Review: Loved!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 20, 2013
please note: This review is very similiar to the one I posted for "The Frog Prince", but has been updated for "Gilding".  What I said before is still very relevant to this book as well.LOVED THIS BOOK!***CHARACTERS***Leigh Fromm:  Professional research assistant, quirky personality, sometimes socially akward, has a great sense of humor that most people don't appreciate.Roman Lorraine:  Wants to be just a regular guy, builds treehouses, went to law school, and just happens to be part of a line of former Austrian royals.Kat: Leigh's best friend & co-worker.Christine:  Leigh's cousin & one of Roman's best friends from college.Isabelle:  Princess of Denmark, Roman's ex dance partner/girlfriend.Francesca Lord:  The Countess everyone fears, but, seems to have hold on some of the most important strings to pull when one is needed.Mikhail Romanov:  The Russian party boy, womanizer, and Roman's childhood "friend".***STORY***This story follows Leigh Fromm  a professional research assistant, and her prince charming, Roman Lorraine (from his POV)Leigh & Roman meet at a funeral/viewing, where Leigh had impaled Romans foot with her high heeled shoe. Roman is just smitten with her, and is trying to get close enough to talk to her.  At first, she is thrown off / offended by him, but he is in hot pursuit to not only make things right, but get to know her more.  Roman shows up next day to the burial, and with the help of Kat gets Leigh to agree to not only a ride home, but dinner!Fast forward a few days and we find them in Aspen enjoying an "almost royalty" weekend.  Immediatly after arriving, we are confronted with Isabelle, who comes off very clingy, jealous, and a little self centered. Leigh handles it all very well though, eventually making some great friends along the way.  Roman on the other hand is on high-alert.  We find him preoccupied on trying to keep Leigh & Izzy apart.As the story progresses we find Roman & Leigh falling in love and just living life, enjoying each others company.  That is, until New Years when the vote goes through and Roman finds himself as the reinstated King of Austria.  He is totally in shock, yet fearful of what this means for him & Leigh.  Leigh is left standing on the outskirts of the whirlwind with absolutly no idea what happened. After she is filled in on all the details, we find her still pining for Roman, all the while having to deal with not only the papparrazi, but also Isabelle who seems to be at every function front & center.  Roman on the other hand is kicking himself in the rear because of how much he didn't tell Leigh.***OVERALL***This is a great story! The characters & storyline are easily believable, and I was left wanting more. Luckily there will be a sequel to this.  I really liked having this come from Roman's POV, so many questions were answered.  We found out that Isabelle isn't as bad as she originally came off as.  At first I loved to hate the Countess, but grew to respect her because she was playing the political/royal game of chess VERY WELL.  I also appreciated how normal Roman wanted to keep things, he wasn't obsessed with the power/fame that could possibly become his.  He was so humble, and that just speaks volumes about a persons character.One thing I really appreciate with any book, especially with indie authors, is amazing proofreading.  There is nothing worse than reading a book and having to correct things (spelling, word usage) as you go.  Elle is a professional.  She has cleary taken the time needed to make sure that grammatical issues, spelling, sentence structure,etc. were corrected before publishing.  I greatly appreciate it!Highly recommend this Author/Story to all!  Very much looking forward to finishing her other works.