Tamara Veitch

Triggers: Rape, torture, and other violence is present in this book. Not to mention lots of other terrible things happening to Marcus and Theron, in particular. I would stay away if these are issues for you.

This was a hard book to rate for me. I liked it up to a certain point... And then I just really didn't. The ending was what killed the entire almost-400-page book for me. Armageddon happens. Literally. Complete with spiritual ascension of the good, the bad being left behind, and the middle-grounders being given a second chance. After spending the entire book exploring alternate ideas of spirituality, I felt duped at the end with this very Christian end-of-times rendering.

I would argue that this book is less about the characters and more about the authors spiritual worldview. There were definitely times where I felt like I was reading a treatise on spirituality more than a fictional narrative. This comes through especially with the gaping plot holes involving the three main characters relationships and emotions towards one another. We are just told that Theron and Marcus love each other (and, oh, do they like to wax poetic about it), but we never see why. Helgul is given a motivation to like Theron and dislike Marcus, but I never understood his actions directly prior to the fall of the Golden Age. What gave him a motivation to become that evil? And speaking of Helgul, his totally out-of-the-blue declaration at the very end wasn't given near enough explanation considering how major it was.

All that being said, this was a very well written and researched book. Having already read much of the writings we still have of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Pythagoras it made that particular time period more interesting to me. If you like political and spiritual philosophy, this is an very interesting read. And I will also say that I am now researching this idea of the "Great Year". So interesting! But I will not be reading any more of this series. The ending of this particular book just killed the whole concept for me, I'm afraid.

ARC courtesy of Greenleaf Book Group, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.… (more)

I had a very difficult time caring for the characters I was introduced to. I found the protagonist, Marcus, to be boring, and at the most, whine-y, moody, and altogether lacking in intrigue. I didn't care for his feud with Helghul, and I found his apparent love for Theron to be superficial. I had no sympathy for his plight, as I felt that Theron didn't feel as deeply as he did and cared much more about her duty, which I found to be very courageous and honorable. To be honest, I much rather would have read the book in the perspective of Theron and without the romance aspect. I would have liked to see her work throughout time to bring back the Golden Age, occasionally meeting back up with those from her past. That would have been a much better story.

The writing was decent--it was probably the only thing that kept me interested until near the middle of the book when I finally gave up. I found the world believable and interesting to an extent. I also had trouble following the story at first.

Another thing that, frankly, just pissed me off (please, excuse my language,) was that Marcus seems to be described as a man of color in the book, or at least from what I understood, but the cover includes what looks to me like a white couple.… (more)

I requested this book because of the reincarnation theme.

As a fellow author, I hate to do this, but I couldn't even get past page 25. The writing style is melodramatic--full of Suddenly's, "telling," and summarizing--rather than putting us in a scene.

The first chapter worked for me. I was interested to know more about the character, but everything I read after that was expository and sounded too much like backstory to have included it at all.

With 400 pages still ahead of me, I lost heart (and interest) at the gratuitous sex scene. I don't want to see that before I even know the characters.

I also found the spirituality heavy-handed and boring. Alternative spirituality interests me--that's why I picked up the book--but most of what I managed to read were the particulars and doctrine behind the specific "Golden Age" religion the people in the novel practiced in Atitala. Readers like to guess at that sort of stuff (if they even need to know it). Pertinent information could've come out in a scene, or two.

I applaud DeFazio and Veitch's hard work in completing a novel, but the authors paying a little more attention to craft would've kept me reading longer.… (more)

I myself did not enjoy this book but can recognize the significant achievement of authors Tamara Veitch and Rene DeFazio in this work --

A) It's a truly epic novel -- and well-structured. The plot is thoughtfully crafted.

B) One Great Year is a philosophical novel, but it's not too heavy -- at least not for that reason. The spiritual and philosophical ideas come up pretty organically, as far as these things go.

Reasons why I didn't like this book but you might, dear reader:

A) I personally prefer to read realistic fiction. I have been trying to experiment more with fantasy, science fiction & other genres when I find something that looks compelling. I felt the setting of this book very hard to engage with for genre reasons. It's a spiritual fantasy of some sort, by the way, if you don't know anything about its genre yet. I'm not the best with these categories though.

A2) Another distancing factor along these lines for me was the cold and spare nature of the narrative voice. I can definitely see how it helps to take the reader to a particular mental place and is therefore critical to setting. But I just found it cold, almost alienating -- and it was well-written, but not particularly literary, in my view.

If you read a sample of the text and some summaries -- and like the sound of this book -- you're probably not wrong. I was out of my element. Also, I care nothing for romance themes, but I've noticed a lot of readers found the love story in the plot very satisfying.

B) When I considered this book, it was described as some unlikely combination of philosophy and fiction. The name of the thinker referenced was Eckhart Tolle, who I failed to place correctly in my mind at that time. I'm really just not that into philosophical-spiritual thinking of that kind (I mean that as broadly as I wrote it) right now. I don't have the intellectual appetite for it, but if you do, you should have at it with this book perhaps.

BTW, I received this book for free courtesy of Library Thing's Early Reviews program.… (more)