The Heiresses by Allison Rushby

Title: The Heiresses
Author: Allison Rushby
Pages: 352
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin


**ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
**This review has spoilers, I've marked them so that you can skip over them if you don't want to know**


The Basic Summary: It's 1926, and for three lucky girls, their entire lives are about to change. Mix estranged triplets, and devious half-brother, a fortune, and the excitement of a new city, and you're sure to be in for a wild ride. Join these three sisters as they work to adjust to their new environment, and fight to earn back  a fortune that's rightfully theirs. Just so you all know, that's a lie. But you'll see what I mean later.

My Review: This book was horrid. Everything was just sooooo boring. Ms Rushby could have cut out 100 pages from the book and you wouldn't have missed a thing. I'm not sure if it's just because this was an ARC, or not, but there were some spelling issues, and there were quite a few phrases in the book that made no fucking sense because some words were missing.

The beginning of the book started off well enough I guess. It was mainly the girls finding out that they're triplets and them being sent off to London to go live with their aunt and try to reclaim the fortune that's rightfully theirs from their douchey half-brother, Charles.

Thalia: Thalia is the oldest of the sisters, and she's just.. A piece of work. The only person Thalia cares about is Thalia, and she doesn't care who she has to step on to get what she wants - this includes betraying the people who trust her in order to get the inheritance that she believes is rightfully hers. Notice how I said hers and not hers and her sisters. Throughout the entire book, Thalia is a scheming, manipulative, bratty, arrogant skag, and she finds nothing wrong with her behavior. **spoiler**She drinks, she does drugs, and at one point she was even hooking up with Vincent (the guy that Ro was in love with). Why would she betray Ro like that? She was "helping" her by proving a point. I know what ya'll are thinking because I thought the same thing. What a Skag. Early on in the story Thalia mysteriously comes into a large amount of sums. How large? Large enough that she could buy a car, new clothes, a dog, drugs, and whatever else she felt like. We later find out that she went to Charles, tricked him into giving her the money by leading him to believe that she and she sisters were going to go to the country side. The money Charles gave her was supposed to be for ALL of the sisters. Do you know how much she spent on the sisters? Enough to buy them each a dress. That's it. Like I said, she's a skag.**spoiler** At the end there's a traumatic not really traumatic. It was a faux-traumatic event that was meant to make you suddenly sympathize with Thalia. event and Thalia does a complete character 180 and all of a sudden we're supposed to like her. No. Fuck no. I refuse to believe that Thalia suddenly started caring about the sisters that she was trying to hurt earlier on in the book. **spoiler**Thalia threw a dinner party and invited her sisters with the intention of making them see that they didn't belong in the society they now lived in. While she just wanted to embarass Ro, she really set out to destroy Clio because Edwin (the guy that Thalia liked) liked Clio instead. This pissed me off because:
1) Clio was my favorite sister
2) Clio was always incredibly nice to Thalia even though Thalia was a raging skag
3) Clio was having a hard enough time adjusting without Thalia trying to destroy her already damaged self-esteem**spoiler**

Eratos (Ro): Ro is the middle triplet. Ro is also the book smart one. Of the three, she's the most sensible one, and she's incredibly science-minded (is that even a real phrase? I just made it up. Whatever, i'm sleep deprived. Don't judge) For her entire life, Ro has wanted a sibling, so when she finds out she has not one, but two siblings? She's ecstatic. When Ro finally meets her sisters, she finds that they're not exactly what she thought, and while she's still excited to have sisters, she's just.. Less excited. Of the three sisters, I liked Ro the second best.

Clio: Clio is the youngest of the sisters, and she's also the sweetest one of the three. When the three sisters finally meet, Clio knows right away that there's something wrong. How? She looks nothing like her 2 sisters. Even knowing that there's something different about her, Clio still makes a point of trying to get to know her sisters. I liked Clio the best because she always puts others first. She's always willing to see the best in people (even when they don't really deserve it. See Thalia), and she goes out of her way to make people feel welcome around her. With all of the craziness going on with Ro and Thalia, it was nice to have one character that had a solid understanding of who she was, and nicer still to see that the privileges that she suddenly had didn't change her as a person. **spoiler**I was really happy to see her get her happy ending. She really deserved it.**spoiler**

Hestia: Hestia is seriously the most irresponsible person in the book. I get it. She's never had to watch over anyone before, but that doesn't excuse her negligence in terms of neglecting her nieces. Hestia has the guardians of each girl send the girls off to live with her, but after the first day, she pretty much forgets that they exist. During the rare occasions that she does remember that she's supposed to be caring for her nieces, she's giving them shoddy advice. **spoiler**At one point, Thalia actually has to go into REHAB because of her drug problem, and Hestia had no fucking idea until one of her friends told her.**spoiler**

