Didn't live up to potential
932157
These chefs each deserved a great representative recipe, tied to their bio & accompanied by a photo, but that's not what was produced here.

Given the title, I thought this cookbook might have new things to share about each of the rising stars it features. And it does give a 2-6ish page bio on each chef, describing how they got into the field and some of the pastries/desserts/breads that have made them famous. This section is accompanied by gorgeous photos... sometimes of the desserts discussed... usually not of the single recipe included per chef.

Sadly, the bios fail to match up with the provided recipe in almost every case. You read about the gorgeous confections dreamt up by one chef, but then out of nowhere, you're given a recipe for a chocolate chip cookie. If you're looking for new recipes from your beloved pastry or bread chef, you're unlikely to find them here. There are some new recipes I haven't seen in print or online before, but not nearly as many as there should be.

The profile for Chad Robertson of Tartine talks about his journey to make the perfect bread, but the included recipe is for a fruit galette(!), which you can find in his first cookbook. Similarly, there's no new recipe from Dominique Ansel or Christina Tosi. You can find their mini madeleines & crack pie (respectively) in previous cookbooks.

I bought this cookbook for the Sprinkles cupcake recipe. Now I'm wondering if I'll bother buying the Sprinkles cookbook, because this recipe wasn't fully tested. For the cream cheese frosting, the ingredient list includes "eggnog" as an optional add-in. The instructions say to add the vanilla and eggnog and mix thoroughly. How much eggnog? That's never made clear. I can make an educated guess, but I shouldn't have to from this book. The recipe also calls for creaming together cold cream cheese and butter, which will just make a loud jarring noise for minutes until your beaters clanging around finally warm up the dairy to the temperature they should have been when you started.

It seems these chefs were let down somewhere along the line in publishing this book, or perhaps they didn't have much to do with it in the first place.
2222292
This story had so much potential, but it fell flat. All the characters were ratcheted; I wanted to like them, but all their crazy antics turned me off. Cherry, Z, Dontae and Darren all need a little work on their personalities and let me not forget Mama Freeman and crazy Veronica. I did not feel any kind of love connection between Cherry and Darren, which leads me to believe that the author should have spent more time developing a connection between those two.

Yes, I was disappointed in this story, but I believe the author can redeem herself if she chooses to write part two to this story. I really would like to see some redemptive qualities in these characters, a real love connection between Darren and Cherry and for Z and Cherry carry themselves more like ladies.
1985956
This book was free to me through the Amazon First program.  The plot was a fine idea, and had a great deal of promise.  Ultimately, some rough secondary character development held the story back.  There were points where characters were too easily moved from one point of view to another, or were underdeveloped, and it detracted from the believability.  I also strongly suspect that some of the things they thought and said would never have had the impact they did at that point in history, no matter the passion behind the words.

One gets the feeling this was meant to be a "strong female characters" book.  On the one hand, I enjoy seeing women take a lead role in books.  On the other, some of it just did not mesh well with how the book described women as being treated then.  One moment the barriers are all there, the next they vanish after a speech?  She also rather undersold men in the process.  This creates the additional problem of making the women seem less than they could have been, since they seem to utterly miss so much fickleness when they are otherwise canny.

That being said, the heroine was likable and the villain both dislikable and not too stupid, so I appreciated that.  I enjoyed the few medical parts, and some of the religious content, which was not clumsily ostentatious as with other books that involve faith.  The descriptiveness of scenery could have been better, but the author conveyed emotion we'll both through words and character action.  In sum, not bad, and enjoyable enough.
3706891
I read the intro and thought this book had so many possiblities but did not live up to them.  The story got dull and jumped around a lot. It started out good but was a let down from there.
83610
I was disappointed in this book. It has a lot of potential and I was expecting more.

Im not sure if it was because it was narrated or what, but I didn't feel any connection to the characters. The beginning was slowand didn't seem to really get exciting until the last 20%. Then so much was happening and I was left wanting more.

