I’m a fan of Kylie Scott’s romance novels, they are all very different and you never know what you are going to get with each new book. This time she gives us a leading man, Beck who is a very likable busboy when we meet him, only he isn’t quite who he is pretending to be. He expresses an interest in Alice, a waitress at the bar where he is working. She’s a very down to earth girl who is exactly who she seems to be, and I think that is a big part of Beck’s attraction to her.

I’m not a big fan of the billionaire trope, but this is different from some of the other books I’ve read.

Alice, after going against her initial doubt about trusting Beck, falls hard and is drawn into the world he has been running from, knowing nothing about what she is about to encounter. It turns out Beck is rich, very rich, and now Alice is under the microscope of Beck’s family members.

I thought that Alice, despite initially thinking she wasn’t the right kind of girl for Beck, shows how strong she really is and how she believes in who she is and is unwilling to change too much because of this rich family’s expectations. I really liked the way she stood up to Beck when different things came to light throughout the story, I liked that she stood her ground and made him reassess what it was he wanted and who he wanted to be.

Beck was lovely, but growing up in his messed up family has left him emotionally stunted and he has no real idea what will make someone like Alice happy. If you’ve always seen money as a way of buying the people around you, you would find it hard to understand what drives a normal everyday person.

I enjoyed watching all the family relationships change, mainly due to Alice’s influence on those around her. I especially liked how she got the better of Beck’s evil old grandmother. While Alice and Beck’s relationship wasn’t an easy ride, it was an enjoyable one, there were moments I thought, she should let him loose, but was glad that she didn’t in the end.

Thanks to Social Butterfly Pr for a digital copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

About the book:

“Rich Boy takes you on a literal ride! Funny. Angsty. It’s a definite recommendation from me!  –   Tijan, New York Times bestselling author

The Rich Boy, an all-new slow-burn standalone with white-hot chemistry and witty banter from New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott, is out now!

I’m the type of girl who’s given up on fairy tales. So when Beck – the hot new busboy at work – starts flirting with me, I know better than to get my hopes up. Happily ever afters aren’t for the average. I learned that the hard way.

But how can I be expected to resist a man who can quote Austen, loves making me laugh, and seems to be everything hot and good in this world?

Only there’s so much more to him than that.

Billionaire playboy? Check.

Troubled soul? Check.

The owner of my heart, the man I’ve moved halfway across the country to be with, who’s laying the world at my feet in order to convince me to never leave? Check. Check. Check.

But nobody does complicated like the one percent.

This is not your everyday rags-to-riches, knight-in-shining armor whisking the poor girl off her feet kind of story. No, this is much messier.

Download your copy today!

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About Kylie

Kylie is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author. She was voted Australian Romance Writer of the year, 2013, 2014 & 2018, by the Australian Romance Writer’s Association and her books have been translated into eleven different languages. She is a long time fan of romance, rock music, and B-grade horror films. Based in Queensland, Australia with her two children and husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.

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#AWW2020   14/50

I got some lovely bookmail surprises last week and then more today.

Three great sounding books from Allen & Unwin Australia, I’m especially looking forward to reading and learning about Truganini, ‘the last Tasmania Aborigine’.

Then a book from Better Reading Bookclub, this sounds good, another new Australian Australian author for me.

The last three arrived today from Serenity Press, I’d completely forgotten I ordered the gorgeous children’s book last month. It is soooo gorgeous, I was originally going to give it to my nephew, but I’m going to keep it and use it in my art therapy business as well as read it to him when he visits. I’ll do a review on it this week.

Also from Serenity Press is the lovely gratitude journal I won, I look forward to using this daily as well as posting on Karen’s Facebook page. And one of Karen’s novels about uncertainty, I’m looking forward to reading it.

That’s my bookmail for this month I imagine, but it will keep me busy.

Thank you to Beauty and Lace Book Club and Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This book was a nice read, but for me at least, it wasn’t a great read. It wasn’t until well over halfway that I wanted to keep reading to see how it turned out.

This was a nice story about a man who is drowning in grief after the loss of his wife, he has just about checked out from his life and if it wasn’t for his young son, he wouldn’t feel any need to carry on.

Through a promise he made his wife before she dies, he makes himself start writing letters to her about his life now that she has gone, and he leaves them in a draw he had made in her headstone at the cemetery. Through these letters, he learns to live with his grief and to eventually find reasons to keep on living and to love again.

There is a mystery that starts part-way through when his letters disappear and there are little tokens left in their place. It sends him into a bit of a tether while he tries to determine who is leaving them and whether they are messages from his wife from beyond the grave.

A sweet novel with a lovely message and a happy outcome.

Merry Christmas everyone, I got two books to read for Christmas and hours worth of Downton Abbey to watch.

The Winners of the cometition were Kate Forsyth and Mel Bowers, Congratulations! And thank you to everyone who entered and everyone who follows my blog. I’ve messaged the winners, but if you haven’t seen the message contact me and let me know which book you would like.

To see the draw check out the link below.

Thanks again and I hope everyone had a great Christmas or whatever you celebrate and that you got plenty of books.

Only one round to go! Next fortnight will be a double for my last post.

