Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.
It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.
Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.
But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.
The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.
Format Audio CD
Published May 7, 2024 by Simon & Schuster Audio
ISBN 9781797174686 (ISBN10: 1797174681)
About the Author
Emiko Jean is a New York Times best-selling author of adult and young adult fiction. Her books have been published in over thirty languages. Her work has been featured on Good Morning America as a GMA book club pick, by Reese Witherspoon as a young adult book club pick, and in publications such as: Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Cosmopolitan, Shondaland and Bustle. She lives in Washington with her husband and two kids.
I recently finished listening to The Return of Ellie Black, and honestly, it was just okay. The story had some interesting moments — the premise of a missing girl returning home after missing for years definitely had potential — but it didn’t quite deliver the emotional punch I was hoping for.
The narrator did a decent job overall, and I appreciated the attempt to alternate voices for different characters to enhance the experience, but I found that it could actually be a bit distracting. The pacing felt uneven too; some parts dragged on while others felt rushed, which made it a little hard to stay engaged.
The characters were fine but not especially memorable. I kept waiting for some deeper development or big revelations, but most of it felt pretty surface-level. By the end, I wasn’t totally sure if I even cared what happened next. I appreciated the mystery aspect as Ellie's disappearance and life away from home was slowly revealed piecemeal, but I lacked any real emotional connection to the characters or story.
Five words: mediocre, mysterious, promising, slow-paced, detached
My final word: It’s not a bad audiobook — if you need something to pass the time on a commute or while doing chores, it’ll do. But if you're looking for something that really pulls you in and sticks with you afterward, this probably isn't it.
Warnings:
Violence, kidnapping, abuse, murder, rape
My Rating:
The Cerebral Girl is a middle-aged blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.
Sarah Harper is driven, pursuing happiness in all the wrong places. She wants to do good and not hurt the people she loves, including her son, Mitchell, and her husband, Joe. But her drive to succeed overrides all else.
It's not until she faces a chance encounter with heaven and spends time with the grandmother who prayed for her every day when she was a little girl that she begins to see how her own mother's bitterness created a hole in Sarah's life—a hole she has been trying to overcome for as long as she can remember.
For the first time, Sarah sees that God created her for a special purpose. When Sarah returns to her own life, she is a woman with a mission. And the unsuspecting world around her will never be the same again.
About the Author
Joyce Meyer is one of the world's leading practical Bible teachers. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, she has written more than eighty inspirational books, including Never Give Up!,The Secret to True Happiness, 100 Ways to Simplify Your Life, the entire Battlefield of the Mind family of books, her first venture into fiction with The Penny,and many others. She has also released thousands of audio teachings, as well as a complete video library.
My Thoughts
As always with audiobooks, this will be a brief review. Additionally this was the abridged version, only five CDs long.
I wasn't a fan of the narrator. Something about her voice was just "too chipper". She sounded like the voice on the shuttle in the airport announcing the next gate point.
While the second half of the audiobook was uplifting and slightly more engaging, the first half I found to be quite boring. Whenever the story would switch to Sarah's young son, I would find myself a little lost. His storyline just didn't seem to fit within the rest of the story. Perhaps that is a consequence of the abridgment of the story? I don't know. He seemed almost inconsequential to the story. In fact, when he "made an appearance" near the end of the story, I found myself confused and trying to remember who he was. I finally recalled that the boy was her son and recalled how he fit into the story.
I don't know. The story was a little disjointed (again, possibly a consequence of the abridgment), and the "afterlife" sequence reminded me of the Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future-- a little hokey for my taste.
So overall this was just "okay". Perhaps the unabridged version would be more impressive to me?
Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader...
About the Author
Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. "My Parents' Bedroom," a story from his short story collection, Say You're One of Them, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing 2007. Say You're One of Them won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) 2009 and PEN/Beyond Margins Award 2009, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. In 2007, Akpan taught at a Jesuit college in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now he serves at Christ the King Church, Ilasamaja-Lagos, Nigeria.
