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Nell Stark

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10+ Werke 370 Mitglieder 13 Rezensionen

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Werke von Nell Stark

everafter (2009) 66 Exemplare
Homecoming (1615) 63 Exemplare
The Princess Affair (2013) 53 Exemplare
Running With the Wind (2007) 48 Exemplare
nevermore (2010) 38 Exemplare
nightrise (2011) 24 Exemplare
The Princess and the Prix (2015) 22 Exemplare
sunfall (2012) 19 Exemplare
All In (2014) 19 Exemplare
The Princess Deception (2018) 18 Exemplare

Zugehörige Werke

Women of the Dark Streets: Lesbian Paranormal (2012) — Mitwirkender — 25 Exemplare
Best Lesbian Romance 2010 (2009) — Mitwirkender — 17 Exemplare
Fantasy: Untrue Stories of Lesbian Passion (2007) — Mitwirkender — 15 Exemplare
Best Lesbian Romance of the Year, Volume 1 (2015) — Mitwirkender — 7 Exemplare

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Wissenswertes

Rechtmäßiger Name
Lynch, Katie
Geburtstag
20th Century
Geschlecht
female
Nationalität
USA
Wohnorte
Madison, Wisconsin, USA

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Normally, modern royal romance stories are something I wouldn't touch with that proverbial 10 foot pole, but this wasn't bad in spite of that. Fluffy and predictable, very by-the-numbers, but nice enough.
 
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Malaraa | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Apr 26, 2022 |
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

I picked up this book for the princess who crossdresses to pretend to be her twin brother in order to bring him privacy, and the f/f romance was the cherry on top. In a way, I got what I came for: I really enjoyed the scenes where Viola had to navigate talking to his brother's friends and trying to find out what happened without revealing who she was.

Unfortunately, that's about the only part of the book I enjoyed. I wasn't really invested in the love interest, and frankly, the romance arc of the book was so similar to the last three contemporary f/f romances I read that I actually had to check if I've read something by this author before (the answer is no). This made the conflicts and the resolution predictable and not very fascinating.

I also found it jarring that Duke, a random journalist who has never before seen either of the twins up close and (as she admits) barely did her research, immediately had suspicions about Viola impersonating Sebastian at the very first speech. Sure, she starts looking for more clues before she can be certain, but given that not even Sebastian's friends (who knew about his addiction and health) were suspicious so fast, it just didn't feel believable to me.
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runtimeregan | Jun 12, 2019 |
My second book by Stark, and second in this series.

I was both eager and somewhat hesitant to read this book. I had liked the first book I had read, despite some of the negative reviews I had read, and everything about the second one seemed to make it something that would interest me. Some of the initial reviews of this specific book here were quite negative. Then I started to see some positive ones, but all these reviews were coming in while the book was still not available to me. So by the time the book actually came out, I still took . . . hmm, almost three months to try it. Wait, three months? I didn’t have access to it in November. Hmm. Maybe I did? Bah, whatever, not important.

The book features Princess Pommelina Alix Canella of Monaco, the middle child, and Thalia d’Angelis, a race car driver of mixed US and UK birth. Despite being a princess of Monaco, Alix cares nothing for the Monaco Grand Prix, motorsports, and potentially sports in general (I forget if this attitude extended to other sports; Alix gets called Pomme, Pommelina, and Alix in the book, she prefers Alix). Instead she is more concerned for helping others, like women in Africa. When that specific bit of information came to light, I was vaguely disappointed in one specific way – I don’t particularly like reading about people of privilege who are quite disdainful of their own privilege and/or if not disdainful, then they are ashamed of it and wish to do everything they can to work tirelessly for others. It is somewhat tiring to read a book with such a character. Luckily, while Alix does have a certain amount of . . . maybe not shame, but something approaching that, and while she does have desire to help others, she isn’t the annoying/tiring type. She is the bookish middle child who has a certain amount of introversion and prefers not to be in crowds but can ‘turn it on’ when she has to (by turn it on – be the good princess/hostess/etc.).

