by: Claire Boston
Release Date: Apr. 23/15 - Couple more days!
Publisher: Momentum
Source: E-ARC received from publisher
Add All That Sparkles to your Goodreads lists here.
Synopsis (and cover image) courtesy of Goodreads:
Imogen Fontaine is living every girl’s dream.
She is a fashion designer for her family’s haute couture label, lives in a mansion, has a great circle of friends and is the apple of her father’s eye. Everything is perfect.
Until the day that Christian, the boy at the center of her childhood heartbreak, walks back into her life.
From there her life starts to unravel, as long-kept secrets are revealed. Imogen learns that her past was built on lies and betrayal, shattering the illusion of her perfect existence. She must seek out the truth if she has any hope of forging a new path for herself and discovering true freedom.
But can she convince Christian that there is a place for him in her new life?
Pre-order your copy: Amazon
My Thoughts:
Sweet, light-hearted romance series!
Imogen is a likeable character, while I can't personally relate to her high-class/fashion upbringing, I did enjoy the fact that she wasn't a spoiled princess, but a down to earth, hard-worker. Although I can definitely relate to her romantic side in building a certain hero figure on a pedestal only to feel let down or to have them fall short. She's spent her life depending on her father in all essential matters (shelter, income, work etc.) but now she's finally ready to branch out on her own. She's striving for her independence. All That Sparkles is told from the dual, third-person-perspectives of Imogen and Chris, but I much preferred reading from Imogen's, in fact, I think Boston gives majority of the narration to her.
That's not to say that I don't like Chris, because I definitely do. I just would have preferred to have a certain air of mystery in what he was thinking in some scenes, which would allow me to question why he chose to behave the way he did. While I thought Chris was a complete jerk at the beginning of the book, I do understand his stand-offishness where Imogen and her family are concerned. Once they got the air cleared between the two of them though, I enjoyed how sweet and kind he was to Imogen, and I definitely liked the fact that he is tall! Haha.
All That Sparkles is the second instalment in the Texan Quartet series but reads as a stand-alone- Boston does a great job of summarizing events of book one so that I never felt lost or confused by the relationships of characters. In fact, I actually would love to read book #1 for pure pleasure- who doesn't love a Rock n' Roll love story?!
Great ending, while a bit predictable, I found it very realistic and a great way to keep in line with Imogen's new found independence!
I recommend this title to readers looking for a sweet romance that's very light on the heat level.
Happy Reading!!!
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| Author photo & bio taken from Goodreads |
Claire Boston was a voracious reader as a child, devouring anything by Enid Blyton as well as series such as Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, The Baby-sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. Then one school holidays when she'd run out of books to read her mother handed her 'Hot Ice' by Nora Roberts and Claire instantly fell in love with romance novels.
The love of reading soon turned to a love of writing and she struggled to keep within the 1500 word limit set by her teachers for her creative writing assignments. When she finally decided to become serious about her stories she joined Romance Writers of Australia, found her wonderful critique group and hasn't looked back.
When Claire's not reading or writing she can be found in the garden attempting to grow vegetables, or racing around a vintage motocross track. If she can convince anyone to play with her, she also enjoys cards and board games.
Claire lives in Western Australia, just south of Perth with her husband, who loves even her most annoying quirks, and her two grubby, but adorable Australian bulldogs.
Connect with Claire: Author website | Goodreads | Twitter
Author Guest Post:
Why
I love romance series
I adore romance series. I mean really,
what’s not to love? Let me count the ways:
- You get to follow your favourite couples for longer
- By book 2 you’re familiar with the setting and characters so you get to dive straight in
- If all the books are out, you can have a marathon reading session and devour them all at once and not have to think about what to read next
- It’s like having your own family
I was first introduced to the concept of
romance series reading Nora Roberts. My mum handed me my first Nora at the age
of eleven and I’ve been hooked ever since. Two of my early favourites were the
Donovan Legacy and The MacGregors series. Being able to stay in that world for
that bit longer was a wonderful thing. Since then there have been too many Nora
series to count, but they all give me that warm, tingly feeling of being part
of the family while reading them.
Given this love, it may surprise you to
hear that I didn’t originally intend to make What Goes on Tour part of a series.
My only aim was to write down the rock star story that kept going around and
around in my head. When I finally finished it, I was reluctant to leave Libby,
Adrian and Kate behind. So it made sense to write a sequel. The story I pitched
to my publisher seemed perfect and so I got to continue living in the world I
had created for that bit longer and All that Sparkles is the result.
But when that was complete, it just didn’t
seem fair that George and Piper (two secondary characters) didn’t get a story
of their own. They weren’t right for each other, but I knew there was someone
out there for each of them. Luckily my publisher was on board and was willing
to do The Texan Quartet.
The awful thing is, I’m actually just
finishing the edits of book 4, Into The Fire and I’m again finding myself sad
to leave everyone behind. Though, now that I think about it, there are
characters who were mentioned in All That Sparkles that could be part of a
spin-off series – who knows? J What I do know is that I love writing romance series as much as I
love reading them.
What’s your favourite romance series?
Special thanks to Momentum for allowing me to participate in this tour!
