The Intrigue by L. S. Paul.

Alexa and Elizabeth are best friends living in London and they both are looking for love. Alexa’s family is a little secretive and the author tries to draw the reader into the intrigue that Elizabeth is meeting for her first time.

This novel leads the reader up the garden path, what mystery does the Fitzpatrick family hold, which shady organisation does Elijah lead and will the girls find love? The title of The Intrigue gives the reader hope but as I read through this book, it became a bore.

The pace of The Intrigue is slow yet character development is okay. However, I did not develop an empathy for any of the characters. Money was coming out of their ears, with Elijah showering Elizabeth with expensive gifts and flashy dates. He even bought her a Jaguar car for drives into the countryside, leaving her BMW for city use! Joe fancied Alexa so took her on as a nanny at £40 an hour! All the characters lead  very wealthy and top of their field lives.

Relationships develop between the characters and sex is hinted at but nothing to offend your grandmother who would have fallen asleep with this POOR story. The plot is poor and this book does not fit into a genre. It is not a romance, a conspiracy or a mystery and certainly NOT a thriller. The ending was even more of a drawn-out let down that was unrealistic for modern day London.

No intrigue, it’s just a bore, so I will vote this bad novel the minimum score of 1 star and suggest you AVOID this sorry tale.

The Intrigue is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

College Dropout Jetta by R. A. Ravenhill.

This eBook contains images of artistic nudity featuring just one model called Jetta. There are over 200 pictures of Jetta who only has the one outfit of a black dress, some black beads and a pair of high heeled shoes. She has no other clothes or toys to play with and all the pictures have no background and are shot against a blank canvas.

The pictures are posed in a studio and show the potential of the model and photographer. These are faultless images and are true professional shots. It is good that these images are not photoshopped and at location 21 you can clearly see that Jetta wears a teeth brace. She has a nice navel piercing and at location 123 you get a lovely shot of her clitoral hood piercing too as her pubic hair is shaved. Her best photo is at location 198 but in no photo does she take of her high heeled shoes, which is a shame!

This eBook is okay as a portfolio to promote the model and photographer but is not good as a book to view. It shows promise but not as a book to buy. There are no words in this book, just pictures, so the potential to inform the reader about the model and photographer is lost. Surely there could be some copy written to add interest and make the most of the images. This is a POOR book to view and you can get a better experience from viewing the blog on Tumblr, so I will only vote it 2 stars.

College Dropout Jetta is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was published in 2015.

Her wrong side by Mark Edwards.

Katrina, 28 has a top job, a company car, a house, proud parents and a partner Jae Lee who is 30 years old. Katrina is an attractive, stunning and successful woman but Jae Lee is a charmer and when he bumps into Carla, a waitress with attitude, he desires to develop a relationship with her.

This novella is about the grass appearing greener on the other side. There are three main characters in this story, Katrina the trophy girlfriend, Jae Lee the cheating womaniser and Carla the flavour of the month. You feel sorry for Katrina, hate for Jae Lee and indifferent to Carla caught in the crossfire.

But Jae Lee gets on the wrong side of Carla as this story unfolds. As you read this book, the author Mark Edwards gets on your wrong side too! I have no empathy for Jae Lee as I can’t stand cheating partners. The depiction of Katrina is sickly sweet and glamorous, so I do not warm to her. Carla’s personality is not explored fully and you only get a shallow impression of her. Mark’s writing style is weak and only worthy of a woman’s throw away magazine. To top it all off, this book has not been proof read and it is annoying having to work out the script errors.

Her wrong side is not an original story and is a disappointing read. The ending is overdramatic and unrealistic. I got no pleasure from reading this sad little tale and felt my time was wasted. I suggest you do not bother to download a copy of this very poor novella which got on the wrong side of me. There is nothing I can recommend about this book, so I will vote it the minimum score of 1 star.

Her wrong side is available as an Amazon KIndle eBook and was written in 2013.

Goodbye, Dearest Holly - Ten Years On by Kevin Wells.

On the 4th August 2002, Holly Wells and her friend Jessica Chapman disappeared from her home in Red House Gardens in Soham. In 2005 her father Kevin Wells published a book in memory of his daughter Holly and how he coped with her murder, the police investigations, the trial and the media. His book was updated with an additional chapter in 2012 to give his perspective on the 10 years following the death of Holly.

I am pleased that Kevin has updated his book as it makes for a fascinating read. I got an awful lot from reading this book because Kevin is very open and you get the full picture of how he coped with the disappearance and murder of his daughter Holly. The level of detail Kevin gives the reader is tremendous and the whole story is told strictly according to the timeline. There are no flashbacks in this book, which is one of my pet hates in regular crime thriller novels. Yet this is not a novel, it is a true story and is very raw. Kevin writes so clearly and I got so involved with his book that I had to consciously remember that this was not a novel but a true story.

With each chapter I learned more and more in the same way that Kevin did as everything was new and he did not know what was around the corner.

Goodbye Holly is a memorable book to read, I learned a lot about things that were not covered in the newspaper reports at the time. Kevin gives you the inside story which in places made me cry. Kevin is not a professional author, he is a window cleaner yet his writing quality is very high indeed and has a similar style to the popular British crime thriller author Peter James. Like in Peter’s novels, Goodbye Holly has lots of police procedure to inform the reader about the inner workings of the judicial system plus some paranormal experiences to make you wonder.

Throughout this book, Kevin keeps his perspective on things. He is not alone in his grief and misfortune because other parents who have lost a child contact him. Kevin tells the reader how his loss fits into the great scheme of things and how much genuine support he has received from the public. Goodbye Holly is a real eye opener and at the end I understood fully just what Kevin has gone through. I got so much out of this book which creates a valuable historical record of a crime that captured the hearts of our nation. Kevin’s book is so good and created such an impression upon  me that I will vote it the top score of 5 stars. Goodbye Holly draws a line under the death of Holly and thankfully Kevin and Nicola’s marriage survived the trauma unlike the failed marriages of 98 per cent of couples who lose a child through murder.

Goodbye, Dearest Holly is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was published in 2012.