Waffles, the hamster, lives in his owner's closet because her parents said she had to get rid of him. She imagines what he does all day in there.
This is a cute story for your little one. I liked the little girl's imagination of what Waffles does all day. I wish this were longer. The illustrations are adorable.
by Scott Wilbanks
Oh my, where do I start? This is a time travel book, my favorite subject, with an interesting selection of misfit characters. As far as the mechanism for time travel goes, it's a simple magic door, or actually a more complex magic door than the usual, but we're only given hints about how it actually works.
It starts out in 1895 with some rough city life and the leader of a sandlot gang being warned to flee, though we don't yet know why. The gang are pickpockets and scrounge food in an almost Dickensian situation, only they're in Kansas City. Then we move out into the country in Kansas and still in 1895 and meet Elsbeth Grundy. She owns a farm, but one day finds a house on her back 40 and writes the occupant a letter of complaint.
The letter is received by Annabelle Aster, only she lives in 1995 San Francisco and sees the farmhouse as an intruder into her back yard in her own time and location. There was an anomaly about other girls swooning over David Cassidy when Annie was growing up, which seemed to be in the wrong era, but otherwise so far so good.
Annabelle writes back to Elsbeth, explaining her side of things and the story begins to develop into something that becomes very interesting and intricate. Annie shows the farm to her best friend, Christian, who has his own strange experiences of repeatedly seeing a face in a crowd. On one occasion time seems to slow down while this is occurring, then speeds up again.
There's a great quote in reference to dumbing down writing: "Never lower yourself for others. Make them rise to you. Whether they can or not is their burden, not yours."
The writing for this story is very good and I considered giving it the full 5 stars, but a few things towards the end could use some clarification and I had to stretch belief a little far concerning something about the bad guy's sidekick.
The story did include an excellently written high tension climax, some very creative methods of self defence and the most erotic kiss I've ever read, ever! The erotica writers could take some lessons from this.
I'm being careful about saying too much about the plot because part of the joy of reading this story was discovering the intricate connections along the way. It involves a stage magician, a murder, some rough business dealings and hiding a baby in time. I found it all very original and absorbing and pretty much read the second half of the book in one sitting.
In places it feels like a nice story of friendships between women, or an in-depth look at flexible morality issues, or a high action story of intrigue. There's something of everything in there and plenty of mystery to boot. Most importantly, it was a great read and will leave me remembering the characters for some time to come. I'll also be keeping an eye out for anything else written by this author.
I waffled on 2 or 3 stars, but honestly I was bored out of my mind for the most part while reading this, so 2 stars it is. I liked the idea of a story focusing on King Midas's daughter, but everything with the pirates, the power of her touch, etc. just dragged. I think the world building could have been better (we hear about Dionysus, but what about the other gods) and also Kora's supposed power. The romances felt pretty weak too.
"A Touch of Gold" tells the story of what happened to King Midas after he got the power to turn things to gold. Hugging his daughter he turns her to gold. When he begs Dionysus for help, he is told to wash everything into the ocean/sea (I can't remember) and do it for everything that he turned to gold. King Midas does, and he restores his daughter Kora back to living flesh. However, he forgets a few items and is cursed forever, she is too, she is a golden maiden brought to life. Ten years later we follow Kora as she has another potential groom paraded in front of her. When she finally thinks she has met someone who can stand to be around her, her father's gold is stolen which leaves him incapacitated. Kora and her cousin Hettie go on a wild adventure to save Kora's father and the kingdom.
I did like Kora, I just wish we had spent more time with her before we find her as a young adult and then dealing with her mooning a bit over the first of the two romantic potentials in this book. She did get more interesting as a character towards the end though. Her cousin Hettie was a delight and I think this would have been a 5 star book if it focused on her.
The two romantic heroes were blah. Sorry, I didn't like either of them though the twist with one of them I did not see coming.
The writing was a bit off for me since the dialogue was dry. I just needed something more going on there. I just needed more thing to be happening besides Kora reading a diary, feeling romantic, and eavesdropping.
The setting of the book really didn't feel like it took place in one of the Greek myths I read as a kid. It's weird that at times the book read as modern or in another part of the world other than where King Midas's story was drawn from which I think is considered modern day Asia Turkey.
The ending leaves a potential wrinkle in Kora's future which is why I assume there is a second book in this series.
Drew and Asia walk a fine line between sinfully, sexy and heart-achingly real. That makes for a tempestuous kind of romance. Married to my Boss has alot of baggage to work it's way through. Rose battle six years of secrets and distance plus one huge surprise. Slowly these characters wiggle their way into your heart without you having even realized that they have done so.
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