TRINA

Trina by Sherry Foster
Book 2 in the Safe Haven Wolves series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook

About Trina:

Trina is done hiding.

Jaden is done hunting.

Desperate to find a mate, but longing to track down her sister, Trina's journey begins. She had no idea the turn her life would take once her twin left home. The events that led up to her family going into hiding haven't changed. Because female shifters are rare, to be procured at all cost, Trina and her family remain on the run from those who would detain her. However, she is determined that her freedom is her own. She belongs to no one until she and her wolf both agree upon a mate. But the list of people after her has just gotten larger.

Jaden has no doubt the woman in saw in the dojo that day is his mate. For months now his wolf has been tearing up his insides in a need to claim her. The problem is, all traces of the girl disappeared the day they met. After exhausting every possible resource he has to find her, a glimmer of hope appears in the news in the form of wedding photos. Enraged to find his mate married to another he vows to make her a widow.

Will Jaden cross the wrong people in his journey to get his mate?

Can Trina stay free long enough to find Gabby?

Will their journeys bring them together or destroy any chance of them finding each other?

Pick up your copy and find out.

Source: Info in the About Trina was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40859421-trina on 03/11/2019.

Trina

My Thoughts:

I imagine Trina as someone like the Black Widow, only bristling with more weapons...

I don't like it when authors break their own magic rules. It destroys the "believability" factor in the story. It creates a "disconnect" to the rhythm or flow of the story. This book made me abandon this series for a long while. Which is sad because this book should have been the best in the series yet, because the heroine is bad-ass! She decided she is done with being hunted and started hunting the hunters! Really bad-ass!

I probably have said much of what I have to say about this book with my review of the previous book. However, it bears repeating that the story telling quality of this book is quite good! Good enough that I finished reading this book, despite my ire. Plus, I really like the premise of this series! Gammon gotta be my favourite bad-ass!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 3.5
Story itself = 3.5
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 3.5
World building = 4
Cover art = 3
Pace = 2.5
Plot = 3.5
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries

Meet The Author

About Sherry Foster:

Sherry fell in love with reading when she was young and never lost her love of words on a page. She enjoys fantasy and science fiction along with a few other genres. She has two grown children and eight grandchildren who keep her on her toes.

She writes fantasy but has plans to branch out into other genres eventually.

www.sherryfosterauthor.com | twitter | facebook | facebook page | instagram | amazon | goodreads

FTC Disclosure:
The different formats of this book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.

DIAMOND FIRE

Diamond Fire by Ilona Andrews
Book 3.5 of the Hidden Legacy series
Read by Renee Raudman and Emily Rankin
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Diamond Fire:

Nevada Frida Baylor and Connor Ander Rogan cordially invite you to join their wedding celebration. Summoning, weather manipulation, and other magical activities strictly forbidden.

Catalina Baylor is looking forward to wearing her maid of honor dress and watching her older sister walk down the aisle. Then the wedding planner gets escorted off the premises, the bride’s priceless tiara disappears, and Rogan's extensive family overruns his mother’s home. Someone is cheating, someone is lying, and someone is plotting murder.

To make this wedding happen, Catalina will have to do the thing she fears most: use her magic. But she’s a Baylor and there’s nothing she wouldn't do for her sister's happiness. Nevada will have her fairy tale wedding, even if Catalina has to tear the mansion apart brick by brick to get it done

Source: Info in the About Diamond Fire was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39320167-diamond-fire on 17/11/2018.

Buy Link(s):
 

My Thoughts:

Catalina has always been the quite one and it seems like we don't really see much of her. So it was interesting to read the story from her perspective... I wanted the story to be still about Nevada and Rogan, but I understand that, that story arc is now done. But, maybe this tangent story arc wouldn't be so bad... As usual, the story telling quality is compelling. The world building has been established a long time ago with book 1, and the wonderfulness of it is carried through in this book too. This book being a novella, is too short a read. So the pace is quite quick. The plot is thicker than I expected of an urban fantasy book, and a novella at that. Not much room to get twisty. Yet the author accomplished a thicker plot, which is a great bunos!

