Beyond Eden

By: Catherine Coulter

Narrated by: Renee Raudman, Paul Costanzo

Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

A heart-stopping story of romantic suspense from #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter.

Lindsay Foxe is a successful model in New York, a woman who hides behind a new name to protect herself from a past of betrayal and treachery and a present that becomes fraught with danger. The product of old San Francisco wealth, the daughter of a man who despises her, her life is forever changed when she is brutally assaulted by her sister’s husband, and then rejected by her family.

Lindsay is finally forced to face up to her past when she meets S.C. Taylor, a tough ex-cop, turned private investigator and computer troubleshooter. He is hired to protect her; but can he both win her trust and discover who is trying to kill her and why?

©1992 Catherine Coulter (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

A Romantic Mystery!!

Any additional comments?

Coulter does a great job of weaving mystery and romance into a story with a great plot and interesting characters that you love and detest.

I really enjoyed this story that begins with a terrible betrayal of trust and leads to violence, intrigue, romance, and vindication. Teenager Lindsay Foxe has every reason to give up after horrific treatment by her brother-in-law and receiving no support from her society family. Yet, she finds the will to become a successful young lady. The story leaves the reader wondering who continues to attack Lindsay as an adult and why they will not leave her alone. Detective Taylor provides Lindsay with the support and love that she never received from her family. Renee Raudman and Paul Costanzo provide excellent performances for each of the characters.

Searing, Raw, and Emotional

This is not going to be a good fit for everyone. Some readers simply won't be able to relate to the main female character, LIndsay. She decidedly has a tough and unusual life, and unfortunately some readers will simply write her off as weak. She can seem that way, no question about it. But she's so much deeper than that. To simply call LIndsay weak and say she needs to get over her unfortunate life and stand up for herself would be a cruel misunderstanding of her psyche. There's a lot more going on here.

Then there's the amazing Taylor, a former NYPD cop, now private investigator who enters LIndsay's life as a body guard. This guy deserves a medal for patience and self-control. He's not perfect, but holy cow, he's fabulous at understanding the bigger picture and not just reacting to a given moment. This guy should be teaching life lessons.

Taylor and LIndsay are both dynamic characters, but they are by no means the most interesting people in this story. No, unfortunately, that title would go, collectively, to Lindsay's family who manage to cover nearly every mental health issue taught in Psych 101: narcissism, sociopaths, psychopaths, etc. These guys are cruel, controlling, bullying, vicious, conniving, lying, cheating, awful excuses for human beings.

These compelling characters drive a plot full of emotional pitfalls that grips the reader and doesn't let go until all is resolved. Sensitive readers should be aware of potential plot triggers for violent rape.

My rating is based on the audio version narrated by Renee Raudman and Paul Costanzo. The narrators themselves did an excellent job. The star rating reflects the fact that the sound track was poorly edited/engineered so that the sound levels were annoyingly inconsistent between different characters, requiring frequent volume adjustment.

Decent story, lots of explicit sex

I wish I had read the reviews and seen that there is a lot of sex in this story. I prefer to not read or listen to that. Story was interesting, hard to understand that people treat one another like that. Doubt I will read or listen to another of her books.

Amusing Story

The story itself was pretty good, the writing was a bit crappy -- she needed to hang around with REAL cops or do more research to learn how to talk tough. Most of the police interaction wasn't even close to realistic but the story was amusing. Her leaping back & forward was ackwardly put, it wasn't clear exactly where you went for a paragraph or two. Expecially on the Taylor parts.

The narrators needed to be more balanced. Renee delivered her usual great performance - Paul was too lackluster and tended to make his portion drag.

gave up too soon

I really like this story. the ugly duckling type story. gonna read more of her books right now...

More Turns than a Country Road

Absolutely wonderfully written and the two narrators entwine the listener within the mystery of Eden and the AWESOME conclusion which made me vocalize my "aahhhaaa"! I love the emulsion of romance with mystery. I highly recommend this novel!

You won't believe how it ends...

my first book from this author. I am sure it will not be the last!

Sexist

Even for 1992 the theme of the woman who just needs the right bossy, gorgeous but violent man to get her past her fear of men is so annoying. I continued listening because I wanted to find out who dunnit.

Love it!! You won't regret listening.

Absolutely loved this book! The narrator's are superb. It's a different type of audio, didn't have to hear the female narrator make a man voice and vice versa. So smooth!

Love the story, readers were not my favorite

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Renee Raudman and Paul Costanzo ?

I have no expectations of the reading of a book to be fabulous, but when they read the characters as whiny and weak...they are not being true to the story. I actually hated that they had a male and a female reader for the parts, it was distracting. All these books are deep down about strong women overcoming some bad thing and living life with either a fear or dealing with the issue but all are strong. The performances on the last few of these I have listened to demean that character and do it a disservice by not understanding that in the way they read how they talk to others or how they would say their lines. If this was a TV show or movie, the director would not let them get away with acting the part that way so why to the narrators get to?