Hoping for more in the next book.
469245
It started off really slow.....then when it started to get good......it was towards end of the book. Then it got really jumbled up and fizzled out. The story line had a lot of potential.
2396840
The story had potential. The Whistler character was never fully developed. I think the author did a much better time developing the character of the half Jewish violin player. The Whistler himself really had no depth of character. The end of the story was anticlimactic. It just didn't fully develop the way I hoped it would. I've read books about the same time period that were much more engaging and had me turning the pages wanting more including The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, The Book Theif, Sarah's Key, any of the Philip Kerr Berlin Noir novels, and the Nazi Officer's Wife.
3204633
This is the first paranormal romance for this author...and, unfortunately, it shows.  The characters are a bit underdeveloped, especially the lead female protagonist.  Throughout the book, she made one mistake after another, having to rely on the male lead character to "bail her out" of most situations. There's a typical "evil monster" which they need to kill in order to "save humanity".  The problem is, the way the book's written, the monster is somewhat intelligent and does show caring in it's own way.  It would have been fascinating to have taken that aspect to a higher level...but the author just sticks with the formulatic "humans good...monsters bad" story.  This story was promising, it could've been so much better that it was.
4151288
I held very high standards for this new series because I absolutely loved the Dark Jewels trilogy.  By all appearances this book promised a rich new world and enticing, sexy characters.
The book, intially, held promise.  The first few chapters were able to draw me in and entertain me.  Belladonna appeared to be a pretty awesome character and her story worth reading.  Sebastian on the other hand held a lot of promise.  I mean, after all, him being an incubus and living in a "carnal carnivale" was almost a guarenteed "erotic" experience, right?  Ah, yeah, not so much.  What sex he DID have was played out in a "fade to black" style which is typical of Bishop's style but why present a "sex demon" and not fill a few pages with a sexy encounter?  Not even a sex scene, but something to back up the fact that you're writing about sex demon.  (Seriously, why not make him something else, he didn't even use his incubi 'talents').  Eater of the World?  Meh, it had potential but I found it hard to read the chapters about It.  And by the end of the book, double 'meh' because it seemed like that aspect of the 'plot' was pushed onto the back burner.
That aside, I felt the secondary characters were weak.  I don't understand why everyone turned out to be all mushy-mushy good at the core.  And by everyone, I mean EVERYONE.  There was not a grey area for these characters.  They were either good or bad.  Black or white.
In conclusion, I really enjoy Bishop's writing, but this book just fell flat.  So flat that I'm not picking up the next installment, despite Belladonna being the most interesting character throughout the novel.
2817229
I WANTED to like this book.  I liked the idea of the main characters in this book: reluctant vampire with a heart of gold and a vicious streak and a dhampir born of rape to a family and community that shames her for various reasons (unknown father, vampire father, mother with a slut rep, weird abilities, etc) who turns herself into a (vamp) killer out of self-hate and a desire to please her mother.  There was so much potential there, especially for Cat in terms of self-discovery, making peace with her heritage, her attraction to a vampire, and with her mother. Sadly, the author was in such a rush to get the two leads licking each other that the leads weren't given any depth.

The writing, in addition to the pacing, also seemed amateurish in places.  I think this may have been her first novel.  I may give a book from a later series a try.
2395361
I started this book with high hopes, because on the surface, its concept seemed intriguing. Initially, I was hooked. But for me, the book lost steam as soon as Barb's rich, handsome, suitor-that-never-was showed up. He was so wholly unbelievable that it jarred me out of the entire story. Overall, it was somewhat interesting, but the characters all remained shallow and cartoonish, even before the book's later weirdness took over. Could have been so much better.
2066351
I think the biggest problem was the length. The storyline was unduly rushed and the story ended just about the time it should have been well-started. Female characters were a bit two-dimensional; the male characters seemed more developed. Had potential but I don't think the execution took it there.
4667516
Had the potential to be a really great book, sad it didn't evolve.  The story was rushed, the characters underdeveloped and just overall weak compared to other books of this nature.
4436791
The premise for this book had so much potential:  a massive old house with a history of hauntings; a number of mysterious deaths that may or may not be murders - most recently of which a popular Senator's wife - and may or may not have been committed by ghosts; an elite paranormal investigation unit; and a romance amongst the two chief members of the unit.  It all sounded so intriguing, I could not wait to read this book.  Sadly though, it never really lived up to all it could have been.  I must admit the book was chock-full of ambiance and atmosphere (although I could have done without the repeated New Orleans history lesson).  It had all of the elements of good storytelling, but they were never properly utilized.  Reading this book reminded me of listening to a longwinded friend tell you a story.  You feel like you can see where they're going with it but you wish they would just hurry up and get to the point.  If I was asked to describe this book in one word I would probably say `boring'.  I just couldn't get into this book.  It didn't hold my interest.  It was very slow moving, and when the storyline finally starts to take you somewhere, it's not where I wish that it would have gone.  It would have been far more interesting to me to stick with the paranormal elements than to go off on tangents about religious cults, politics, corruption and such.

Additionally, the romance between the two main members of the investigative unit, Jackson and Angela, fell flat to me as well.  I never felt the chemistry or connection that was supposed to be between them.  It seemed forced, and was really more of an aside than an actual part of the main story.  Most of the time it just felt like it was kind of thrown in there, like the author remembered that, oh yeah, she should have some romance.  All in all, it was very disappointing, more so I think because it could have been so much better than it turned out to be.  It's a shame really because I've read Ms. Graham's earlier work and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I'm not sure what happened here.
3583683
Would be rock star Annika falls through a portal into a supernatural world full of fey, wood nymphs and psychic vampires. She realizes she is stuck as all the portals at broken and no one knows how to fix then so she decided to make the most of her time and enjoy her surroundings while there. That includes the affections of Talvi, the youngest of a prominent family of elves who is also a bit of a ladies' man and charmer.

