Tag: Kristen Ashley (Page 5 of 8)

March Round Up

April 2, 2015 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Rock Chick Redemption by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Susannah Jones – B+ I said in my review of Rock Chick (I read the print version) that I imagined Amanda Ronconi reading the story to me and that this would probably mean I’d be inclined to judge the narration by Ms. Jones more harshly. I listened to Rock Chick Rescue and Rock Chick Redemption for fun, “just for me” listens because sometimes it’s nice for me just to be a consumer and not a reviewer and I wanted my brain to relax for a bit. But I wanted to say something about the narration.

I could wish that Susannah Jones has slightly more vocal range and could portray a larger variety of male voices – pretty much, all the heroes sound the same and they’re really only slightly deeper in pitch than her female character voices. (For regular audiobook listeners, this is a trade off we make fairly often. There are only so many character voices a narrator can perform and many male narrators cannot sound “female” in pitch and vice versa; however, they do adjust their tone sufficiently to give an audio cue to listeners that this is the hero or heroine talking and, provided it’s not grating, that can be enough.)

But, as for the rest, Ms. Jones was brilliant. She didn’t have any trouble with some of the more convoluted sentences Ms. Ashley uses (which I love even though their grammar is sometimes quite tortured) and the completely nailed the humour of the piece. I cannot even express to you how much I love her characterisation of Tex. He is twice as hilarious on audio. Continue reading

Rock Chick by Kristen Ashley

March 26, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I was in the mood for a KA book and I hadn’t read this one yet. (If I say I was saving it, will that make it sound better?)

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Indy Savage, cop’s daughter, rock chick and used bookstore owner, has been in love with Lee Nightingale, once bad boy, now the man behind Nightingale Investigations, since she was five years old. No matter what ingenious schemes Indy used to capture his attention, Lee never showed an interest and Indy finally gave up. Now Indy’s employee, Rosie, has lost a bag of diamonds and bad guys are shooting at him. When Indy gets involved, Lee is forced to help. Complicating matters, Lee has decided he’s interested, Indy’s decided she’s not. But she can’t seem to keep Lee out of her life when she’s repeatedly stun gunned, kidnapped and there are car bombs exploding (not to mention she’s finding dead bodies).

Indy’s best bet is to solve the mystery of the diamonds before Lee. Lee’s challenge is to keep Indy alive and, at the same time, win back her heart.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): If I had’ve realised how much fun this book was I’d have read it way sooner. I wheeze-laughed my way through the story. I loved Indy and her antics and enjoyed watching Lee try and keep up with her.

“Who’s Ike?”

“Another of my men.”

“How many haven’t I met?”

“Luke, Mace, Jack and Ike.”

Mace? Who had a name like Mace? Where did these macho idiots come up with this shit? “You got a guy named Mace?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

“His name’s Mason. Mason is a shit name. We call him Mace.”

That made sense.

Review at Dear Author

March 24, 2015 / Kaetrin

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Kristen Ashley’s latest, Soaring. New KA books feel like comfort reads but with the added bonus that I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen yet.

Review at AudioGals

February 21, 2015 / Kaetrin

I’m over at AudioGals today with a review of The Will by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Hollis McCarthy. The story got me over a few issues I had with the narration. Josie and Jake are, as they say, “the shit”.

Review at AudioGals

August 18, 2014 / Kaetrin

I’m over at AudioGals today with a review of Fire Inside by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Kate Russell. This was much more successful for me on audio than Motorcycle Man. I enjoyed the print version of Fire Inside and the audio was a blast too.

The Promise by Kristen Ashley

August 4, 2014 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I had this one pre-ordered from Amazon and a few of my Twitter pals and I did a buddy read. (Except I was late starting so I played catch-up most of the time.)

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Since his brother’s death, Benny Bianchi has been nursing his grudge against the woman he thinks led to his brother’s downfall. He does this to bury the feelings he has for Francesca Concetti, his brother’s girl. But when Frankie takes a bullet while on the run with Benny’s cousin’s woman, Benny has to face those feelings.

The problem is Frankie has decided she’s paid her penance. Penance she didn’t deserve to pay. She’s done with Benny and the Bianchi family. She’s starting a new life away from Chicago and her heartbreaking history.

Benny has decided differently.

But Frankie has more demons she’s battling. Demons Benny wants to help her face. But life has landed so many hard knocks on Frankie she’s terrified of believing in the promise of Benny Bianchi and the good life he’s offering.

Frankie’s new life leads her to The ‘Burg, where Benny has ties, and she finds she not only hasn’t succeeded in getting away, she doesn’t want to.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Ordinarily, I’d expect I’d have some difficulty with the concept of a guy dating his dead brother’s ex-girlfriend – as a concept it doesn’t appeal to me much. But, I was sold on Frankie and Ben (I refuse to call him Benny – sorry, can’t do it) by the end of At Peace and Vinnie (the dead brother/ex) was kind of vague and amorphous but also not good for Frankie in many ways. So it didn’t faze me when that wasn’t an issue for most of the characters in this book. Frankie struggled with it for a while at the start of the story but no-one else did. Frankie and Ben so clearly belonged together, everyone was just happy it looked like it was happening.