Connecticut Books

It's like someone has done all the legwork and the research you need to look for and review these service providers. It cut down the time it took for me in looking for good reliable service providers ofr my renovatiuon needs. I found the quotes and their ratings extremely helpful in choosing a provider that fits my specific needs.

The Franklin Report's slogan is "the truth shall set you free." In reality, the book is more like a high school yearbook for industry insiders. Even the school's juvenile delinquents have been scrubbed up for these snapshots.

Franklin uses surveys to provide "unbiased" reviews of architects, interior designers, and tradespeople. A numerical ranking quantifies attributes such as cost and quality, although high ratings predominate. Given the small survey size, the numbers do not appear that meaningful. This may change in future editions. Franklin's brilliant idea was sorely needed, as anyone who has renovated knows. She has performed a tremendous service simply by compiling basic information about tradespeople in an accessible, readable guide.

Where this book falls down is on objectivity. While purporting to be unbiased, it reads as if written by industry insiders who are pulling their punches to avoid offending their pals. All the reviews are fulsomely flattering, as if every designer or architect were practically flawless. The book does help you sort out who favors chintz or works in a more contemporary style. It highlights who will stick to budget (although you have to read between the lines to figure out who will try to make you feel guilty if you aren't a spendthrift). Its gushing style is less helpful than a Zagat's format that balances pluses and minuses.

Comments from those surveyed are incorporated, but too much of the text is Franklin's own comments and interpretations. So much editorial discretion and the fawning tone leaves the reader wondering. If a designer is "assertive," perhaps this is Franklin's euphemism for "overbearing -- strictly for clients who want no input into the decisions." But why should readers have to guess about something so important? Issues like not delivering work as promised, never showing up on time, overcharging (excessive overages, change orders, redos, upcharging and lily gilding), not providing completed drawings, and even sheer obnoxiousness, which unfortunately come up even with the more highly regarded artistes, are never mentioned. What is the point of anonymous surveys if frank criticisms are excluded? To be regarded as the Zagat's of the industry, Franklin must do even more than overcome this unwholesome deference to her designer pals by writing a real, consumer-oriented guide. The all-too-frequent bill padding and front-ended cash collection practices of the design trade are ignored, as if these were not issues for consumers. This is a notable omission. The Zagat's standard is not met unless Franklin tackles industry issues by writing thoughtful, hard-hitting commentary on business practices -- something that seems far from her natural inclinations, judging by this book.

Another shortfall is Franklin's decision that, if a business receives "mixed" reviews, she will tell you nothing more. The book simply shows an "open folder" symbol, with no commentary. This is a cop-out. Do enough work to give a consistent rating, or put the mixed commentary in. These companies are doing business out there, and their customers should be heard. Or they should not be listed at all if they cannot be adequately described. To receive a "mixed" open folder symbol is a sort of scarlet letter that is unfair to the tradesperson, architect or designer and a disservice to the reader because it provides no real useful information.

Finally, the survey method should have been disclosed so that readers would understand what they are getting. Those surveyed were nominated by the companies profiled in the book. That is, a company or designer selected to be profiled referred its customers to Franklin and she surveyed them. Would you refer a balanced selection of customers? Of course not. You would give Franklin the customers you thought would say nice things about you. No wonder all the comments were so flattering. We have experience with a number of the people and companies profiled in the book. The hit rate was about 50% with the book's reviews. Not surprisingly, our experience with the businesses that delighted us correlated with the book's reviews. The terrible failures don't -- and of course, these were the folks that didn't refer us to be surveyed. One over-the-hill architect notorious in Fairfield County for riding on his reputation and not completing jobs is profiled in glowing terms that describe him as the next Gehry. Needless to say, this architect did not refer us to Franklin -- he knew we what we would say.

Franklin is going directly to readers to try and reduce the ability of those being profiled to influence the results. Over time, she may solve the problem. But readers need to understand what they are getting in this edition.

No matter how superb the person or business, all the profiles should be more balanced. What readers really want to know is whether tradespeople will become overextended or overcommitted on too many projects,. Are they working on spec houses at the expense of your project? Will they show up reliably? Will they stick to plan or follow their own whims? Do you have to stay on site and monitor their every move? How well do they coordinate with other trades? Do they plan their jobs effectively or cost you time and money by being hopelessly disorganized? And, of course, naming names about the prima donnas is key. But, alas, The Franklin Report is not that straightforward, lest any of those profiled be offended.

