Seven Year Rule

The Rule, Book 2

By: Alaina Stanford

Narrated by: Paul Woodson

Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

The story continues! Book 2 of The Rule Series!

Whitney and Mason's life was perfect. When Beth explained her Seven Year Theory. They scoffed at the idea of the seventh year of marriage being the make it or break it year for most couples. That theory didn't apply to them. They were the perfect couple. Their brand new house overlooked a spacious lake. Their brand new cars were state of the art. Their careers were taking off at an accelerated rate. Their sex life was incredible. Their lives were perfect.

When Whitney's widower brother-in-law dies, leaving three small children in their care, their perfect lives are torn apart. Raising children was never part of the plan. Raising children requires sacrifice. Sacrifice they never intended to make. Sacrifice that could bring chaos to their perfect way of life. Sacrifice that could bring an end to their perfect marriage. Sacrifice that - if not done correctly - could bring an end to a child's life.

Mason considered himself incredibly lucky to have a wife like Whitney. She was beautiful, sexy, smart, had a professional attitude toward life, and she wasn't interested in starting a family. When Whitney's widower brother-in-law was killed leaving his three small children in Whitney and Mason's charge, Mason is exposed to a new side of Whitney. A side he was not prepared for, a side he never thought he'd see.

Suddenly Mason's world was filled with diapers and stains. His perfectly coiffed wife quickly transformed into an unkempt mother of three living in jeans and carrying a diaper bag as a purse.

Mason's needs were no longer being filled. His house was a noisy mess. There was a six-year-old boy looking to him for fatherly attention. But fatherhood requires a man to live for his children and not himself. Mason was not prepared to do that, but how could he walk away from Whitney in her hour of need?

You're one click away from suspense, romance, and wilderness adventure!

©2013 Alaina Stanford (P)2015 Alaina Stanford

I didn't read book 1 first

The seven year rule.

I was gifted this audio book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Now here is the thing before we start, I received this book from Audiobookblast, unfortunately I didn't know it was a 2nd book in a series!

Even so I didn't find that I needed to read book #1 to find out what is going on, although it would have helped some.

Whitney and Mason are that annoying couple that you know, they are both young and gorgeous, have brilliant jobs, and shag like bunnies at every opportunity (and you just know that their sex life is amazing too!)

Mason is in love so much with Whitney, and their life is as wonderful as he always imagined, they don't have any baggage, kids etc. and they don't want it thank you very much!

Unfortunately there is an accident and Whitney's brother in law (widower) is killed, leaving the 3 young children with no one to look after them, thus leaving them in Whitney and Masons charge.

Mason must now change his whole life, he now has a life filled with messy screaming kids and a wife that turns from a gorgeous being to a bit of a slob.........Welcome to my world beeaatches !!!!

The change in them both was very funny to listen to.

Other things like when Zack, Jake and the dog go missing was so scary, and hearing how the children and the adults were feeling was truly terrifying!

The author does a good job of letting you see into all of the characters world's and how they are feeling.

Narration was very good, I enjoyed the characters and the voices were very easy to distinguish.

I would recommend this novel

Seven Year Rule by Alaina Stanford is the second novel in the series called The Rule. This novel begins by explaining the seven year rule of marriage, that after seven years, marriages begin to falter. This story follows three couples who are all best friends as they deal with and support each other as their lives change such as with children and custody concerns. The primary couple is now in their seventh year of marriage and there does not seem to be any issue, but then their lives are changed forever by an accident. The other two couples have their own marital issues that they must struggle through.

This novel is in the realistic fiction genre and I thought that the story was good. The challenges that the families had to deal with were realistic and the range of emotion that the characters showed were also believable. The focus of this novel was on one of the couples in this novel with the other couples’ story lines mixing in. It’s possible than the primary focus changes from one couple to another from from book to book in the series. In general, the story lines of the other two couples were not as well developed. One part of the novel that I found difficult was that there were so many characters with three couples and then their children and dogs. At first it was difficult to keep track of who was who.

