The Family Way

By: Jayne Ann Krentz

Narrated by: Laural Merlington

Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Unwilling to force her live-in love Case McCord into a proposal of marriage, a pregnant Pru Kenyon decides to walk away from the man she loves, not telling him that she is expecting his baby. But she never bargained for how much Case is willing to do for love.

©1987 Jayne Ann Krentz (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Excellent!

Finally a strong female character. I love it when the female character is positive and think with a brain. This book was excellent.

IN THE ACT OF LOVING

Would you consider the audio edition of The Family Way to be better than the print version?

YES

What other book might you compare The Family Way to and why?

A LONG NIGHT BY THE SAME AUTHOR. IT WAS A GREAT BOOK TOO

Which scene was your favorite?

WHEN HE TRACKED HER DOWN AT HER SISTER'S HOUSE

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

LOVING YOU IS MORE THAN ENOUGH

Any additional comments?

A GREAT BOOK TO SPEND TIME READING ON A RAINING AFTERNOON

Baby on the way~ EARLY Krentz~ 4 STAR fun~ Good~

PLOT: a baby on the way makes Chase McCord change his plans.

Stubborn...Proud....Hunky ~~Chase McCord has NO plans to "marry" and he makes sure his new lady love Prue knows it. Prue finds she is pregnant and decides to leave. This starts with Prue packing her bags and McCord comes home. the fun is watching the bull headed man try and stop her by bulling. Prue is soon living with her sister and McCord shows up to propose marriage. Prue and McCord are soon married but McCord's murky past is the new barrier to happiness. This is a very early book by Krentz. One of her best. The woman who cannot be bullied and the stubborn male are both funny and fun. Laural Merlington is very good in her narration. And improving continually on her characterizations. This story moves along very well and is both fun and enjoyable. I give it 4 STARS all the way including reader.

Great Story

Laural Merlington needs to stop with the male voices. They all sound like grumpy, tobacco smoking, hard drinking old men.

Overly assertive male lead, which doesn't respect

First off, I am a died in the wool fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, including under her pseudonyms Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle. Mainly, that's for her more recent years of novels. Her much earlier works from a few decades back were written and edited for a much different genre--chest-beating, drag her off by her hair cavemen. This one is fine for fully adult women but for girls or immature persons, it is a bad picture of how women and men should relate to one another in healthy, supportive attractions and loves.

A smart heroine

Finally, a heroine who uses her brain and isn't afraid to speak up! It's an interesting listen.

Too old fashion to still be readable

What disappointed you about The Family Way?

Think Dynasty-like antics, over-dramatizations and old fashioned ideas about love and marriage. The hero was rude and arrogant and I didn't see any appeal in him. The heroine had ridiculous views about men and woman and she kept quoting her dear Aunt Wilhelmina's hokey sayings like "He'll never buy the cow if he gets the milk for free." and other "sage" pieces of advice. Worse, the narrator kept pronouncing Wilhelmina with a heavy emphasis on the "h" which everyone knows is silent. Nope.

Would you be willing to try another one of Laural Merlington’s performances?

no.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Nope.

Any additional comments?

This one needs to be put out of print for it's old fashion views. Living together is a sin? Really? Or "I know he told me that he'll never marry but I hope to change his mind." Wow. Just no.

Hilariously Bad

This book is bad. But it’s Jayne Ann Krentz...so it isn’t boring, flows well, keeps you wanting to find out what happens next and even elicits strong feelings in the listener. It’s also unintentionally funny at times. JAK is an awesome author. So what went wrong?

I’m not going to agree with some others that this is simply a case of a book that didn’t “age well” primarily for the fact that the premise that sex is a privilege men must “pay for” by getting married is offensive to men and women regardless of whether it is 1970 or 2020. Marriage is not a “payment” or “sacrifice” made to placate one half of a couple. It is a partnership. The very idea of “buying” a woman through marriage reduces all women to prostitutes. It’s pretty awful. To be fair, it’s not the hero who appears to feel this way in the story...it’s the woman and everyone else.

Further, the animosity toward people who commit suicide is terrible. I won’t go into detail, but the hatred for mental illness is disturbing. There is also the Victim Blaming that goes on. Rape culture is alive and well here in the way that, instead of receiving comfort and support, the victim of an attack is yelled at and forced to explain why she “allowed” her attacker close enough to attack her. Shudder.

The story, itself, has so many issues: The fatal “conflict flaw” first and foremost...the entire conflict of the story could have been resolved with a long conversation by two adults who were honest with each other. Instead, in the guise of being a “strong, independent woman”, Pru was actually sneaky, lying and gave ultimatums to get what she wanted instead of saying “Can we talk about what you don’t like about the idea of marriage?” And “I’m pregnant. How do you see this changing our relationship?”

Let’s talk about McCord, now. First of all WHO always refers to her husband by his last name? Even in the throes of passion, she calls him by his last name. SO bizarre. Secondly, In the first chapter, Case gives an excellent impression of a narcissistic abuser. He reeks of it. I was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t turn out that way further in the story. In real life, a sensible woman would have been filing a restraining order early on in the story.

Now, to the part where the book is unintentionally funny...that is all on the narrator. It’s not that she is a bad narrator. She has good tone and inflection. But she sounds like a grandma. She shouldn’t be narrating romance novels about 26 year olds. She sounds about 70 years old. Her “guy” voices sound like doddering old men and her general narration style is that of a grandma telling a bedtime story. Her constant mispronunciation of Wilhelmina is like nails on a chalkboard, yes, but the real kicker is listening to sex scenes acted out by your grandma. All I could picture was that old lady from the American Pie movie asking Stiffler to describe how yummy the dog poop was. 😬 Utterly painful secondhand embarrassment while also laughing hysterically.

So who should give this a listen? Mostly people who are nostalgic about watching Dallas and Falcon Crest with their grandmas, who read a bunch of Harlequin Presents as teenagers in the eighties and who can find humor in things that others find annoying.

Awful

I ordered this because I had read reviews saying it was good! The book itself may have been. But I didn’t like the hero or the heroine. The Narrator was the worst. Not going to finish. Very disappointed.