In an effort to figure out how to go about setting up a foundation, Alix takes an opportunity presented to her to go be the Monaco representative at a royal wedding in England. The wedding of Princess Sasha and Kerry Donovan – the two lead characters from the prior book. She takes the opportunity because she wishes to talk with the Princess of Wales, who set up a foundation of her own (Ashleigh – the wife of Sasha’s brother Arthur). She does make a connection, and this does become a theme that continues throughout the book. Well, not the connection specifically to Ashleigh, but the setting up and then opening a foundation. At the same event, Alix meets Thalia. Up to this moment Alix was, for the most part, asexual. As in, didn’t care about sex, developing a sex life, or romance in general. Thalia, on the other hand, well, we will get to Thalia.

I’m not sure why I started with Alix first, since Thalia’s point of view opens the book. No matter.

Thalia D’Angelis is an accomplished race car driver who dominates the (a?) lower Formula One like race circuit – GB2 I think she kept calling it. She’s put up with the male misogynistic nature of the sport for several years, but finally breaks after winning the first race of the season and gets asked, yet again, how she feels about her teammate, her lesser teammate (and everyone is lesser, since Thalia had been last year’s champion) got promoted over her to the Formula One Ferrari team. She’s 26. She’s a proven champion. She bit her lips and ‘took’ everyone’s advice to ‘be patient’, while the men around her were pushed to stretch and go for their goals. But, while being interviewed after the race, she lets loose about her real thoughts.

Thalia returns to her home in London assuming that she’s now out of a job, and probably blackballed from racing. Picks up a woman to play with, and goes back to her place. Yeah, I said I’d get to Thalia – she doesn’t believe in relationships, at least not deep relationships. She’s more of a causal type, not necessarily one and done, but close to that. Well, while humping, literally in the middle of ‘sexing up’ a hot young woman, Thalia phone rings. She ignores it but eventually takes it after the third interruption. A Formula One team wants to hire her. So, her life isn’t actually over, and instead, her dream is about to become true.

Somewhere in between winning the first race in that under-circuit, getting hired by a Formula One team, and the first Formula One race, Thalia attends a wedding. The one I already mentioned above. While there she spots Alix. Well, they spot each other. At the wedding itself, Thalia is gazing about, people watching. Spots a woman pop in starring up. Then walking into the ‘royal’ only part of the church, then realizes that she was watching a royal, a princess. Later, at the reception/after party/whatever they called it; Alix is at her table, by herself, while everyone else dances. She people watches. Thalia suddenly is next to her, and they talk, briefly. Then some guy named, I think, Sebastian shows up and drapes himself over Alix. Alix doesn’t want anything to do with Sebastian but can’t get him to leave her alone. Sebastian tells her they will dance, and then leaves to take a call. Thalia, somehow or another, decides to teach Alix how to dance. Right there and then. I’ve mentioned all of this to get to this part – the fact that Alix and Thalia meet, interact, and some connection develops. Plus, this leads Thalia to invite Alix to watch the Formula One race, since Lady [insert name here – the wife of the guy who owns Thalia’s Formula One team] will be there and is big into charity work.

So, that’s the first part of the book. Thalia and Alix have a vaguely friend/acquaintance/what-the-heck-are-we thing going on. Thalia races. Alix watches, while mostly attempting to set up her foundation. Alix has feelings she didn’t expect to have. Ones she has certain issues with. She, being a scientist, knows that humans are not the only species that have homosexual relationships, but she is from one of the last bastions of conservativism in Europe. And while she doesn’t believe in the same things her parents do, regarding religion/sexual orientation/etc., she still spends most of the book trying to figure out if she is homophobic, and whether or not some of the feelings she is having might have some connection to that. So you have that ‘blocking/slowing’ things on one side of the potential relationship; while you have someone who can’t allow themselves to be in a deeper, less than shallow relationship on the other – one with a bad reputation splashed across the newspapers.

