Janine and I are over at Dear Author with a joint review of Someone to Trust by Mary Balogh. Come see what we thought.
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I’m over at AudioGals with a review of Under Control by Shannon Stacey, narrated by Tatiana Sokolov. Enjoyable, gentle domestic-style romance with no major dramas, but the protagonists lacked a little chemistry.
Why I read it: This is one from my own TBL.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) An Atlanta ex-cop comes to sleepy Lake Sackett, Georgia, seeking peace and quiet—but he hasn’t bargained on falling for Frankie, the cutest coroner he’s ever met.
Frankie McCready talks to dead people. Not like a ghost whisperer or anything—but it seems rude to embalm them and not at least say hello.
Fortunately, at the McCready Family Funeral Home & Bait Shop, Frankie’s eccentricities fit right in. Lake Sackett’s embalmer and county coroner, Frankie’s goth styling and passion for nerd culture mean she’s not your typical Southern girl, but the McCreadys are hardly your typical Southern family. Led by Great-Aunt Tootie, the gambling, boozing, dog-collecting matriarch of the family, everyone looks out for one another—which usually means getting up in everyone else’s business.
Maybe that’s why Frankie is so fascinated by new sheriff Eric Linden…a recent transplant from Atlanta, he sees a homicide in every hunting accident or boat crash, which seems a little paranoid for this sleepy tourist town. What’s he so worried about? And what kind of cop can get a job with the Atlanta PD but can’t stand to look at a dead body?
Frankie has other questions that need answering first—namely, who’s behind the recent break-in attempts at the funeral home, and how can she stop them? This one really does seem like a job for the sheriff—and as Frankie and Eric do their best Scooby-Doo impressions to catch their man, they get closer to spilling some secrets they thought were buried forever.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): I read Peachy Flippin’ Keen in May. It is a prequel to Ain’t She a Peach and does not stand alone. As an adjunct to this book, it’s fine. On it’s own it was… incomplete. That said, I think I did get a better picture of Frankie and Eric from having read the novella first so I do recommend it for that reason alone. I’m sure it will be much more satisfying if one can read or listen to the full length book immediately after.
I also recommend having read or listened to the earlier books in the series first too as there are developments in Margot and Kyle’s relationship which will be better appreciated that way. Continue reading
I’m over at AudioGals with a review of Rebel Hard by Nalini Singh, narrated by Justine O. Keef. I loved the story and, leaving lack of a New Zealand accent, the narration was very good too.
Why I read it: I picked this one up cheap when it was an Audible Daily Deal.
Content warning: The book contains themes of suicide, disordered eating, homophobia, abuse/neglect and self-harm.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) According to sixteen-year-old Zander Osborne, nowhere is an actual place—and she’s just fine there. But her parents insist that she get out of her head—and her home state—and attend Camp Padua, a summer camp for at-risk teens.
Zander does not fit in—or so she thinks. She has only one word for her fellow campers: crazy. In fact, the whole camp population exists somewhere between disaster and diagnosis. There’s her cabinmate Cassie, a self-described manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic. Grover Cleveland (yes, like the president), a cute but confrontational boy who expects to be schizophrenic someday, odds being what they are. And Bek, a charmingly confounding pathological liar.
But amid group “share-apy” sessions and forbidden late-night outings, unlikely friendships form, and as the Michigan summer heats up, the four teens begin to reveal their tragic secrets. Zander finds herself inextricably drawn to Grover’s earnest charms, and she begins to wonder if she could be happy. But first she must come completely unraveled to have any hope of putting herself back together again.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): What a lovely surprise this audiobook was. I didn’t really know what to expect going in to be honest. I tend to be more adventurous with audiobooks though and the title and blurb promised some romance so I took the plunge.
While there is a romance, it isn’t the major theme of the book and it’s not even the most prominent relationship. It was sweet and I enjoyed it but Zander and Grover are only 16 so it wasn’t the fall-in-love-and-be-together-forever-and-ever-happily-ever-after I mostly read. It did end on a happy hopeful note but the point of the book wasn’t really about Zander having a HEA romantically.
The story is told in first person present tense which I don’t mind at all (in fact, I quite like it, especially on audio) but not everyone does, so it’s worth mentioning here. Each chapter begins with a brief letter, most often from one of the campers home but the rest of the book is told from Zander’s POV. For most of the book, we don’t know why Zander is at Camp Padua, a summer camp in Michigan for at-risk teens. We know there’s something but not exactly what. We slowly find things out as the story progresses until the full truth is revealed. At times I found it slightly frustrating (because I’m impatient) but I understood why, from a narrative and story perspective, the reveal took time. Zander wasn’t going to tell anyone until she trusted them. And trust takes time. Also, the impact of why Zander came to camp is so much more once you’ve spent some time in Zander’s head. Continue reading
I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Diamond Fire by Ilona Andrews. Fabulous bridging novella to the next full length book in the Hidden Legacy series. Catalina is pretty awesome.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
