For Money or Love by Heather Blackmore

For Money or Love
by Heather Blackmore
Pages: 312
Date: September 13 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.50 out of 5.0
Read: August 30 to 31 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books in return for a fair review.*

I wish to start off with two things before anything else: 1) this is one of those books I might have flirted with the idea of skipping writing a review but for the Netgalley connection; 2) my education and work experiences are both an advantage and disadvantage in regards to this book – an advantage in the reading, a disadvantage in the reviewing.

Advantage – I have a B.B.A., an undergraduate degree – bachelor of business administration (with both much finance/marketing/economics learning, and business buzz words); plus my work experience has consisted entirely with dealing with financial matters, from a legal perspective. (I also have a graduate degree, but that doesn’t matter). Nothing I read flew over my head or confused me. Though I admit that I had to read a specific part of the epilogue twice to understand what was being said.

Disadvantage – I cannot really say how hard or easy the wording is; how much ‘jargon’ gets in there – though, right I’ll get to that. So I’m at something of a disadvantage on the review side of things since I cannot actually say if something is or isn’t annoyingly difficult to understand.

Referencing back to my ‘flirted with the idea of skipping writing a review’ – I’m going to go back to the framework I sometimes use, but haven’t in a while.

People of Importance
Point of Views
There are two point of views offered up in this book – Jessica Spaulding, marketing director at Magnate (an investment firm), and TJ Blake, MBA student and intern at Magnate.

Jessica ‘Jess’ Spaulding
Marketing director at Magnate. Though she ‘pretends’ to be an air-head at work, and only goes into work something like 11 hours a week. If that. The air head thing has to do with a run-in with her parents, specifically with Lilith, the step-mother. Apparently Jessica showed great intellectual promise while in school, which Lilith didn’t like, so she told Jessica to play dumb. So Jessica did. Because she didn’t want to make waves. A reoccurring theme (like a later demand she stop seeing Dillon). So, even though she is super intelligent, very good with math, and a great marketing director (apparently ten times better than everyone else on earth), she pretends to be an air-head.

I have no idea of Jess’s age. It might have been given, but if so I overlooked it. Sexual Orientation: Straight. Until TJ came into the picture. Other than TJ, Jess only gets sexually aroused by men.

TJ ‘Teej’ Blake
TJ is a 27 year old M.B.A. student who, by the grace of a program (specifically the Derrick Spaulding program), has the ability to get an MBA with the cost of a few years working in a non-profit organization. She is sent as an intern to Magnate to develop a case study – to find out how and why Magnate constantly remains at the top of investment firms (including during periods of economic downturn). She is super protective of her sister Kara. Is both anti-wealth and anti-… doing something other than getting the best education possible.

She has a massive problem accepting gifts, offers of rides, lunches in nice restaurants, etc. Because money is evil. Super super evil. Money is the devil and must be eliminated! Okay, not that extreme, but she has a chip on her shoulder regarding money and people with money directly related to her own life history (father did stupid things with money and was apparently ‘gotten rid of’ by mafia ). At the same time . . . there is a kind of vibe, which is probably wrong, that she looks down on those without an education – which comes into direct conflict with her sister since the sister wants to go into auto-repair (actually finding old rusted out blocks of metal, and restoring them, then selling them), while the sister is forcing her to apply herself to her education and then ‘go to a good college’ (because ‘she made a promise’ ETA - TJ made the promise - to the father; Kara made no promises).

Kara Blake
TJ’s sister, was . . . 9? When their mother died. Blames herself. Is currently 16 and under the supervision of TJ. Grunts at her sister. Is super into playing video games, repairing cars (and joyriding in cars, not necessarily the same cars she repairs), and less interested in school than her sister wants her to be.

Dillon
Jessica’s childhood lover and current best friend. Owns an auto body shop. With lots of rare and expensive old cars sitting around on display.

Family of Jessica
Lilith is Jessica’s shrew of a step-mother – very controlling, always gets her way while her husband just sits there as she berates and dominates his children; one of those children, though, is Lilith’s – Gary is the COO of Magnate (which normally means ‘Chief Operating Officer’, not sure if that was actually stated in the book – a COO, and this depends somewhat on the arrangements made in the company, ‘is the senior manager responsible for managing the company’s day-to-day operations and reporting to the chief executive officer (CEO)’) – he is kind of dimwitted (okay, not really certain if he is or isn’t, but he is described in a way to make the reader question his intelligence, since Jess was forced to hide her intelligence because Lilith didn’t want Gary to be sad ; Derrick is founder and CEO of Magnate, husband of Lilith, father of Jessica and Brooke; Brooke is . . . . um. I think she is the head of sales at Magnate.

