The Master by Kresley Cole
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: February 2015

 

Catarina Marin needs money now. Enough money to start again on the other side of the country. A random sighting of her estranged husband has her on edge and ready to run. Forced to live under the radar and deal with aplenty of people willing to exploit her, she decides to escort to make some quick cash. Her first "client" is a “drop dead gorgeous” Russian billionaire with mafiya connections. The one problem is she is not the girl he requested from the agency. She doesn't even work for the agency and fulfilled her friend's booking.

Cat only has the most basic idea about escorting and would really be doing anything other than catering to snotty rich dude. Max did not get the woman he booked but decides to go outside his comfort zone.  When Max thinks Cat is trying to trap him, he goes full mafiya on her. Now that she has a husband hunting her and a billionaire mad at her, we get a little more of Cat's back story and see how she ended up in her current situation.  We also learn more about Max and his family and why he reacts to her the way he does.  Gradually, we see them growing on each other and realizing that they have feelings for each other.

The Master was an enjoyable read. It gets sexually explicit very fast. Even though the book is called The Master, it isn't really any bondage or BDSM - basically it's not a 50 shades clone.  Compared to the pacing of the rest of the book, the ending seemed a little rushed. Granted the main male character being a billionaire helped the action along as he would have money to get all the loose ends tied up quickly.

Just a note, this is actually the second book in The Game Maker series and has spoilers of the first book in the series. You might want to read the first book to avoid being spoiled and have a full scope of the series.  Although based on the snippet in the book, the first book seems like a pretty good story of its own.

This review copy was provided by the publisher.

Review: Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel by Maria Semple
Publisher: Little, Brown, & Co.
Publication Date: August 14, 2012

Aloof and disinterested in socializing, Bernadette Fox is the object of morbid curiosity from her neighbors and the parents at her daughter's school.  Everything gives her a tizzy fit (cold Seattle people, weird design of intersections in Seattle, Idaho drivers, Canadians, etc.) causing trips outside her house to be major ordeal.  Trying to avoid human interactions and the ensuing anxiety leads Bernadette to basically hand over her life to her secret virtual assistant Manjula in India.

Bernadette's husband Elgin Branch works at Microsoft and is the lead on a major project. He is totally absorbed in the Microsoft culture to the detriment of his relationships with his wife and daughter. Her daughter Bee (short for Balakrishna) is 14 years old and small for her age.  They represent the bulk of her non-Manjula communications.  Despite her anxiety issues and irritability, she is a great mom to Bee.  When Bee requests a trip to Antarctica as a reward for excellent grades, Bernadette agrees to having a family vacation.

Everything starts to go to pot when a neighbor accuses Bernadette of running over her foot.  Removing her blackberry bushes at the same neighbors request just results in a fundraiser ruining mudslide.  Add in some alleged shadiness on the part of Manjula and Bernadette starts to slip even further.  Being recognized by a passerby is the icing on the cake.  Elgin, unaware of all the troubles Bernadette is dealing with, starts to fear for her metal health after several strange incidents.  When he holds an intervention, Bernadette bolts. 

Using the accumulated documents, Bee discovers Bernadette's whereabouts and we finally get to here from the lady herself. Bernadette Fox was a innovative designer; she was incorporating environmentally friendly building techniques before they were a thing.  She is a legend in architectural circles for building The Twenty Mile House plan free and entirely from materials sourced from both the sites and locally.  After the incident, Bernadette runs to Seattle and avoids any mention of the Twenty Mile House.  Elgin thinks once Bee is born that all is past but once he starts paying attention he sees her massive issues for the first time.  Despite Bernadette's issues, her help and support allowed him to be the Microsoft absorbed man he was.

Where'd You Go Bernadette is a great novel.  I totally like this book almost 100%.  The characters were well written and crafted with care- even some of the side plots that seemed superfluous were integrated with the rest of the plot. I was so engrossed: it was totally annoying to have to take breaks for work, dinner, socializing, etc. Maria Semple wrote for one of my favorite shows Arrested Development and now one of my favorite books this year. 


**This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.**