Review: She's Gone Country by Jane Porter

Shey Darcy, a 39-year-old former top model for Vogue and Sports Illustrated led a charmed life in New York City with a handsome photographer husband until the day he announced he'd fallen in love with someone else. Left to pick up the pieces of her once happy world, Shey decides to move back home to Texas with her three teenage sons. Life on the family ranch, however, brings with it a whole new host of dramas starting with differences of opinion with her staunch Southern Baptist mother, her rugged but overprotective brothers, and daily battles with her three sons who are also struggling to find themselves. Add to the mix Shey's ex-crush, Dane Kelly, a national bull riding champ and she's got her hands full. It doesn't take long before Shey realizes that in order to reinvent herself, she must let go of an uncertain future and a broken past, to find happiness—and maybe love—in the present. GOODREADS

Easy by Tammara Webber

A girl who believes trust can be misplaced, promises are made to be broken, and loyalty is an illusion. A boy who believes truth is relative, lies can mask unbearable pain, and guilt is eternal. Will what they find in each other validate their conclusions, or disprove them all?

When Jacqueline follows her longtime boyfriend to the college of his choice, the last thing she expects is a breakup two months into sophomore year. After two weeks in shock, she wakes up to her new reality: she's single, attending a state university instead of a music conservatory, ignored by her former circle of friends, and failing a class for the first time in her life.

Leaving a party alone, Jacqueline is assaulted by her ex's frat brother. Rescued by a stranger who seems to be in the right place at the right time, she wants nothing more than to forget the attack and that night--but her savior, Lucas, sits on the back row of her econ class, sketching in a notebook and staring at her. Her friends nominate him to be the perfect rebound.

When her attacker turns stalker, Jacqueline has a choice: crumple in defeat or learn to fight back. Lucas remains protective, but he's hiding secrets of his own. Suddenly appearances are everything, and knowing who to trust is anything but easy.

(Mature Young Adult/ New Adult)GOODREADS

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 The reason I picked this book up. 1. the cover, 2. I'm girl and I occasional love a mushy-romantic-predictable-dramatic love story. 3. The "mature young adult/new adult " tag got my attention as well.

The book starts off when Jackie leaves a party and almost gets raped and she's then rescued by the guy, Lucas. This is very predictable: guy saves girl, they fall in love. Yes, it is  mushy and I'd have initially given it a 3. But the book doesn't overly surround the romance it also addresses the college situation and life. Jackie almost got raped and didn't report it . Later on the potential rapist rapes another girl. Jackie didn't tell her friends because she thought  they wouldn't believe her. She later does and her best friend/room mate turns out to be really supportive , they take defense classes provided at the college.

The heroine is likable and at first a bit annoying.

 ""The whole thing was a competition to see who could get how far, and I could never figure out if there was more luck or skill involved, or some unknowable combination of the two. People rarely said what they thought, or revealed how they felt. No one was honest""

These are her thoughts on dating. I agree you like a guy, so you  don't tell him you like him and pretend you're interested in someone else or play some other game. come on!  Although she plays the stupid game she redeems herself and her character becomes likable and normal .

The there's Lucas, the hero. Pierced and tattooed Lucas. Lucas has a traumatic past and carries this guilt around. He's a great hero in the story. and he can cook!  too good to be true!

Lucas/Landon frustration!

In the book Jackie misses out on 2 weeks of economics class and has to make up for it. So her professor makes her get a tutor so she can get up to date on the material she missed. She has a busy schedule so she and the tutor, Landon correspond through e-mail. She likes Landon too,they kind of flirt a bit. It reminded me of that movie with Tom Hanks and that chick (you've got mail?). This was new for me: to read these correspondences between the characters (a new  kind of dialogue between them). It was also annoying because she likes Lucas but was also curious about Landon. It was so annoying I stopped to go look for spoilers to make sure it was one person (becauseI hate the triangle thing!).

This is a refreshing book to read and an easy one. It (slightly ) reflects the way young men and women socialize ( text ting/e-mailing) and also the hazards of college live for girls. So it's not just a mushy romantic love story and that's what gives it the 4/5.

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Sleepin with Fear ( A Bishop/ Special Crimes Unit Novel #9 ) by Kay Hooper

New York Times bestselling author Kay Hooper returns with a relentless thriller that brings her readers face-to-face with fear itself. In this terrifying new novel, a psychic special agent finds herself caught up in a tangled web of secrets, lies . . . and evil.Riley Crane woke up fully dressed, a gun under her pillow, and covered in blood. Even more frightening, she didn’t remember what happened the night before. In fact, she barely remembered the previous three weeks.An ex—army officer, now a federal agent assigned to the Special Crimes Unit, Riley was a chameleon–a clairvoyant who could blend in with her surroundings, be anyone or anything she chose to be. The SCU’s expert on the occult, she’d been sent to the beachfront cottage on Opal Island by her enigmatic chief, Noah Bishop, to investigate reports of dangerous occult activity. But that was three weeks ago. Now she’s awoken to discover that she’s got a sexy new man in her life and an unreliable memory, and that the clairvoyant abilities she’s always depended on to protect her are MIA. Worse yet, with SCU resources stretched thinner than ever before, Riley is alone and without backup, feeling her way through a deadly game of blindman’s buff, where no one around her is quite who or what they seem. And a bizarre murder is only the first jarring reminder of how high the stakes really are.Bishop wants Riley off the case. So does powerful local D.A. Ash Prescott. Both her old retired army buddy Gordon Skinner and Sheriff Jake Ballard believe she can catch a vicious killer. But one of these four men knows exactly what’s going on in this coastal community, and that’s knowledge Riley desperately needs. For what Riley can’t remember is more than enough to cost her her life. This time evil isn’t just closer than she thinks–it’s already there.
From the Hardcover edition.GOODREADS

This is a book I picked up at the library and I have to say it was quite a ride. It's really well written and the characters are interesting and funny. Maybe a bit cliche and predictable. The premise of the story was worked out really well. I mean Riley wakes up covered in blood and has no memory of the past 3 weeks. One of her job strategies is she can pretend to be anybody so she pretends she's the same .

Riley has no memory of the 3 weeks and on the  same day she wakes up a body is discovered and she also finds out she's been sleeping with the local D.A. Again she has no memory about any of this. Riley is also a psychic, and her abilities have gone AWOL . Riley is a likable character ,she's independent and likes working alone. If there's a fight she'd go in alone, because she thinks it's her duty not to put the people she cares about in danger.

The murder is surrounded by an occult theme in the book. Riley specializes in the occult so that's why she was brought in. Ash is described as not quite handsome but attractive in a butch way. He's too good to be true for the romance part of this book, Ash is too good to be true. I mean he's  like the Beast and he can cook and is well read, too damn good to be true! Then there's Jake, the Sheriff (with a jock complex). He's character is good for some comic affect.

The mystery: like all mystery novels you try to figure out who the bad guy is. Riley is on this beach island and when the villain is revealed It wasn't really that shocking. The list of suspects was short and obvious. You could easily speculate who it would be and then one by one (at the end of the book) rule them out.

Unfortunately my library only has one other book from this series ,so I can't really get into it. Although it is a fun book to read.


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