Sunday, February 15, 2015

Part-time Princess by Pamela DuMond

2 "Uggghh" Stars

 
Back Cover Blurb -
 
Two Princes are in love with her. Too bad she’s an imposter…
Hold tight to your tiara, grab your scepter and be prepared for the New Adult hilarious, modern-day romantic-comedy ride of your life!

Rated PG-13 and mildly R for:

Sexual innuendo.
Hot Guys.
Hot Guys who are Princes.
Flirting.
Romance.
The occasional naughty word.
The occasional naughty royal fantasy.
The occasional naughty deed.
Romance.
Castles.
Ladies-in-Waiting.
Parties!
Cocktails.
A puppy.
Gowns.
Intrigue.
Chocolate.
Champagne.
A Royal Wedding!
Comedy.
Sexiness.
More Romance.
And—a Happily-Ever-After Ending (Just not the way you expected it!)

Lucy Trabbicio’s a down-on-her-luck, young, American, former biker-bar cocktail waitress desperate to find a job. Lady Elizabeth Billingsley hires Lucy to travel to Fredonia, the tiny jewel of a country in the Alps, for ten days ‘tops’ to impersonate her.

Say what? How the heck is that going to happen?

In the mother of all makeovers, Elizabeth’s people teach Lucy how to dress, walk, talk, eat, be coiffed and even get naked like a European Lady.

The goal?

To keep Crown Prince Cristoph Timmel interested in Elizabeth until she finishes her unexpected, pressing personal business in the States.

But fate intervenes… Lucy meets and is wildly attracted to sexy, bad-boy Nick on the oh-so-long flights to Fredonia. Unfortunately for Lucy—Nick and Elizabeth have a hot sexual history, which Nick wants to immediately resume.

Prince Cristoph proposes marriage. What's an imposter girl to do? Elizabeth insists that she’ll make it back home in time for the wedding. Lucy accepts Cristoph’s proposal and is on the fast track to becoming a Princess but continues to fall for the wrong Prince of Fredonia—Nick. When another tiny glitch arises—someone’s trying to kill her.

The only folks helping Lucy are her wild, party hard, take-no-prisoners Ladies-in-Waiting.

When the real Lady Elizabeth decides she’s not marrying Cristoph and never returning to Fredonia, Lucy’s faced with an uncomfortable decision—continue her deception, marry the prince she’s not in love with and live a dream life albeit without Nick, her dream guy? Or tell the truth and return to poverty and oblivion?

A modern day sexy fairy tale with romance, twists and turns, LOL moments, a few tears and an empowering ending.
  
....................
 
I think most girls dream of being a princess when they are little and I am no exception. Though, I am definitely more tomboy than Barbie, I could still be found making mud pies in my backyard, wearing dirtied up jeans, a wrinkled t-shirt, with dirt crusted keds adorning my feet and a cheap, plastic, dollar store tiara placed haphazardly on my head. Even though I eventually grew out of wearing tiaras and referring to all things living as “my subjects”, the wistfulness of being a princess never died, but became buried underneath layers and layers of life, reality and growing up. I mean, do we ever really stop wanting to be a princess though?? Do we ever stop looking for a reason to wear a tiara?? Hell, I can even remember changing my quiet terrifying vampire costume one year, into a “princess” vampire, just so I would wear a tiara with my fangs. So, when I came across this book, the little hidden princess inside of me squealed with delight and excitement and it was with those long ago forgotten memories of me and my dollar store tiaras that I started reading it. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.

Lucy Trabbicio is without a job. With bills piling up and the private health care facility, her mentally unstable uncle is currently residing, threatening to move him to a public facility if payment is not rendered, Lucy is willing to do anything for work, anything short of being an escort that is, but even then, tough times call for tough measures and with deadlines closing in, things look bleak. So when she comes across a job posting that promises a generous income with no “side action” required, she jumps at the opportunity. Little does Lucy know that this job will be the biggest lie of her life and though losing her virtue is not part of the job detail, no one prepared her for the possibility of losing her heart.

The basis of the story is very cute and the idea well received, it was the execution that troubled me the most. I had a hard time following along with the story and got whiplash from how quickly the story would change course. I had to actually go back and re-read a few paragraphs to try and make sense of what I was reading and it happened more often than I like. I did find myself laughing out loud several times while reading this and though some scenes and situations read a little too slap stick for my humor, for the most part I enjoyed the humor throughout the book. I went into this book, fully understanding what I was in store for and I wasn’t expecting to come out of this with the answers to world peace, but some of the plot holes and seemingly pointless narratives and actions were hard to overlook. I found myself on more than a few occasions scratching my head (not in the head lice sort of way, but more lip curled in confusion sort) wondering “what was the point of that?”

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, writing a book is not easy and I have an unending respect for anyone that can do it. I applaud you Ms. DuMond on this novel and wish it much success, unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me. As for recommendations, this is not personally a book that I would recommend to any of my friends, but those readers out there that have young teens, this may be a book for them. It does have sexual references and a few choice words (though very, very tame compared to majority of books on my read shelf), so distribute at your discretion.

Happy Reading, until next time…

I would like to thank NetGalley and Mark My Words Book Publicity for the ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.


No comments:

Post a Comment