Donna

While I could see many other actors in this role given the fact that Tom Cruise is much smaller than Jack, he is a very physical actor and that is what it takes to be Jack Reacher. This is my first encounter with a Jack Reacher novel and I must say if they are all this busy with information and physicality, I will love reading them!

While there were times I believed I had some things figured out by what Jack had said or didn't say, then I would find out it changed. So I was happy to see that, yes we could figure some things out, but there could always be a twist keeping us on the edge of our seat and intrigued.

A great novel and very much enjoyed!

Rachel Boyd is still healing after losing her husband in a terrible accident a year ago and now trying to raise 2 boys on her own and keep the ranch she and her husband wanted to build for their boys. She is too delicate to allow anyone else to enter her heart again, as she and her husband were best friends and very much in love. It will take a very special person to help her see she can have a second chance to share her life with someone.

Rand Brookston is a respectable doctor in this growing Colorado town, single, occasionally needing an assistant. Enter, Rachel Boyd who assisted her own father who was a doctor and see the sparks fly...

Uh-oh, wrong kind of sparks right at first. Lets see him break the ice. At the same time, the six novels altogether that Tamara Alexander wrote on the Colorado territory are intertwined with the stories of these two, with other characters in the book.

I love the way TA does this. Her stories are written in such a fashion so you can get wrapped up in each story and finish the book if you can't continue, but at the same time, you can pick up another one and continue another of the books to find out just how another piece of the puzzle fit from the previous novel. Very interesting indeed!

When I listen or read a book I look for specific things to catch my interest. How quickly the author can get to the story layout and peak my interest with the main character background, the main point of the story, how well detailed the story is and how well the twists and turns will come back together in full circle.

Well, Nora always has a wonderful way to do that and did not disappoint again. WB started out a bit sad, laying the ground work of a story already in progress from another city. Relocating for a breather, Eli moves to WB after an unrelenting ordeal lasting for the past year, not yet over. Enter Abra for camaraderie and compassion and the story begins those needed twists and turns so that the story on Whiskey Beach can begin to develop and unfold at the same time.

You have murder, intrigue, suspects, PI's, pirate booty and angry police, with a little angry grandmother thrown in for grit (:D).

This is not one of the edge of your seat novels, but is a very enjoyable, intrigue at a balanced pace with just the right amount of romance thrown in.

I believe this is Nora's year thus far with "The Witness" and "Whiskey Beach" so far and both entirely different. Can't wait to see what else she treats us with. Thank you Nora!

I love historical novels very much and the clothes are beautiful, but I could not have worn them ALL of the time if I had lived at the time. As well, while I love the bible and try the best I can to live by the letter of God's word, I also realize we are sinful and make mistakes, so for the time this was written I would have been more like Rachel and Lorelai...forgiving and caring and hoping I could have been given a second chance at redeeming myself for a one-time mistake.

Having said that, I really appreciated the style in which Tamera wrote Beyond This Moment. She took care and understanding and a lot of thought before each scene was written so she could capture the story and thought behind each individual in the book. There were so many diverse individuals coming into this territory at the same instance, all wishing to make a clean start and hoping that everyone, since they wanted to be given that chance would see them as a new person without blemish.

Tamera shows us tho that personalities were then as they are now, hard pressed to gossip and find fault with others. BUT, there are few individuals who once a new thought is introduced and time to sink in to mull over the bad, they can find good in an individual they have come to know instead of who that individual was at the time of the mistake. Hence, time of redemption in a new place for this person!

Molly and James story is a heartwarming story of how 2 individuals can come together even when one is trying to protect the other from her bad reputation so he won't suffer any consequences from it. And yet love and christian kindness can prevail in the end. Kudos to Tamera Alexander for another great novel!!!

Karen Witemeyer is great with her heroines because she doesn't depict each of them as the same character. One may be domineering and another may be just like Adelaide Proctor who made an unhappy mistake, misunderstanding, miscommunication, NO, downright misconception on the part of one man that could have really ruined her life! But she is the type who takes the lemons she is dealt and makes lemonade.

She is a teacher and should be able to find a job teaching, but there is already a teacher there and they don't have enough room for another. But "Lemonade", so she is determined to turn things around. Newspaper, available jobs, oh governess, I can do that and applies.

So begins her story and her journey as her "Head" may be in the "Clouds" for a husband and getting married, but for now just supporting oneself is important. But we all know at the end of that interview must be, oh yes, someone who could just be too good to be true?!

Enter Gideon Wescott and Isabella. Now there is room to grow. Read the story to fill in all of the blanks...You won't be sorry! :)

Good to know chivalry is not dead when you read a good novel about decent men. And this was a good novel about just such a man. Brady Talmadge, suave, rugged, tall, quiet, ready to come to the aid of a woman if she was in need (damsel in distress that is). Five rules to live by, strictly, and carefree on the road, a "Horse Whisperer". WOW!, it really can't get better than this!!! Wherever, this man is I really would like to meet him. Then he encounters the said Woman in need, "Rule #3: Avoid Damsels in Distress". Whoops, busted, he can't just leave her in the rain...on the side of the road...to let some low down dirty creep take advantage of her...Rule #3 Brady (Whispering in his ear)...I know. Ughhhh, stops his truck, can I help you? Yes, please. And so it begins..............

