Book Review: Killer Diamonds by Rebecca Chance

"After decades in the spotlight as an Oscar-winning film star and famous beauty, Vivienne Winter is one of the most recognizable women on the planet. When she decides to auction her multi-million dollar jewellery collection for charity, there is no shortage of people eager to buy a piece of her incredible history.

Young, ambitious Christine Smith is a jewellery expert working for a centuries old auction house, but in a world of aristocratic snobs, her working-class origins are holding her back. She's desperate to secure the sale of Vivienne Winter's gem collection: it's bound to be the biggest auction since Elizabeth Taylor's. However, meeting the Hollywood star is just the first hurdle Christine has to jump . . .

Vivienne's handsome, spoilt, sexy playboy grandson Angel is the heir to her fortune. The anger and resentment he feels towards his grandmother for selling what he counted on as his inheritance sets in motion a series of events with deadly consequences. Angel is totally unscrupulous, and no-one will come out unscathed. Family secrets cut sharper than diamonds ."

Rating: 3.5/5

I've come to know Rebecca Chance's novels as quite rude, but glamorous, over-the-top stories about people often living in a life of luxury and excess, and I love them! They're always outrageous, and that was most certainly the case with her latest book Killer Diamonds. The story sounded intriguing from the beginning - a world famous film star auctioning off her vast jewellery collection, and a grandson desperate to stop the sale to exact revenge so he can inherit his grandmother's millions. But with a jewellery expert on the case, and keen to make her mark in the auctioning world, Angel knows he's up against it if he is to get his grandmother Vivienne's jewels... what lengths will he go to to stop the sale?

First thing I have to note about this book is the fact that I really didn't like any of the characters at all. Not one of them. Angel was by far the worst character I think I have ever read in any book (which is saying something!), Vivienne was so self-centred, egocentric and awful, and Christine was just a wet fish, and needed to grow a bit of a backbone! There was only one character I remotely liked and he just wasn't in the book enough to redeem the character side for me! However, there was something fun about having characters I loved to hate - I really didn't care for what was going to happen to them, and I wished some bad things on some of them, I must be honest.

The progression of the story was very good, and as always Rebecca Chance writes incredibly well, writing this detailed world for her characters to live in, and you do become immersed in it to an extent. The world of Angel and Vivienne was very opulent, they had anything their hearts desired, and it certainly didn't make them nice people because of it. Angel in particular was a hideous human being, someone I wouldn't ever want to know myself, he was just vile and had no redeeming features at all. Some of the scenes about him were quite depraved, and I found them uncomfortable at times, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

The jewellery described in the book sounds absolutely beautiful, and I bet Chance had fun researching lots of glamorous pieces to base Vivienne's collection on, I could see why the jewellery expert Christine was so taken with them. Her job sounded really interesting, imagine being able to handle jewellery of that value, but I just couldn't warm to her as a person either, she was too weak to be surrounded by the people she was, she seemed a normal person caught in a toxic web, but I just couldn't feel much for her unfortunately. One other thing described really well in the book was the setting. Some of it takes part in London, other parts in Switzerland, and it was beautifully written, Switzerland sounds idyllic, and I can see why Vivienne was so taken with it.

Overall, this book was a fun read, but there were a few bits I just didn't enjoy, which isn't usually the case with Rebecca's books for me. I found some of the sex scenes were just too much for me, and Angel in particular is quite depraved in this sense, and these scenes just weren't for me at all. There is also some very very strong language within the book which I usually don't see in the books I read. Other than that, the story was interesting, and I was curious to see how it would all end for these people, in particular Angel and Vivienne. Full of money, excess, debauchery and more, this is certainly an eye-opener, and although for me it wasn't Rebecca's best book, it was still a good read.

Book Review: Mile High by Rebecca Chance

"First class is about to get dangerous . . . Pure Air's new LuxeLiner is flying from London to LA - its inaugural journey - with a first-class cabin packed with A List celebrities. As the feuding crew compete to impress their famous passengers, the handsome pilot tries to win the attention of a pretty young stewardess. But one VIP singer is battling something seriously sinister: watching her every step is a very determined stalker, someone who will go to any lengths to get the star to satisfy their desires. At thirty thousand feet there is nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide . . ."

Rating: 4.5/5

Available to buy now.

This is the first of Rebecca Chance's novels with her new publishers Pan Macmillan, and I was really pleased to see the new direction her covers were going in, after many books featuring a shoe with her last publishers! This cover screamed 'Jackie Collins' to me, odd since I have only recently read my first of Jackie's books, but it goes to show how important branding is for authors. I eagerly dived into this book once I received a review copy, and goodness me, Rebecca doesn't disappoint! Everything I expect from one of her novels is in this book, and here's why it's a must-read for me!

World famous pop star Catalina is about to help launch Pure Air's new LuxeLiner by going aboard its maiden voyage to New York in order to help advertise the service, along with some other well known faces. What she doesn't know, however, is that her stalker is also aboard the plane, leaving her nowhere to run or hide a mile up in the air. As Catalina struggles to get anyone to believe that her stalker is on the flight with her, the stalker is getting ready for the big crescendo to months of harassment, and to finally make Catalina theirs. Will the stalker quite literally get away with murder, or can Catalina escape their psychotic hands?