My Thoughts
This was a very brief audiobook, being only 3 CDs long, with one story per CD. Of course, it does say "Unabridged Selections: 3 Stories on 3 CDs read by Robin Miles and Dion Graham". So it seems that this is not the complete book, but only 3 of the stories from the book.
The first story was the most powerful, told from the perspective of a young girl in Rwanda living through the genocidal slaughter of the Tutsi by Hutu members- a slaughter that turned family members and friends and neighbors against one another. This story drew me in, and the characters came alive for me. I loved this story, in a tragic and broken and heart-wrenching sort of way.
The second CD contained the story of a destitute Kenyan family living in shanty town, trying to gather presents for "X-Mas" (it was odd hearing them continually calling it "X-Mas" and never "Christmas"). This was my least favorite of the three stories.
The final CD consisted of the story of two young girls, best friends for years, torn apart by the religious differences of their parents. The third CD ends with an interview with the good-natured author.
These stories were brought to life by two narrators with authentic African accents, breathing life into the characters. As I've said before, I loved the first story, and loved the narration.
This was a quick audiobook, allowing me to listen through it in just a few hours, even though I had my attention towards the book continually interrupted by my workday. If all of the stories had been as good as the first one, this book would have been fantastic, and perhaps in its entirety it would be that fantastic. But as it was the book, with only these three stories, was just "okay". It had its moments.
Dr. Jane Goodall's revolutionary study of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe preserve forever altered the very definition of "humanity." Now, in a poignant and insightful memoir, Jane Goodall explores her extraordinary life and personal spiritual odyssey, with observations as profound as the knowledge she has brought back from the forest. As a toddler she was entranced by all living things, and over the years the little girl inspired by Tarzan and The Jungle Book became the woman who found herself working with famed paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey; accomplished scientific breakthroughs in Gombe; and, ultimately, became a champion of the environment. It has been a life blessed with faith, resolve, and purpose, though not without its crises. Jane Goodall endured the horrors of the London blitz and World War II, postwar hardships, vicious rumors and "establishment" assaults on the integrity of her work, a terrorist attack and hostage taking in Africa, and her husband's slow, agonizing death. But throughout, her religious convictions, although tested, have helped her survive-and Jane Goodall's pursuit of science has enhanced, not eroded, her belief in God. In this book she candidly shares her life—talking of the love and support of her mother, her son, her late husband, of friends and strangers—as well as the Gombe chimpanzees she introduced to the world nearly forty years ago. And she gives us convincing reasons why we can and must open ourselves to the saints within each of us. At one with nature and challenged by the man-made dangers of environmental destruction, inequality, materialism, and genocide, Dr. Goodall offers insight into her perceptions of these threats and celebrates the people who are working for earth's renewal. Here, indeed, is Reason For Hope.
About the Author
JANE GOODALL was born in London on April 3, 1934 and grew up in Bournemouth, on the southern coast of England. In 1960 she began studying chimpanzees in the wild in Gombe, Tanganyika (now Tarzania). After receiving her doctorate in ethology at Cambridge University, Dr. Goodall founded the Gombe Stream Research Center for the study of chimpanzees and baboons. In 1975 she established the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation to promote animal research throughout the world.
My Thoughts
Well, considering that I think of Jane Goodall as practically a mentor or role model for myself, I was thrilled when my mother gave me this a couple of years ago. I just had to find it again, as I had accidentally packed it away.
So I recently found it and deemed it time to dive in. This was the abridged version, so it went fairly quick.
I love that Goodall narrated this herself. I could listen to her speak all day long! This book wasn't really that much about the chimps of Gombe, but about (as the title would indicate) her spiritual journey. Full of spiritual growth and discovery, and answering some questions that she often gets like how she can stand to go into laboratories and see chimps confined in tiny cages for experimentation and not go off on people, and whether she has any hope for the human race and our future and that of the earth, the abridged version just left me hankering for more. Now I'm thinking that this might be a good way (audiobooks) to explore all of her writings!
