Treasure Me by Christine Nolfi

 

                  

 

• EBook: 415 pages
• Genre : Contemporary Fiction
• Publisher: Kindle 2011
• Source: eBook provided by the author as a result of me winning a give away draw organised by The Eclectic Reader 
• My Opinion: After a slow start I was glad I continued.

 

I have very eclectic tastes when it comes to reading and if an author approaches me I am usually happy to take them up on any offers to receive a copy of their novel in return for an honest and unbiased review. It is no surprise to me that recently more and more of the requests I have been receiving are with regards to ebooks. This is fine with me unless there turns out to be a problem with formatting, as happened to me with this title. I am not at all technical so have to rely on the author knowing what he or she is doing, if I just tell them which devices we have available!

I had liked the sound of Christine Nolfi’s  debut novel and did in fact enjoy it in the end after this very frustrating start.  It was not only proving difficult to get into the story as the characters were introduced but due to some initial formatting problems chunks were missing from the end of the first few chapters! Thanks to the patience of the author with my technical inabilities, as neither of us were really sure what was happening, she certainly had no problems prior to mine, it was sorted.  Frustrations behind me I found my self settling into the story which is very readable. Do not expect a great literary work but an easy read that will hold your attention if you let yourself get beyond the first fifty pages.

The two main characters are Birdie and Hugh whose paths cross in the town of Liberty, Ohio  Birdie is a small time thief in search of family history in the form of an heirloom which she hopes will be valuable enough to enable her to give up her life of crime and settle down. Hugh a failing journalist is in town to write an expose about a local family. There is immediate sexual tension between the two of them and despite the fact they both claim to be looking for no more than a casual fling it is soon obvious they are are starting to care for one another.

Without giving any more away I can say that by the end of the story, I felt I was beginning to know quite well the little town of Liberty and its inhabitants. I would have preferred I think though to have had the story related just by the two protagonists. Although I do understand why the author probably felt some things needed explaining from a different point of view at times. The ending is predictably a little clichéd but to be expected with this style of contemporary fiction.

If this sounds like your style then it is worth reading. I would not have chosen to read this myself had the author not approached me to do so, but I am glad she did.

 

Christine owned a small public relations firm in Cleveland, Ohio. Her articles and press releases have appeared regionally in The Plain Dealer, The Akron Beacon Journal, Cleveland Magazine and other media outlets. Her short story, Night Hour, appeared in Working Mother magazine. Christine closed the firm fifteen years ago after she travelled to the Philippines and adopted a sibling group of four children. She has been writing novels fulltime since 2004.

“Treasure Me” is the first book of the Liberty, Ohio series. “Second Chance Grill” was  due to be released in June 2011, although I have not been able to verify if this in fact happened.

Information for this post is with thanks to the following websites.

Author photo courtesy of Goodreads

Goodreads Author Profile - Christine Nolfi

Christine Nolfi Blog