In conclusion, you will find this book very helpful, especially compared to the total dearth of information currently out there. Merely doing the book was a brilliant idea. Franklin seems well intended and may have worked with certain limitations. She is trying to launch herself as the next Zagat, and has ambitiously named the book after herself. As a former investment banker, she understands these books could be lucrative, and, like Zagat's, can be replicated in many cities if done well. Her website reflects an aggressively commercial sensibility. However, the book itself, and the survey method, are still half-baked. Their quality still needs to rise to the level of Franklin's ambitions.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of older people being depicted as sharp and vital. The trouble with this book is, despite the fact that I never try and solve the mystery myself, I pegged the killer the second the character was introduced. This did not add to my enjoyment of the story!

Surprisingly dull for a book so full of bloodshed and betrayal, I thought this was close, but no banana. I'll have to read another by McShea before I decide whether this was just bad luck or whether I simply don't enjoy McShea's writing.

Don't let the cover fool you and that includes the old folks sitting around sipping tea. Mcshea's books are full of action. They combine cozy with hard boiled and in this case it is a good combination.

I highly recommend this guide to anyone who will be traveling in the Northeast as well as Canada. This guide gives you everything from upcoming events for the year to where to stay & eat. The maps are easy to read and follow. I have been a reader of the Mobil Guide for many years and it is continuing to give the most accurate, up-to-date travel information. This is the MUST-HAVE for the Northeast traveler.

The book gives a good overview of the areas with many addresses. Anyhow I found it a bit too black and white. It gives useful maps, but no coloured pictures from the areas, which would make it a bit more pleasant to read.

This is one of those books that you could borrow from your library, or from a friend, but you will likely need to buy your own copy since there are so many passages that are either so wise, so funny, or so meaningfully touching that you will need to use your pencil in order to happily jot checkmarks, brackets, and asterisks throughout the book. I know that I did.

David Hays has a surfeit of academic, personal, and professional accomplishments. In his sixties, he was semi-retired, kids grown, had good health and a happy family life. His mind is unquestioningly fertile (yet organized) and he seems to embrace new experiences. As a child he gazed into a mud bubble, and glimpsed eternity. As an adult he throws himself into the grass in his back yard, in order to look more closely at the earth. His life was full, and meaningful, but he does not brag, and he is likable from the outset.

Rather than rest on his not inconsiderable laurels, he decides to become a Bar Mitzvah, joining a class of local eleven and twelve-year olds - in order to devote himself to study with his congregation's rabbi, Doug, for more than a year. It is this journey - and there is a steady unfolding, with no outburst of religiosity - that forms the starting point for this wonderful narrative.

Hays has an ability to tell you a lot about himself by telling you about other people. He respects himself, and he respects others. He is never boring. His parents, in-laws, grown children, grandchildren, his wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and his classmates are interesting to him, and worthy of reportage. He lets you in on these people and their lives and their histories with unstinting (and never maudlin) respect, even awe. In doing this you find out a lot about Hays and his subjects. Their privacy is never violated, and their dignity is sustained.

There is uncloying, laugh-out-loud humor throughout. Family lore emerges, and it is often funny. Hays delights in his wife Leonora's knack of elegantly summing up a situation with a trenchant malapropism. Of his new-found fervor for religious study, she says, "He hooked, line and sinker!" Of the Bahamas: "It's a third-war country." He also shares his family history, including a terrific (true) story, "How my family saved Israel." His feelings and observations as a sensitive member of his class (of the kids at recess he marvels, "They always know where to go.") - and his relationship with his wonderful rabbi - are a pleasure to watch unfold.

Hays includes a piece on Anne Frank that is dramatic, thoughtful, and not at all funny. It is appropriately included, given that the concerns of an adult approaching his bar mitzvah are different from those of a child. And at one point, he attends a Harvard reunion - which maybe could have been left out of this book, with no loss of substance to this great story.

In all, a wonderful book.

The topic of this book as stated is highly misleading. Yes, Mr. Hays traces some of his experiences on becoming a Bar Mitzvah at age 66. However, he digresses so much from this theme that it was downright annoying!