The narration by Paul Woodson was decent, but I found the voices for most of the characters to be somewhat annoying. One aspect of the narration that I thought was well done was through his acting in combination with the vocals. For example, whenever the words were described as coming with some action, such as “she said, laughing”, Paul Woodson was able to relay that in the way that he said the line. I thought that was excellent. The production quality was good. I would recommend this novel to readers who like reading about the challenges and terrifying aspect of the lives of married couples in the child-rearing part of their life.

Audiobook provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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Good Story

Long Drawn out story with a great meaning in it. Narrator was ok, sometimes it was hard to tell difference in voices

Life's Challenges!

This story was like listening to a real life story. The author, Alaina Stanford did a wonderful job in writing this story. The details were vivid, there's loss, happiness, pain, tragedy, and new life. I felt this story came together perfectly. However, a wasn't so happy with the ending. I'm not sure if there's to be another book but it ended with a cliffhanger and the words The End. I really dislike cliffhangers and if it hadn't been for the way it ended, the story would've received 5 stars.

Narrator, Paul Woodson did a magnificent job in his telling of this story. He made it easy to connect with the story. He breathed life into this story and I felt like I was seeing everything that happened in my mind as I listened. This is the first story that I've listened to by Paul but I will be looking forward to listening to more of his work. I was able to connect with the characters and some of the characters I could feel my own life in them. I don't know if I explained that right but hopefully people will understand what I meant. He did a fantastic job with each characters accents and I didn't have any problems knowing which character was speaking throughout the story. He definitely gets 5 stars for his performance. This isn't my normal genre but I loved the story and look forward to listening to something else written by this author. I recommend you give this story a chance. I think you'll enjoy it as much as I have. I received this audio in exchange for an honest review.

So, so beautiful!

If you could sum up Seven Year Rule in three words, what would they be?

As the writer wrote in her summary: You're one click away from suspense, romance, and wilderness adventure! It's a wonderful romance story, three married couples with different problems, combined together with powerful and tragic events that will keep your interest up to the last page.

What other book might you compare Seven Year Rule to and why?

I don't compare books, each and every one is unique.

What about Paul Woodson’s performance did you like?

I really liked his performance very much, he brought real life to the characters and kept the suspense and emotions all the way!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It definitely brought tears to my eyes lots of times and made me think about life and its way of turning around when least expected.

Any additional comments?

I received this audiobook in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts opinions and ratings are my own. I was under no obligation to post a review or give positive feedback.
Thank you very very much Alaina Stanford and of course Paul Woodson for this book.

Enjoyable Read

I really enjoyed this book. The topic really resonated with me, and I think the author did a great job of addressing real life issues of love and loss. This is the first book I read in the series and plan to go back and start from the beginning. But, regardless of where you start, I would highly recommend.

Disclaimer: I was gifted this audio book for free in exchange for an honest review.

First Rule In Reviewing-Start Series with Book 1!!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Seven Year Rule: The Rule Book is the second in a series. I did not realize that when I first started to listen to it so I was confused. Usually an author will write the series and one couple will be prominent while the others will be floating around the outskirts – this was not the case for this book.

There were three couples, I think that's it. The main couple and plot of this story revolves around Whitney & Mason. The fun loving couple find they must adopt Whitney's sister & brother-in-law die (in separate incidents) children and they do.

There were two other helpful couples constantly in and out of the plot. If they had been relegated to the secondary roles they should have been, I would have been able to focus and the book a more enjoyable listen. Had I been more familiar with the series (by listening to book 1, which is not available on Audible yet) I may have enjoyed this book a lot more.

However, it kept me interested, the plot was a good. The helpfulness of the friends was sweet as well – they just didn't need to appear in each of the Mason and Whitney and three kids scenes in the book

It was a pleasant read and probably would've been more enjoyable had I read the first. *I was given this copy in exchange for my view review, thoughts & opinions.

The narrator was fantastic, it seems like an odd choice at the beginning that there were equal parts male and female characters, so I thought that dual narration might have been better. However, I would've been completely lost their works tool narration. The performance was great and Paul Woodson was able to nail each group of characters from young children all the way up to grown men.

Note: no warnings on this one – though there may have been a cuss that I missed.

Credit worthy/$: PERHAPS, I will say yes with reservation because of what I mentioned above.

I appreciate the time you took to read my review. If you found it helpful please select yes directly below this sentence. Thank you.