I’ve read many sports books in my time. They tend to go one of three ways. One – one of the people involved in the book, most of the time the main character, is an athlete in some sport. While the book might include aspects of that part of the character’s life, most of the action takes place outside the actual ‘field/pitch/track/etc.’ It’s just that person’s job. Two – see above, stop at ‘most of the action’, change to ‘most of the action takes place on the field . . .’ Three – one of the main characters is an athlete or an ex athlete. The book has nothing to do with that aspect of their lives, for the most part, but with their . . . amazing amateur investigative skills (I’ve read a lot of mysteries in my day). The difference between one and three mostly deals with the specific character – the character in one is an active professional; the one in the third ‘way’, mostly, is an ex-professional athlete. This book goes a way I haven’t really seen before. I don’t mean that it is super original, for all I know it is/or isn’t. No, it’s the part where there are more than one point of view, while everything I’ve read for 1-3 above have mostly only one point of view. So this is a mixture of one and two. There is extensive action that takes place outside the sport, and a lot of action in the sport.

That was very wordy. Let me try again. Sports books go two ways. They have detailed descriptions of the sport (the game/race/match/etc.), or they don’t. This book includes detailed descriptions, though not every race has the same level of detail. Some occur ‘off the page’. None follow a complete race from start to finish; that would probably add about a thousand pages. The race activity was actually quite thrilling, exciting to read. I really felt like I was inside the car. Oh, right, I was going to mention this ‘realness’ elsewhere. So, yes, the races felt real.

As do the characters. I had the strong feeling that Alix and Thalia were real. And I was reading about full-bodied three dimensional people. They are the focus, so they felt the most real,

So, long and short, I loved the book. You do not have to have read the prior book to read this one, nor should you refrain from reading the prior book if you skipped right to this one. The characters from the prior book pop up in this one, but their trials and tribulations are not discussed, at least not in detail, in this book. So you won’t be ‘spoiled’, again for the most part if you read the second before the first.

Hmm, for the purposes of the prior paragraph, I just reread my review for the first book. I’d forgotten certain issues I had had, ones that I was able to get past, somewhat easily, but which were there. I mention because some of those issues actually pop up in this one. And I didn’t even have a single problem with them. Mostly because of the nature of the people involved in this book. I’m being vague. Mostly because I realize that if I am specific, then I might actually fall into accidentally spoiling the first book. So I’ll refrain. And depart.

January 6 2016
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Lexxi | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 26, 2016 |
And now the final book in the series has been read and completed. Four books by Nell Stark and Trinity Tam. Two for Nell Stark by herself.

This book picks up before the prior one even ends. The prior book ended with a gunshot. This one picks up before that gun was fired. This book opens during the planning stages for a raid that will involve the shifter and vampire alliance against Balthasar Brenner’s group. (A raid that the prior book ended on).

The first 42% follows the point of view of Alexa, the werepanther. After which the book follows Valentine, the vampire. Most of the people from the prior book return, including Solana, Helen, Malcolm, Constantine, Olivia, Karma, both Brenners (Balthasar and his son Sebastian), and of course Alexa and Valentine. New people popped up in this one, but no new major character (well, there’s Tian, but her appearance is like a film that has, say, Sean Connery pop up in an Admirals uniform for three seconds to say something deeply meaningful in a film before poofing. Tian’s role was about on par with that, important, but cameo worthy). Both Olivia had Solana had their largest roles in the prior book, appeared in this one but slightly more than cameos.

The series and the long running fight between Balthasar Brenner against basically everyone has concluded. It was an enjoyable run while it lasted. But now it’s time for something else to occupy the brain.

April 11 2016
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Lexxi | Jun 26, 2016 |

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Werke
10
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4
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370
Beliebtheit
#65,128
Bewertung
½ 3.7
Rezensionen
13
ISBNs
21

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