I was really looking forward to reading about a 66-year-old man's journey into spirituality and rediscovery of Judaism, rather than a name-dropping autobiography.

What little Mr. Hays did write about his spiritual journey back into Judaism was sparse, and even his way off-topic autobiographical sections didn't include much of his family's, friends',or peers' reactions to his becoming a Bar Mitzvah, which to me would have been very interesting.

He also didn't talk much at all about contemporary Jewish renewal and problems of assimilation and how others might, as he did, find meaning in a religious path they've ignored or rejected.

Why, instead, should I care that he went back for a school reunion and one of his class members won the Nobel Prize? Why should I have to wade through the life stories of some of his uninteresting relatives who are not even marginally part of his spiritual story?

In this catch-all manuscript, Mr. Hays also tangentially subjects the reader to an entire fantasy theatrical piece he has imagined about a grown-up Anne Frank (for which I wouldn't buy a ticket, BTW).

What we also get is too much information and commentary about the 12- and 13-year-olds in his class, including an inappropriate (IMO) dwelling on one of the pubescent girls about whom Mr. Hays admitted over and over he had major sexual fantasies.

I read a great deal; 2-3 books a week and have done so for almost 40 plus years. This said it is very rare indeed that my opinion upon closing the book is that the author literaly owes me my time and effort back. Comparing "The Geographer's Library" to "The DaVinci Code" is a direct insult to it's author Dan Brown. Even the CD version of the "TGL" which I also purchased; was the WORST read CD I have ever listened to. It was read soooo slowly at times I had to "read" portions of the book simply to get through it. Mr. Fasman's obvious constant thesaurus use is blatant. To use "big" words simply to edify one's ego ruins simply reading the book, and enjoying the story and plot line. Even in the end Mr. Fasman never completely answers ever aspect of the plot line questions he creates. He leaves many roads simply open and incomplete. Shame on this author!

I got suckered in by the back cover synopsis and glowing reviews; and it was a second hand purchase. With a penchant for historical fiction and some mystery, I thought I was in for an entertaining read. How wrong I was! The tone was dark throughout, which would have worked had the characters and/or dialogue been more compelling, but the sum total ended up being boring and utterly forgettable. Fasman sticks in drawn out descriptions of "alchemical" artifacts in his alternating chapters that offer little explanatory value, and includes characters that come and go in such a way that they just end up being padding with no relevance to the story (I remember two priests presented and withdrawn this way about a third of the way through). When the historical and contemporary story lines are brought together in the revelatory ending, I simply remember thinking to myself "That's It?". A huge letdown of an ending. Perhaps it is because the subject of alchemy is large and convoluted itself that Fasman decided to go this route, but in the end the author never manages to turn lead into anything other than lead.

Hampered by a so-so title, I still enjoyed this story enough to write my first review for Amazon in roughly two years. I assume I'm the one American who hasn't read you-know-what by Dan Brown, the novel many other reviewers use as a comparison. The intriguing descriptions & histories of the scientific antiquities from the collection of a Arabian alchemist is worth the book's cover price. I normally zip thru works of fiction but here my eyes lingered. Thankfully the hero isn't an omni-potent Indiana Jones. Caught flat-footed at several points lends a air of blessed believability. Like so many thrillers, the plot requires a deus ex machina, here cloaked as a all-powerful secret society. Their arrival in the final chapters doesn't derail this novel, just triggers the memory of other, better tomes. I think this is the author's first work of fiction. If so, hat's off.

I enjoyed reading this book, especially the vignettes of the various artifacts and how they came to be lost and found throughout the years. Unfortunately, the ending was terrible and left me disappointed. It was anti-climatic, the "hero" folded, and the overly apparent "double-agent" got off with barely a fight.
Maybe worth reading if you get from the library or used, but I wouldn't pay much for it.

Captivating Intellectual Mystery

Review of: "The Geographers Library"

By: Jon Fasman

This is one of my all time favorite books.

It starts in a routine job setting for a recent college graduate. Paul Tomm works for a small town newspaper. Paul gets a reporting assignment for his paper. He is to write an obituary of a local academic. Nothing about the story turns out to be routine. Events gain inertia ahead of Paul and snowball out of control. His life is never the same.

