Tag: Taylor Grace

What I Read Last Week

Posted March 24, 2014 by Tracy in Features | 0 Comments

It was more or less a lazy week in Tracyland. We didn’t have any pressing matters to take care of so I got a lot of reading done during the week. Then the weekend came and my youngest had a promotion test where so totally rocked. 🙂 She was one of 2 that got the highest score. I’m very proud of her to say the least. I’m currently fighting with the app that joins all of the individual videos together to make one vid so when I win the fight and get it posted I’ll let you know. The rest of the weekend I hung with the kids, watched movies and just had fun. I think I read all of 70 pages the whole weekend. 🙂

I have two giveaways going right now. One ends today and the other on the 30th.

Giveaways:
1) A print copy of Marie Force’s All You Need is Love (open US residents only, sorry) – ends today at 11:59pm

2) A digital download (Kindle or Nook) of My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe. Ends at 11”:59pm on 3/30/14.

Anyway, on to what I read…

I started off the week with the week with The Glaring by Andrew J. Peters. This is a short novella that is book 2 in his werecat series. The story continues to follow Jacks while he deals with being a werecat and finding out more about what that means to him. You can read my review here. 3.75 out of 5

Next up was the anthology Love Between Men edited by Shane Allison. A grouping of short stories that ran the gamut from I didn’t particularly care for them to I really liked them. You can read my review of the anthology here. 3.5 out of 5

Hope Ignites by Jaci Burton is book 2 in her Hope series and it was another good one. This one was Logan’s story and had him with an actress who was part of the crew that was filming on his land. He was positive he could stay away from her but she proved irresistible. I’ll post my review of this one tomorrow. 4 out of 5

Olivia’s Choice by Taylor Grace is a more or less contemporary fantasy if that makes sense. It takes place in current times but it’s about a race of people that don’t exist so that’s where the fantasy comes in. Olivia’s goes to Viddion a city for one of the races of Tree People called the annax where she was born to set up an exchange program. She’s been living as a human and wants nothing to do with anyone annex but she didn’t plan on falling in love. You can read my review here. 3.5 out of 5 

Last for the week was Wishing For a Highlander by Jessi Gage. This is a medieval time travel novel about Melanie who makes a wish on an artifact and next thing you know she’s in the 16th century. She winds up falling for the man who originally found her which is a good thing as they’re married right away. Of course then she’s accused of witchcraft so that makes things a bit sticky. The story was actually really good and I enjoyed almost every minute of it. 4 out of 5

 

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
So Right With You by Maggie Kaye
Disarm: The Complete Novel by June Gray

Happy Reading!


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Review: Olivia’s Choice by Taylor Grace

Posted March 23, 2014 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: Olivia’s Choice by Taylor GraceReviewer: Tracy
Olivia's Choice by Taylor Grace
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: December 4th 2013
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars

When her boss asks her to complete a project that takes her back to the annax city, Olivia’s lifelong avoidance of the race comes to an abrupt end. The last thing she needs is the arrogant son of the annax leader as a co-worker. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what she gets. To make matters worse, the pesky tionnax, sworn annax enemies, decide to butt in and capture Olivia. They hurt her so badly that Baphrem can only save her by turning her into what she fears most, an annax. Now, Olivia has to decide: can she love the man who made her worst nightmare come true?

Olivia Penny is a teacher who hates teaching. She gets up in front of class full of kids and freezes – why this is, we don’t know. Because of this she brought the idea up of doing an exchange program and heading up the organizing, etc. She’s very excited when the proposal is approved until she hears that she’s not going somewhere exciting like…China. No she’s going to Viddion – a city where one of the Forest Races live, and a place she ran away from years before.

Olivia swore that she’d never return to Viddion but it’s either return or lose her job. She chooses to keep her job and makes the trek through the forest to get to the city. Along the way she’s greeted by the Viddion guards and when she refuses to tell them why she’s there the head guard chucks her into the freezing river. She manages to make it to the city and not only gets into it with the head guard again (who she finds out is the leader’s son, Baphrem) but she also is reunited with her father and brother once again.

Olivia wants nothing more than to put the exchange proposal into place and leave Viddion but she’s working with Baphrem and they rub each other the wrong way. Olivia (who was born Teil) wants nothing to do with the strong and sexy Baphrem and is sure to emphasize her independence at every turn. Baphrem knows that this stubborn woman is the one for him and enjoys seeing the fiery side of her.

After one argument Olivia goes for a run and Baphrem’s enemies end up capturing and torturing her. The only way to save her is by turning her annax – something that Olivia’s always feared. Now she has to deal with Baphrem’s betrayal and seeing if she can face her fears head on.

Olivia’s Choice is a fantasy read from start to finish. The annex people – along with the other Forest Races that Ms. Grace has created – were well done. I’m not normally a fantasy reader but this one looked worth reading. I Thought when I first started that it would be very similar to Avatar but it really wasn’t anything like that and I was very happy about that.

I really liked all of the characters in this story…except Olivia/Teil. She started to grow on me after she stopped being such a stubborn woman but by that time most of the book was over. She called herself independent and Baphrem called her fiery. I called her rude, mouthy, bad-mannered, inconsiderate, self-centered and obnoxious. Now she wasn’t that way with everyone so I didn’t put the book down when her mouth started flying, but I did consider it. I’m happy I didn’t because it ended up being an entertaining story. Baphrem and the other characters in the book made up for Olivia’s lack.

Besides my dislike of Olivia, the story, imho, needed some serious editing. There were discrepancies, punctuation issues, spelling issues, words left out and words added in. I have to say that it put a damper on my total enjoyment and I was sad about that. I think had the book been edited more thoroughly it would have made it a stronger story. Ms. Grace has a very creative mind and I give her kudos for creating a good first book.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Taylor Grace

three-half-stars


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