not going to reveal anything more about the plot. The story was quick, light, and not a door stop. However, it could have used more details. I love stories that are "to the point," but this one was a tad too much "to the point." I found myself scratching my head at times.. Example: You cant' just hop a flight, land in Barbados, and get your bags, can you? I'm thinking there's a thing called "customs.." Nevertheless, a good read, but at times, too quick and pit pat and not detailed enough. I also, for some reason, expected more of the book to take place in the Caribbean, but discovered most of it takes place in the States. 


Four stars and I received this in ebook format from the author.

Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick

"If she thought a man was a fool, she said so to his face in front of others, and gave no quarter. She was tall, slender, beautiful, desirable. . "


This is how Empress Mathilda is described. This is the woman this novel is about. She was the daughter and the only surviving heir to Henry I. The men of England got on their knees three times in front of her and three times, swore to uphold her as their queen. When her father died, however, they upheld her cousin Stephen instead. Mathilda was enraged and thus, a battle began to retain her crown and her country for not necessarily herself, but her heirs.


The novel begins in this manner, with Mathilda arriving in England from Germany where he husband, an emperor, has died. She begins her first steps towards inheriting the throne by abiding by her father's wishes and marrying Geoffrey of Anjou. This is not a happy partnership. He is a young, arrogant whelp and her thoughts. . well, here's a quote from the brave and opinionated Mathida, "No more of an abomination than me being made to wed an idiot who is as far beneath me as a pile of dung under the sky. . You may be my husband, but you will never be my lord and master and you will never amount to anything more than a scrawny cockerel on top of your little midden heap!"



I love this woman. Nevertheless, despite her strong words, duty prevails and her and Geoffrey manage to do what they are supposed to do and they breed heirs. This makes Mathilda all the more eager to ensure that she obtains the throne of England. "She gazed down at this child whom she had not wanted to conceive because of fear, because of anger, because her life was a battleground over which she had so little control. Now the field had changed. Her fight was for him now.."


Meanwhile, Stephen takes England and offers favors left and right till the coffers run out of money. Mathilda is just biding her time and waiting for loyalty to shift and then England shall be hers. Adeliza, Henry's former queen, is between a rock and a hard place as her new hubby supports Stephen, but she believes the throne belongs to her stepdaughter, Mathilda. These two experience much love and passion fraught with friction over their opposing sides. I loved their part of tale and in the end, had to blink tears away from my eyes. I won't reveal why.


Also on Mathilda's side is her half brother Robert and and Brian FitzCount. Brian is a doll who will do anything for Mathilda. He loves her as more than a queen. Will anything come of this unspoken passion?

Stephen of Blois

"Picking up his sword, he drew a shaken breath. He had to carry this through, and write his will in blood and fire, because how else was he going to be a leader of men, keep his word to Mathilda and give her a crown?"


But Mathilda can't forget that all these men who swore fealty to her, also swore fealty to Stephen when it most suited them. "She was well aware that men who knelt to her and smiled one day would as likely stab her in the back and abandon her on another." Who can she trust to stay by her side and make her once and for all, the lady of the English?


Towards the end of the novel, readers get a good look at what Henry II has the potential to become. The young Henry is full of vigor, charisma, and spunk. I found myself enamored with his character despite his mere fourteen years of age. 

Henry II

As usual, Chadwick manages to completely immerse the reader in medieval times. After an hour of reading, I would have to shake my head and remind myself I am Tara in Utah, not Mathilda escaping a castle in the middle of a snow drenched night clothed entirely in white, not Adeliza with a belly full of baby, burning letters in the fire. It's not solely drama, however, as Chadwick managed to inject little surprise bits of humor into the novel.
Here is Geoffrey bragging of his sexual prowess,  "I am adept at hunting through forests and finding hidden streams."


A point to ponder from Miles FitzWalter, "Those who walk with their heads in the air usually don't see the shit on the ground until they tread in it."