This story is a superb treasure hunt story and an intriguing murder mystery. Although the genre is similar, it is much better than "The Da Vinci Code" or "The Rule of Four."

It is unfortunate that the story has a surface resemblance to the "Da Vinci Code" because "The Geographer's Library" is a far better book. Fasman gives the reader more to think about while solving the mystery.

The story revolves around a set of ancient artifacts. I found the description of the artifacts entertaining, although tangential to the story. Another reader thought the descriptions were formal and distracting. The physical description of artifacts is detailed and is not central to the mystery. If you don't like these descriptions just skim them.

See also: The Unpossessed City: A Novel

I was captivated by "The Geographer's Library" and unreservedly recommend it to others.

This is classic Danielle Steel, along the lines of The Dating Game, my favorite of her works. This book has wonderful characters and a strong storyline. My only criticisms would be that India is weak when it comes to relationships, yet so brave when it comes to her career. And Paul Ward, as a billionaire, certainly has enough money to seek psycological counseling and get professional help with his post-grief guilt; yet he suffers along for a year. But despite these things, and Danielle Steel fan will love this book. And the narrator of the unabridged cassette version is especially wonderful.

I love Daniel Stell books but this one was horible.I have to admit I didn't finsh it but I got tired of how her husband treated her and she did nothing about it.But from what I've read from other readers I didn't miss much by not finshing it.

After reading many Danielle Steel books, I'm pretty much conditioned to her writing style. Its sort of a guilty pleasure. I have a love/hate relationship with her writing. That being said, I was ready to dive into this, knowing it would be saturated with sappy love searchers.

The book for the most part is an easy read and flows nicely. You want to go from chapter to chapter just to see how each situation is going to resolve itself. However, Danielle Steel is Queen of the "Happy Endings" books and you just know that no matter how horrible the storyline may go, it will always have a happy ending. What she COULD cut down on is the use of "...and you know it". Count how many times you see that. Every character uses it. "That's not true, and you know it", "Its what you want, and you know it." UUGHH I thought I would have screamed if I saw it again.

****SPOILER COMING UP - IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, STOP READING*** This time a woman (India Taylor) decides that being a stay at home mom is not enough and she wants to trek to faraway lands to take pictures of third world countries. Her husband is not happy about that and sees her as "someone he can rely on to take care of the kids"...(you'll see that sentence about a zillion times throughout the book)...she decides to tell him to kiss off and goes ahead with her plan. He divorces her, she falls in love with a multimillionaire vacationing down the road from her at Cape Cod. BUT, the millionaire is very married (to an award winning author by the way)...so they can't be together right? WRONG!!!! As luck (oops) would have it, she DIES in a plane crash...so they CAN be together after all!!! YAYYYYY!!! Happy ending....

A story of a woman named India Taylor, who after a number of years of marriage, discovered that she missed her career as a photographer. She was very talented and well respected in her field before she married. She missed the recognition that a career could give, although she still loved her husband and 4 children. Her husband, was narrow and difficult and could not see her personal struggle. In fact, he was totally against her starting up the career again. As the book progressed, India began to stand up to him because she did not want to lose who she was a person. In the end, she chose to pursue her dreams despite the obstacles. This was a moving and inspirational story with a romantic and happy ending!

i found this book incredibly wonderful, i never had an interest in romance before this and now i love Danielle Steele's books. i hope that everyone else loves this book as much as i do. This is definately a 5 star book, it kept me wanting more.

This was our third book. . .wore the others out from use as so few people had ever paid much attention to this "Secret Society".
The Author made reading very enjoyable. Don't see how they can equate Skull and Bones Society with the Christian Principles of Yale though.

Guess it is like everything else that came over from Europe. . .

I definitely enjoyed Alexandra Robbins' other books, however "Secrets of the Tomb" is not a fun read. Robbins is long winded and lacks the narrative that is so entertaining in "Pledged" and "The Overachievers." The book takes a historical perspective that is too detailed and not very direct, creating a lot of build-up for describing a boring society and ritual. Since Robbins was herself a member of a secret society the book is written with an undercurrent of reverance that seems to bar the author from revealing too much.

