Holding Court by K.C. Held : ARC Book Review

Title: Holding Court
Author: K.C. Held
Publisher:  Entangled Teen
Published Date: March 1st 2016
Genre: Contemporary, YA, Mystery, Psychic
Page Count: 352
Format: Kindle

My Rating: ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Sixteen-year-old Jules Verity knows exactly what's in store at her new job at castle-turned-dinner-theater Tudor Times. Some extra cash, wearing a fancy-pants dress, and plenty of time to secretly drool over the ever-so-tasty--and completely unavailable--Grayson Chandler. Except that it's not quite what she imagined.

For one, the costume Jules has to wear is awful. Then there's the dead body she finds that just kind of...well, disappears. Oh, and there's the small issue of Jules and her episodes of what her best friend calls "Psychic Tourette's Syndrome"--spontaneous and uncontrollable outbursts of seemingly absurd prophecies.

The only bright side? This whole dead body thing seems to have gotten Grayson's attention. Except that the more Jules investigates, the more she discovers that Grayson's interest might not be as courtly as she thought. In fact, it's starting to look suspicious...
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 My Review:
"Why is everyone so eager to assume I'm nuts? Just because I blurt out random bizarre statements and find dead bodies that disappear before anyone else sees them?"

Jules comes from an interesting family, her grandma can read peoples auras, her mom can tell if antique items are real or fake, and Jules has Psychic Tourette's Syndrome as her best friend calls it.

While her mom and grandma’s abilities are useful, Jules hasn’t yet been able to learn the importance of her ability and how exactly the words she spews out have any importance at all. But she is soon to learn how important her ability is and how it could just end up saving lives.

When Jules mom decides to go to Europe so she can appraise items, Jules is left without a summer job and with no car her job options are limited. With the help of her best friend Cami she gets a job at the local castle dinner theater that has recently opened. She is immediately given the job and takes the place of Angelica. 

Once her first night shadowing Angelica is over and Jules is going back to the dining hall to meet the other employees she finds a secret passage way, where she finds a dead body…. But once she gets help and is able to tell them what happened the body is gone and isn’t able to be found anywhere.

With only two people believing her Grayson and King Henry VIII, she is left in an awkward position.  But when an attempt to gravely injure her happens, they realize things are far more serious than anyone had realized.  Once the police have been notified of everything happening at the castle, they suspect Jules of being an accomplice to the woman that is missing. Jules and Grayson decided it’s time to figure out what is going on and where the body has gone. 

I thought this story was okay, after first I didn’t really like it so much because of how focused Jules was on Grayson, and how she couldn’t have him/he didn’t like her.  Once she started to talk to him though and actually interact with him she stops being so obsessive. Mainly because of having to find a dead body and clearing her name of any suspected wrong doings, but still it was nice to see her growing as a character and not being so over the moon for him the whole story.

I also really enjoyed Jules and her grandma’s relationship, even though she got annoyed with her grandma’s whole aura thing you can tell that she also kind of liked the weirdness and how it was just how grandma was. I also liked how grandma explained to Jules why her ability wasn’t pointless and how it was important and even though it did at times seem pointless and just an annoyance it had ended up saving a person’s life in the past and if she stopped trying to stop it, than she just might be able to make a job out of it.

Overall if you want a quick slightly Tudor time contemporary then I think you just might like this. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Entangled Teen for an e-Arc in exchange for my honest review.