A LOL moment in the Author's Notes regarding the real Empress, "I also have a notion (that I can't prove) that Mathilda suffered from acute premenstrual tension and this might account for some of her sharp behaviour. A fraught political situation and a certain time of the month may just have combined to create disaster for her."


And not funny, but my favorite quote in the book from the Empress herself, "....it is twice as important that a woman should be educated, and twenty times as difficult for her to be heard."


Five stars and I won this on a blog giveaway.

My First Interview

Christina's little black dog

My little black dog

Just a quick update to inform everyone that I'm a guest on fellow author/friend's blog today. It's a cute story how we ended up chatting and has to do with Facebook and our little black dogs (Look at their similarities!) and Christina Courtenay has been kind enough to feature me today and ask me some insightful and fun questions!



So check out Christina's Blog today and please, feel free to leave a comment.

Kindle Makeover

I've had my kindle for a year almost . . and I LOVE it, BUT. . . Amazon is a tad behind Barnes & Noble as far as looks. The Nook comes in different colors and even has a color screen now. The Kindle is just plain white or black. Boring! And I've been staring at my boring white Kindle in its cheap pink case for a year.




And seriously, I look at my kindle for 2 hours a day, more on the weekends. So, I decided it was time for a Kindle Makeover!!


And I searched Ebay and found this Bundle Monster store based in Hawaii (Free shipping! No worries!) and I bought a bundle package consisting of a Kindle skin, real leather case complete with credit card holders so that it may be doubled as a wallet, and a screen protector. Here is my Kindle. . . made over!

 So, if you are bored with your ereader, spice it up! There's plenty of options and package deals available on the internet. I gotta say though, the screen protector didn't work for me. Those are hard to put on just right!

Sisters of the Sari by Brenda L. Baker

This is one of those books that I just can't recommend enough. It's funny, touching, and has lots of drama that ties in nicely together.

Kiria is a successful American woman who is the CEO of her own company. She's very independent and does what she wants, when she wants, without a man in her life. She travels to India and finds herself touched by Santoshi, a dependent in the Indian shelter system. In a way though, both women though in very different circumstances, have a lot in common. They each take care of themselves. No one else is looking out for them. Kiria simply has the money and means to do it in a more hygienic way.


Kiria wants to help Santoshi better herself and sets about opening a home for independent women in India. She enlists Santoshi's help. The novel goes back and forth from first person POV (Kiria's very humorous and witty viewpoint) to third person POV. 


I LOVE Kiria.. here's why:


"Now, here's some advice if you ever want to take a city bus in India-don't even think about it. The bus that finally came was packed, sardines-in-a-tin packed, resulting in some unavoidable familiarity with my fellow travelers. When a particularly good pothole created a bowling-pin effect among the standing passengers, I learned more about one poor young man's anatomy than either of us really wanted to know. Hopefully, his reproductive abilities were not permanently impaired."


"... getting more flies with honey. Which is a very odd expression when you think about it. Who exactly wants those flies? Entomologists? Any entomologist worth his salt should know that you get the most flies with shit."


"Sari-itis afflicts approximately one in ten Indian women. It is incurable. The disfiguring effects on its sufferers can only be controlled by placing limits on their credit cards. You see the victims on the streets of Chennai every day, pathetic women who have succumbed to the lure of the fabric and bought a sari whose pattern highlights all their figure flaws and even creates some they don't have. A short, fat woman will buy a silver sequined sari that makes passerby break into spontaneous disco dancing."


Nevertheless, while Kiria is establishing this home (which all her Indian friends feel is doomed to fail), the characters around her have their own dramas. Santoshi cannot agree with sharing a home with those of lower caste and sets off on an eye-opening adventure. Laxmi is trying to adjust to being a housewife to a weak man with an evil mother. Mary Elizabeth loves a man that technically, she is not supposed to love. (Again, caste system and all.) All these women aid each other in some way.. and enrich each other's lives.


And... Kiria has a son... and there some drama there, but I don't wish to spoil it so that's all I'm going to say about that.


The book is humorous, well written, and the author obviously knows India very well. The ending was terrific.


