Donna A

The book started out a little strange and did not have much hope, but as it progressed it was entertaining.

Ella Varner is an advice columnist, lives in Austin, Texas with her vegan boyfriend Dane and seems very happy with her life and relationship as is. All changes will change with a call from Mommy Dearest beckoning her to Huston to deal with Ella's younger sister, Tara and her new baby, Luke. Mommy Dearest wants nothing to do with a baby Luke and forces Ella take the baby. Now Ella’s life is filled with bottles, diapers, little sleep and a boyfriend that does not want a baby to interrupt his life. Trying to locate the father of the baby, Jack Travis name comes up as a potential possibility. Willing to take a paternity suit we find out from Tara he is not the dad leaving the door wide open for Ella and Jack.

Emily Durante did a decent job narrating the books – I thought her accent was appropriate for a Texas base book.

The Silver Linings Playbook is Matthew Quick's stellar debut novel. The story is told by the main character Pat Peoples, as he releases from the ‘the bad place’ (neural health facility) in the care of his emotional Mother and remote Father. Pat believes in silver linings; that his life is a movie produced by God, he is extremely focus on recreating himself by becoming physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki, ending their “a part time”. Into his life comes Tiffany; a tragically over sexed clinically depressed widowed with a rather demanding condition, to act as a liaison between him and Nikki …needless to say, things don't go quite as she expects. The characters are complex, flawed and a little bit crazy.

The Silver Linings Playbook will warm your heart, make you chuckle and may bring a tear to your eye.

After reading the book I rented the movie and was sadly disappointed - I would give it 3 stars – I felt the movie was jumpy and hard to follow, way too much yelling in amongst the characters, the changed quite a lot of the story line. Too bad Hollywood ruined story. They left some of the best parts of the story out.

Before I decided to review the Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 2) audiobook I look up the review standings .. on Amazon there are a total of there are 550 reviews in which 393 give this book 5 stars. I was told the books got better well I am sorry the best I can do is ½ star - now there will be 10 people ranking this books with only 1 star.

This is the 2nd installment of the BDB Series and my last, as with the 1st book I found that it too had a terrible plot, the writing was awful - I think a 13 year old wrote the book - REALLY "juicy curses"? It was riddled with lame and silly dialog; seriously what adult male says "You feelin' me, brother?" or "you gotta hook me". Or what guys comments about another guys outfit; "that brother looks good in his Armani suit" - REALLY??
As for the audio part that too was awful.

I do have a couple of positive comments - I purchased this book on sale and the best part of the audio version - the long dead space between the chapters.

Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides is the story of the Wingo family - past and present as told through the eyes of Tom Wingo. Tom’s life is a mess – he had lost his teaching/coaching job, had a nervous breakdown and a marriage that on the rocks. He grew up along with his 2 siblings in a dysfunctional family – at times an abusive father, a mother that was somewhat more caring, but was unable to protect her children from her husband, a mother that viewed her social ambitions as being more important than anything else including her life. Once more life is about to change for Tom when his beautiful and very talent twin sister Savannah tries once again to commit suicide. At the request Susan Lowenstein, Savannah's psychiatrist, Tom travels to NY City to meet with Dr. Lowenstein to unravel the secrets of her terrible childhood and in doing so helps to save him. During these meetings we the reader travel back to the low country of Charleston, SC and become intimate with the trials and tribulation of the Wingo family; where the good doctor’s helps to break down Tom's protective shell to discover the horrors that took place during the Wingo's childhood. It is also during these time times we get a little more insight into Lowenstein’s personal life, of her reclusive husband and bratty son and how Tom is able to help her mend her self-esteem.

Many years ago I read Pat Conroy’s Beach Music which became one of my all-time favorite books. His writing is . I am not so sure why I wait so very long to read another book of him.

This was actual an audiobook read my Frank Miller and was highly recommended by a Goodreads – Thank you Tracey. It took me sometime to feel comfortable with Frank’s narrative style – but some 22+ hours later thoroughly enjoyed his narration especially how he portrayed Tom’s humor, sarcasm – right down to his rudeness.

