John Forrester (2) (1943–)

This book was just plain weird. I felt like I was on some sort of drug-induced trip--just like the characters do in the books. I'm a pretty open reader but this was just too-far for me.

Nothing really made sense and there wasn't a good flow to the book. I honestly have no idea what really happened or why. It was senselessly overdramatic at times as well.

Definitely not my cup of tea and I am glad that I got this as a freebie.

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Lady Mary Crawley never had to work this hard to keep Downton. Clarise, our heroine, is the lynchpin in saving the 27 bedroom manse, Vogel House & the future of the family. Phillip, her older brother is far to drugged & sexed to help, her father is weak & inept & her mother has problems of her own, like the threat of dealing with unpleasantness. This is my kind of pool side froth. On the up side, it's told in vivid prose & moves at a decent pace (it's not a long book). I admit that I did lose track of some of the side characters (especially the orgy girls; too many French names from Giselle in the beginning to Therese & Miette, I just blanked out on who was with whom when all that really mattered was Clarise wasn't with Keary or Phillip (cause that'd have been way wrong even for their inappropriate sibling chemisty).

My favorite part of the story was when the Chambers family need to cut their vacation short as the financial situation becomes frantic & go through the ordeal of their first commercial flight experience. I found Clarise's observations & voice perfect & agree with her that it's wholly dehumanizing. Anyway, that moment of highlight carried me through as the mystery of Vogel House & the undoing of the family unfurls but quickly lost me when Howard decides to kidnap Phillip & threaten his life & only Clarise can handle it (& deal with the Russian mob). I admit, it's her age that broke it for me. She's fifteen & while capable enough as a teenager, she is still very much one in thought & deed until that point in the story. If she'd been a little older, I would've gone with it. Still, it was a decent read. More than a little over the top racy though I didn't find it sexy (not a YA read, folks & can probably widen the eye of more than a couple adults) but definitely a page turner.

I've no idea who I would recommend this to & I'm not really sure how I'd classify it by genre either. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either.… (más)

I subscribe to Pixel of Ink and I get an email daily with Daily Deals and Free Books that I almost always collect. This is one of the titles that I sent to my Kindle for Free. So I had no idea what to expect. I like Fire Mages and I liked the cover so I went for it!

Talis is a young Fire Mage who is still learning to use and control his magic. If he should happen to use it and lose control he could not only be engulfed by it, killing himself, but also anyone who happens to be around at the time. This is probably the reason why Talis hasn't been successful at using his magic.

His best friend, Mara, has always been there for him even though her parents are none to fond of their friendship. But when the Jiserian Empire attacks their city it is Mara's prayers that are heard and the gods bring her and Talis a legendary map with instructions stating that they must go to where the map leads them.

But where does the map lead? And how will they survive a trek across the desert to see the coast? And what kinds of evil lay in their path?

I thought that this story was very interesting and had great potential. It was a quick read, but I think that was because there was a lot of descriptions that were lacking and weird time jumps. Like I have said before in reviews I know that I am one who like verbose descriptions in their stories so that I feel like I am right there with the author, but when it is lacking I feel like it is distracting as I spend more time wondering what these people look like than I do on what is happening.

As for the time jumps, it seemed at times that there was no indication how much time had passed. What seemed to be a few hours ended up in fact being a few days and vice versa.

But really those are my only complaints. The story itself was engaging and I liked the start of the character development. I just wish that I had a little back story on them. Which reminds me of one thing that I disliked (but this is really a personal quark). When something is happening in the story and the Character acts a certain way, I hate it when the author cuts away to give the back story as to why they are doing that. I should clarify this further by saying sometimes this is necessary however I think it should be used sparingly. I much prefer the little historical tidbits about the character to happen throughout the story so that way later in the story when the author describes something happening that is explained by something that happened previously, it makes it feel like the reader is discovering something for themselves instead of being fed the reason.

Again, that is just a personal quark. The book had great bones but maybe needs just a bit more fleshing out in places.

I think the thing that most bothered me however was the lack of ending. It just stopped. I know it is a series, but it is kind of irritating to start a book only to have it stop on you before it reaches any form of conclusion. But I got the book for free so I shouldn't really complain. I would like to read the next in the series to learn what happens but I am afraid that will with just randomly end as well before they accomplish anything. It just left me with the feeling/idea that the author had written a full novel but split it up to sell it off in pieces to make more money... But c'est la vie. Like I said I got it for free. I might consider purchasing the next one, but then again I might not. I do have over 1000 books on my To Be Read shelf.

I would most likely recommend this book to a friend.… (más)