Five stars. I received this from the publisher. 

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown

I saw this on Netgalley and of course, it being about women in aviation, I had to read it. Though I received the egalley from Netgalley, I am thrilled to be participating in the blog tour. 

The Americans had the WASP and England had the ATA, Air Transport Auxiliary. This novel follows three different women, all ATA pilots during WWII for reasons of their own.


Evie is a rich, spoiled girl who is somewhat bored and wishes to get away from her stepmother's evil clutches. Evie is the star. She takes her flight test wearing a mink coat and drives an Aston. Truly, a remarkable gal. She has a few love interests, mainly a fellow pilot named Beau, but though the spark between them remains throughout the novel, there are many times when I was sitting there going... "Oh, they won't hook up after all... or will they?" I was left in suspense. The novel wasn't predictable at all, a point in its favor.


Beau is a main character as well. He's half German and rumor is he was shot down by his own father. There are lots of questions regarding Beau and just where his loyalty lies. Plus he has a fiance that just won't let go and he disappears a lot....


Stella is the next lady pilot. She's running away from something and going through post partum depression (They didn't call it that back then though.) She's the "Ice Queen" who turns down many a horny fellow. But there's one... a curate of a church. How will react to learning about her "secret" though? 


The last flying chick is Megan. She's a small farm girl who loves to fly. What she lacks for in experience, she makes up for in enthusiasm. She loved a man on the farm... but wants to have some fun. And here is my one quibble with the book: Not enough of Megan. She's introduced in the beginning when readers read about her on the farm, her desire to save the farm and keep from her greedy cousins, and her love for Bill. However, once she becomes ATA, there is very little at all about her until all of a sudden over halfway into the novel, some major stuff goes down and Bill suddenly comes back into the picture. I was scratching my head at that point, asking, "Oh? She still loves him? She hasn't said a word about him..." I had actually forgotten all about Bill.


Meanwhile, while all these people are living their lives (as much as they can while ferrying planes constantly), someone has it in for them. Someone is sabotaging planes. Someone may pay the price.


Something else I want to mention is Amy Johnson. She has "scenes" of sorts in here in which she narrates about what possibly happened to her and her parts are just wonderfully eloquent. Amy Johnson was a real life ATA pilot who died while ferrying. In TBC, she dies, but lives on as a guardian angel....

Here's an example: "I will not leave these girls. I shall be their guardian angel, flying beside their Spitfire's wings. When they are looking for a break in the clouds, I shall be the wind that parts a safe course home. Shackleton talked of his fourth man. TS Eliot wrote of the other who walks beside you. We who have gone before are with you when you need us most. We are there holding our dying sons on the battlefield and beaches as they drown in their own blood. These women are my daughters, my sisters, and I shall be 'the other' flying with them, until this is over and we have won our peace."


I was just moved by that. I also laughed my butt off when Evie slaps Beau's "fiance" and says, "I may do my job as well as a man, but I am all the woman Beau will ever need."


Again, I had an egalley and quotes may not be exact in the finished publication. 


Four stars. 

The Blighted Troth by Mirella Sichirollo Patzer

This is a novel about forgiveness intertwined with jealousy, revenge, love, and the difficulty of keeping vows, be it because of everyone else's actions or your own inner turmoil.. 

The setting is New France and the time is the 18th century. Emilie and Robert are excited to be getting married finally. However, a wealthy land owner with a lot of clout has other ideas.. He wants Emilie for himself. He has the money, the reputation, and thugs lined up to do his dirty work and he enlists numerous people to help him stop the wedding. Enter an intriguing cast of characters, all either aiding or hindering Robert and Emilie in some way. A simply wedding suddenly goes awry.


There's a selfish and very frightened priest. (He's in the wrong profession) There's a mother who wants to see her daughter wed bad enough that she is willing to trick a priest. There's another man of the cloth who desires to help Robert and Emilie, but the Bishop (under the influence of the wealthy landowner's uncle who in turn is being influenced by the landowner's cousin) has him removed from the area. There's a shunned wife/novice nun with a very kinky sexual appetite. There's bread in the streets, rioting, false accusations, small pox.. and it seems the entire world is out to keep Robert and Emilie apart, even at one point, Emilie herself... as she is faced with a difficult decision.. Which vow to follow? This is not your typical regency romance. 


