T N Traynor

Book 4, it might help to read the previous books to gain better insight behind the characters. However, the story works as a standalone. Leona doesn't want to live in Talia with society, she wants to return to Mother Earth with her wolves. But Leona needs to learn to work together with other elves and do the Elements' will. There is plenty of adventure and features romance. The writing is also engaging, providing a visually descriptive story.


I received a free copy and am leaving a review voluntarily.
Thank you to Hidden Gems Books and author.… (plus d'informations)

Book 4, it might help to read the previous books to gain better insight behind the characters. However, the story works as a standalone. Leona doesn't want to live in Talia with society, she wants to return to Mother Earth with her wolves. But Leona needs to learn to work together with other elves and do the Elements' will. There is plenty of adventure and features romance. The writing is also engaging, providing a visually descriptive story.


I received a free copy and am leaving a review voluntarily.
Thank you to Hidden Gems Books and author.… (plus d'informations)

This is a hard review to write because my opinions of this book are all over the place. I truly believe that there are a lot of people who would really enjoy this book and find it unique and interesting, they would probably really enjoy it. This book just wasn't for me. There were some things I liked, but others I didn't.

The prose was my favorite part. I loved the lyrical quality to the story, it had a light, flowing sound that I loved. It worked so well for this story, giving it a sort of mystical iridescence that kept me reading. Truly, it added to the tone of the book and matched the story so well.

My issues lie with the story itself. I just didn't care for it. I never really connected with the characters. There were a few moments I started to connect with them, but it never happened. I think by the end of the book there was only one or two characters I cared about. I do think most of them were well fleshed out. They made mistakes, they learned, they grew. We were given enough backstory to understand the characters and sympathize with them.

At the beginning, there was a lot of Scripture, and the way it was brought into the story seemed like it was thrown in just for this purpose. At times, it felt a bit preachy. However, that made sense, given the characters. It was necessary to have a lot of it in there to show who the characters are. It was also the beginning of Brianna's character arc, so we did need to see it. But, I did have times where I started to get drawn out of the story because of it. Now, I'm not against having a lot of Scripture in books, it is sometimes done really well and adds so much to the story. In this book, I think (again, this is mostly just at the beginning) that there wasn't enough of a balance between the story and the Scripture. Some of those moments were fine, but they happened a bit too often, or didn't have enough story mixed in with them to make them feel relevant to the plot. It might just be an issue of how they were brought into the story, it messed with the tone or something. People who like heavy Scripture in their books might disagree with me on this point, which is fine. Like I said before, it was necessary to have it in there for the characters and the rest of the story. I personally think I would have preferred it to have sounded a bit different.

Now, there were some story choices that were made that I didn't agree with. I would have liked to see things go differently. I liked the concept of the book, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have read it. I don't know, I just wanting something different. If I'm being honest, one or two of those story choices made me not like the story, and kind of ruined the rest of the book for me. I just wanted something different.

There was a lot toward the end of the book, I feel like the ending sort of rambled on. I would have liked the last few chapters cut off and then summed up in an epilogue, maybe that was because I didn't overly care about the characters. I didn't need to find out how everything turned out with all of them. I'm sure if I had felt connected to the characters I probably would have cared, and some people really like knowing every detail of what happened afterwards with the characters. But, to me, it felt like the epilogue was split into a couple of chapters. The ending of the book didn't feel as solid or powerful because of it. It just sort of faded out. If that was the desired ending, than it was accomplished.

I liked the character's personal journey. It felt very intimate. There was something so real about it because most of us struggle with similar things. I think there is a lot there that can be said, but it would be personal. Brianna's "dark night of the soul" really makes me think about myself and struggles I have. I think there is a lot that can be gleaned from that one moment. Actually, there were a lot of strong messages woven throughout the story. Different parts would speak to different people, but I really liked that they were there.

Most of the issues I had were purely personal preference. I loved the wording of the story, but not the actual story. For that reason, I will probably try a different book by this author, because I believe I could enjoy a different story, even though this one wasn't my cup of tea.

I received an ARC of this book for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.… (plus d'informations)

This second installment of the Born to Be books leaves off where the first one did. It opens with Idi setting out on a journey to find his real name. However, he is only given more mysteries. The story bounces around to show the movement of many different quests from Cassandra’s search for her son to the goblins preparing for war.

Seeing each of the different groups from their own point of view really made it tough to choose a group to root for. However, I loved the bits of humor that the author has mixed in with the seriousness, like the shenanigans of the witches learning how to fly. There’s plenty going on in this book to keep a range of readers interested.
… (plus d'informations)