Karen

I loved the characters in this story, the story line, the description of the environment and homes and the narration..it was all very good.. What I didn't like was the detailed description of the slaughtering of animals.. I understand that this is set in the 1920's when people had to hunt for their food, but I didn't enjoy hearing how the animals were slaughtered, and then a very detailed description of how they were gutted, cut up and served.. Being an animal lover, I found it very disturbing. It took me weeks to get through this book because of that. Once the slaughtering began, I'd turn it off. Eventually, I'd start wondering what happened with the characters, so I'd start to listen again, only to eventually have another descriptive slaughter roll around.. There's even a part where a swan is slaughtered..

To be honest, though, I did feel like the story moved rather slowly and only picked up near the end of the story.. I started to get really interested in it towards the end where it turns into a sweet love story, only to have it take a drastic turn that seemed kind of stupid to me. Kind of seemed like the author was in a hurry to get it done so the ending was rushed...
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and have mixed feelings about having finally listened to the entire story...

This is the first time I've listened to anything written by Rachael Meddows. I enjoyed the sound of her voice and found her to be very relaxing. There are a couple of different meditations that are intended to guide you into lucid dreaming. The meditations are very good, very relaxing and will lull you into sleep.. They will most likely also guide you into having lucid dreams. It worked for me, but I have to admit, I kind of don't get the point. I tend to remember a good number of my dreams very vividly, and I do think our dreams are kind of the windows to our souls. Some dreams are just incredibly funny and entertaining, while others seem to be driven by certain things in our lives that bother us... Most of my dreams just make me laugh, but some of them have given me peace of mind about things I have struggled with emotionally.. These are things I can't control and to me, are like a little gift. So with that in mind, what good comes from Lucid dreaming?? With lucid dreaming, you are suppose to be able to control what goes on in your dreams...I'd rather be surprised by my dreams, not control them..
The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because one of the last tracks seems to have a flaw in it..It's about 1 1/2 hours into it.. It's soft sounds of the ocean.. There's a few seconds of silence, then it suddenly starts again, with a loud sound that doesn't fit the calming sounds in that track... It's jarring, and it seems to always wake me up..

Sarah has a great sense of humor and I laughed out loud at many part of this audio book, but there are some parts that are just really disgusting and gross... but then again, I think that's what she was going for..
She narrates it herself, and does a good job.. Anyone else doing this material would not be able to make it sound as funny as she does..
Would I listen to it again? No.... Was it worth the listen? I guess so, Did I grow from listening this book...no, I think I may have shurnk... Did I learn anything from this book? Yes..a lot of people in show business are really weird...

Enjoyed the book. The author did his research and gives an interesting story of how the trip came about and how it affected each group of people in it.. I found it very interesting, yet felt their pain and hardships while listening to it.. Amazing what people went through back then compared to our jumping in a car and driving cross country today..

I've enjoyed the Cedar Cove books up until this one.. the others were narrated by Sandra Burr, This one is narrated by Andrea Gallo. Something was just lacking in her narration of the book.. I kind of struggled to get through it.. It didn't seem as interesting to me as the other books and I'm not sure I'll bother continuing with the series. The first 5 books left me wanting to know what was going to happen to the characters in the next book.. This one just seemed to abruptly come to it's conclusion and I was kind of like, oh...ok...that was the end? I can't even remember what the storyline of the next book is going to be about. It just didn't really leave me wondering.

Because this is written by, and experienced by, a neurosurgeon, it adds something even more credible to the NDE.. He explains throughout the story where his body was at as the days go by, and what that means as far as brain activity, etc., and why his NDE cannot be attributed to his brain...it simply was not working. Incredibly interesting story. I very much enjoyed it.

Stupid, yet educational, all at the same time. Hillarious. Narrated by Jon Stewart as only he can do, along with a cast of others.. Silly, but worth the listen...