Chasing Olivia by Micalea Smeltzer

Book 2 in the Trace and Olivia Series

How far would you go to reignite the spark you once had?

Two years later, Trace and Olivia are as much in love as they’ve always been. But the spark they once had for life is waning and Trace is determined that they find it again. His solution? A road trip. But he doesn’t tell Olivia the real reason they’re heading north.

Olivia is happy to go on a road trip and have more adventures with Trace. Besides, she needs a distraction from the soap opera her life has become. With college over, this is the perfect opportunity to chase down the carefree girl she once was.

But life isn’t a fairytale and you can only escape reality for so long.

Love, laughs, and a hidden agenda.

That’s the name of the game when you’re Chasing Olivia.

(This book finishes Trace and Olivia's story. Book 1 is titled Finding Olivia)

I completely enjoyed Finding Olivia.  Without a doubt I thought it was a really good read, a bit predictable but still a good read.  I went into this book with an open mind not really sure what to expect.  But sadly, I did still feel let down because the story just didn’t seem to work for me.

I think that part of the problem that I had with the story was Trace’s character.  The majority of the book was about him and how he was upset about what was going on, and while I do understand that it seemed like he was all about himself and not caring about what others were dealing with.

Olivia’s character, I think she lost some of her backbone in this book.  I felt like she just went along with whatever Trace wanted and was just afraid to stand up to him, even though he needed someone to.  I did like how she was able to deal with everything that was happening, but on the same token, she also didn’t.  I was waiting for a big explosion to happen with her because she kept things bottled up, but that never happened.

There were some good twists that were brought into this story, but I also did see them coming.  But I did like that the author had thought to add them.  When it came to Trace’s big surprise for Olivia, I was still left wanting for more because she didn’t really learn that much from them.  I had thought that she would want to know more, but she didn’t.

Overall, this was still a good read, and if there is another book in this series in the future, I will check it out.