Author: Tiffany King

Guest Review: A Shattered Moment by Tiffany King

Posted May 11, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: A Shattered Moment by Tiffany KingReviewer: Tracy
A Shattered Moment by Tiffany King
Series: Fractured Lives #1

Publication Date: May 5, 2015
Genres: New Adult
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three-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

In the new series by the bestselling author of the Woodfalls Girls novels, six friends—fresh from high school graduation—discover that the future can come at you from out of nowhere.
This is Mackenzie’s story…

Mackenzie Wilson once had hope for what life had to offer, but everything changed on the night of her graduation. A year later, the only way she can find comfort is by keeping her head down and hoping she remains unnoticed at college.

When Bentley James discovered Mac in that twisted SUV, he was just a newbie EMT on his first call. It was a gut-wrenching moment that made him realize not everyone can be saved—and sometimes they don’t want to be.

A chance encounter on campus brings Bentley back into Mac’s life. Despite her initial resistance, he sets out to discover the girl hiding beneath a shield of seclusion. He evokes painful memories in Mac—but also feelings. As the spark between them grows, Mac must decide if she can let go of the past and believe in something as fragile as love…

Tracy’s review of A Shattered Moment (Fractured Lives #1) by Tiffany King

Mackenzie was a group of friends that were inseparable. They were together all the time and from a very young age have spent all of their time together. On the night of their high school graduation their lives fall apart in a vicious car accident and Mackenzie is one that is left to figure out who she is on her own.

Bentley is an EMT who was the first one on the scene the night of the accident. Now at college he runs in to Mac and starts falling for her but Mac is standoffish and he’s not quite sure how to handle the situation. He ends up just being himself and that seems to work.

Mac starts to loosen up and trust Bentley more each day. He helps her see what a sheltered life she’s been living and this help Mac deal with not only her college roommate but with the ghosts from the past that she has never dealt with.

A Shattered Moment is an moving story but one with the rays of hope shining through for Mac. I loved seeing her persevering through her struggles with her leg injury and coming to terms with it. Bentley was a great character and I loved that he was there for her. He also was the type of person to look inside and not take things at face value. If he had done that then he and Mac would have never gotten together.

There was a romance in this book but I felt that it was mostly focused on Mac’s issues and dealing with the fallout from the accident. I did wish at times that we had seen more during the immediate aftermath of the accident. The story goes from the epilogue/accident on high school graduation night to Mac as a sophomore in college. While we were told some of the things that happened I would have loved to have been shown those things instead. It was still heart wrenching at times but certainly not as emotional as I thought it would be. I admit that I wanted to see more of the romance between Mac and Bentley as well. While it got page time I would have liked it more interwoven with the other parts of the story.

I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series to see what happens next.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

This title is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

three-half-stars


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Guest Review: Contradictions by Tiffany King

Posted January 12, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: Contradictions by Tiffany KingReviewer: Tracy
Contradictions by Tiffany King
Series: Woodfalls Girls #3
Also in this series: Misunderstandings, No Attachments, No Attachments, Misunderstandings
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: January 6th 2015
Genres: New Adult
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Three years into college, Tressa Oliver’s life is a nonstop party. She’s skating by in her classes, and there’s no shortage of drinking, dancing, and general hell-raising. The only aspect that hasn’t been much fun: She can’t shake the toxic jerks that always seem to gravitate toward her. It will take someone totally wrong;Trent James is the classic anti–bad boy: smart, boring, and way too serious. To a wild girl like Tressa, there’s no way in hell they’re compatible—especially since Trent seems to see straight through her defenses. To set her right.When a college prank goes terribly wrong, Tressa starts to suspect that her partying ways are leading nowhere fast. Now she has to turn to the last person she ever thought she’d ask for help—and quickly discovers that there’s more to Trent than meets the eye.

Tracy’s review of Contradictions (Woodfalls Girls #3) by Tiffany King

Tressa Oliver is in her final year of college but she really doesn’t care about school or class work. How she managed to get to her senior year with passing grades is a mystery to her but she’s going with the flow. She loves to party and has a great time. She knows that she’s failing out of school but she can’t seem to make herself care a whole lot about it.

Then…tragedy strikes the college and a student dies. Tressa really doesn’t know the boy who died but she had spoken to him right before it happened. She’s deeply affected by his death and starts to change in ways that neither she nor her roommate can understand – she keeps to herself and stops partying. When she’s put on academic probation and told that Trent Lawson must tutor her she’s not thrilled.

Trent is from her home town and has never made a secret of the fact that he likes Tressa. He may be a nerd at heart but he knows that if Tressa just gets to know him she’ll see something she likes. That’s exactly what happens but Tressa thinks she may be becoming someone she doesn’t know and she’s completely confused about the change in herself. How can she be with Trent when she doesn’t even know who she is?