Loved, loved, loved this audiobook! Jane Goodall is compassionate, grounded and reasonable, tempering scientific exploration with a spiritual grounding and strong emotional control. She's one of those rare scientists who believes in creationism as well as evolution. But even greater than that, she believes in the ability of the human race to redeem itself-- she believes in man. The only downside to this audiobook was that it was abridged, and left me hungering for more.
Two thumbs and ten toes up!
My Rating: 9 out of 10 (I'd probably have given it a 9.5 or 10 if it was the unabridged version!)
The "dazzling, exhilarating" (San Francisco Chronicle) debut novel from one of this century's most groundbreaking writers, The Broom of the System is an outlandishly funny and fiercely intelligent exploration of the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.
Born in Ithaca, NY, and raised in Champaign, IL, David Foster Wallace grew up athletically gifted and exceptionally bright, with an avid interest in tennis, literature, philosophy, and math. He attended Amherst and graduated in 1985 with a double major in English and Philosophy. His philosophy thesis (on modal logic) won the Gail Kennedy Memorial Prize. His English thesis would become his first novel, The Broom of the System. Published in 1987 during his second year of grad school at the University of Arizona, the book sold well, garnering national attention and critical praise in equal measure. Two years later, a book of short stories, Girl with Curious Hair, was published to admiring reviews.
In the early 1990s, Wallace's short fiction began to appear regularly in publications like Playboy, The Paris Review, and The New Yorker, along with excerpts from his second novel, a complex, enormously ambitious work published in 1996 as Infinite Jest. Surpassing 1,000 pages in length, the novel was hailed as a masterpiece ("[A]n entertainment so irresistibly pleasurable it renders the viewer catatonic," raved Newsweek. "[R]esourceful, hilarious, intelligent, and unique," pronounced Atlantic Monthly), and Wallace was crowned on the spot the new heavyweight champion of literary fiction.
Hyperbole aside, Infinite Jest, with its linguistic acrobatics (challenging complex clauses, coined words, etc.) and sly, self-referential footnotes, proved to be the template for a new literary style. Subversive, hip, and teeming with postmodernist irony, the book attracted a rabid cult following and exerted an influence on up-and-coming young writers that is still felt today. The scope of Wallace's achievement can be measured by the fact that one year after the publication of Infinite Jest, he was awarded the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant."
Nearly as famous for his nonfiction as for his novels and stories, Wallace produced mind-boggling essays on assignment for magazines like Harper's. In contrast to his sad, dark, disturbing fiction, these essays -- subsequently collected into such bestselling anthologies as A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again Everything and More (1997), (2003), and Consider the Lobster (2007) -- were ridiculously exuberant, fairly bursting with humor, energy, and good cheer. Yet Wallace himself suffered from clinical depression most of his adult life. He was treated successfully with anti-depressants, until side effects from the drugs began to interfere with his productivity. At his doctor's suggestion, he stopped taking the medication.The depression returned, and he did not respond to any further treatment. In September of 2008, at the age of 46, he committed suicide.
Wallace's influence on contemporary literature cannot be overstated. Descended from post-war superstars like Thomas Pynchon and Don De Lillo, his style is clearly visible in the work of postmodernists like Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers. His untimely death was mourned by critics, writers, and millions of adoring fans. As author David Lipsky stated in a tribute that aired on NPR in September, 2008: "To read David Foster Wallace was to feel your eyelids pulled open."
My Thoughts
Oh my. I really don't even know how to summarize this book. Uh...a woman's grandmother goes missing from a nursing home, her excessively verbose boyfriend becomes overly insecure with their relationship and problems existing within their relationship become evident, the past returns, a bird becomes an evangelist, phone lines are crossed, alternate dimensions discovered...uh...that's just a little taste of what is going on in this thing.
This audio book was like a story with ADD. It was so hard for me to follow what was going on. So many characters and times that went all over the place. I don’t know how much of my difficulty in following the story was the fact that it was an audio book rather than the written word. There were a lot of one-sided conversations and recitation of old documents and transcripts, strange dialogue and rambling stories.