It is not often that a book takes me by surprise but Defending Jacob did, I so did not see that ending coming, I don’t want to give too much away you just need to read this book. This novel revolves around the Barber family; Andy Barber, top Assistant DA, his wife Laurie and their 14 year old son Jacob; living in the prestige town of Newton Massachusetts. Jacob is accused of murdering his classmate, Ben Rifkin and in the state of Massachusetts must be tried as an adult. Throughout the book Jacob claims he is innocents, William Landay will keep you dithering throughout the book- guilty .. not gulity – he certainly had me question Jacob’s guilt or innocents. To throw you off we hear Andy being questioned in front of a grand jury – but why? Defending Jacob is well written, Landry will keep you on your toes with lots of twist and turn but the ending will definitely leave you with your mouth open. A must read!

Grover Gardner narrated this book and was superb.

Enjoyed the story and narration but could have done without the sound effects - they sounded hokie. Will not continue the series with the audiobooks!

I tried - twice .. could not follow the story are all. Wasted credit!

"Winter Garden" has to one of my most favorite books by Kristin Hannah. The book is about 3 women and their journey of discovery of who they are, of family history, of sacrifices made, of sisterhood and family secrets.

The book opens up when sisters Meredith and Nina are putting on a family play of a ‘fairy tale’ their mother Anya often tells them at night – of a Russian Prince and peasant girl. The acting out of this play angers Anya and the play is stopped. This is when they, as sisters become distant with each other and believe their cold, distant mother doesn’t love them. Fast forward to current day – when the 2 sisters; Meredith, the nurturer who runs the family apple orchard but living in a troubled marriage - Nina, prize-winning and world-renowned photojournalist, someone who avoids coming home and committing to a relationship, and Anya, their mother. They are forced to deal with their father’s death and promises each has made to him on his death bed. These promises force the 3 women to open up about their lives to each other and discover who they are as women and what they want. As Anya finally tells the full fairy tale of the prince and peasant girl - Meredith and Nina discover who their mother really is, of her strength, endurance and regrets.

There are moments in this books that are sad, heartbreaking, yet captivating – I so enjoyed the story within a story although not always a happy or feel good type of read. I did feel the beginning of the book was a little slow to take off but well worth hanging in there - so I would give the book more of a 4 1/2 stars. There were some surprises and some parts that were very predictable. This actually was an audiobook which was narrated by Susan Ericksen. I felt she did an excellent job and made the book very enjoyable to listen to, her Irish and Russian accents were right on for me.

“The Best of Me” is the story of a first love of Dawson Cole and Amanda Collier, 2 high school sweethearts from different side sides of the track that were force to part and take different paths. Twenty years later they are reunited at the funeral of their mentor and friend, Tuck Hostetler. Together they must take care of Tuck’s estate and remains and forced to deal with the choices each have made and rediscover that sometimes first loves never die.

Sparks tells this story through various people point of view which allows you the reader to get intimate and close to the various characters in the book. I stopped reading Sparks because many of his books are depressing and make me sad – finding that characters is the book find happiness to only have it yank away from them. This is more of a 3 ½ star book mainly because I found the ending of this book very predictable and sad.

Sean Pratt narrated this book and in general I enjoyed his rendition.

On the 5th anniversary of Nick and Amy Dunne, Amy goes missing, the house shows signs of a struggle and Nick is not being totally being dishonest with the police. As each day passes with Amy’s disappearance more and more evidence appears suggesting that Nick has killed his wife – but Nick insist he is innocent. Written in 2 POV, Amy’s through her diary and of Nick as he follows his wife’s anniversary treasure hunt - of which all have double meaning. Gillian Flynn had written quite the psychological thriller, a story that paints quite the picture – of a toxic and dishonest marriage, a story that is full of twist and turns and at times rather disturbing. Just when you think you have figured it out, you turn the page and hit in the face a big OMG. While I wasn’t total enamored with the ending it was certainly chilling.

Amy was read by Julia Whelan who portrayed Amy as the perfect psychopath wife and Nick was read Kirby Heyborne.

I keep hearing about the BDR Series, I kept seeing the books getting 4 and 5 stars reviews and then when Audible was having a sale I purchased the 1st 2 books. Boy what a disappointment.

The story is your basic big bad guy (who is the blind king vampire) meets girl (half human half vampire), girl afraid of big bad guy, girl and big bad guy have sex, sex and more sex, they fall in love and get married and of course someone kidnaps the girl.

But the worse part of this book is the writing – it is simply awful and juvenile – they were so many cheeky cheesy lines by eyes were rolling in my head .. “his throat was raw, and it felt like he’d French kiss a blow torch”, “let’s hang” to list a couple. To top everything off the narrator Jim Frangione was not much better. Thankfully I the 2 audio books did not cost me much because I will have to be desperate to listen to book 2