Damage Control

The Hollywood Series, Book 2

By: Jae

Narrated by: Abigail Rakocy

Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's Summary

An actress practically since birth, Grace Durand has finally made it in Hollywood. When a photo of her in a seeming compromising situation with another woman is plastered all over the tabloids, she fears for her career as a lead in romantic movies.

Desperate for a publicist who’ll convince America that she’s straight, Grace hires Lauren Pearce, one of Hollywood’s leading PR agents, not knowing that she’s a lesbian.

Lauren has dealt with PR nightmares for years, so doing damage control for one more rich, spoiled client shouldn’t be a problem - or so she thinks. But the more time she spends with Grace, the more she realizes how different she is from her television persona.

Getting involved with her client is not in her game plan, especially since it would confirm the rumors and ruin Grace’s career, but the attraction between them is growing as they run the gauntlet of the paparazzi together.

©2015 Jae (P)2019 Ylva Publishing

couldn't finish

Jae huge fan of your writing and I love the premise of this book. I have read other books with close to the same outline but this one had a nice twist. I stopped the book at chapter 5. I really wanted to keep going but the narration for me was just off. there needed to be more seriousness in certain spots and the dialect needed to alter on some scenes. I have no harsh words for the narrator as I know how difficult this is but with that said, this would have worked better with Abbey Craden, or Victoria N. Vincent...

Could've been better

I almost gave up on this one pretty early on ONLY because of the narrator. But I liked the plot so I continued and hoped I'd just get used to it. I didn't.

The story had so much potential and probably would've received 5 stars but the narrator ruined it for me. There wasn't enough variation with the character's voices so at times I wasn't sure who was speaking. And she would pause at odd and random points in the sentence, causing them not to flow as smoothly as they should have.

Basically, it sounded like the narrator was reading a book. And I know that sounds weird seeing as how this is an audiobook. However, the way she read prevented me from connecting with the characters at all.

But maybe that's just me. I'm sure I would've loved this book with a different narrator. My advice is to listen to a sample and make your own decisions.

Great Book - Bad Voice Artist

The book is great - as always with a book from Jae. Play it at 1,2 (speed up the performance) that works!

I enjoyed this one.

The narrator sounds like she's reading affirmations in the mirror and is having trouble convincing herself. Or like she's reading a phone script in a call center with a big fake smile plastered on her face because 'the callers can hear it in your voice'. Or like she's forcing herself to give a warm greeting to a relative she'd rather not have over for the holidays but her partner couldn't stand to not invite them.

And sadly, the narration stays that way for the entire book, and from the few other titles I've listened to that were voiced by this narrator, this narration style is her standard performance. There were a couple major scenes that had their tone significantly undermined by the narrator's performance, with odd speaking rhythm, misplaced emphasis, and out-of-place tones of voice that changed the dynamic between the characters in the scene in a way I'm sure the author didn't intend.

That said, the author's writing is excellent as is the case with most of her work. The story is good enough to make this a worthwhile read for me even with this narrator reading it. I liked the story premise and Jae pulled it off superbly.
I think I might just read the next book in this series in ebook format.

Don't be A mother f

I laughed, I cried, and I got lost in the story. I fell into the adventure of being in the world. I fell in love with them. I fell in love that M.S. is not a disability that control you. Heartfelt and heartwarming and was really was starting to not like that mother, but the end.

love this!

I love this book! Finally a well rounded and we'll written book that is long enough to keep me entertained and reading for a few days instead of just one sitting. 😁

Read the book.

I hate to criticize but… man that was hard to listen to. It was just so bad. The cadence was off, the delivery didn’t match the story, the voices of characters changed from time to time making it difficult to know who was talking. So, so bad.
Imagine some random person off the street grabbing a book and reading it to you. That’s pretty much it.
Best advice… read the book!

Could be better

The story is good. The characters are good. The narrator though could use some work. I have been listening to jaes story after I found that they all connect and are so good. This narrator though really takes me outta it. I find myself wanting to skip or just in a state of confusion. There are times where Rakocy is flat where she should have more emotion in her voice. This is just my opinion though, Jae the author has a good book just not with this narration.

Poor narration.

I've never written a review before and I hate that my first one is going to be negative. First, let me start by saying this negative review has nothing to do with the story itself. Jae, as always, is an amazing writer and one of the best in the genre. I definitely recommend the book, just not the audible version. The narration really makes it hard to focus on the story. She sounded so fake and cheery the entire time, I honestly couldn't get past it. I gave the audible version a try despite reading the reviews about the poor narration. HUGE MISTAKE! 7 hours in and I've had enough. I refunded the title (which is also a first for me) and bought the E book version instead. So please if you're reading this DO NOT make the same mistake I did despite the warnings. Save yourself some time and credits and buy either the E book or physical copy of this title!

A slow burn at its finest…

Great story, amazing depth of characters, and falling in love at its finest! Abigail does a great job at narrating and channeling the different characters as well.

Sweet slow burn romance

This book was a sweet slow burn romance story of a supposedly straight actress that hires a PR agent who is a known lesbian, and right from the start you can feel the attraction, even though the actress doesn’t understand her feelings as she thinks she is straight, which makes this book a great coming out book too. All the characters are great and you get a connection with them all. I have got the other two books in this series, although I started on this book which is book 2, I am looking forward to listening to the other books.

I enjoyed the narration, I haven’t listened to any of her books before but I will absolutely look out for this narrator and look forward to listening to more of her work.

excelent story

excellent book took me a while to get used to narration overwise i loved it