However, on a positive note, moments of the book exuded quirky dialogue that I loved:
“I could bludgeon you with my belly!” (NOTE: I want this on a t-shirt!)
”Time does not exist. I ATE IT! It’s in here. See? See the jiggle? That’s time- jiggling! Run! Run away! Fetch me my platter of fat, my nine cattle, or I’ll envelop you in a chin and fling you at the wall!”
”Lenore, it’s simply that I love you. You know that. Every fiber of your being is loved by every fiber of my being. The thought of things about you, concerning you, troubling you, that I don’t know about, makes blood run from my eyes-- on the inside.”
“Have you ever had intercourse with someone assumed to be of infinite size?” (Asked by the same individual above with the bludgeoning belly, and who is working to gain “infinite size”!)
There were also outrageously named characters like (all spelled phonetically, since this was an audiobook):
Peter Abbit (Peter Rabbit?) Judith Preeth (Judas Priest?) Rick Vigorous
Do you have any idea how much I DISLIKE Rick Vigorous?! Jeez, his babbling stories drove me nuts. He is a very annoying man.
I had high hopes for this story, as I had heard such good things about it. But holy moley! To me this was just a babbling mess with about 5 different storylines wrapped up in one story. And not in a neat and brilliant sort of way, but in a mish-mash of confusion. And I don’t even know what to make of the ending. It felt like everything was left open-ended with nothing resolved. It felt like there was NO ending-- it just broke midway through the storyline. Perhaps if I had read this story instead of listening to the audiobook I may have a different takeaway and it would make more sense to me. But as it is, the audiobook made absolutely NO sense to me at all!
So I was not a fan of this one, but that's just me. There are obviously plenty of people out there who disagree with me and feel that this was a brilliant story! But for me, it shone dimly.
A riveting debut novel of murder, honor, loyalty, and betrayal that reaches all the way to the Oval Office. A vicious murder involving the president and his mistress results in a coverup orchestrated by the zealously loyal chief of security and the Secret Service. But, unbeknownst to the president and his lackeys, one unlikely witness saw everything. Will Americans learn the truth?
David Baldacci was born in Virginia, in 1960, where he currently resides. He received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Mr. Baldacci practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C., as both a trial and corporate attorney.
David Baldacci has published nineteen adult novels: Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth, Saving Faith, Wish You Well, Last Man Standing, The Christmas Train, Split Second, Hour Game, The Camel Club, The Collectors, Simple Genius, Stone Cold, The Whole Truth, Divine Justice, First Family, True Blue and Deliver Us From Evil. He has also published two young adult novels: Freddy and the French Fries: Fries Alive! and Freddy and the French Fries: The Adventures of Silas Finklebean. He published a novella for the Dutch entitled Office Hours, written for Holland's Year 2000 “Month of the Thriller” and authored a short story, “The Mighty Johns,” as part of a mystery anthology published in 2002.
His works have been in numerous worldwide magazines, newspapers, journals, and publications. Baldacci has authored seven original screenplays. His books have been translated into more than 45 languages and sold in more than 80 countries. All of his books have been national and international bestsellers. Over 100 million copies of Mr. Baldacci's books are in print worldwide.
David writes for numerous magazines and newspapers. He is a contributing editor for Parade magazine, which has a circulation of over 75 million readers.
Castle Rock entertainment made Absolute Power (Warner Books/Grand Central Publishing, 1996) into a major motion picture starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. The novel Absolute Power won Britain's W. H. Smith's Thumping Good Read award for fiction in 1997, and was nominated for a literary award in Italy. Absolute Power was selected for People Magazine’s “Page Turner of the Week.” Absolute Power won the 1996 Gold Medal Award for Best Mystery/Thriller from the Southern Writers Guild.
The paperback version of Total Control (Warner/Grand Central, 1996) was a best-selling favorite of the traveling public for over a year. Total Control won the 1997 Gold Medal Award for Best Mystery/Thriller from the Southern Writers Guild.