Muriel Manchester
Super rich lesbian CEO of something or other that the Magnate people have been courting for a long time to invest in the Magnate fund. To have Magnate handle Muriel’s finances.

Plot
TJ goes to work at Magnate, an investment firm, as part of her M.B.A. program. She gets assigned to be supervised by a woman by the name of Jessica Spaulding, daughter of the CEO and founder of the company.

Conflict rears its head early. Both because Jessica is the marketing director, and TJ isn’t there to do a marketing study; and in the part wherein Jessica doesn’t really want to supervise anyone, and gives TJ busy work.

They butt heads. Also a certain amount of lust is in the air involving the two. Some form of relationship develops.

Meanwhile Kara shows her displeasure with life by stealing cars, ‘borrowing them’, and then getting beaten up. Naturally TJ is quite unhappy by these events.

TJ’s work study isn’t really going anywhere, re: she isn’t doing a marketing study, and so demands more access. To which she is given. And can’t make heads or tails of what she is shown. She can’t understand how Magnate is able to do what it does. Evilness is afoot.

Buzz words
Something of a joke among, well late-night comedians, people in the industry, people in general – people who fall back onto buzz words are not really saying anything/are attempting to sound intelligent/are kind of moronic in nature. There is both a certain amount of ‘right’ in that, and ‘wrong’.

Any industry will end up with words that get used. Sometimes the words can mean the opposite in the industry than in ‘normal’ life. Sometimes they can sound stupid to an outsider. But the words are just short hand to get things done. Also, at the same time, they also can clue someone in that the person they are talking with is a moron. Depends on context. And the number of buzz words used in the same sentence. And the number of times ‘utilize’ is used.

Like, in the book TJ starts spouting some ‘buzz words’ near the beginning. She’s an MBA student. It’s kind of expected that she would be awash with funny new words and that she would spout them out.

Later Jessica explains how she would handle some marketing issues. She spouts out a bunch of gibberish buzz words. Reading that section twice let me know she actually did say something. It just sounded like a moron who didn’t know what they should say and so started spouting out buzz words.

And by buzz words I mean something like: ‘We need to utilize the deliverables to enable maximum ROI’ (we need to use our products (apples, computers, dog leashes; reports; people (yes, I’ve seen the word used for people)) in a way that creates the largest amount of money in return for our investment in the products (ROI – return on investment); or, like as is seen in the book ‘I see all these basic activity metrics floating around – clicks, followers downloads. Those are fine indicators, but you need effectiveness metrics and revenue-focused calculations. There are market-performance tracking tools that you could and should be using.’ (Jessica was asked to present some ideas on how to improve marketing. So she used a bunch of buzz words. Which actually mean something. But . . . are kind of low level ‘ideas’ to improve marketing. She basically said that, currently, the company tracks ‘clicks, followers, downloads’ (as in, the number of times someone ‘clicks’ on something (a link, an advertisement, etc., online) – etc. While tracking that is good, the company is missing out on adding another layer of ‘metrics’ (literally a method of measuring something or the results obtained from something – the ‘statistics’ and the like; like a website receives 1200 ‘hits’ or visitors, 2 actually click on an advertisement on the webpage. The advertisement is 0.00167% effective in getting someone to click on it) – that tracks effectiveness metrics (something that actually tracks the effective percentage like above) and revenue-focused calculations (the percentage of the people who click on an advertisement actually buy something, versus the cost of the advertisement itself; like the advertisement costs $10 per view; 1200 people visited the website; depending on the contract, that could mean that the advertisement cost $12,000; 2 people ‘clicked’ on the advertisement (if the cost of the ad is tied to clicks then the ad cost $20 instead of $12,000); and 1 bought something – that something cost $0.33 to make; the person paid $5 for it (so – $4.67 ‘mark-up’, or $4.67 revenue before all other expenses) meaning that the company paid either $12,000 or $20 to generate $4.67 of revenue; which would equal a loss of $11,995.33 or $15.33 for their efforts). So, what Jessica is saying is that, currently, the total number of clicks, followers, downloads are being tracked, but only that – the rest, how many viewers it took to get a click (effectiveness metrics), to get a follower, to get a download is not currently being tracked.

