Groomed

Danger lies closer than you think

By: Casey Watson

Narrated by: Kate Lock

Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

It's late on Friday night when Casey's mobile starts to ring. She is expecting it to be her daughter, Riley. But it isn't Riley. It's a woman from the Emergency Duty Team. So begins Casey and Mike's latest fostering challenge - a 15-year-old girl called Keeley who's run away from her long-term foster home 25 miles away.

The Jonathan Ross Show has just started when Casey gets the call. She thinks it will be Riley - telling her that her favourite actor is going to be on TV. But it's something far more urgent: a 15-year-old girl who has run away from her foster family and accused her foster father of sexual abuse. The family deny it vehemently, but such an allegation can never be taken lightly, so a new home must be found for Keeley.

Keeley is polite, but she's sharp, and she has all the hallmarks of a child who has been in the system a long time and knows how to play it. Whether the allegation is true or not, Casey knows there will be no winners here. If it is true, then a young girl's life has been torn asunder. If not, then the heartache for the family will be surpassed only by the bleak outlook for Keeley.

In the short term, it's a case of providing a safe, supportive home for a vulnerable child. But with the dangerous world of the internet at her disposal, it seems this strong-minded youngster has her own ideas of where that safe place should be....

©2017 Casey Watson (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Good story, shrieking narration

This was an intriguing story, however, the narrators voice was so annoying the entire time and took away from the story. Felt it was a character voice for a child’s story not one with such a serious subject like this. Only reason I didn’t stop listening was bc I wanted to see what happened to the girl in the story.

PLEASE use a different narrator!

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator is terrible. The cadence is repetitive, the volume and tone of her voice go up and down with every sentence. I put it on 1.25x speed which helped a bit, but the problem of the volume of her voice means I find myself turning the volume up to hear the quiet bits, and down when she does the certain character voices.

This is just an annoying style of narration, please use someone like Denica Fairman. She has a similar accent but a much nicer narration style.

Any additional comments?

I really love Casey's fostering memoirs, and I have listened to "Groomed" several times. Definitely a keeper.

So many twists and turns

I laughed, cried, smiled and just loved this book. When I thought I had hated the main character, even though she's only 16, I found how much I truly felt for her, as her story progressed. At first she seems a manipulative brat, but the twists and turns just keep you guessing and you can't even believe what is really happening. GREAT STORY!!!!!

awesome book

I couldn't stop listening to this book til it was done! keeping you on edge!

Narration about kills the book

I am now about half way through this book and hoping that it ends quickly so that I can stop hearing this narration. This is unusual as I never look forward to a book ending, the characters sound as if they are always drunk and slurring their words or have some sort of speech impairment

Nice story, horrible narration

It was not the best of Casey Watson's books, in my opinion, but maybe the narrator spoilt it for me. She made Casey sound really slow and patronzing and a lot of the male characters sounded creepy!