I thought the book was a little slow in the beginning, as it deeply covers the rise of the secret societies within Yale's deep past. However, the author transitioned very smoothly from subject to subject and captured my interest with every page. The author dives deep into the basis of the Skull and Bones society, including the historical and tremendously ironic history of the Bush family. Very interesting read, with deeply historical and accurate documentation of the society's beginnings, an inside look into the initaition rituals, debunking of myths, and exasperating covering of historical (and ultimately important) American families.

The book has an intriguing cover and title. The introduction was captivating. Sadly, it's all downhill from there -- it reads like the minutes of a long and unproductive meeting.

Apparently, the author has succeeded in recruiting her friends to leave contrived reviews. Of the 28 which rated this book at 5-stars, 15 were anonymous and 9 had this book as their only reviewed work. That leaves 4 people who unquestionably enjoyed it -- the editor, her parents, and boyfriend. The others are suspect.

Secrets of the Tomb is a must read book for all those who research secret societies or fraternal organizations here in America. Robbins takes a historical yet informative look at the founding of this organization. She examines the fabric of what makes this organization a strong respected organization on the campus and a bond that carries well beyond undergraduate years. An organization that set out to be self supporting and has remained so to date. Skull and Bones has changed a little with the time admitting women into the society. It still is at the center of American issues such as (education, politics, and publicity).

Once in a blue moon a trilogy can become a series and continue the story of a fictional world.

This book is not one of those rare times.

I've always disliked Kris, the lead female character, but I could stand her, and I enjoyed learning about Botany and seeing Zainal through her eyes. Not now. Not in this book. A strong woman has become flat and weak and easily swayed. The woman who risked her life to escape slavery on a alien planet and knocked a potential rapist out cold now can't stand up to her stepsons. Zainal, the lead male character, has become dull. What made Zainal so interesting to me was the mystery of the man. We rarely saw his thoughts, only his actions. This book is peppered with Zainal's more mundane thoughts, never anything interesting or his frustration at not being able to search out the Farmers. The other character's, major and minor, have undergone personality changes as well. They're little ones, barely noticeable if you haven't read the other books recently. But I read all three back to back, and could easily tell things weren't quite right.

The flow of the story is another flaw. In previous books different characters POV's were separated into long sections, and rarely switched from Kris's view. In this book McCaffrey makes the novice mistake of switching POV paragraph to paragraph. It doesn't happen often enough to make the book completely unreadable, but it happens often enough that I can't simply slip into the book's world via a character's eyes. It's too jarring.

Not that I want to immerse myself in the book because the plot is horrid. We all know Earth needs to rebuild, and the colonists of Botany plan to help. We also know Zainal, at one point, planned to search out the Farmers. Of the two potential plots available to write, McCaffrey chose the first, and it is a bad fit for the characters. Kris and Zainal were set up as adventurous explorers in previous books. Now they're in sales. The plot of this book is better suited to be an interesting and somewhat amusing subplot of a book focused on Zainal's search for the Farmers.

Overall, I'm disappointed with this book. It has its moments, but I wish I had spent my money on something else and borrowed this one from the library. I won't be reading it again.

This and the other books in this series are very good and a very enjoyable read.

I usually enjoy Anne McCaffrey's writing and I own many of her books. Unfortunately, this book is far below her normal quality. I like all of the Freedom series books less than those in her other series, however, the first three books had intriguing characters and featured an interesting exploration of the dynamics of forming a new society on an alien planet. In addition, the end of the third book worked well as the end of a trilogy. In my opinion, the only topic worthy of writing about further in future books was a greater exploration of the mysterious Farmers. That storyline is not addressed in any depth in this book.

This novel resembles the additional material an author writes to flesh out the characters or the story's world in the first draft of a novel--the kind of material that is usually greatly condensed or eliminated in the final version. There simply is not enough material here to warrant a novel and the material that is here is more observational than narrative. There is almost no direct conflict in the book to move the plot forward and no major character development either. Unless you like reading about coffee and trading for spare parts for hours, I would recommend stopping at the third book. Better yet, read one of her other excellent series instead. I recommend the Pern series for fantasy fans or the Crystal Singer series for readers who enjoy science fiction.

It finishes off the collection I have. So now I can enjoy this books anytime I want to.

I truly enjoyed this book, as this is the second time I have purchased and read it. I have all of Anne McCaffrey's books and enjoy reading and re-reading them.

I could not get into this book. It took too long to get to the heart of the plot.