But Lori Wilde spins the story and has such a way of describing every detail as it unfolds into the most beautiful, heartwarming, story. No tit-for-tat or domineering person for a change. Just two people, Brady and Annie with two totally different stories to be told, figured out, melded or blossomed into the most wonderfully written fairytale. As you can see I was very impressed with this story.

I am not usually impressed with romance novels and do not usually read many. But this one intrigued me and I took a chance, and boy am I glad.

The narration needed a softer person to narrate, so it was okay, eh. But I couldn't dock the stars because I wanted this entire story to get a complete "15 stars".

Throughout the story I enjoyed the twists and turns LG took me through as I could not figure out until the end who had done it. Yes I had guessed it was this one or that one, but then something else would turn up and overturn my guess. I love DD Warren and Tessa Leone. DD is just the right amount of tough and "kind of" female (haha). Tessa just the right amount of compassion, quiet fortitude, and a toughness no one expects.

Each detail of the kidnapping in this story is very well sounded out. You don't have to wonder about anything happening. It is hard to stop the recording to go on to other tasks because you are so entangled in, "Wait, what is happening next/now/what just happened"!

Exhausting is the best way to explain how you feel once your done. But also exhilarated too. My heart was racing because it was waiting for who, who, who and also because it was revealed and I knew it had to be. Glad it was finally over, but trying to catch my breath.


Great book to read/listen to. Don't pass it up!!!

It's always sad to lose your best friend. But to lose them and be left with the promise of continuing with"Their life and making it Your own". That is what Tarsi is faced with. I can imagine adopting children, but I don't know if I could ever imagine stepping into the role of being wife to a man who just lost his most beloved wife, by honoring a promise. Guts is what it took, determination and a best friend's love.

I would recommend this book if you need a book to bring to you down to earth and remember what life is really "All" about. Tarsi wanted a good life and a family. She just hadn't expected it to come neatly wrapped up and handed to her. Yet, family values, honor, friendship, spiritual values. These are the things you see as Tarsi moves on to a better life, "just not the way she expected" to get it.

The author has a very nice way of turning the story around and including not only freedom of slaves (yet different status), showing what families go thru in life, no matter what their status or color...the same trials and they look for the same things...bringing up their children with good values; and prohibition and the changes it brought about.

This is a different take on 7 Brides for 7 Brothers and I loved the completely opposite turn around in characters. Though similarities were there, with the head brother in charge (you always need a leader) and a head-strong damsel in distress, here goes the ride and I thought a FUN one at that. Wit, charm, adventure, family strife and deceit, with town trouble thrown in too.

I also felt the narrated was able to capture each of the characters in her delivery without much effort and she must have enjoyed the story as much as I did or she would not have delivered such a wonderful performance.

So don't go for the usual murder mystery or the typical romance novel with all of the twists and turns with sex and blood involved. Instead go for the twists and turns in the "Short-Straw Bride" and appreciate a more clean type of scenario instead, but full of everything you could possibly want, or need to keep you occupied and wanting more in any novel you can't seem to put down!!!

Trust me...You'll be glad you did. :)

My 1st listen to Lisa Gardner, great writer. Love the characters, great build-up in the beginning of the story and great story-line. Now that I have said that, this was a short-book, Novella if you will. Everything was "Fast" paced and hurry up to the end, but I kind of liked that because most of the books I listen to or read are 12-18 hours long. So it was refreshing to have one start and finish quickly.

D.D. Warren is a dry female detective with issues, trying while pregnant to fit unnoticed in a male world. Humorous, and she has issues with being pregnant (well she did that herself, needs to be more careful...right?) and with the man in her life; move in with him/or not. Then takes on this job, then the plot thickens, has to be solved and boom you can guess so much of what will be happening. But the way LG writes, it's OK that you guess because she still makes it fun.

So, get the book and enjoy a little "quickie" ( ^-^) when you don't have time for the long-term reading material. It'll be fun!

I am quickly becoming a fan of Nora Roberts. Black Hills seemed to start a little slow, and there was too much background, which can be great except it just went on and on. But the story was great enough that it didn't matter. I was more than willing to listen and go forth because I was so in to the characters.

New York meets the country life in a big way as a child, but as years pass he can't shake the country or the people instilled from that life. They are now the biggest part of him as he has grown into a man and moves back when his g-dad has a heart attack to help out. So begins the real life, rekindled love/hate/hurt relationship, and adventure with a serial killer in-tow.

The narrator could have picked up the pace a bit, but he wasn't bad. At times when there is some excitement, let's hear the excitement...know what I mean? Other than that fantastic book.