The Winner's (Warner/Grand Central, 1997) sales topped those of Baldacci's first two novels, no doubt aided by revealing in the novel how to fix the lottery and win a hundred million dollars! The Winner received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, its highest rating.
The Simple Truth (Warner/Grand Central, 1998) was the first of Baldacci’s novels in which part of the plot was based upon an actual event. President Clinton selected The Simple Truth as his favorite novel of 1999.
Saving Faith (Warner/Grand Central, 1999) is a novel about how Washington really works, and it reached number one on both the New York Times Bestseller List and the Publisher’s Weekly national bestseller list. Saving Faith was selected for People Magazine’s “Page Turner of the Week.”
Wish You Well (Warner/Grand Central, 2000) is strongly linked to Baldacci’s maternal family history. In researching for this book, he spent countless hours talking with his mother, who spent her first seventeen years on the “high rock” and learning its lifelong lessons. Wish You Well received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly and was selected as the inaugural book for All America Reads, a national reading program.
Last Man Standing (Warner/Grand Central, 2001) is an explosive psychological thriller about Web London, a member of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, who is desperate to find answers for secret terrors and relief from unbearable guilt. Last Man Standing reached number one on the New York Times Bestseller List.
The Christmas Train (Warner/Grand Central, 2002) is filled with memorable characters who have packed their bags for a holiday adventure and shows how we do get second chances to fulfill our deepest hopes and dreams during the season of miracles. The Christmas Train has quickly become a holiday classic.
Split Second (Warner/Grand Central, 2003) is a compelling, fast-paced political thriller that gives readers an inside look at the work of the Secret Service as it strives to protect America's leaders. As their worlds close in upon them, former agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell team up to seek answer to events that, at first glance, seem to be unrelated disasters. Split Second became a New York Times bestseller on its first day of publication.
Hour Game (Warner/Grand Central, 2004) teams Sean King and Michelle Maxwell from Split Second in a race to prove a man’s innocence in a domestic burglary. They quickly find themselves caught in a chain of murders that once again rocks the quiet hills of Wrightsburg, Virginia. At every turn, King and Maxwell find themselves trying to put the pieces together as the killer is plays the murderous “hour game.”
In The Camel Club (Warner/Grand Central, 2005), Baldacci goes beyond the traditional boundaries of fiction, painting a frighteningly vivid portrait of a world that could be our own very soon, and the few people who have a chance to stop the last war the world may ever fight.
In The Collectors (Warner/Grand Central, 2006), Baldacci weaves a brilliant, white-knuckle tale of suspense in which every collectors is searching for one missing prize... the one to die for.
Simple Genius (Warner/Grand Central, 2007) brings back the dynamic team of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell from Split Second and Hour Game. While investigating a dead body found in Babbage Town—a think-tank and high tech research facility just across the York River from the CIA Training Facility in Camp Peary, Virginia—King & Maxwell find themselves thrown into the midst of a worldwide race to control information, and at any cost—even murder.
Stone Cold (Warner/Grand Central, 2007) brings back the unusual group of sleuths, the Camel Club, for another mystery involving Jerry Bagger, Annabelle Conroy, Alex Ford, and a deadly assassin whose identity, like Oliver Stone's, remains veiled in mystery.
The Whole Truth (Grand Central, 2008) represents David’s first international thriller, one that presents the all-too-real world of perception management into the forefront of global defense contractor activities.
Divine Justice (Grand Central, 2008) is the fourth in the Camel Club series. Oliver Stone finally faces his inner demons and finds himself in rural Virginia where coal mining clashes with small town relationships with deadly results.
First Family (Grand Central, 2009) brings Sean King and Michelle Maxwell back together as they come to the aid of the First Lady when a family member is kidnapped. Michelle finally faces some her deepest secrets and inner demons.
In True Blue (Grand Central, 2010) a mysterious high-profile homicide in the nation’s capital collides with the dark side of national security and Mace Perry, an imposing but fallen-from-grace police officer plans to make it right at all costs.
