{Review/Giveaway} EVERYDAY MAGIC by Emily Albright

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O P E N I N G   H O O K:

    MY LIFE HAD NEVER BEEN my own. Not really. It'd been carefully plotted and planned for use from infancy. Even down to where I got my haircut. Only the best would do for members of the McKendrick family. We were Hollywood royalty. Well, Dad was.
    All I wanted was to escape.

(Page 8, US e-book edition)

“Preston believed true love was the closest humans ever got to magic. But hes only partially right. Magic doesn't solely come from true love; it's around us every day, in the love of our friends and family as well.” 

~Maggie, EVERYDAY MAGIC

Maggie McKendrick wants to be a fashion designer, but her famous Hollywood father would rather she become an entertainment lawyer. He plans everything in her life, down to who she's seen with and where she goes in public. Maggie is sick and tired of it; she only wants a quiet life out of the Hollywood spotlight. When her family goes to Scottland for a new film, Maggie meets Preston...and knows she can never, ever fall for him, especially since her father wants her to pretend to be in a relationship with Hollywood It-Boy Ben Chambers. When Maggie tries to tell her father she wants to go to fashion design school, he blackmails her into dating Ben, which means what could have been with Preston is no longer possible...unless Maggie can learn to stand up to her abusive father once and for all. Can she have her dreams AND keep her family safe from retaliation?

I liked that this was the OPPOSITE of the traditional Hollywood story. It wasn't about an actor/singer/whatever coming to town and falling for the local girl. It wasn't about a girl's dreams of going to Hollywood/Nashville and making it big suddenly coming true. Instead, it was about a girl who had grown up in Hollywood and wanted OUT. She wanted to live her own life. EVERYDAY MAGIC isn't so much a story about Hollywood---that's more of the backdrop. It's about life, about family, about discovering yourself. It can fit into both YA and New Adult; there's no sexytimes, so younger readers will enjoy it, but there's enough romance to appeal to older readers as well!

EVERYDAY MAGIC is a companion to THE HEIR AND THE SPARE, and the couple from that book actually has a rather large presence in the back-half of this book. But I never felt like I HAD to read the first book to read this one, especially since it didn't impact most of the story. But I WOULD like to go back and read it now and see how that couple got together...plus, it's a "royalty trope" book, so bonus!! I would have thought it was cool to see a couple I'd rooted for back in the new book if I'd read in order, so fans of the first book will be very pleased!

I really liked how natural Maggie's relationship with Preston felt.  Preston was just the kind of guy that would be easy to fall in love with. He was really endearing to me, and I got excited every time he popped up on the page! It makes me want to go back and read THE HEIR AND THE SPARE even more now because Preston will be popping up as a secondary character! There wasn't TOO much drama going on, which made me happy, because contemporary NA can be very drama-llama. I'm not always a huge contemporary fan, but this one worked for me. Overall, I was really happy with how everything came together, and read the whole book very fast! 

EVERYDAY MAGIC comes out next month on December 2nd, so add it to your TBR now so you'll remember to pick it up in a month! Add some everyday, ordinary magic to your life this December--or give it to a loved one for the holidays!

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C O N T E N T R A T I N G S

Content Ratings: highlight between ( ) for details

Romance: PG  ( Kissing and making out--maybe sensual, but no talk about sex. It's possibly alluded to at the end when two characters just want to go home, but nothing is shown or implied.)

Language: PG ( One f-bomb toward the end. Mostly tame language such as "damn" and a couple of "bloody hells.")
Violence:  --

Other:  PG13 ( Maggie's roommate will put a sock/scarf/etc on the door if she's in the room with her boyfriend, but Maggie doesn't reflect on it deeply. Her brother may or may not participate in one-night stands; he's a bit of a playboy. Maggies father is emotionally and verbally abusive.There is an allusion to walking out of a hotel room and being pregnant from the paparazzi at one point when they spot Maggie and Ben walking out of a hotel...where they had been watching movies.. )

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C O V E R   D E S I G N:

i could take it or leave it. I like the star over the i, which lends a little magic" to the font, as well as the way the font is reminiscent of Hollywood Magic.

I like the way light is streaming from the trees like it's coming from onset.

But at the same time, the cover wouldn't really stand out to me on the shelf!

  ~*~

O F F I C I A L   I N F O:

Title: EVERYDAY MAGIC

Author: Emily Albright

Release Date: Dec. 2, 2016

Publisher: Merit Press
Received: For Review

Purchase Links:

SUMMARY:

For once, Maggie McKendrick just wants to control her own life. Her overbearing Hollywood director father has it all planned out for her: UCLA, law school, then working as an entertainment lawyer, preferably for him. But Maggie has other, more creative-spirit friendly, plans. Namely, Thrippletons School of Fashion and Design in England, and then onto becoming a designer, preferably a wildly successful one. The big snag in her plan? Getting it past her dad.

A movie shoot takes the family to the Scottish Highlands for the summer, and closer to Maggie’s dream school. While there, she runs into the charming Preston Browne. Maggie is intrigued and decides to bend her no guys rule—instituted after her ex used her to get close to her dad. Forced to keep secrets from Preston in order to protect the future plans she’s made, Maggie finds herself falling for the tall Brit. And for once in her life she knows that he’s interested in her, not her Hollywood connections. When Maggie's father blackmails her into dating his lead actor, she isn’t left with a choice. The biggest problem isn’t having to date hunky, mega-hottie, Ben Chambers. No, it’s praying she doesn’t lose Preston in the process.

Excelling at her dream school, Maggie’s personal life is a tangled mess. She needs to decide if living a lie is worth losing Preston or chance going against her father and facing his wrath. When the tabloids expose the truth of her fake relationship with Ben, Maggie's world is thrown into a tailspin. Ultimately, Maggie must find the courage to take risks and forge ahead on her own path.

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Emily Albright's debut novel, THE HEIR AND THE SPARE, is releasing January 18, 2016 from Merit Press.

She's a writer, a major bookworm, a lover of romantic movies, a wife, a mother, an owner of one adorable (yet slightly insane) cockapoo, and uses way too many :).

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