Shiver

The tension between Sam and Danny really kept me going. It is obvious from the very beginning that there is something there, but it kept you on the edge of your seat just waiting for something to happen between the two of them. I had listened to the sneak peaks audible released...and they kept releasing another chapter from week to week, until finally I had to buy it because I was hooked! I ended up finishing this book in one day!

I would have to say Sam was my favorite. She just continues to surprise you throughout the story while you learn her history and everything she has been through and goes through in this book. A really great character!

I think this is the first time I have heard her before, and I thought she did a good job! She has a good voice and acts out the characters well, allowing you to understand who is who.

Not one specifically. There were quite a few intense moments...not to give anything away. ;)

Overall a great story...with a twist at the end that I honestly didn't see coming! Worth the credit!

I downloaded the free first 2 chapters because I wasn't sure this would be a story I would like. I LOVE Sam; she is a gutsy, loving, mother and she starred in this show. The storyline was so well done. I loved the dialog. I am so impressed when an author can bring you into a story so you are experiencing it as is unfolding. This is not my first Karen Robards book but I think it one of the best. She kept me involved all the way through. The romance, I thought was perfect timing.
I admit this is my first listen with narrator and I have trouble until I adjust to a new person. She was good and professional.
For me this was a good story, worth the credit, by an author who knows how to "give" us the story. I recommend. Thank you!

My review of Shiver must begin with a disclaimer. I read only the first few lines of the summary before buying it. As a result, it wasn't until I was about 20% through it that I realized, to my dismay, that I was trapped in a ROMANCE NOVEL. However, I didn't stop listening and what follows are my reason/s why.

From the outset, Karen Robards does a skilled job of writing a piece of pulp fiction. The story sets its course solidly; twenty-three year old single mom, devoted to her child, mature beyond her years, works third shift driving a tow truck, repoing cars to support her child. The setting is the seamier side of East St. Louis, and the streets are mean streets. Sam is fearless and resourceful until the night she picks a late job. Easy enough, its a BMW and prime for the picking. UNtil the trunk pops open and inside is a guy, wounded and beaten. In the brief moment that Sam hesitates, the same hit man who plopped this guy in the trunk now adds Sam to his haul. Just like that, Sam and Danny are thrust together -no pun intended of course- and off goes the story.

I think what kept me going from this point on was the fact that each time the reader feels a romantic moment coming on -Sam oogling Danny's butt or muscles, or what not- the story explodes into some wild act of violence. A particularly taut scene is when Danny, on Sam's phone, listens to the torture of her son's babysitter by the cartel hitmen. In fact, the novel goes on like that until the conclusion.

The performance is also really excellent. The reader expertly captures the attitude, the savvy, of Sam's character. Never mind the proposterous storyline; Danny is not a former federal agent who went over to the cartel and has become a protected witness to save his butt. No, he is actually an FBI special agent pretending to be a protected witness while the real witness is providing the FBI with testimony. Its all a weird melodrama and romance that works because the author, helped immensely by the reader, has a flair and a sense of how pulp fiction (the style, not the film) works and uses that with a skilled hand.

I think having finished listening to Shiver, my only question for the author is who she and the publisher planned to market this to. Fans of Jack Reacher will turn this off about a third of the way through, though they shouldn't, and fans of romance are going to be a little unnerved by the level of violence. Actually, this story has its best chance when someone buys the option for the film. Can't miss. So, give it a chance, like me, you may not be able to turn it off.

The good: Suspenseful story, likeable and realistic characters with some depth and mortal flaws, room for multiple characters to have strengths, reflects pretty good research into the realm of the US Marshall service (except for a few flubs like having 14 rounds in a six-shooter revolver).

The bad: starting in Part 2, Robards apparently thought she needed to lengthen the book and relied on two strategies: repeating the same phrases ad nauseum and, for a change of pace, she apparently invited "Mr. Obvious-man" to add his two-bits, to the detriment of the book. With some good editing it could have been a great suspense and action novel.

So boring, I couldn't finish it, I tried but couldn't.

Don't think so.

I think she was probably ok, the story was so boring she didn't have much to work with.

Nope, Nada,NO.!!!!!

Someone looking for a syrupy romance with an impossibly heroic manly man, and can overlook a plot with more holes than baby swiss, might enjoy this book. The ratio of romance to actual story is about four to one. Someone who has difficulty following something more complicated than P.D.Eastman, might find this book enjoyable.

I lost interst in the story after I got bored by poorly written, relentless sex, sex, sex!

Shannon did not perform, she read.

This book was BORING!

What a diapointment because the free first chapters did not indicate it was full of mindless drivel.

To discriptive and wordy on non important story lines

Not sure, maybe make me shiver.

Very dull performance.

disappointment

I thought the blurb for this story didn't match it.

Many moments of this story 'jumped the shark...' Surviving a plane crash on a snowy mountain after their safe-house blew up? I couldn't suspend my disbelief.

It was fine.

Probably.

Author kept repeating the same things throughout the book. The plot could have made a great book.

Not Karen Robards

Shiver is the story of Sam, a hard working single mother who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The book follows her frantic efforts to keep herself and her young son one step ahead of a ruthless drug gang. Thrown into this mix is the undercover FBI agent who Sam must learn to trust in order to stay alive.

This is a great storyline but the writing itself is so wordy and slow that it had me to the point of frustration. Every facet of the story is described to the nth degree - it was so frustrating listening to a ten minute description on the furnishings in the lounge room. At times the description of a scene was so long that I lost track of what the story was actually about.

I really enjoyed the narration - Shannon McManus was excellent and I look forward to listening to more of her work

Shiver is an exciting book that keeps you wanting to know what's happening next - it is just such a pity that the book has been spoiled by being padded out with some much unnecessary dialogue.