Deliver Us From Evil (Grand Central, 2010) brings back Shaw from The Whole Truth in another gripping adventure, but this time with even more deadly results. Shaw joins a new player on the scene, Reggie Campion, in eliminating the evil empire of Evan Waller—although neither is aware of the other’s true intentions.
Freddy and the French Fries: Fries Alive! (Little, Brown & Company, 2005) and Freddy and the French Fries: The Adventures of Silas Finklebean (Little, Brown & Company, 2006) are titles in Baldacci's series for young readers. Find out more about Freddy at his Web site, FreddyandtheFrenchFries.com.
David Baldacci's books have been publicly discussed and/or read by everyone from Howard Stern and Don Imus to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, from George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to Charlie Rose and Larry King.
David has made many television and radio appearances and has been featured in numerous national and international publications.
David contributes to, and is involved in, several philanthropic efforts. His greatest efforts are currently dedicated to his family's own Wish You Well Foundation. The Wish You Well Foundation, established by Michelle and David Baldacci, supports family literacy in the United States by fostering and promoting the development and expansion of new and existing literacy and educational programs. Recently the Wish You Well Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch "Feeding Body & Mind". Through Feeding Body & Mind, hundreds of thousands of new and used books have been collected and distributed through area food banks, helping feed both body and mind. For more information, visit WishYouWellFoundation.org and FeedingBodyandMind.com or call 703-476-6032.
The President of the United States is involved in the death of a woman of questionable character, and a thief witnesses the whole unsavory act. Following in its wake is a cover-up of enormous proportions, and a strain of people fighting for their lives and freedom.
I always have a difficult time reviewing audiobooks, probably because I am always doing other things while listening to them. So there is a big "distraction factor". However let me first say that this narrator was unbelievable! His voice held my attention, he didn't overplay the female voices in a cheesy sugar-sweet fashion as some male narrators may do. He had great inflection. I really enjoyed him as a narrator!
This book/audiobook has a great, complex storyline. It twists and turns, keeping me on the edge of my seat, never quite knowing where it will go next.
One drawback was that there were so many characters that I had a hard time keeping track of them via audio. However someone not so distracted while listening to the audiobook will probably have an easier time keeping up with everyone.
I loved this audiobook. Great storyline, great narrator, great audiobook overall.
Syd, a breathtakingly beautiful supermodel on a photo shoot in Hawaii, disappears. Fearing the worst, her parents travel to Hawaii to investigate for themselves, never expecting the horror that awaits them.
LA Times reporter Ben Hawkins is conducting his own research into the case, hoping to help the victim and get an idea for his next bestseller. With no leads and no closer to uncovering the kidnapper's identity than when he stepped off the plane, Ben gets a shocking visit that pushes him into an impossible-to-resist deal with the devil.
A heart-pounding story of fear and desire, SWIMSUIT transports listeners to a chilling new territory where the collision of beauty and murder transforms paradise into a hell of unspeakable horrors.
My Thoughts
Wow! This audiobook can get shockingly brutal. It really took me by surprise.
I enjoyed this story, despite how descriptively brutal it could be. The storyline had lots of twists and turns, traversing continents, and a multitude of characters rolled up into one. I was not fond, however, of the narrator. I just have a dislike for men doing overly fake-feminine women's voices in narration. But overall I really enjoyed this audiobook!
(You know that my audiobook reviews are always short and sweet!)
Annie Laird is Juror 224. A sculptor with a career going nowhere. A single mother struggling to raise a son. A good citizen who has been summoned to what looks like a routine tour of civic duty. But the trial she is called to serve on is no ordinary trial. It is a mob trial, whose outcome has been meticulously orchestrated by a man of insidious power and deadly precision. A man who lives by the teachings of Lao Tsu ... whose magnetism is irresistible ... whose mind is as brilliant as it is twisted. He is known to some as the Teacher, and he's set his sights on Annie Laird. Pulled into the most chilling depths of the criminal underworld, Annie will be seduced by double-edged promises, stalked by the specter of terror, then, finally, driven to a shocking decision by the most basic motivation a woman can know. Graced with a rarely equaled mastery of style, peopled with a remarkable gallery of characters, and featuring one of the most compelling criminal minds in contemporary fiction, George Dawes Green's The Juror is a tour de force of crime and obsession, evil and innocence - a story that taps into fears so primal they linger long after the last page has been read.