This was another one that had lots of potential however it just didn't come up to the mark for me. I think that had a lot to do with Talvi, I just didn't like him. Most arrogant characters walk a fine line but eventually you realize they are on the right side of the line which makes you like them. For me Talvi was never on the right side and I found him to be spoiled, arrogant and annoying. This was a story about a romance between two people but not liking the main love interest for Annika put a different spin on this story. But I just couldn't get into everything else when this didn't work for me. It might for you.

5 out of 10

Review by Brienne Dubh @ Escapology Reviews.com
4904248
This story had great potential but never felt like it went anywhere. The first half of the book tells of Gisela's life in hiding using an alias name and earning money as a seamstress in order to flee from her abusive husband. The author took a lot of time and effort to give us a back story of Gisela and Dominic in an effort to draw the reader into the characters and develop sympathy for them, but she only gives us enough about a tryst they had four years prior. There was nothing of their lives before the tryst (which ended up getting her with child, Ewan). How did they meet....or did I doze off during that part? Or why her husband was so abusive? Or even how G ended up marring him, how he knew about D and where was her family? Did she not have parents? Sisters, brothers who could help her? There is a big black void on a lot of things.

I admit, I didn't read the whole story. I got bored about 46% of the way through. Maybe the second half revealed more back story of G and D and even the abusive husband, but frankly, the story couldn't keep me turning the pages. I wanted to know more of their history. Not even the anticipation of any love scene kept me going for long. The constant inner thoughts of Gisela grew tiresome. The inner dialogue was re-hashed so many times about her wanting to flee the husband, protecting her son, starting a new life, yadda, yadda, yadda. These are all good reasons, and good points, but did the author have to remind us of her purpose every other paragraph? The redundancy got to be too much for this reader. Perhaps I would have been willing to finish this story, but there was no action. Just her living in her house and secretly making dresses and Dominic coming by at night with food. (Yawn) When I started re-reading paragraphs three times because I just couldn't get my mind into it....I gave up. The pace of this story was overly drawn out and long.

What I admired about the book was the author's strength in using point of view properly. I could envision what the characters were doing and the settings, which I love about stories. Unfortunately, this story did not have enough "story" for me.

If you love medieval romances as I do, you might enjoy it if you like a more subtle, non-exciting, lazy afternoon style of romance.
3118924
This was free on Amazon. Let me start off with a positive. I will say that I liked the premise of this book; the storyline was interesting. It had potential, but ultimately fell way short for me.
I was into it at the very beginning, but rather quickly the way Jacque and her two best friends talked got really annoying. They were disrespectful as well. They are only 17 and they are dealing with werewolves, yet they constantly run their mouths?
And where's the shock factor and disbelief from Jacque, Sally, Jen, and the couple across the street who were hosting Fane when they find out werewolves exist?!? Nothing that happened seem to shock anyone; they all just took everything in stride without batting so much as an eyelash. I know it's a fantasy book but by the end I was rolling my eyes. It was like bad acting in a movie.
Jacque is "alpha" material because she is so strong and sassy. She doesn't take any cr@p; she's a great match for him because she knows how to handle her "wolf man". And Fane was supposed to be sensitive, but he was a total pu$$! There were a few moments where he started to get a little tough and I was like okay he's going to go all alpha (since he IS supposed to become alpha one day), and then he'd cry or something because of his overwhelming love for his Luna as he liked to call her over and over and over again. Maybe Jacque should become alpha instead because she obviously wears the pants in that relationship.
And I have to go back to her friends Sally and Jen because these two were definitely the final nail in the coffin for me - I have NEVER disliked two supporting characters so much, well Jen was WAY worse than Sally. I felt like the book would've been so much better without them in it - they didn't add anything except for upping the annoyance factor. Jen was just rude and constantly interrupting everyone's conversations and getting in Fane's face all the time, warning him not to hurt her friend. And at the end? These guys are werewolves and all Jen has to do is put her hands on her hips and spew out some tough verbage and they all just back off from the tough scary little human female? Huh? I personally would like to think either a) she'd be a little more respectful and scared because she's dealing with werewolves that could rip her to shreds, or that b) they'd be a bit tougher than that and put the little mouth in her place, maybe by ripping her to shreds. I actually started skimming (not even really skimming, but skipping) all the paragraphs that had Sally and Jen in them.
All in all, it was just too "girl power" for me. And I like my werewolves to be a little more bad a$$.