Do not be intimidated by that long cast of characters. I am very impressed with how well this author introduced everyone gradually and made each person memorable. I never had to "flip" back pages to re read and figure out who was who or who had done what and I never felt the urge to begin writing names down either. Very well done.


As a matter of fact, I only have one quibble with this novel. The last half began to "pound" the repentance and forgiveness issues into my head too much. It began getting to religious for my tastes at times, especially when the men of the cloth began going on and on about forgiveness, repentance, and god. And in the end, everyone forgave too easily and everything tied up too wonderfully. 


I was thoroughly entertained, however, as all the characters run to and fro, thugs threaten, cut off ears, and abduct innocent ladies, and at one point, I even laughed my butt off. "Carrots are necessary for men. They're long and hard and the more carrots a man eats, well, the more he will become just like them."


Favorite quote: "If those who commit injustices were obliged to give us their reasons, the world would not be as bad as it is."


Four stars. I received this in ebook format from the author.

Dog Tails, Ride for Rights Updates

It's been a month since my first ebook release, Dog Tails: Three Humorous Short Stories for Dog Lovers was made available on Nook, Kindle, ipad, and Sony Reader. It's not doing too bad for my first book and considering I haven't been able to promote it much at all. I'm pleased to say it's been featured on two blogs in the past month:


At Home With A Good Book And The Cat

Book Reader's Heaven

As for Ride for Rights, it's still scheduled for February 2012 release. I am going to be talking about it further on June 7th on Teen Word Factory.

Ride also now has a foreword from Mr. Robert Van Buren who not only enjoyed the book, but was kind of enough to provide a few words. He is a descendant of the real Van Buren sisters whose story so inspired me.

My nonfiction/memoir is tentatively scheduled for end of July/early August release with Untreed Reads. It is yet untitled.

So... be watching for my works and spread the word! Word of mouth is the best promotion. Thanks, all!

Set in Stone: The Life and Death of Medusa by R.C. Berry

I recommend this to anyone who ever had an interest in Mythology in their school days. I remember being fascinated and when others in school whine and complained, I immersed myself in stories of Apollo, Zeus, and Athena, my favorite.

This is a cross between a historical novel and Mythology. Berry tells a story of Medusa very thoroughly and in an engaging manner. There's so much more to the "monster" than simply snakes for hair and the ability to turn men into stone. What made Medusa?


The novel tells of her birth from two sea monsters and why she was made beautiful and mortal. As a teenager she is as lovely as the goddess, Aphrodite. A trip to Mount Olympus sets her in the gods' sights. Three of them want her and two of them will see her dead before they are denied her. She becomes the latest "plaything."

Athena

Enter Athena, goddess of war and wisdom. She desires the beautiful Medusa just to spite Aphrodite and to have an amorous follower. 
Poseidon, the god of the sea and a known womanizer simply wants to bang her.

Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty simply wants her love and affection and sweet kisses.

Poseidon

They all want her, however, and only one can have her or none at all and a war of sorts ensues. Medusa is too naive to save herself. Athena ends up extremely angry thanks to something Poseidon does and Aphrodite attempts to save Medusa, but can undo all of the damage... and Medusa finds herself with snakes in place of her hair and a curse over her head. Every man she looks at will turn to stone. This is all fine and dandy when men begin coming to her exiled island to kill the new "monster," but when she wishes to have love with a young man who will literally follow her the ends of the earth, it's rather inconvenient.


So... Medusa is exiled and alone except for a lover she dare not look at and a surprise on the way... while men keep showing up to kill her... and Athena is still wanting her dead... and that's all I'm saying.