My Thoughts
This audiobook was abridged, and a very quick listen. Only three disks long, I got through it in two workdays. I thought that Lolita Davidovich and John Heard both did great jobs at narrating, and it was nice for a change having a woman to narrate a woman and a man to narrate a man.
Nice, quick story.
My Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (maybe it would be higher if it weren't abridged and had a little more to it) Nice, quick story.
All's quiet in the small town of Holliswood, the television sets a-glow in every home. But not all is as perfect as it seems.
A terrifying outlaw has just arrived in town, with the goal of throwing it into chaos—and filming the pandemonium for the fellas back home.
Only one person can stop him and his thugs from destroying the city and everyone living there. Daniel X assembles an all-star team of his own creation, but not even he could imagine the enormity of this made-for-TV-villain's powers.
My Thoughts
I didn't realize (not knowing that this was part of a series) that this was Young Adult until I started listening to it. But the second that I started listening to it, it became very clear very quick that this was geared towards teens.
Daniel X is an alien hunter. He is something of a superhero from another planet, hunting down dangerous aliens that would bring harm to earth. He is assisted by a motley gang of cohorts that left me a bit confused. I'm still unclear whether they were real or figments of his imagination. I think they were real in a sense, but "summoned" from some other place. But I am still a bit confused by it all.
At times the story was almost childish. However it was a fast audiobook, and moments were entertaining. It's a good book when you are looking for a mild distraction, like while doing housework or in the car. It doesn't take much thought. Perhaps good for someone who is particularly fond of the YA genre, but for someone like me who was reading adult books by the age of 11 or 12, I found it just mildly entertaining.
Forced out of the Los Angeles Times amid the latest budget cuts, newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paperto write the definitive murder story of his career.
He focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus. The kid might actually be innocent.
Jack is soon running with his biggest story since The Poetmade his career years ago. He is tracking a killer who operates completely below police radar—and with perfect knowledge of any move against him. Including Jack's.
My Thoughts
Jack's had a bad day. He's been let go from his position at the LA Times, chewed out by an infuriated mother/grandmother, extorted by a gang member, usurped by a fledgling young reporter, and now he finds himself at the center of a brutal murder investigation.
I found this story entertaining and engaging. What I really loved was the narrator Peter Giles. He really brought the characters to life in a way that I had not experienced previously with other audiobooks. He has a flair for voices, and they come off realistic (my last audiobook, BoneMan's Daughters, was a little distracting to me, because the reader's voices sounded so fake and goofy-- primarily when he was reading a female character). Giles is brilliant as the narrator of The Scarecrow! I almost forgot that I was listening to only one person, and he flowed from character to character seamlessly.
The storyline is good and fairly thorough. Personally for me stories like these are "fluff" stories the same as romance novels. I don't read them expecting a story that I can really lose myself in, but am just looking for an enjoyable and entertaining diversion. This one fit the bill.
I think that this might have been my first Michael Connelly novel, and I would definitely read or listen to another of his.
Be forewarned that there is quite a bit of vulgarity in this one! If you can handle that, and you enjoy thrillers and suspense and murder mysteries, then I would strongly recommend this one for you!
Military intelligence officer Ryan Evans is married to his work; so much so that his wife and daughter have written him out of their lives. Sent to Fallujah and captured by insurgents, he is asked to kill children not unlike his own. The method: a meticulous, excruciating death by broken bones that his captor has forced him to learn.
Returning home after the ordeal, a new crisis awaits. A serial killer is on the loose, and his method of killing is the same. Ryan becomes a prime suspect, which isn't even the worst of his problems: Ryan's daughter is BoneMan's latest desire.