This was an interesting insight into college partying and the ramifications of hazing. In this case Tressa was one of the girls who always enjoyed a good prank and as hazing went  it was pretty tame. Unfortunately a boy died that night and it had a deep affect on Tressa. She wasn’t in any way responsible for the prank but I think knowing how much she was enjoying it was what served as the catalyst for her change in thinking. On top of that her academic probation was pretty humiliating. She wasn’t anxious to share her probation with her roommate so Cameo wasn’t too sympathetic. I can’t say I was a fan of Cameo as she seems pretty selfish and self-centered but I could tell that losing the closeness with her was hurtful to Tressa.

The relationship with Trent was non-existent at first. I didn’t love the way Tressa seemed to almost bully Trent, at first, but I could tell it was a defense mechanism that she utilized to distance herself as her life was in flux. Soon she was treating him as a friend and their feelings grew from there. Trent was kind and I loved the way he treated Tressa as it showed how much he cared for her.

In the end the story didn’t have a major relationship issue and that was worked for the book overall. It focused on the partnership between Tressa and Trent but mostly on Tressa’s life and how it changed over the course of the semester. I really enjoyed the book and reading about these great characters.

Rating: 3.75/4 out of 5

Reading Order:

This title is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

four-stars


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Guest Review: Misunderstandings by Tiffany King

Posted December 30, 2014 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: Misunderstandings by Tiffany KingReviewer: Tracy
Misunderstandings by Tiffany King
Series: Woodfalls Girls #2
Also in this series: Misunderstandings, No Attachments, No Attachments, Contradictions
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: May 6th 2014
Genres: New Adult
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Just when she thought things were going up…
Two years after a devastating breakup, Brittni Mitchell has moved on from Justin Avery—or so she tells herself. But when she returns to Seattle for her best friend’s engagement party, Brittni finds herself the victim of a disastrously timed elevator breakdown. She’s trapped with the last person she wants to face, and forced to recount the past she desperately wants to forget.

She’s going to have to look back…
When Brittni left her podunk hometown for a big city college experience at the University of Washington, hooking up with a guy like Justin Avery was not part of her plan. Between Justin’s attention-grabbing tattoos, cigarette smoking, and bad boy attitude Brittni quickly chalked him up as “Mr. Wrong.” But his charm was unrelenting, and Brittni’s decision to give Justin a chance quickly turned into the worst choice she ever made.

So that she might be able to move forward.
Now she’s stuck with Justin—literally—and the complicated web of misunderstandings that tied up the truth for two years is about to unravel.

Tracy’s review of Misunderstandings (Woodfalls Girls #2) by Tiffany King

Brittni is back in Seattle for her best friend’s engagement party when she gets into an elevator and it breaks down. This wouldn’t be too horrible if it weren’t for two things A) she hates elevators and enclosed spaces and B) she’s stuck in the elevator with her ex-boyfriend who hates her.

The pair end up talking over the hours that they’re together in the elevator and issues from their past, of course, come up. The book is told in alternating chapters from present to past and back again until later in the book (once they get out of the elevator). I’m not normally of fan of this type of storytelling but it worked for me in this case. We don’t find out what the main problem in their relationship was until later in the book (but I soon figured it out) but that too worked in the end. King kept the story going from pretty seamlessly and it flowed very well. I wasn’t ever thrown out of the story because of the switch in time periods.

I really liked Justin and Brittni together. I wish that their misunderstanding had never happened but I could see how it easily could. Communication is not a big thing in the lives of college students so the situation felt very much steeped in reality. We all know from RL and from fiction that no relationship is easy – it has to be nurtured and it takes a lot of work. The characters in this book had to learn that the hard way, unfortunately. King did great job, however, of bringing the pair together after a life-changing event and I enjoyed the book thoroughly.

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

This title is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

four-stars


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Joint Review: No Attachments by Tiffany King

Posted September 30, 2014 by Holly in Reviews | 1 Comment

Joint Review: No Attachments by Tiffany KingReviewer: Holly and Rowena
No Attachments by Tiffany King
Series: Woodfalls Girls #1
Also in this series: Misunderstandings, No Attachments, Misunderstandings, Contradictions
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: October 22nd 2013
Genres: Fiction, New Adult
Pages: 304
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two-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Ashton Garrison walked away from her current life to escape the one thing she’s unwilling to face. She knows her decision may be selfish, but in the end, leaving will be far less painful for everyone. Now she has one goal: live life to the fullest with no regrets and no attachments. What Ashton doesn’t count on is how fate always seems to find a way to screw up any good plan.

Nathan Lockton specializes in locating a mark. He’s done it over and over again—no attachments and no emotion necessary. What he thought was a routine lost-and-found job has forced Nathan to deal with something he has always ignored—his feelings. He’s never fallen for a target, yet he’s never met anyone like Ashton. Now deep in a dilemma, Nathan must decide to follow his heart, or complete the job he was hired to do.
Love can come when you least expect it. The question is: If the odds are stacked against you, how far are you willing to go for the one you love?

Rowena: This was just okay. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. 

I don’t know what it was but the whole embarrassing themselves with the other witnessing it got to be too much for me. The first couple were cute and made me laugh but as they continued, I kept rolling my eyes because really? Was it necessary?

Holly:  I really liked the getting-to-know-you stage of the book. I thought they were both sweet and cute.

Where the story fell apart for me was once their secrets were revealed.