The story: Meh. That's really all I have to say about it. The story itself was mostly about Thalia being a skag **spoiler**All she did was drink, do drugs, throw parties, and betray the trust of her sisters.**spoiler** Not what you were expecting, right? That's how I felt. Towards the end the story starts focusing more on what the book was ACTUALLY supposed to be about, but up until then? Nope. Mainly just Thalia and her exploits. The story was just soo boring. At first it was interesting to see them adjust to their new environment, but there are only so many parties and stupid acts of drunken debauchery that a girl can take before she just wants to scream. 100 pages could have been cut out of this book and you wouldn't have missed a thing. In fact, I wish 100 pages had been cut out. I would have rather read a 200 page story about 3 (Okay, 2. Thalia didn't really help) girls trying to get back a fortune that's rightfully theirs, than a 300 page story about the stupid actions of one greedy sister with a little bit of fortune stealing-backing I KNOW IT'S NOT A REAL WORD. LEAVE ME ALONE! thrown in to keep things interesting. Normally I can get through a 300 page book in under 2 days. In fact, I did. I read another book while I was reading this one and it only took me ONE DAY to finish it. This book just dragged on and on and on and on and on and.. okay. I'm sure you all get it. Maybe I'm just being too nitpicky. Either way, I didn't really like this book.

I was going to originally give it one star, but I've decided to bump it up to two because I loved Clio and Ro so much.

My Overall Opinion: I just couldn't get past Thalia. She was just such an obnoxious character, it annoyed me that the book mainly revolved around her and her antics. Aside from Thalia, the book itself wasn't that good. If the summary says that the book is about 3 sisters attempting to take back their fortune, that's what I expect the book to be about. If the summary had said that this book was about 1 sister betraying the people depending on her, I wouldn't have touched this book with a ten foot pole. If Thalia sounds like your kind of  character, go ahead and read the book. But if you're like me and you expect the book to be about what the summary says the book is about, this book is not for you.

A Million Dirty Secrets by C.L. Parker

Title: A Million Dirty Secrets
Author: C.L. Parker
Pages: 368
Publication Date:August 27, 2013
Publisher: Bantam

**ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

The Basic Summary: In order to save her mother's life, Delanie Talbot sells herself into sexual slavery. Enter her owner for the next 2 year, Noah Crawford. What follows is a journey of self-discovery for both Lanie and Noah, and the chance of unexpected love.

My Review: Reading this book was like watching a horrific train wreck happen. You're sitting there, jaw dropped in a horrible sort of fascination, and you know that you should look away, but you can't. So instead, you watch the train wreck happen because you can't not look. The first page of this book was filled with slut-shaming, which is when I knew that I should really put down this book and walk away. Some of you may not know this, but in addition to my shallow cover hoarding, I also lack self-control and a sense of self-preservation. I know something is bad, and I know that I should stop, but I can't help myself. One part of me is sitting there going "Hah, Ade you are such a wuss. Yea you wuss! You're going to put down this book aren't you? Why? Because YOU CAN'T TAKE IT!" Another part of me is like "Bring it, bitch! I am going to kick your ass!" and the last part of me is like "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO DOING!? STOP IT!" I rarely listen to the 3rd part of me. What was the point of that? To let you know what goes on in my head when I don't DNF a book that I really should DNF.

Let's start with Lanie. Lanie is an idiot. There's no getting around it. She's just stupid. We're supposed to believe that she's a mature 24 year old, but she's not. The book immediately starts off with Lanie slut-shaming other women, and just gets worse from there. She uses phrases like "moo juice" "coco yumminess" "eager beaver" and "googly moogly" on a regular basis. She even refers to her vagina as "Double Agent Coochie" and to Noah's penis as "Wonder Peen." How many 24 year olds do you know that act like that? Personally, I know none. Lanie selling her body was supposed to make us feel sympathetic towards her, but it didn't really work out that way. At first it was *a little* sad, but the sympathy quickly ran out becuase she acts like an idiot. I know we were supposed to like her, but between the slut-shaming, the weird thoughts she had regarding Noel and sex, and all of the phrases she used, she was just incredibly unlikeable.

Noah was.. he was a misogynistic douche schnozzle. He thinks with his penis, and that's about it. Occasionally he'll remember that there's another head that he can think with, but any thoughts that came from the brain in his other head were quickly brushed aside by the head in his pants. If I'm being completely honest,Noah's character was.. bland. His only defining characteristic was that he was  jerk. Oh, and can I just say that it's annoying that he somehow had the time to gain the skill level of a concert pianist? From what Noah said in the book, he was too busy drinking and fucking up when he was young to do anything else. There was no mention of him playing piano, or any other instrument, until Lanie discovered he had a music room and he proceeded to woo her with his piano skills. At least FSoG provided a bit of a back story regarding the piano. This book just threw it in there with no warning.

The sex scenes were awful. There's no nice way to say it. They were weird and awkward, and half of the "sexy" things they did weren't actually sexy. It got to the point where I just started skimming the sex scenes because they were so bad.

My Overall Opinion: I honestly thought this book was horrible, but maybe that's just me. The characters weren't likeable, the story sucked, and the sex scenes read like they were written by a honry 15 year old boy. I personally think that the book was just bad all around, but y'all can read it and find out for yourselves.