When I first began this novel, my initial thoughts were "Oh, another period cop drama, ugh". It took me a little time to digest the long line of characters and the unneccessary scenes that had no bearing on ths tory. However, after I made my way through the first 100 pages, I was intrigued. The characters themselves are quite colorful. When I was first introduced to Desdemona, I was entranced. She was spirited, independent, and quite fiery. I liked her.

The only thing I would say about this book is that it is quite GRISLY. VERY GRISLY. Some of the scenes and explosions of blood left my own blood like ice. It was very disturbing.

The part that I would say left me a bit bored was the total and complete void of the thoughts or exploration of the murderer. What was his motivation? Why did he do it? What is the deal? We found out who the killer was, but we knew NOTHING about him. Not a thing. Why did he choose a certain outfit to kill in? **********SPOILER********* Why did he change his dump site location for the body disposal? Why was he dumping body parts at the Hug? What is the reasoning here?

I must say that the last few pages were written SO POORLY. The author was really trying to scramble to explain her reasoning and why she made certain decisions in her scenes and character development. I think the final thoughts of the last character portrayed at the end were jumbled and just wrong. I realize it was to reflect the disorganized and cluttered thinking of a crazed mind. However, it just WAS NOT clear. A VERY poor and mundane ending. I would expect this from a second-rate horror flick - not from a very long novel with excellent scenes.

My last thought it this: If the lead detective on this case was ever so clever, how could he completely miss the real murderer? The author went through such precarious steps to try and set up a LONG list of characters (WAY too long...too much interference). She made an attempt to really try and go in depth into her story. Why not let us into her thought process in making the detective end up looking like a simpleton? It is really quite unfortunate. Plus, the extra characters were really quite superfluous. Lets stick to the main chunk of the story here - please.

Otherwise, not a bad read. I would not expect too much on this one. Its like a roller coaster ride - fun, but it gives you little time to think.

Prior to reading On, Off, I had read six books by Colleen McCullough, namely her series of novels about Julius Caesar. These were all great books, showing McCullough's flair for historical fiction. On, Off, however, proves the rule that just because you're a great writer in one field doesn't guarantee success in another field. As a mystery, On, Off is merely okay.

The main character in On, Off is Carmine Delmonico, a police lieutenant in 1965-66 Connecticut, who is called on to lead an investigation in what soon turns out to be a serial killer. The Connecticut Monster, later known as the Ghost, is a clever killer who is kidnapping teenage girls who fit a certain type: nice, innocent and typically of mixed race. There aren't many clues, but Delmonico does figure the killer is somehow linked to a local neurological institute nicknamed the Hug.

The problems with On, Off are apparent from its long and awkwardly written first chapter which introduced too many characters, almost as if McCullough is running through the whole dramatis personae. After that, things do improve, but the story is never as engaging or suspenseful as most mystery novels. Partly, this is because there is only one other really substantial character, the Hug's manager, Desdemona Dupre, who develops something of a relationship with Delmonico.

While McCullough is obviously talented enough to keep the book from being truly bad, she is clearly outside her specialty. While it is not a complete waste of time, this book is likely to be a disappointment to both her fans and those of the thriller genre.

1/1 Story:
The story was interesting. Very grizzly and compelling, and I really felt for the families of the victims, full well knowing they aren't real people, although in a sense they are. My biggest issue with the story is it really does start to lose momentum. I could empathize with the police, as I felt like I was just sitting around waiting for something to happen as well.

0/1 Characters:
I have a mixed opinion on the characters. Some of them I felt were very well rounded and interesting, some were just reprehensive without any apparent reason for being so, and some were so shallowly developed that I just really didn't care one way or the other. My biggest problem is that I didn't see an obvious motivation behind quite a few of the characters actions. I think the story would have been better had there been fewer characters to develop and keep track of.

1/1 Representation:
Although the title doesn't seem to have any sort of connection to the story until the end of the book, it does fit and I think it was appropriate. The back cover synopsis is a good one, and I don't feel is misleading.

0/1 Readability:
This was the worst part of the book in my opinion. I realize that this is somewhat a period piece, but the language and terminology doesn't serve to enhance the story. I just found it annoying.

1/1 Opinion:
I would reccommend this book, but don't pick it up expecting it to be a "life-altering" read. It is however an enjoyable escape.

