Crown Jewel

4 stars. Megan Derr's books are an auto-buy for me. She writes the most amazing worlds and characters you just fall in love with. This one was no exception. :)

My rating- C- This book had a good idea and some great places bit overall was not a very good book in my opinion. It is my first time reading Fern Michaels and if a friend had not recommended her I probably would never try another one of her books.

What I liked- There were a few fun and memorable characters, particularly the journalist Grace. There were also some humorous scenes that I appreciated. The plot was interesting and the mystery had the potential to be a good one. Just one small spoiler here: Ricky finds out Philip is adopted and sets off to find Philip’s bio parents. It turns out his parents are two of the most powerful/influential people in the country.

What I didn’t like- This book had a slow start. There were many places show more in the book that dragged. I felt like it was a roller coaster ride. There would be a while where I would be very bored and then ten things would happen all at once. Then bored again. This book also lasted much longer then it needed to. I felt like the author extended the ending unnecessarily and that the book could have been at least a chapter shorter and still felt finished.

Some of the characters were not very well developed in the book. And, there are several romances in the book that I didn’t feel were very developed either. For instance, near the beginning of the book we find out Ricky has always had a thing for his brother’s widow, Roxy. There is a scene where he invites her to run his business and they have a small confrontation. This scene had potential. It got me interested in their budding romance. And then, there was a six months time skip and suddenly Ricky and Roxy are a thing and that is pretty much that.

As a reader I felt let down. As a writer, my opinion is that this story had a lot of potential but should have been told differently. show less

Audio version. Nothing special.