Rowena:  I’m with you with the secrets being revealed. I wasn’t a fan of The way Ashton handled her secret. I hated that she took the choice away from Nathan and then I felt like a bitch because of, well, her secret. I felt like because of what her secret was, I wasn’t allowed to think she was a bitch and that annoyed me.

Holly: You’re nicer than me. I didn’t feel bad for thinking she was a bitch. What she did was wrong. But I was also annoyed with him for letting her push him away. He should have fought harder.

Rowena:  I wasn’t a fan of that either. It was dumb that he was just waiting for her to wake up and smell the I want to be with him coffee. Especially since it was months and months before it finally happened.

I did like Ashton’s father and Fran from the store. Hell, I even liked Tressa and Britni. They were fun. But there was just something missing from the entire story because even though I read it and enjoyed parts of it, I never fully fell in with the story and I’m not sure why. I never fully connected with either Ashton or Nathan and when I finally closed the book, I was already moved on to the next book. There was no book hangover with this book.

Holly: Same here. I wasn’t impressed with either of them at the end. I actually read Brittni’s story first. I liked it a lot better than this one. I’m definitely interested in Tressa’s story, too. This one just fell flat. Meh.

Rowena: Who’s Brittni’s man? Did her book come before or after this one?

Holly: Brittni’s hero is someone she met in college. No Attachments is Book 1 and Brittani’s book, Misunderstandings, is Book 2.

I’m going to give it a 3 out of 5. I didn’t really dislike it so much as I just wasn’t excited about it.

Rowena: I’d give it a 2.75 out of 5.

two-half-stars


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Review: No Attachments by Tiffany King

Posted June 27, 2014 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: No Attachments by Tiffany KingReviewer: Tracy
No Attachments by Tiffany King
Series: Woodfalls Girls #1
Also in this series: Misunderstandings, No Attachments, Misunderstandings, Contradictions
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: October 22nd 2013
Genres: New Adult
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Ashton Garrison walked away from her current life to escape the one thing she’s unwilling to face. She knows her decision may be selfish, but in the end, leaving will be far less painful for everyone. Now she has one goal: live life to the fullest with no regrets and no attachments. What Ashton doesn’t count on is how fate always seems to find a way to screw up any good plan.

Nathan Lockton specializes in locating a mark. He’s done it over and over again—no attachments and no emotion necessary. What he thought was a routine lost-and-found job has forced Nathan to deal with something he has always ignored—his feelings. He’s never fallen for a target, yet he’s never met anyone like Ashton. Now deep in a dilemma, Nathan must decide to follow his heart, or complete the job he was hired to do.

Love can come when you least expect it. The question is: If the odds are stacked against you, how far are you willing to go for the one you love?

Ashton is in a bar with her friends, Tressa and Brittni, and they’re figuring out how Ashton can approach the hot man at the bar. Ashton finally goes for it and using liquid courage (aka alcohol) she talks the man up and what do you know? They hit it off. Ashton wanted to hit on the man, Nathan, because she has a list of things she needs to accomplish and the one she’s working on in the bar is to have a one night stand with a random stranger. The problem with liquid courage is that your mouth starts to not work correctly and in some cases you pass out – which is what happens to Ashton. She wakes up the next morning in her own bed with a mighty hangover. She’s embarrassed but figures she’ll try again some other time. When Nathan walks into the general store where she works she’s not anxious to talk to him, but again, they seem so compatible. After spending some time together they decide that they will have a no strings attached affair. They each find that this is easier said than done.

Nathan is in the town of Woodfalls looking for Ashton. He has obviously been hired by someone to find her and though he doesn’t know why they’re looking for her or who the person who hired him is, he does know, once he meets Ashton that he’s not ready to hand her over just yet. He likes the girl a lot, is intrigued by her and wants to get to know her better. After a little time together he finds his feelings for her starting to grow. They each said no strings but he’s not willing to charge out of her life anytime soon.

There were so very many aspects of this book that I liked. I really liked the characters and their personalities – whether they were the MC’s or secondary characters. I really liked the humor in the story as well as the fun mixed in with the deeper emotional parts. I thought that the blend of those two made the book much more realistic to me. Nathan and his kindness, tenderness and thoughtfulness was icing on the cake in this wonderful story.

As we read through the story we know that Nathan was hired by someone to find Ashton. We know that Ashton’s been on the run for 4 months and has a bucket list that she’s trying to complete along with the help of her friends. I quickly figured out what Ashton was running from and just waited to find out how it would all play out. I knew once Ashton found out that Nathan had been hired to find her that sparks would fly but luckily it wasn’t the harsh and angry scene that I thought it would be.

The story gets very emotional as the story moves on and it’s quite sad in parts. Though the story went in that direction, and it was something that I hadn’t expected, it was still written tastefully and I ended up liking the book all the more for it. I didn’t feel that the author had just thrown it all in there for reactions sake but to truly show how much the MC’s loved each other and the lengths they were willing to go for each other.

No Attachments is a very sweet love story between two people who think they know what they want from life – but find in the end that they need the exact opposite. I highly recommend this story and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Tiffany King

four-stars


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