April Stars

A Year in Paradise, Book 4

De: Hildred Billings

Narrado por: Shoshannah Kramer

Welcome to Paradise Valley, where the locals thrive on the rural landscape, the quirky Oregonian living, and the history of the lesbian commune that founded it.

Mixing small-town attitudes with lesbian dating? Sounds like another day in Paradise Valley.

Hollywood B-list actress Fleur Rosé desperately needs a break from her hectic schedule. When she sees her chance to make a break for it, she drives as far as Paradise Valley, with the media (and her manager) hot on her heels.

Cue Jalen Stonehill, stage right. One of the county’s busiest plumbers happens to be in the right place at the right time when she crosses Fleur’s path. Jalen gets sucked right into her glitzy world of tabloid fodder and social media wannabes. All Jalen wanted was a hot dog for lunch. Instead, she gets a famous girlfriend!

Paradise Valley is about to get its first real whiff of fame when Hollywood shows up at their doorstep, ready to explain Fleur’s presence in their very gay town. It's a good thing her manager has a story ready. All they need is Jalen’s cooperation.

©2019 Barachou Press (P)2019 Barachou Press

its short but sweet

This a great romantic comedy but a bit short. The characters are well defined and you care about them. The narrator is able to sound all the characters sound distinct. There is a lot of suspension of belief but is its still good. It reminds of a a date with tad Hamilton and Notting hill. Its great.

Hollywood in a small town

Fleur needs a break and the next thing you know she is dating Jalen. That makes Jalen over the moon since she has a huge crush on her. I think what Hollywood managers and PR people do is horrible. People need to be who they are and live accordingly. I am getting very attached to all the characters of Paradise Valley.

exccellent

I totally enjoyed reading this book. It’s well written and the characters were fantastic. I would suggest this book to my friends that like this sort of genera. this was an excellent book

Struggling with Narration

"i was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review" i struggle with the narration in a lot of books.

A Year in Paradise

Jaden is a small town plumber who struggled to make a living. When she stops far a hotdog and chips at the gas station she didn’t know the new direction of her life. Hollywood has come to town. Fun romance and characters. Great performance. Recommend

I want to move to Paradise Valley!

If this is where the girls are, I want to move there! Such a great romance to listen to. Shoshannah Kramer and Hildred Billings make a great team! This book is part of a wonderful series that will keep you wanting more!

So cute!

I love it! Flur was so sweet and the narrator did her well, but I didn’t like the voice she gave to Jaylynn. Shemade her sound like a country bumpkin. Although this book played off a lot of stereotypes, I for one know that they have stereotypes for a reason. I love this book rainbow power!

Paradise of all women

The narrator gave an off-country kind of accent to Jalen, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I liked the narration otherwise. Each chapter alternates between the two perspectives. There are a few side characters, and the narrator gives them all a unique voice. The author tries to give them a purpose beyond driving the plot, but they're still 2 dimensional. Not really a problem for me. I did like Jalen the most out of the characters.

I haven't read any other books from the author. I like the setting of a paradise city full of lesbians. It's such a cheesy stereotype that it sets the tone well. Actress Fleur is tired of being treated like a child and decides to act out in rebellion. She ends up kissing a random girl she finds at the store, who happens to be Jalen the plumber. Fleur's agent and PR person are very displeased by it. Jalen's just chugging her snacks trying to catch up to what's happening. They end up starting real feelings, when of course the PR person has to ruin it all.

One of the other reviews was upset the author didn't include any explicit sex scenes. I actually liked that the author didn't. This isn't really instant-love. Jalen's been crushing on Fleur for a long time and is just excited at where it's going. After the angst, it ends on a light note.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

all stale marshmallow and no cocoa

A bit too sachrin for me. But, if you're all about the metaphorical marshmallows then you might like it. I had never read any other work by the author and in fact had never heard of her. After I finished the book, I felt it must have written by a very young writer who is just starting out with making lesrom. I was genuinely shocked that I was very wrong. The author has written 60+ books in the genre and it honestly made wonder how.

The good; the narrator was fantastic! Really looking forward to hearing Shoshannah Kramer again in future lesfic books by a different author(s).

The not so good; The characters were quite 2 dimensional. Not just the leads. Even the secondary characters were just so very stereotypical, it was near impossible to see them as a real person.

The plot, I've heard before and frankly, the other was better. The "meet cute" was so very unrealistic, it kind of three me off from the start; that one character would do something so outlandish and the other character would just be like "yeah. ok. I'll go along with being used by you, stranger."

The one thing that straight up annoyed me was the complete lack of sex scenes. No, don't misunderstand, there WAS sex happening, we just don't get to be a part of the arguably the most pivotal part of a romance novel. I'm not one that needs long and explicit sex scenes in my romance books, I'm fact, a lot of times I cringe through them because the narrator's moans and groans are the most unsexiest things ever. But, come on... just have the characters walk to the bedroom, then, it's suddenly the next day and one character is telling a friend they had great sex. Otherwise, we'd (the readers) would never know. We hear how amazing it was the same time as her friends and by hearing how one character called the other a "sex goddess". (cringe) It's just so bizarre and completely shuts off any morsel of attachment we might have scraped up for the characters, to exclude us from the love making.

I liked this book much better when I thought a young lgbt lady wrote this as her first book. I figured she probably didn't have much sexual experience but really wanted to write les romance. Instead of just making things up, she just skipped them all together and that was palpable. Finding out the author has written 60+ books already in the genre made me see it a completely different way; either she wrote a quick little love story for a very young, newly out of the closet family member (excuses the lack of sex) that she never intended to publish until a deadline snuck up on her OR she didn't try very hard at all. She just threw in some unoriginal, uninteresting and utterly stereotypical lesbians in a little lesbian utopia, made them fall in love AND break up all in 2 (two!) days and just completely skip the sex scenes all together. I'm utterly shocked someone published this mess. Hard pass, on Hildred Billings work from me.

This book was given to me for free (thank goodness) and I provided this (clearly) honest and unbiased review.