I have never written a review before, but if I can stop one person from wasting their money and time on this book, then I will be satisfied.

I have enjoyed several of Colleen McCullough's novels in the past, and I'm an avid detective novel reader, so I was excited to see this book at the bookstore. I can't find it in my heart to forgive the author for ever having this book published. The story was lame, the ending ridiculous, but the objection I have that nobody else has covered is that the grammar is atrocious! I had to reread sentences just to figure out subject and verb. Numerous times there weren't even sentences. The fragments made the story difficult to follow. Did the author need the money? I'm sorry to say she got mine.

I donate my used books to charity to allow the next person to read and enjoy them. I threw this book away.

The author does a passable job for her first foray in the time travel romance genre. I expect way better from her if she publishes her next one. I like the way she plays with the legend of King Author though.

First of all, this book was written in first person, and it really needed to be in third. First person made the language feel awkward and I felt detached from Katy. There were also a lot of flaws with the writing in general. I got so tired of hearing designer brand names being dropped, and it ended up making Katy look stupid and self-absorbed.I wasn't impressed with Lancelot's character. I also hated how everything wrapped up neatly. All of a sudden Guen and Katy are BFF, and Katy gives Guen this ridiculous makeover. I don't even think that chapter was needed. To be honest, I didn't even want to finish reading the book. The only reason I did was because I felt guilty.

I thought the ending was just as bad, and it obviously reads as a sequel--but no thanks. I'll pass.

There is little to be said about this book that other reviews havent touched on, but this is a fun little read. Although I have always been skeptical about romance novels, I have to admit, I could not put this one down. Granted, the character Kat, is positively annoying...but there is an endearing quality to me that allowed me to move past that. I look forward to reading some of Ms. Mancusi's work.

Ever since Mark Twain wrote the brilliant comedy "A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court" both other writers and Hollywood have mined a rich seam of humour from copying the idea of someone from the writer's own time sent back to Camelot.

Some of these have been very good (I particularly like the song "Busy Doing nothing" which came from the first film version) while others have been less so.

Marianne Mancusi's book is definately one of the most amusing of the genre.

The heroine, Katherine (Kat) Jones, an associate fashion editor straight out of "Sex and the City" compelte with $400 Manolo Blahnik shoes, is attending a mock medieval carnival called "King Arthur's Fayre. She manages to annoy a fortune teller who threatens to cast a spell on Kat. Nobody else takes this seriously, but a few minutes later Kat is watching a simulated joust when the lance breaks, and a fragment flies towards her and strikes her on the forehead, knocking her out. She recovers in Camelot ...

Of course there is the obligatory serious of jokes as Kat initially assumes she is still in the 21st century among people pretending to be medieval knights and ladies. But eventually she realises that she really has gone back to a time where decent clothes and shoes, not to mention a decent cafe latte, are more than a thousand years away. How to get home?

The style in which the story is told is a delight, and it is a funny, entertaining romp with a lot of surprises and shock twists. Strongly recommended.

To resolve the chaos created by the hilarious surprise ending, Marianne Mancusi has written a sequel, which is called "A Hoboken Hipster in Sherwood Forest."

Before I start this review let me say I loved the television show Sex in the City, and I love medieval times and Camelot. Sadly, the two didn't work in this book. I did have several laugh out loud moments, and thought some of Kat's snarky comments were quite funny and appropriate. Still, the book didn't work for me.

While Kat had some good moments, I couldn't empathize with her. Since the book was told in first person, I found getting that deep inside her head made her seem whiny and vapid. It was very difficult to empathize with her as a character.

Secondly, she didn't seem realistic, and the reason why - protection! She's having nightly sex with Lancelot. Lots and lots of nightly sex, and not one mention of condoms or protection. She's there long enough that her birth control pills would have run out, and frankly, considering that she mentions medieval hygiene several times in the book, I would have thought that she would have mentioned condoms, especially since we're given a detailed inventory of what's in her purse. One item (or several items, like tampons) are conspicuously absent.

I tried to like this book. I really did. I wanted to like and enjoy it. Sadly, the protection issue and the fact that many times Kat came across as self-absorbed and shallow, ruined the story for me, and by the time I got to the ending, all that was left was to try and sell the book on ebay and try to recoup my losses.