This round I’m marking off the square Written by an author over age of 65. So Di Morrisey’s The Last Paradise fills this square perfectly. 

This one was an up and down read for me, there were parts I loved and parts I didn’t love so much. For the first 100 pages or so I was not very impressed, there was too much dialogue and I found that it was just not working for me. Once we moved on to Bali the story improved, the dialogue lessened and there seemed to be a lot more story.

I really liked the thread that ran through about a woman who was a hero to the Indonesian back in the time of the Japanese invasion, I loved learning about her and her journey and I enjoyed how Grace learned and grew along with the unfolding of this storyline.

I absolutely hated Grace’s husband, Lawrence, from the very first page, he was such an unlikeable character and had nothing going for him at all. I’m glad that the event that literally exploded Grace’s life brought to light what a horrible person he was and allowed Grace the opportunity to escape and grow back into her own.

This turned out to be a really enjoyable story which I found hard to put down for the final 1/3.

Thanks to Beauty and Lace Bookclub and Pan MacMIllan for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Eggshell Skull is a memoir by a really strong and brave young woman who didn’t realise her strength until she found herself in a situation out of her control. A situation she started the ball rolling on, without realising how long she would be made to wait for justice.

I picked up this book because Amanda from Mrs B’s Book Reviews gave it such a high recommendation. I was wary though about the subject matter of child sexual assault and abuse, adult sexual assault and rape being triggers, but I coped well, maybe like Bri herself, I’ve have gotten stronger.

Bri starts off her story at the beginning of her law career, in her year as a judges associate. Through doing the judges circuit around Qld she hears many terrible cases of sexual abuse on children and women in particular, but also on men. As she herself is triggered by these people’s stories, we find out that she has been sexually assaulted as a child, and the long term affect this has had on her. From watching and listening to these stories and cases, Bri also gains the strength and realisation that she needs to face her abuse and her abuser in order to get on with her own life in a healthy way.

The statistics on these kinds of cases are staggering, and as Bri carries on, she finds out how many people she knows who have been victims of abuse It’s hard to acknowledge how prevalent this is in our society. We also learn how few people come forward and report the abuse, and when they do, how few of those cases actually get charged and then how few of those go through the legal system to receive any kind of justice.

She starts the legal ball rolling on a journey that will take almost 2 years to come to and end. Through that time we see her struggle, the abuse she inflicts upon herself throughout the story and the many feelings of low self worth she suffers, just like many people who have been abused. Bri is extremely lucky, she has the support of her family and her partner behind her, as well as Judge, the man she worked for on the circuit who has become a friend.

Bri falls apart often, but she picks herself up again everytime and carries on, fighting for justice against her abuser and against the legal system. I can’t say I was shocked by how badly our legal system let’s down the victims of crime, but it was extremely eye-opening and heartbreaking to read about those peoples stories as Bri travels on the circuit and as she wonders if she herself will receive justice.

I take my hat off to all the people that do take the step to bring their abuser to justice in such a terribly flawed legal system. The law has changed over the years, but we still aren’t where we need to be. Women are still too often not believed, are called liars or told they are overreacting and that it was their fault it happened. Things need to change, fast. Attitudes need to change.

A highly confronting story by a brave and strong young women, who by fighting for justice for herself and telling her story, may be a catalyst for others to tell theirs, for them also to be willing to fight and for the stigma of sexual assault to be challenged.

——-———————————–—————-

I found this poem which I thought was worth a listen, and maybe a share. We need to get the message out.   She Asked For It – Mizan The Poet

About the book: ‘Scorching, self-scouring: a young woman finds her steel and learns to wield it’ – Helen Garner

EGGSHELL SKULL: A well-established legal doctrine that a defendant must ‘take their victim as they find them’. If a single punch kills someone because of their thin skull, that victim’s weakness cannot mitigate the seriousness of the crime.

But what if it also works the other way? What if a defendant on trial for sexual crimes has to accept his ‘victim’ as she comes: a strong, determined accuser who knows the legal system, who will not back down until justice is done?

Bri Lee began her first day of work at the Queensland District Court as a bright-eyed judge’s associate. Two years later she was back as the complainant in her own case.

This is the story of Bri’s journey through the Australian legal system; first as the daughter of a policeman, then as a law student, and finally as a judge’s associate in both metropolitan and regional Queensland-where justice can look very different, especially for women. The injustice Bri witnessed, mourned and raged over every day finally forced her to confront her own personal history, one she’d vowed never to tell. And this is how, after years of struggle, she found herself on the other side of the courtroom, telling her story.

Bri Lee has written a fierce and eloquent memoir that addresses both her own reckoning with the past as well as with the stories around her, to speak the truth with wit, empathy and unflinching courage. Eggshell Skull is a haunting appraisal of modern Australia from a new and essential voice.

‘Brutal, brave and utterly compelling . . . I can’t remember a book I devoured with such intensity, nor one that moved me so profoundly’ Rebecca Starford, author of Bad Behaviour and co-founder of Kill Your Darlings

‘Courageous, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful’ Liam Pieper, author of The Toymaker

‘Sensitive and clear-eyed’ Jessica Friedmann, author of Things That Helped

‘A page-turner of a memoir, impossible to put down’ Krissy Kneen, author of An Uncertain Grace.