In a story that is devastating in its skill and suspense, - Ted Dekker brings to bear his ability to terrify and compel in BONEMAN'S DAUGHTERS.
My Review
This was my first fictional audiobook, and I've found that it is much harder to review an audiobook than a traditional book. Why is that? In my case, I suspect two things: (1) I have something of an "audio ADD" issue. I can't focus my auditory sense for too long of a stretch. My mind tends to wander. People will sometimes notice this when speaking with me in person for extended periods. My eyes begin to wander around the room as I think of other things, and secondarily (2) I listen to audiobooks while at work, distracted by computers and phones and people coming into my office and asking me questions. No matter how good I am at multi-tasking, even I have to admit to my limitations, and I can only stretch my auditory senses so far!
So this book. You're probably heard all about it before, as it has been out for awhile now. Ryan is a military intelligence officer and serving in the middle east. He has been separated from his wife and daughter for the better part of his marriage and daughter's life. Needless to say, both his marriage and his relationship with his daughter is strained to the breaking point. And he doesn't really care. Due to Ryan's line of work, he has developed a certain coldness and detachment about him. He doesn't seem to care about too much beyond his duty.
This all changes when Ryan's daughter is kidnapped by the infamous BoneMan, who is known for kidnapping young girls and then killing them by breaking every bone in their body without breaking the skin. From there it becomes a father's quest for his daughter, and a chance at redemption for all of the mistakes he's made.
I enjoyed this story. It was a unique experience for me to listen to a fictional audiobook. I was not expecting the voices-- to have the narrator using different voices for the different characters. At first this was distracting and comical to me, but then I got used to it.
There was pretty good character development for the primary characters. The BoneMan wasn't quite creepy enough for me, but I have a pretty high "creep factor" bar. I expect a lot of my "bad guys". But he was acceptably creepy, and the narrator used an acceptably creepy and disturbingly calm voice for the BoneMan. This is an audiobook I'd recommend if you're looking for a good thriller. Product Details
From Publisher's Weekly: In this intense, polished account, the Austin, Tex., parents of an autistic boy trek to the Mongolian steppes to consult shamans in a last-ditch effort to alter his unraveling behavior. Author Isaacson (The Healing Land) and his wife, Kristin, a psychology professor, were told that the developmental delays of their young son, Rowan, were caused by autism. Floored, the parents scrambled to find therapy, which was costly and seemed punitive, when Isaacson, an experienced rider and trainer of horses from his youth in England, hoisted Rowan up in the saddle with him and took therapeutic rides on Betsy, the neighbor's horse. The repetitive rocking and balance stimulation boosted Rowan's language ability; inspired by the results, as well as encouraged by such experts as Temple Grandin and Isaacson's own experience working with African shamans, Isaacson hit on the self-described crazy idea of taking Rowan to the original horse people, the Mongolians, and find shamans who could help heal their son. The family went in July, accompanied conveniently by a film crew and van, which five-year-old Rowan often refused to leave, and over several rugged weeks rode up mountains, forded rivers and camped, while enduring strange shamanic ceremonies. Isaacson records heartening improvement in Rowan's firestormlike tantrums and incontinence, as he taps into an ancient, valuable form of spirit healing. (Apr.)
My Review:
This was my first audio book, and I wasn't sure whether I would like an audio book. It still remains to be seen how I'll feel about a fictional audio book, but I most definitely enjoyed listening to a non-fictional audio book.
I listened to this audio book while I worked, and I LOVED it. It was insightful, intriguing, impassioned, and touching. I found myself tearing up more than once during the story of Rupert, wife Kristin and autistic son Rowan. Very stirring story and highly recommended.
Product Details
*Publisher: Hachette Audio *Pub. Date: April 2009 *ISBN-13: 9781600245428
Blogging since 2009, I'm a south Florida girl living in the home of mudding and hog hunting. Just trying to survive amid too many books and vastly outnumbered by a ZooCrew, hoping not to wind up a trophy head mounted on someone's wall in the process. Lover of lists, an eternal procrastinator, and really just a flower child at heart.
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