Book Review – Full Circle by Terry Tyler

Posted on May 29, 2014 by charmouabb

This book was received from the Author in return for an honest review

By Terry Tyler

Two years have passed since we left Dave, Ariel, Janice and Shane at the end of DREAM ON.
ARIEL thought her hard work and perseverance had been rewarded when she met record producer Theo Perlmutter ~ then a tragic event turned her dreams to dust.
Newly married JANICE was happier than she’d ever been ~ but the honeymoon ended when born again alcoholic husband Max careered off the wagon and into the nearest bar.
Being forced onto The Jeremy Kyle Show in DREAM ON was not enough to make ladies’ man SHANE learn his lesson – will his philandering ways eventually catch up with him?
Rock band THOR has risen from the ashes…
… but DAVE is unhappy, trapped in a domestic situation not of his choosing.
Will there be a happy ever after ending for any of them?

I was excited to start this book; I really really enjoyed Dream On, which is the predecessor to this one. You can find my review for that HERE. In Full Circle we find ourselves reunited with the gang a few years down the track… Life has been ticking along as it does, bringing with it a new set of hurdles for everyone.

It was funny how things worked out, wasn’t it? Fucking hilarious, really.

As soon as I started reading I felt this warm fuzzy familiarity, it was just like visiting old friends. I was glad to find that my favourite characters were just as I remembered them. I could recognize them, even though parts of their lives had changed, they were still the people I got to know in the first book. This really, is why I think you should read the first book before you start on this one. You don’t HAVE to, but the character journey will be so much more fulfilling if you do! I also want to point out; if you’ve read the first book then you would be CRAZY to not read this sequel.

A good sequel doesn’t spend its time re-hashing the previous book, but it does help refresh your memory with what had happened, it needs a good flow to link the two books together, and this most certainly does that. I loved that there were some long running storylines that ran throughout both books, but also this book had a few new characters and stories that were fresh and substantial.

There is a lot going on in this book, plenty to keep you turning the pages, plenty to keep you wanting to jump in and give a few characters a bit of sound advice. For me Janice was one of these characters. Her storyline with her alcoholic husband made me feel exactly how I’d expect a friend to someone in that situation to feel, frustrated and heartbroken. I spent her chapters alternating between wanting to hug her and wanting to shake some sense into her. In fact, I think I spent many chapters with most of the characters feeling like this (Could’ve seriously throttled Shane sometimes! The male psyche baffles me) this just goes to show how real this book is, how real the characters are. These are feelings I would have if my friends were going through these situations. I empathised, I rolled my eyes, and I was hopeful, crushed and excited. Just like the last book, the characters all have their own voice, their own journey.

Terry Tyler really makes the most of using this sequel to tie up lots of loose ends, it’s very satisfying to follow the story through so many twists and turns and have that feeling that the story really has been told. Fans of a good HEA won’t be disappointed… I loved the way this ended in every single way possible. Oh, and I absolutely LOVE how just as the title is Full Circle, at a few points in the book I was thinking to myself… yep, that just came full circle… because that is well and truly life!