Category / Ballantine Books

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Just Friends by Robyn Sisman

Format: E-bookjustfriends.jpg
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Hero: Jack Madison
Heroine: Freya Penrose
Sensuality: 2
Date of Publication:  July 30, 2002
Started On: January 12, 2010
Finished On: January 16, 2010

This is the type of book that should be made into a movie. I bet that all those who love a good romantic comedy would adore the story of Jack and Freya.

Freya is a British woman who works in New York at a trendy art dealer shop scouting new talent now and then. Jack Madison is an author who has hit the writer’s block ever since the release of his debut novel which hit the bestselling list. Its been 5 years since he has started on his second novel and he doesn’t seem to  be getting any constructive work done on the novel. Coming from a rich family from Texas, Jack lives on a monthly allowance set aside by his father together with the money he earns from teaching creative writing classes as well as writing reviews of books for newspapers.

Freya and Jack first met each other around the time that they both ventured into living in New York. Each had their own dreams to fulfill and Freya being older than Jack had stuck to being friends given the flambouyant and playboy lifestyle that Jack seems to prefer.

Now in her mid-thirties, Freya seems to be going on the right path with her career on the right course and her live-in boyfriend of five months about to propose to her. Life couldn’t get any better. That is until, instead of the proposal that Freya was both dreading and kind of hoping for with an inevitability, Freya’s boyfriend Micheal, a lawyer who is as serious as Freya is a ball of energy, breaks off their relationship.

Now with no place to live, Freya ends up crashing at Jack’s place regardless of the warnings Cat, her best friend who is a divorce lawyer who has sworn off men seems to dish out. Contrary to the warnings of Cat, proximity doesn’t make Jack and Freya tumble head over heels in love with each other or make Jack pounce on her as a cat would do for a good slab of meat but rather create a situation of animosity between the two friends.

Meanwhile, Cat meets Micheal and these two click from the moment they lay eyes on each other, a situation that Freya is totally unaware of. Freya is busy trying to find someone who would accompany her as her better half to the wedding of her step sister Tash, someone with whom Freya had always had a turbulent relationship with.

In the end, Jack is the one who saves the day and these two head off to Europe, to a place so different from the busy and heady life of New York, and find themselves confronting feelings that they have long since buried before. However, the age factor together with Jack’s betrayal with Tash breaks these two apart till Jack and Freya both do a lot of growing up on their own and finally accept the love they have for each other.

This book is a highly enjoyable chic flick that all those who love a good romantic comedy would no doubt fall in love with.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | AbeBooks | Half.com

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Kiss Me While I Sleep by Linda Howard

Format: Paperbackkissmewhileisleep
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Series: John Medina, Book 3
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Hero: Lucas Swain
Heroine: Lily Mansfield
Date of Publication: April 26, 2005
Started On: December 5, 2009
Finished On: December 7, 2009

Lily Mansfield is a woman hell bent on vengeance & revenge against the powerful Nervi organization operated in Paris. Seeking justice for the assassination of her close friends Tina and Averill (both of whom had previously being contract killers themselves) and their adopted daughter Zia who had actually been found abandoned and starving to death, by Lily on one of her jobs to Croatia. Since Lily’s life as a hired killer didn’t provide the most stable environment to raise a little girl, Lily had let her friends adopt Zia, and the three of them had held Zia dearer to them than anything else.

Lily kills Salvatore Nervi, the head of the Nervi organization nearly killing herself in the process and goes into hiding in the one place Salvatore’s son Rodrigo Nervi wouldn’t think of looking for her. But as most powerful organizations in the world, the Nervi organization has their hands in all the important agencies of the world with pretty strong political ties with the richest governments in the world, which makes it quite easy to identify the woman who had deceived Rodrigo’s father and ultimately led to his demise.

The CIA dispatches their agent Lucas Swain to track Lily down and bring her down. With Rodrigo hot on Lily’s trail as well, Lucas befriends Lily & ultimately finds himself intrigued on what had actually lured Lily’s friends Tina and Averill out of their retirement into bombing one of Nervi’s laboratories, which had resulted in the murder of the whole family. Unearthing the secret that the Nervi organization was in fact producing a vaccine to combat a strain of the avian influenza virus that has the capability of human-to-human transmission, whilst mass producing the strain of the virus itself to unleash on the world to reap the benefits in millions of dollars, being the only organization having a vaccine at hand.

Things get interesting when Lily and Swain are hired by the same anonymous person who lured Averill and Tina for the initial attack on the laboratory, to destroy the lab and the scientist who is engineering the virus & the vaccine once and for all. As most of the novels by  this author, this too delivers a superb tale with a splendid cast of characters, with the right mix of intrigue, mystery, passion, love and family politics with a surprising twist at the end of the tale.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Half.com | BooksOnBoard

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