Favored to Win

Rating:
Summary: Favored to please everyone
Review: Bravo! Another book that you just can't put down. Situations that will make you laugh, touching moments that bring a tear to your eye and an education on the behind the scenes of thoroughbred horse racing tossed in. An intriguing tale of a young woman that finds a new way in life quite different than that of her upbringing or mysterious past. The cast of characters leading you through the world of racing are all quite believable. In fact, I began to imagine what actors would play what roles if this was a movie - I think Wilford Brimley would make a great "Ben" - the gentle trainer and guiding mentor throughout the story. This is the third book by this author that I've read and I've enjoyed each one. I look forward to the next one with great anticipation - I finally found an author that writes the kind of books I like to read.

Rating:
Summary: Favored To Win -- A Total Sensory Overload !
Review: I had the pleasure to meet Ms. Meyers at a book signing in New Philadelphia, Ohio last year. She is an amazing woman to talk to you. Having read 2 of her books - I am now pleased to add her to my favorite authors. Favored to Win took me into the "backside" of racing - into a world I didn't know existed. Brilliantly thought out characters that came to life from the first page. You can see the race, feel the rain, and smell the horses. A total sensory overload.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for horse lovers and romantics!
Review: I read MaryAnn Myers first two books: "Call Me Lydia" and "Mapledale" which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I waited with anticipation for the next. "Favored to Win" is wonderful. It holds your attention from the first page to the final line. The author has a real feel for horses and the world of horse racing. Her characters are real---you feel like you know them personally. The story has love, humor and intrigue. I highly recommend it and can't wait to read her next book.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Winner
Review: I read MaryAnn Myers first two books: "Call Me Lydia" and "Mapledale" which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I waited with anticipation for the next. "Favored to Win" is wonderful. It holds your attention from the first page to the final line. The author has a real feel for horses and the world of horse racing. Her characters are real---you feel like you know them personally. The story has love, humor and intrigue. I highly recommend it and can't wait to read her next book.

Rating:
Summary: Favored to Win Won Me
Review: If you like good a good read you will like this book by MaryAnn Meyers. Its informative and you can tell she really knows her stuff when it comes to horses and the track. The story line is good and her characters are believable. Every one of her characters has a story behind them and I like that. Ms. Meyers blends them altogether and out comes a very good book. I recommend it if you want to sit back on a winter night with a good book.

Rating:
Summary: "Favored to Win" finishes out of the money
Review: Maryann Myers's "Favored to Win" finishes out of the money: both story and storytelling compel comparison with some small screen cinesoap whose tracking may merit a herky-jerky heed, but poorly repays any heavier attentive ante. If Ms. Myers's relentlessly redundant rendering of persons, places, and proceedings effectively evokes the ambience of backside quotidiana, the races she thus recounts induce a sense of déjà vu reminiscent not of real life railside thrills, but of pages recently-read. Worse, her iconic characters plod plethoric pages of birds-eye narration toward revelations whose very triteness out-telegraphs even her ham-handed hinting, leaving little to surprise even the most bird-brained of readers, and less to lure a wittier one to the wire.

For my money, "Favored To Win" is both absolutely and by comparison a low-dollar claimer that fulfills exactly its long shot destiny against such stakesworthy runners as, say, Laura Hillenbrand's pacesetting page-turner of horseracing history, "Seabiscuit: An American Legend," or "Horse Heaven," Jane Smiley's teasey tale of the horses and the hippophiles, the hopeful and the hopeless and the hangers-on, from hoity-toity to hoi-polloi, who collectively compose the Thoroughbred racing industry.

Oh well ... better luck next time. :-)

Rating:
Summary: I Miss the Characters
Review: What an enjoyable book! After finishing the book, I found myself missing the characters. I so enjoyed the mystery of the main character Dawn and the reactions of Randy, the veterinarian, to her hidden and guarded past. The fatherly figure and master horseman Ben made you believe he could pick and train a winning horse every time, but knew he could not control the destiny of himself or his horses. I found myself identifying with the crude but clowning Tom, including the emotional person that was hidden within. MaryAnn Meyers is such a skilled writer, that she included personality traits in the horses. The confident Beau, the wild and winning All Together (don't think I just gave away the plot)and the cranky Shadow Pines. Although I find myself wishing for a sequel, I'll settle for picking up another MaryAnn Meyers book, starting a fire in the fireplace and settling down for another good read.