Review: SCANDALOUS by Tilly Bagshawe ***

Sasha Miller comes to Cambridge with a dream and leaves on a mission. After falling for the lies and charms of her Director of Studies ‘Theo Dexter’ she finds herself betrayed, humiliated and nursing a bundle of broken dreams. Heading to the US she is determined to rebuild her life.
Years later, Sasha emerges from Harvard Business School with one thing on her mind, the downfall of the now famous Professor Theo Dexter.
Meanwhile Theo’s long-suffering wife Theresa also finds herself betrayed and cast aside for a younger and prettier model. Unable to cope she returns to Cambridge a broken woman and tries to rebuild her life away from the scheming Theo Dexter.
One night Sasha turns up at Theresa’s door, she wants revenge at any cost, will Theresa help her?
From the deepest betrayal comes a shocking alliance. Two vengeful women, one very unlucky man…

Tilly Bagshawe has written several blockbusters and although I own most of them, I've only read one before this book - Do Not Disturb and I couldn't help loving it! Thus I expected great things from this one too, but sadly and surprisingly I found it less enjoyable than Do Not Disturb ...

I really liked the opening few chapters, the naive and innocent Sasha arriving to Cambridge, falling in love and then the ultimate betrayal ... I felt for her and I expected her to get some cruel revenge, but after the first part the book just went downhill for me ... Sasha is a successful business woman, Theo is still the cheating scumbag and somewhat of a celebrity, his ex-wife is lonely etc. But quite frankly, I just felt that nothing was really happening and the story just wasn't going anyway, we were just following the characters through the years. I was waiting and waiting for Sasha to finally get her massive revenge, but when it happened, it was just like, "Blah, that's it?" I expected something far more epic than something so basic, something that would make up for the slow story, but the ending just felt rushed and a big anti-climax.

Luckily, the story was quite well written and I did want to find out what happened next (although not much did), but I wasn't too keen on the characters either. To me they just liked dimension. I felt Sasha was at first too naive and then too hell-bent on revenge, it was like one extreme to another. Theo had no redeeming qualities whatsoever and just too easy to hate. I suppose I found Theresa to be the most complex, but for some reason I didn't grow too fond of her either, she was just too boring.

Some of my criticism may be attributed to the fact that it took me weeks to read this book - and honestly NOT because I didn't enjoy it (because I did and I was very excited to read it), but I was just soooo busy that I had hardly any time for reading so maybe that's why I couldn't get properly absorbed into the story.

Not my favourite from Ms Bagshawe, but I'm certainly not giving up on her as I really loved Do Not Disturb and I still have Adored and Flawless to read! This was an enjoyable read, it certainly didn't annoy me or anything, but I guess I just felt it wasn't scandalous enough to live up to its title.

overall rating:
plot: 2/5 | writing: 4/5 | characters: 2/5 | cover: 3/5

Review: DO NOT DISTURB by Tilly Bagshawe *****

"Honor Palmer has always been a fighter. First, for her father's love, approval or even just his attention. When that failed, Honor switched her efforts to saving the family hotel that shares her name. Palmers, a beautiful old jewel of a building nestled on the coast of the Hamptons, used to be the most glamorous destination in the world. Now Honor wants to restore its reputation, its glitz and its guestlist. But there's a new boy in town with a different plan.
Lucas Ruiz is no stranger to struggle. He's worked his way up from the grimy hotel laundries of Ibiza, via Sweden and London, and now as manager of the new hotel on the block, he wants to bring modern boutique-chic to the States. He's got no time for the faded traditions of Palmers - or the ball-breaking girl who's trying to save it.
As Honor and Lucas prepare to go head to head to get the rich and famous checking in, the locals are busy checking out the backstairs gossip. Blackmail, adultery and the dirtiest of dirty tricks are all in a day's work behind the scenes of the five-star facades. Whisking you through the doors of the world's most exclusive hotels, Do Not Disturb is a blockbusting romp that's smart, sexy and more than a little scandalous."

Firstly, I'm not writing a summary for this one because it would take me forever as the book is quite long and there are also sooo many characters and subplots. Namely, this is a proper bonkbuster set in the lives of the filthy rich, featuring two strong characters, both hotel managers, who are mortal enemies at first, but after learning that they've both been destroyed by the same man, they eventually join forces to bring him down.

That would be a very rough summary, but there's a lot more happening in the book. There's adultery, drugs, sex tapes, fighting and all sorts of other scandals. The action in the book is spread over five years and it's a tad bit long, but it was never boring as there is always something going on.

Obviously, this book not a masterpiece, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I thought it was well-written with regards to the genre and there was a lot of witty dialogue (the book really cracked me up several times). Be warned, there's also a lot of swearing so it's not for the faint-hearted, but that's something I persoanlly don't mind in a book at all, I actually think it makes characters more real. Speaking of characters, I found all of them quite well-portrayed in the book; I particularly liked how they were all so driven and passionate and yes, ruthless, but I think their personalities added to the story and made it more exciting - characters like that just can't be boring!

This book is incredibly trashy, but I mean that in the best possible sense of the word, haha! I feel like it shouldn't be a 5/5 as it's so trivial, but on the other hand it was great escapsim and pure fun and I can hardly find any fault with it. I highly recommend this one as the perfect summer read! Ms Bagshawe has written a few other books too and I'm quite excited about reading both Flawless and Adored - just watched a video of the author talking about the latter and she says there's nothing real about it, just fun and escapism, which sounds just perfect to me!

overall rating: 5/5
plot: 4/5 | writing: 5/5 | characters: 5/5 | cover: 5/5