Title: Corinne
Author: Charlotte Penn Clark
Publisher: Victory Editing
Pub Date: January 15, 2016
Format: Kindle eBook
Pages: 157
Source: NetGalley
Genre(s): Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Rating: ★★★
Goodreads || Buy on Amazon

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Synopsis from Goodreads:

Corinne Carmichael is fighting for her independence. Her powerful political family insists she abandon her modelling career but she plans to enjoy her last photo shoot in Hawaii before returning to college in the fall. Meeting a hot young French photographer is icing on the cake. But when her life starts to get complicated she finds she relies on her long-distance boyfriend more and more. When tragedy strikes can what started out as a light-hearted summer romance turn into something more serious?

This is Book 1 (the prequel) of a series on the five Carmichael sisters. It is a standalone novel for mature readers.

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My review:

I received this eARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way alters my opinion of the work.

I was hoping this would be a fun, fast, and flirty book. It was mostly just fast. I found myself speed-reading through the sex scenes because they just did not interest me, but unfortunately those scenes made up 90% of the story. So basically I ended up speeding through the whole thing. I believe this is one of the main reasons why I had such a hard time connecting to the characters.

I just could not bring myself to care about any of these people. Perhaps I’m a terrible person. I don’t know. But I didn’t even blink when one of the most tragic things that could ever happen to someone, happened to Corinne and her sisters. I didn’t feel for them. Normally I appreciate a fast-paced plot because no one likes prolonged drama and angst, but I feel like the short length of this book did not work in the author’s favour. There was not enough depth to the characters. There is promise, however. And the general premise of the five different sisters with converging stories is very interesting, but it fell short in this first instalment. I would still like to read the second book, which is Daisy’s story, because the little preview we had at the end of this novel was more interesting than Corinne’s whole story.

Also, I could not for the life of me imagine Paul as an actual person. Maybe like a typical Abercrombie-looking guy with a fake French accent? I don’t know. No one seemed real. It’s not like I expected the characters to be relatable (I am in no way a talented, beautiful, or rich person) but readers should at least be able to empathize with the protagonists and their world, no matter how much they differ to our own reality.

All in all, the story is not nearly as bad as I’m probably making it sound. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. The author is a great writer. Her writing style is very easy to read. I just needed something more. Like I said earlier, I will be continuing the series because I feel like there is a lot of room for improvement and I’m curious to see what the author does with it.