Maria Miller

Saving Emma begins with school bully Craig setting Luke, an often picked-on student up with a date to the prom with Emma, another student who is often tormented at school. Thanks to Craig's meddling however, Luke and Emma find they enjoy one another's company. When Luke learns of Emma's abusive living situation with her father, he determines to save her from it.

The next few years are idyllic as Luke comes into an inheritance and starts his own company imploding buildings. He and Emma have married and things couldn't be better. Then he signs a contract with Hollywood to implode buildings for their movies, which involves a lot of travel. It's then that things start to unravel.

Emma is diagnosed with thyroid cancer. While most of his local business is being taken care of by his local crews he is still obligated to travel wherever and whenever Hollywood wants him in order to fulfill his contract. Unfortunately much of that time is spent hanging around waiting for actors, weather, time of day etc. before he can implode the building and return home.

Meanwhile under doctor's care at home Emma deteriorates. Luke returns from one trip and she is in the hospital, barely conscious. He has found an alternative treatment that he thinks will cure her but the doctors will not let him take her out of the hospital. Now he begins the fight to save her life.

The author writes a realistic sounding battle waged between the medical system and an individual with all the media hype thrown in. The reader can feel the emotional pain that Luke experiences as both sides invoke legal strategies to help win their cases.

I think the author could tighten up her writing some, to make some parts of the text less wordy and repetitive. There are several times in the book where the author starts several sentences in a row with the word "he". These sentences should be reworked so that perhaps one or more of them could be combined if they are short or the name of the individual could be used instead of the pronoun. This adds interest to the story. In other places the author writes two or three short sentences one after the other that could be nicely combined to make a more interesting, concise single sentence. Instead of "He turned to Emma. He reached across and put his hand on her forehead." It might be better to write "He reached across toward Emma and put his hand on her forehead."

I have to admit, I was disappointed with the ending of this book. I don't mind books that let you know that there is more to come, but each book should have a satisfying end to itself. I don't like it when books end with "To Be Continued". It could have just been seeing these words that set my teeth on edge. As I think about it, the ending as it stood without those three words were a good indicator that something else was going to happen. I think perhaps labelling Saving Emma as Book one of the ________ Series and leaving "To Be Continued" off of the end of the last page would have done the trick for me. As a first novel however, I think that overall the author has done a fairly commendable job.

Saving Emma was a delightful romance with the added contemporary medical issues of who decides on the type of medical care (traditional or non-traditional) the patient should receive. Should it be the doctors or the patient and the patient’s guardians/caregivers?

I gave Saving Emma 3 stars out of 5. I would definitely consider reading more of her work.

Thank you to the author for providing a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. A positive opinion was not required. All thoughts are my own.

This review was published on my blog Shelf Full of Books http://kathrynsshelffullofbooks.blogspot.com/2015/02/book-review-saving-emma-by-...… (més)

Maria very kindly sent me this book in exchange for a review.

Maria had told me in a thread that she writes chick-lit/commercial fiction/romance.

I really like the way Maria has constructed this book as when you start reading it and she introduces her primary characters Luke and Emma, who fall for each other at High School, you are led to believe that this might be just another boy meets girl story but there is so much more depth to this story than that and when down the line Emma becomes terminally ill with an aggressive form of thyroid cancer and Luke wants to take her out of the hospital and have her treated with non-conventional medicine, Maria tackles some pretty gritty and serious issues about ethics and medical care and the legal rights of relatives in terms of treatment of their next of kin.

I do like Maria's writing style. It is very fluid and she writes great dialogue which is something I love writing myself and enjoy reading. I felt the pace of the book was great and as it progresses you want to keep reading to find out what is going to happen. I found myself really feeling for Emma who is suffering and for Luke's pain at seeing his wife suffer and his utter helplessness at not being able to do anything for her. Luke's anger and frustrations come out so well.

I did find it a bit of tear jerker at the end. Very true to life though.

I am definitely looking forward to reading Maria's next book!… (més)

Chasing Fate
by Maria Miller
Copyright 2012
Available on Amazon in paperback or on
kindle
Chasing fate is the story of a high school senior in jeopardy of not graduating. Her studies, grades, and outlook on life plummet as her dysfunctional family’s problems escalate.

Kate is given a make up assignment to interview a person of interest. A successful interview will allow her to graduate. Her teacher has one of her father’s business associates in mind. They are all successful and respected members of the community. Instead, she chooses to interview the homeless man, Max, who lives in the park. That’s where the adventure begins.

The author did a good job of setting up the primary characters and their adventures in this Young Adult novel. Some of the secondary characters needed some fleshing out as to motivation.

This review was done from the Kindle edition. This version has some distracting formatting issues. Over all the story is very interesting and keeps the page turning. However, the ending lacks the feel and detail prevalent in the early part of the book. Still, Chasing Fate is an enjoyable read.

Reviewed by Jackie Anton… (més)