Aphrodite

Minor annoyances: It could be an ebook malfunction, but there were dashes (-) in the middle of words when they had no business being there. This grew irritating at times as it occurred on almost every page. Ex: be-stowed, consort-ing, obvi-ously, ad-mired, and so on...


There was one instance when three young men entered Medusa's cave to kill her and this one fellow had a sword drawn one minute and the next minute was strangling her instead and drawing his sword again. ?


Deep thought: Who's the real monster here?

I received this from Touche Publishing.

Settling by Shelley Workinger

Settling is a sequel to Solid and picks up where the first one left off very well. Even though it’s been MONTHS since I read Solid, I immediately remembered who was who and who had done what and the author didn’t have to detail it all. That’s hard to do. Too often, I pick up a sequel and get play by play detail s of what happened in the previous book. Settling handled this really well.

Summary: A corrupt military doctor installed a special extra chromosome in pregnant women. Their children now have “super powers” and are gathered on a military base to find out more about themselves, their powers, and the whole deal behind it. There are “stealths” (Miranda and Clio), the kids who disappear. There are “stars” (Bliss), kids who literally glow so bright it knocks you senseless. There’s the” jocks” (Garrett)  who are amazingly athletic and fast. There are the “heavies” who seem to have an invisible wall around them (Alexis). And there’s Jack, Clio’s boyfriend whose super power seems to be his ability to observe.

This installment adds two new characters to the group, a girl jock (That’s a first) and a guy named Xavier who is a “heavy” of sorts, but draws people to him instead of pushing of them away..

And as these new kids enter the picture, so does a killer… Two people are stabbed.. and Clio is beginning to feel nervous about it all. On top of searching for the base killer and suspecting her friends, she discovers that she may be a heavy as well as a stealth AND she is sorta having feelings for an Officer… So where does that leave Jack?

Very good story with interesting characters. I actually even liked Miranda a bit this time. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the ending.  The conclusion, the whodunit revelation, didn’t work for me. It seemed to come out of nowhere and part of it didn’t make sense. I can’t say much here without revealing important information. However, one thing I did like about the ending is it brought up the fact that throughout the novel, Clio only talks about her immediate friends. She doesn’t seem to pay attention to anyone else on campus. The ending teaches her a lesson of sorts.  It also left me, the reader, hanging with one huge question: Are these people really her friends after all?

Four stars and I received this in ebook format from the author. 

A Young Wife by Pam Lewis

I think this story has a good plot and wraps up well in the end, but I didn't like any of the characters. They were a very hard group to like. Seems everyone except the heroine, Minke, is nasty and cruel.

In the beginning, Minke is a "nurse" for an invalid, skeleton like woman addicted to morphine. The rest of the household consists of Sander, a man old enough to be her father that seems to care not a whit about his dying wife, a daughter that steals her mother's drugs and wishes her dead, and a humpback boy.

Minke marries Sander just three days after the wife dies.. she is only 15 years of age so it comes as no surprise to me really that she kept morphing from child to woman and back again until the last quarter of the novel. A boat to Argentina introduces more characters. Sadly, the most likable character dies.

In Argentina, Sander gambles everything away. Minke's best friend is a homosexual "doctor" who seems to just prescribe morphine for everything. There's a fat woman with a parrot obsession who has a multiple personality disorder it seems, nice on min, mean the next. There's sister Fenna, promiscuous and hateful, always screaming about something.

And these are the main players for the rest of the book. Minke grows into womanhood only to have her son disappear and this is where the story gets good.. but upon traveling to NY, again, most of the characters are cruel, the housekeeper, for example.

And Minke.. I liked her but could she really be that stupid??? You really let that sister of yours travel alone with your husband all the way to America? I knew what was gonna happen. Duh.

So.. I had some quibbles. However, I really like the "child abduction" bit and how it played it out. I didn't see that coming.

Laugh out loud moment: (When Minke's mother is trying to explain about sex) "Oh, the shudders, and so red in the face. The bed makes a terrible racket, too, and the doors shake... All at once he collapses like he's been shot through the heart." 

Three stars and I received two ARCs of this book, one from goodreads swap, one from the publisher. Oops. My fault. 

Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts

Yes, I just finished reading a "romance" book, but this not a damsel in distress romance book. This is a true ball busting heroine. This being a Nora Roberts book, I'm sure 5000 other people have already reviewed it so I'm going to keep the summarization short. Keywords: woman smoke jumper, Missoula, Montana, sexy rookie, hot sex, murder, arson, and throw in a jealous, crazy bitch and you got Chasing Fire.

What I loved: The heroine, Rowan. She takes no crap from anybody. She's brave and tough and when the male smoke jumpers challenge or tease her, she holds her own. The dialogue throughout the novel, the joking, the bantering was terrific. I laughed, chuckled, and nodded my head numerous times.


The smoke jumping was great and Roberts obviously did her research. I learned a LOT about jumping from airplanes and into fires that I certainly did not know before.


What I didn't like: The mystery involving the jealous bitch, Dolly, was kinda lame. I was expecting a bit more substance, less soap opera. I also knew whodunit from the get go and I was disappointed that I knew whodunit. When it was revealed in the book, I declared, "I knew it! Oh why couldn't you surprise me?"



Something else that bothered me.. And I get this is a romance, but the story is contemporary, not historical and you have a woman smoke jumper. This is a male dominated field that consists of fighting fires, extreme physical fitness, jumping out of planes, using a chainsaw, and handling big hoses (he he he) so why is this chick who loves her career above all else risking losing it all by possibly getting knocked up? Not once in this novel when the main players do the horizontal mambo, does it address them using protection. I would think pregnancy would be a huge issue for a female smoke jumper. Hello?

The smoke jumping, the strong heroine, and the entertaining dialog more than made up for those quibbles, however, and overall, the book rates a four and I got it from the library.

Negligee Behavior by Shelli Stevens

How many of you ladies married that safe, boring man and sometimes just look at him as he is watching television and think, "what if...?" 

What if you had walked out of your own wedding and jumped on the back of some sexy bad boy's motorcycle and rode away with him?


That's what Brandy does! Brandy is about to marry Gordon, a dentist/reality tv show star and she is having serious doubts... Here's the 411 on Gordon:


"Gordon wasn't really the type to inspire such sinful thoughts. He was more like the granola bar you ate to help you stay regular." And later, "Gordon breezed by the erogenous zones on a woman's body and made love like her was trying to beat the clock." And "Gordon's butt was so flat it was almost inverted, not to mention so white it nearly glowed."
No wonder Brandy runs out on Gordon and hops on a sexy guy's bike!!! 


The sexy guy is Marco and he's a bar owner/bartender with a secret past he would prefer to keep a secret. He has no clue that the matronly chick on the back of his bike is really a rich lingerie line heiress. See, Brandy's grown up in the shadow of lingerie models so she feels like she can't live up to that so why try? Fate, Marco, a job in a bar, a waitress named Val, and just plain desire to stay away from Gordon has Brandy turning over a new leaf and getting a makeover.. including a wax!!

And there's love and sex. Seriously. Think about it.. If this Marco guy can handle all that horsepower between his legs, imagine what else he can handle. 


Really, really fun read. It takes place in Vegas, has enough mystery regarding Marco and his past to keep readers guessing, has steamy sex, and one has to root for Brandy as she "comes out of her shell" and cheer as she learns to strut her stuff.


"You don't think I look like a whore, you think I look hot. And it pisses you off... And you know what else pisses you off? The idea that other men are going to be hitting on me tonight. So here's the deal, buddy. Either step up to the plate or accept the fact that others will."


So will choir teacher, cat tee shirt wearing lingerie heiress Brandy maintain her new badass, sexy persona and get Marco in the bargain or will she revert to her shy, no self esteem ways and go back to the dentist? Did I mention the dentist has some serious issues..? Another suspenseful twist to the story. There's a lust for money, desire to rise in society, and a gambling addiction.....and a gun.

Loved it. No complaints. It was just what I needed. Five stars and I received this egalley from netgalley.