The book is very glamorous from the beginning, and I loved the idea of a book being set aboard one flight on a brand new aeroplane. It added a bit of drama to the book because you know the characters can't just runaway, and that's it all going to end somehow, and I couldn't wait to see what the big finale was going to be for this book! I had fun throughout the book trying to work out who Rebecca had based some of her more outrageous characters on, and had a good guess at a few of them! I love the way she writes her characters - larger than life, funny, yet you just have to laugh at them because they are so brilliant and yet ridiculous at the same time!

The main character of this particular story is Catalina, a famous pop star who is getting over a recent break-up and wants to shy away from the limelight to get over her heartbreak. Her PA isn't having any of it, and tells her to fulfill her obligation to PureAir and get on the LuxeLiner, little knowing what she is leading her boss into. While we meet Catalina when she is in a bit of a state, we find out a lot more about her as a person through the flashbacks which occur throughout the book, and detail her relationship, the way the stalker progresses in following Catalina, and how she deals with it. I really liked reading about her, and she seemed really genuine and nice despite the fame, which makes a change it seems! Also on the plane are a TV chef, who is simply hilarious, an actress who doesn't really like the fame side of her job, and the CEO of PureAir, determined that nothing will ruin this maiden flight.

The tension is ramped up as we see snippets from the stalker, watching Catalina from afar on the plane, and you're just waiting nervously for them to make their move, unsure what they are going to do and the destruction that it undoubtedly unfold as things happen! I have to confess that I didn't at all guess who the stalker was, and I was shocked as the big reveal happened and it all kicked off! It was a great crescendo to what had been built up as a brilliant story, and I really liked how it all happened so fast, it really added to the drama in the book! Chance fools us well throughout the book with her red herrings, and as I said, I didn't guess it which I loved - so often I read books which are predictable (although still very enjoyable!) so it was great to read something where I really couldn't guess what was happening!

I feel this was a different read from Rebecca's previous novels in a way, but still just as brilliant as the rest of her books I have read - and I've read all 8 so like to think I know what I am talking about! There's the usual sex scenes in her books, which are as usual well written, lots of shocking moments, a few in particular that made me blush and almost have to double check what I had just read, but that just adds to the enjoyment of Rebecca's books for me! If you've read Rebecca's previous books, you'll definitely love this one, I certainly did and am now eagerly awaiting her next one, I've already got high expectations for it! Mile High was a brilliant book, and I can definitely recommend it, although probably not for the faint-hearted!

Book Review: Divas by Rebecca Chance

Lola Fitzgerald has a pretty charmed life. She has every designer piece of clothing she wants, holidays on tap and homes around the world courtesy of her rather rich father.

But Lola's world is thrown into disarray when her father falls into a coma and Lola's stepmother Carin cuts off all of her funds immediately. Her situation gets worse when Lola discovers the existance of her father's mistress Evie Lopez, and her fiance is thrown into rehab for drug addiction.

Lola wants back what is rightfully hers but she is forced to team up with Evie to catch Carin out and get her out of her life once and for all.

"Divas" is the debut novel for Rebecca Chance, and she follows the line of great "bonkbuster" authors such as the Bagshawe sisters Louise and Tilly, Lulu Taylor, Jo Carnegie and Olivia Darling who have all embraced the gritty side of "chick-lit" and done so brilliantly as well. The striking purple cover of the book immediately took my eye, and it made me want to read it, and the recommendations from Louise Bagshawe and Olivia Darling were great and well placed for a book like this as well!

The story mainly follows the character of Lola Fitzgerald, very much a pampered rich girl who lives off Daddy's trust fund. However, the twist in this book is that she has to learn to live without it (albeit not very successfully!) and contend with the wicked stepmother too. Although I didn't expect to, I absolutely loved the character of Lola because she was very likeable, and because of the twists and turns in the story, you sympathise with her character and grow to like her despite her sometimes selfish attitude!

Evie is the other main character in the book, and I didn't like her as much as Lola. She seemed far more mercenary than Lola, and although that fitted in with the plot, I just didn't warm to her as much and consequently didn't care as much for her story. As her story became more interwoven with Lola's, I began to care more for it but still not the character so much. Even so, she was a good enough character and served a good purpose for the story which was interesting enough. My favourite character was Lola's fiance Jean-Marc - he was hilarious and lit up every scene he was in because he was just so funny! Chance has clearly put him in there for the comic relief and it works, he's fab and I wish he had been in the book a bit more!

The book moves locations throughout and I found this really fun and exciting to read. It moves from London to New York and even to Italy for a little part of the book, and I liked this. Chance has clearly done her research when it comes to the locations mentioned as she describes things very well and it was very enjoyable to read. You can vividly imagine all the posh hotels Lola stays in, the shabby room that Evie has to camp down in and the plush home of Carin quite easily because of Chance's vivid writing, and it really is a joy to read. The writing style is easy to read and enjoyable and the book moves at a great pace with some shocking twists and turns along the way. The sex scenes in the book are sometimes quite graphic in their descriptions so perhaps if that isn't for you, skip over those parts as they aren't too frequent but I didn't find them too OTT and they didn't seem unnecessary in the book either.

This is a fantastic read, and I would thoroughly recommend it. It's a brilliant read full of fun, shocks, sex and a great story and I really couldn't put it down once I had started reading it. It surprised me along the way, and the shocks kept me completely hooked, I didn't expect half of them as they happened! For a debut novel, I think this book is brilliantly written and is definitely a recommended summer read (what's left of it!) but a book you can enjoy all year too. I loved every page and was disappointed when it ended, so I can't wait to read more of Rebecca Chance's work in the future! A superb read, very highly recommended!

Rating: 5/5