The Time Of My Life by Cecelia Ahern

First Published: 10 May 2012
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 484
Format: Paperback
Finished Date: 8 August 2015

Synopsis

Lucy Silchester has an appointment with her life – and she’s going to have to keep it.

Lying on Lucy Silchester’s carpet one day when she returns from work is a gold envelope. Inside is an invitation – to a meeting with Life. Her life. It turns out she's been ignoring itand it needs to meet with her face to face.

It sounds peculiar, but Lucy’s read about this in a magazine. Anyway, she can’t make the date: she’s much too busy despising her job, skipping out on her friends and avoiding her family.

But Lucy’s life isn’t what it seems. Some of the choices she’s made – and stories she’s told – aren’t what they seem either. From the moment she meets the man who introduces himself as her life, her stubborn half-truths are going to be revealed in all their glory – unless Lucy learns to tell the truth about what really matters to her.

My Rating

My Review

This book was was pretty good! I liked the messages in this book. Like, its just that sometimes we get caught up in things and we neglect our own life. And sometimes we just stay comfortably in our own little rut, and I think this reminds us to step out.

I loved seeing how when Lucy started to tell the truth about things, her life started to slowly fall back into place. Of course, real life isn't that perfect. But I think it was heartwarming to see her slowly fix her life and get things back where they should be.

I enjoyed the different characters in this book, but I did want more of certain people. I felt that many characters were there as fillers and I would have appreciated more character development for the secondary characters. Perhaps one reason was that there were simply too many characters. Still, I liked Lucy's friends, and I loved Riley (her brother). Their interactions were really cute and it was lovely to see how they really loved each other, despite growing up in the type of household they did.

One thing I would have liked was more of the romance. I mean I totally wanted them to get together, its just I feel like there wasn't enough about him (not saying the name so I don't give any spoilers accidentally!). And yeah, I wanted to see how they would really work together.

But I guess eventually the message of this book was about how Lucy put her life back on track. Perhaps she didn't have a direction or a passion, but maybe we don't always need that. Maybe the first step is just getting your life back in order.

Review Tour: Alliance by Aubrie Dionne

Hey guys! Welcome to today's blog tour! Sorry its late, it really slipped my mind:(

Alliance

First Published: 31 Jan 2014
Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
Pages: 236

Synopsis:
“Saving him meant saving her colony…”

Lyra Bryan has been saving people her whole life from a chick in the ventilation pipes to her mentally ill brother when his mind drifts back to Old Earth. She meets her match when she finds a gorgeous alien man aboard the arachnid ship. Captured after a failed attempt to save his people, his spirit is broken, craving only vengeance. To save her colony, Lyra must save his body and soul.

Lyra’s lifemate, Tauren, is jealous of her obsession with the alien man and will do anything in his power to break them apart. While they travel to the arachnid’s home world to defeat the mother brain once and for all, they must set aside their differences and work as a team. But, can Tauren be trusted?

Check it out at Goodreads

Aubrie Dionne

Aubrie Dionne is an author and flutist in New England. Her books have received the highest ratings from Romance Times Magazine, as well as Night Owl Reviews and Two Lips Reviews. She has guest blogged on the USA Today Happily Ever After Blog and the Dear Teen Me blog and signed books at the Boston Book Festival, Barnes and Noble, and the Romance Writers of America conference. Her writings have appeared in numerous publications including Mindflights, Niteblade, Silver Blade, Emerald Tales, Hazard Cat, Moon Drenched Fables, A Fly in Amber, and Aurora Wolf. Her books are published by Inkspell Publishing, Astraea Press, Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Publishing, Lyrical Press, and Gypsy Shadow Publishing. When she's not writing, Aubrie teaches flute and plays in orchestras.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

And now, check out my review of this book!

Finished Date: 16 Jan 2014

My Rating

My Review

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed are mine alone.

Alliance was a rather good book. I did enjoy it. I really liked the whole Paradise Reclaimed series actually, there is a real sense of continuity and each book literally picks up where the last left off. This made for a good read as it gave me better insight into the world that was Paradise 21.

In this book, we are reintroduced to Lara. Remember her? She was present in Colonization, albeit a really tiny part and again in Reconnaissance, where she had a slightly bigger part, yet not a major one. The thing is, what we saw of her in these 2 books made me feel like she was a bimbo, and simply put, not a very likeable character.

Yet, what happened in this book is that the character development was really good. Aubrie Dionne seems to do this really well. From a not very likeable character, she develops the character into someone worth respecting and someone you begin to admire. She did that with Andromeda in Colonization, who really matured over the book. She did that with Nova in Reconnaissance, who managed to put aside her prejudice to save the colony. She did that again here, with Lara, where we see Lara grow into a strong girl who is willing to fight for what she wants.

The plot of the book was really good too and provided an excellent continuation of the series. The action was exciting and kept me turning pages. It was interspersed with rather good dialogue which made for a very engaging story.

All in all, I really did like this whole series. It was really well structured and I liked seeing how everyone had an important part to play, and that a problem wasn’t just so easily solved after all. Paradise Reclaimed is a really good series, and I hope that there will be more books! After all, we are told at the end of Haven 6 that eventually they left Paradise 21 for Paradise 18. So yep, after it seems like the threats have been neutralized here, I’m curious to know what other things can play out in the future!

So yep, that's about it for today! Thanks for visiting!