So basically Jessica is offering up as her brilliant ‘marketing plan’ installing basic metrics. Or – boiled down - they are spending money without knowing what the result of spending that money is. And the profit, or loss, generated. Jessica recommended putting something in to track that. She’s brilliant. (it’s been about 20 years since I actually had to think in marketing terms, yeah I got a BBA – with a concentration in Marketing - so I’m sure I’m somehow wrong with my interpretation of what occurred).

I now forgot what I was attempting to say.

Um – book solid. Characters grew. Plot – there. Some people evil. Was nice that, for a brief moment, the rich mother wasn’t the spineless one – like many Lesfic’s I read make her; and that the rich father seemed ‘nice’ unlike the majority of rich fathers in Lesfic’s – until, you know, he wasn’t. Romance occurred as well as sex. Was graphic. When sex occurred I was distracted by events and cannot say if ‘good’ or not – sex wise. Beginning to end I liked Jess more than anyone else. TJ annoyed me at times. oh, and I do not know how you get ‘TJ’ from ‘Cordelia’ – TJ’s actual real name

I would give this book a rating of exactly 3 and a half stars.

August 31 2016

Anyone But You by K.G. MacGregor

Anyone But You
by K.G. MacGregor
Pages: 221
Date: June 16 2014
Publisher: Bella Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.40 out of 5.0
Read: April 16 to 19 2016

There is an interesting story here. More in terms of the big business/corruption/oil spill/environmental disaster/cover-up or attempted cover up, and less in terms of romance.

Oddly, the least realistic parts of this book were the 'good' parts, the actions of the 'good people'. Plus the romance was rushed, and not tremondously gripping.

I might think of more to say later, unlikely though.

April 19 2016

Worth the Risk by Karis Walsh

Worth the Risk
by Karis Walsh
Pages: 264
Date: April 1 2012
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: March 16 to 17 2016
This is my fifth book that I have read by this author.

Firstly – I’m surprised at myself that it took me a good long while before I caught on to the title. Well, maybe not surprised, since I wasn’t really paying attention to the title. ‘Worth the Risk’ – I was seeing it, when I briefly rarely thought of the issue, as ‘is the proposal by the person who wishes to pay a million plus dollars for a horsie worth the risk?’ And yes, there is a connection between the two – the proposal and the book title. But then there’s also the other type of risk. The one I might have caught on to quicker, or at least caught the connection to the title, if I had been paying more attention – ‘is this person worth the risk to break through the barriers that I have put up around myself?’ – and before you ask, that question goes to both characters.

At a relatively young age, Jamie Callahan was caught making out with another female by her parents. Neither of whom approved of the activity. And let Jamie know. The step-father, though, took the ‘punishment’ rather far. Then the mother abandoned them. And, eventually, at the age of 15 Jamie broke away with her younger sister to attempt to both protect her sister, and attempt to do something approaching a better life. She put herself through college, got a job, one that she was/is highly successful at. Though she’s something of a large shark in a tiny pond because she’s staying in the Portland area instead of attempting to make it big in one of the larger financial sectors of the nation (like, say, New York and possibly Chicago). To a large extent she’s stayed a large shark because she has a kid to raise who has ‘special needs’ (which is both true and misleading, depending on how someone interrupts my use of that phrase). Let’s be clear – her niece is in a wheel-chair; Jamie is raising her because the mother is dead; Jamie, somewhat, blames herself for both the need for the wheel-chair, and the death of the child’s mother; having to grow up fast, she’s not emotionally equipped to show love – neither to her sister, who she raised since she was 15 (and the sister was . . . 10?), nor to her niece. So, she has work that distracts her and many one night stands. She doesn’t think she’s equipped for more than that. But, is it worth the risk to have more than just sex? More than just a one night stand? With Kate Brown?

