Pumpkin: a Cindermama Story - Ines Johnson

 

5 Stars!

 

ABOUT THE BOOK -

Single mother Malika “Pumpkin” Tavares lost faith in fairytales after she fell for a toad. Now she believes she’s not cut from the storybook, heroine cloth and searches for Mr. Good Enough amongst the sidekicks and supporting men of the town.

Love at first sight isn’t a cliche for town royalty Armand “Manny” Charmayne. For generations the Charmaynes have spotted their soulmates by seeing a golden aura the first time they laid eyes on The One.

When Manny meets Pumpkin he sees…nothing, but sparks fly off the richter scale. The more he gets to know her the more he considers defying fate, if only he can convince her to take a chance on love again.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR -

Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you’ll love her books!

Aside from being a writer, professional reader, and teacher, Ines is a very bad Buddhist. She sits in sangha each week, and while others are meditating and getting their zen on, she’s contemplating how to use the teachings to strengthen her plots and character motivations.

Ines lives outside Washington, DC with her two little sidekicks who are growing up way too fast. 

 

Visit her website - HERE

MY THOUGHTS -

Warning - I am going to babble on and on here because I liked this story so much! And that's what I do   :-)

Well this was definitely a fairy-tale Cinderella... I mean Cindermama story. It was sweet, cute, romantic, funny and infuriating at times, but all good romances are. This one made me laugh out loud in a few spots and also brought a few tears near the end, but they were sweet-tears.

The character development was great! I loved all the characters. I really became emotionally invested in them. Let me start with Pumpkin - What a cutie! I just adored her. I fell in love with her in the first chapter. She was definitely the hero of the story and such a good role model.

Her two cousins, now they were a different story. What a piece of work they were! But I have to say, they did keep me laughing!

 

And now the men - There was kind of a little love triangle going on (nothing wrong with that, adds more interest to the story!) Who's going to get the girl? Darrell or Manny? Problem was, I liked them both! You do know from the story blurb that it is probably Manny. I felt sorry for Darrell though and I want to know what happens to him. I want Darrell to find "The One". I want to know if her ever finds his Cinderella. I was going to write to Ines and ask her, but then I read at the end of the book - 

"Darrell's story should be released in the Spring of 2016." YAY!!!! It was like she read my mind! I love it when authors do that ;-)  I am going to try to get her to send me book two "Rumpled" Midori and Guy's story - I'm hooked!

I even loved all the minor characters, the B-story characters - their stories were just as interesting as the main plot.

Here is a few excerpts to hold you over till you download your own copy -

"You're a smart girl, my dear. But love, true love, is a decision between the head and the heart. Not just one or the other."

"It's not your responsibility to try to teach him right from wrong, Dae."

"There I disagree with you, Ms. T." Wise eyes smiled back at Pumpkin. "How can someone learn calculus, if they don't first know arithmetic?" 

"But if someone's not willing to learn arithmetic?"

"But he is," DaeHo insisted. "It's just that no one ever paid him enough attention to see that." ~ I loved that!

And this is my favorite -

"Work harder, do better, even though we're already maxed out. And then we're told to keep it tight and sexy so that we'll find a daddy for our kid. Is it any wonder we start to think that love is a fairytale? And no fairytale involves mothers, definitely not single mothers." ...

... "You want to know what a single mother is? She's a hero. All mothers are. We never give up. We face insurmountable odds every day. All this time I've been looking for someone to rescue me when the only person who could save me, was me." ~ WOW! Where was she when I was a single mother? This needs to be printed out and framed!

This is a very touching, heartfelt story. It does have a few graphic sex scenes in it - but they were tastefully done. It was more romance and love, not just sex, and that's what I like. I would really love to continue with this series. So keep on the look-out for my review of Rumpled - Cindermama #2 (click on the pic to take you to the Amazon link)

Thank you Ines Johnson for sending me a copy of your book for my honest review.

Order your copy from Amazon (It's only .99, how can you go wrong with that?) - HERE