Oracle's Legacy: Dawn of Illumination

Book Details:
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Page Count: 448
Publication Date: Oct. 3, 2010
Why I read it: received for review
Grade: B

The plot:
The Board Is Set… The dying Oracle can no longer protect her Structure. Moon has exposed it from the shadows in hopes to bring ruin to the world. Thousands of years of lies and secrets have given birth to fear and mistrust. The cycle of Moon’s plots have only begun to spin. The Pieces Are In Place… Pillars want to recreate the world, but in order to do so they must first destroy it. The Structure looks to their new leader, Augustus Granger, to take over and stop the devastation. However, Demon’s Wrath refuses to let anyone stop his plan of total annihilation. The Game Has A New Player... The plots, misdeeds, and fighting gave rise to Chaos. Now no one can stop her. No one is safe. No one can hide.

My review:
This was a pretty good conclusion to the Oracle's Legacy trilogy. I have to say I didn't like it as well as the first two. In all of these books there have been times when I had no idea what was going on, but I felt like by this third book I should have a better grasp on the story and everything happening, but I just didn't. Also, as someone who goes as far as correcting the grammar of characters on TV, I'm still very annoyed with the editing here. There were commas all over the place where they shouldn't have been. It didn't make the reading as smooth as it could have been.

Still, I was satisfied with how the story ended. I still really like Ollie, as messed up as she is. The writing continues to have that "tough" feel to it, sometimes a little too much, to be honest. What I really liked about this trilogy, though, was that it's just so different. I'm not sure how the author came up with her ideas, but her world is very detailed and quite interesting. I haven't seen any other books like this, which is refreshing. I sometimes get tired of the same types of characters that you usually see in fantasy books.

The first book in this trilogy will always hold a spot on my list of favorites, and I would (with reservations) recommend this trilogy to fans of fantasy and science fiction. I look forward to seeing what R.B. Holbrook does next.

REVIEW - Oracle's Legacy: Shadows of Fate

Title: Oracle's Legacy: Shadows of Fate
Author: R.B. Holbrook
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Got it from: the author
Why I read it: received a review copy, 2nd in series
Grade: A-

Synopsis:
This is the second in the Oracle's Legacy trilogy.  I don't want to say more, because I want to avoid spoilers, and there's no way to describe this book without doing so.

My review:
This took me longer to read than I would have liked.  That happens when my husband has a four day weekend and things get busy.  Most everything I would want to say about this book, I said in the review of the first book.  All the things I loved about the first one were here.

But, this book suffers from what I'll call second book in a trilogy syndrome.  By that I mean it's a bridge between an action packed first book, and (what I believe will be) an action packed third book.  There's more information than action going on here.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing.  The world building in this story is still incredible.  I can't imagine how much time the author must have spent coming up with all the details.  Sometimes, as a reader, it's hard to keep all those details and the characters straight.  I almost feel like I need to take notes. :)

And even though this book was more information oriented than action oriented, there were still some really cool action scenes.  One in particular I would love to see play out on a big screen, because I can just picture the magnitude and the awesomeness.  In fact, sometimes while I'm reading I almost feel like I'm reading a movie script, because I think this story would work really well as a movie.  But then, I'm really a sucker for superhero movies.

I'm very excited to read the third book when it comes out, and see how it all ends.  I just hope it has a happy ending, because I'm not sure I could take a sad ending to this trilogy.  I want it to end well.  Again, I would recommend these first two books of the trilogy.  This is a new author to keep an eye on, for sure!

REVIEW - Oracle's Legacy: Children of Sun

Title: Oracle's Legacy: Children of Sun
Author: R.B. Holbrook
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Got it from: the author
Why I read it: received a review copy
Grade: A+

Synopsis:

The Structure is a secret civilization made up of seven houses that chase after enlightenment by attempting to understand the nature of energy.The structure of the Houses that insists upon learning and growing together is collapsing. In its place begins the seeds of infighting. Soon, without their notice, the people of the Houses begin losing their special powers.The Oracle, the leader of the Structure, hates to see what has become of her people. But she's dying and can do little to help them. Now, as the Structure begins tipping deeper into darkness, a new leader is needed to prevent conflict among the houses from escalating into an all-out war.Ollie could be the key to finding the next leader, but she has her family to think of and a life to live. Getting involved in a violent conflict is the last thing she wants to do, and so she must remain unnoticed.As power hungry factions hunt for Ollie, however, she has no choice but to get involved. She'll do whatever's necessary to protect her loved ones.

My review:

This book started off a little rough for me.  I felt like I was dropped into a world where I had no idea what was going on, what the rules were, who all these characters were--and this all after reading the glossary in the beginning.  But the more I read, the more I realized that was the coolest part of the book.  As you read, the story starts to become clearer, and layer upon layer peels off, until you begin to understand more of what's going on.  And even though I still didn't know everything that was going on, I knew enough to know that it was awesome!  Normally I don't think I'd like that kind of book, but in Oracle's Legacy it really works.

The writing style is reminiscent of the Black Dagger Brotherhood novels.  Lots of alpha males, but the bonus in this book is that there is also a kick-butt heroine in Ollie.  In fact, she steals the show.  It's obvious that this is a first novel.  It could have used some tighter editing, but when a first novel is this good, it makes me really excited to read more books by this author.  Lucky for me, I have a review copy of the second novel in the trilogy waiting for me.  Yay! 

The world is incredible and extremely well thought out.  At first I thought there were way too many characters, but as the story progresses, the focus moves to a handful of main characters, and the others fade into the background a bit.  In an interview on the author's website, she talks about growing up reading Marvel comics, and then the ideas for the Oracle's Legacy trilogy grew from there and the "what ifs" in her head.  As a huge fan of Marvel and superheroes, I'm loving these characters and the cool powers they have.  

I would definitely recommend this one, and it's at Amazon right now for a steal!  It's also available FREE in ebook format here.  Read it!  An A+ rating is rare from me, only 24 of the last 700 books I've read have gotten it.  A review of the next book in the series will be coming shortly--I'm going to start it now.