Kate Brown’s parents raised her to always be striving to go as high as she can socially. To be a social climber. They left their homes in Kentucky, and put on airs of being more than they were so that Kate could push higher (by the way, the mother doesn’t like the name ‘Kate’ as she thinks it’s too . . . mundane? Something). And Kate has fallen into the trap that she wants to both protect her parents (reputation? Something else?), and advance herself. So, when the opportunity came to reach higher than she currently resides in the horse jumping world, she jumps at it. The opportunity involves a horse, a million dollar horse, which will allow Kate to reach the heights of the field, maybe even an Olympic medal (the maybe even part might need to be stricken from the sentence). Kate works hard to get the financial backing to get the horse. She has a proposal in at Davison and Burke, and Jamie Callahan has been assigned by D&B to investigate the proposal. The ‘is it worth the risk’ for Kate is two-fold – is it worth the risk to break away from her parents desires and strive for her own (i.e., she found happiness in her own situation – a barn, (a) good horse(s), teaching students (some of whom require special teaching methods, like those who are autistic, or use wheelchairs, or have M.S.)), and/or is it worth the risk to see if there’s more that could develop between her and Jamie Callahan?

The conflict, stress, turmoil involved, found within the story seems, at a first read glance (which is good enough for me, I rarely do more than one read) to be largely in keeping with the characters and story-line. And yes, there is conflict, there is drama, angst, and ‘issues’ that come up. Barriers that have to be breached. Issues that have to be tackled. Emotional growth that needs to occur.

I think I just wrote a teaser instead of a review. Hmms. Mmphs.

Well, I rather enjoyed the time spent with the horses, the time spent between Kate and Jamie, even when both were trying to be professional; the time they spent when they weren’t trying to be professional; the various competitions; the growth shown by Jamie in various areas. The sex.

March 17 2016

"Daite."
by Hildred Billings
Pages: 233
Date: September 27 2013
Publisher: Barachou Press
Series: Jiai Jouwa (first in series)

Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Read: May 9 2014 to May 28 2015

Well. This book of only 233 pages took me 385 days to read. Friday, May 9 2014 to May 28 2015. Oh, I can see, on here, wherein I had marked when I had started reading the book for the first time. So, 385 days and 6 minutes. heh. Apparently I began in May at roughly 3:34 pm, ended in May at roughly 3:40. A year and 20 days later. (huh, odd, when I add the time, I lose a day, yet I finished 6 minutes after I started).

That's actually both technically true and technically untrue. I read from 5/9/14 to 5/25/14, paused, then started up again on 5/28/15 and ended same day. Read the first 41% in 2014, and the last 59% today. All because I couldn't stand the main character's actions. heh.

The first part involved Jun's whiny nature, plus exciting stuff with Saya. I said at the time I read part one "not sure how the rest of the book will go, but first 17% was definitely 5 star stuff. I kinda fell into a trance, I did." Then the Jun's whinning got even more on my nerves in part two. And I finally couldn't take it anymore and stopped. I read part 3 and 4 today (or however many parts come after the second part). Part 3 made me think Jun was a whiny nasty bitch who could think of nothing but sex, drinking, how to get ahead at her job (or, specificially, get named to inherit the chairman's role), and how she wished she could be in a relationship.

At some point in part 3, then throughout the rest of the book, I relearned Jun and her character and was able to better able to take her. I'd say that the year long gap allowed me to come back, vaguely remember what came before, then restart at the worst possible moment. Where Jun is at her worst. Character wise. Except I have notes about how her whinning was driving me up the wall, and how that was why I had a year long break. So . . at this point . . . meh.

Interesting read on several levels. Including reading a book set in Japan, plus a little something about the lesbian culture there. After that long break, there's no way I could recommend or not recommend the book. I'm not really in any position, now, to do so. I would note, though, that, as the book progressed through part four and the ending, I was beginning to think about how I might read the second book in the series.

I made some comment in my status updates about how I wouldn't wish to have anything to do with Jun, as a relative, as a friend, or as a lover because of how much of a whiny nasty bitch she was. That was a dumbfounded opinion of mine. Spur of the moment. Mostly based on part 3. In the end, I think I actually kind of like Jun.

I feel like I'm on a yo-yo, a pendulum, my thoughts and feelings being yanked around. Like how Jun was yanked around by Saya. We eventually learn why Jun was being yanked around, but, in the moment, Saya was quite annoying.

Suki yo