I've never listened to Emily Rankin before and I like the way she reads Catalina. Her young voice fits Catalina too. Her and Renee Raudman's performance is awesome!! Looking forward to listening to the next book in this series.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4.5
Writing Style = 5
Ending = 4.5
World building = 5
Cover art = 4
Pace = 5
Plot = 5
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 cherries


Hidden Legacy Books:

FTC Disclosure:
The different formats of this book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.

OF BLOOD AND BONE

Of Blood And Bone by Nora Roberts
Book 2 of the Chronicles of The One
Narrated by Julia Whelan
Genre: dystopian urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Of Blood And Bone:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the epic Year One returns with a new tale of terror and magic in a brand new world.

They look like an everyday family living an ordinary life. But beyond the edges of this peaceful farm, unimaginable forces of light and dark have been unleashed.

Fallon Swift, approaching her thirteenth birthday, barely knows the world that existed before — the city where her parents lived, now in ruins and reclaimed by nature since the Doom sickened and killed billions. Traveling anywhere is a danger, as vicious gangs of Raiders and fanatics called Purity Warriors search for their next victim. Those like Fallon, in possession of gifts, are hunted — and the time is coming when her true nature, her identity as The One, can no longer be hidden.

In a mysterious shelter in the forest, her training is about to begin under the guidance of Mallick, whose skills have been honed over centuries. She will learn the old ways of healing; study and spar; encounter faeries and elves and shifters; and find powers within herself she never imagined. And when the time is right, she will take up the sword, and fight. For until she grows into the woman she was born to be, the world outside will never be whole again.

Source: Info in the About Of Blood And Bone was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37638128-of-blood-and-bone on 04/12/2018.

Buy Link(s):
 

My Thoughts:

A chapter of a bigger book. This is what this book is. However, it still finished this chapter nicely while hinting on what the next chapter would be which we could safely presume would be the next book in this series. I usually do not like this kind of series. But Nora Roberts being Nora Roberts, the story telling quality is very good. Therefore, I enjoyed this book very much. So I would continue following this series until I either finish this series or I get annoyed so much that decide to abandon this series. The plot is quite straight forward. The heroine comes of age. That's it. However, I also want to know what happens next to the New Hope community who fought so much to live. That there, have so much potential for tangent story lines and I want to know how the author would spin that thread!...

This is my first Julia Whelan listen and I like the way she reads. Her voice is not aggravating to the ears. And I would listen to another audiobook by her again.

In the end I enjoyed this book and looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 5
Writing Style = 3.5
Ending = 3
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = (13 hrs and 42 mins)
Plot = 3.5
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Chronicles of The One Series:

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

YEAR ONE

Year One by Nora Roberts
Book 1 of the Chronicles of The One
Read by Julia Whelan
Genre: dystopian urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Year One:

It began on New Year's Eve.

The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed — and more than half of the world's population was decimated.

Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river — or in the ones you know and love the most.

As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.

In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a saviour, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.

The end has come. The beginning comes next.

Source: Info in the About Year One was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34311452-year-one on 14/11/2018.

Buy Link(s):
 

My Thoughts:

Year One being the fist book in the series, is typically a coming of age book. It introduces the reader to a dystopian world which just started to become dystopian and the memories of a normal modern life is still fresh in peoples' minds. The world of Year One reminds me greatly of the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, a world shifting from tech to magic. And this kind of shift is not the first time and wouldn't be the last, and that this shift happens every so very, very many years. Sort of cyclic. That right now we are living in the tech cycle, so much so that magic is all but disappeared in our world. And in Year One, the magic cycle has begun.

This is my first Julia Whelan audiobook listen. I like the way she reads and her voice is not aggravating to the ears. Kudos to the narration!!

This is the first Nora Roberts book I've read that uses the "multiple thread" kind of format in telling a story. Where every other chapter follows a different thread of the story. I hate this format in a book!! I guess in this one it fits because the story tells of the different stories of the different characters. It is still annoying though...

Now, the plot.... what plot?! *sigh* ...yeah, there isn't much of one. The ending is not exactly a cliffhanger, but it is the prelude to subsequent books.

In the end, I did enjoy this book, but not as much as I expected to with Nora Roberts' name on it.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 3
Writing Style = 3.5
Ending = 3.5
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = (12 hrs and 20 mins)
Plot = 2
Narration = 5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Chronicles of The One Series:

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

FTC Disclosure:
The different formats of this book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.