Gull Harbor

By: Kathryn Knight

Narrated by: Kristin James

Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

When Claire Linden's job sends her to the sleepy town of Gull Harbor, she never expects to encounter her ex-boyfriend. As a medium, the prospect of tackling a haunted house is less daunting than seeing Max Baron again. Throughout their passionate college relationship, he promised to love her forever. Then, without explanation, he abandoned her on graduation day.

Max never intended to break Claire's heart - a cruel ultimatum forced him to disappear from her life. While he's shocked to find her in Gull Harbor, he isn't surprised by the bitter resentment she feels for him...or the fiery attraction that remains between them.

Claire is determined to rid her temporary home of its aggressive ghost, but Max soon realizes she's facing a danger beyond the paranormal. When Claire risks everything to help a desperate spirit, Max must race to save her - before another tragedy tears them apart forever.

©2013 Kathryn Knight (P)2018 Kathryn Knight

Gull Harbor

This book is super fun! It is a easy listen that drew me in right from the beginning. Kristin James did an amazing job on the narration. The story begins when Claire runs into her ex but he actually does not find out its her until later. You get a bit of paranormal fun in the story along with suspense, some action and of course romance. I love the balance the story had between it all. I also love the owner of the diner he was a priceless part of the story.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

Very good story!

Gull Harbor is well written story with dynamic, relatable, and believable characters. Claire is a psychic who has been called in to investigate a home haunting. The ghost is quite active and not interested in Claire’s machinations. An old love interest is met unexpectedly, their history left unfinished. In 8 weeks, Claire, Max, & Maria’s stories collide and resolve into a HEA! The narrator did a nice job, but Claire’s internal dialogue blasted through the headphones, maybe the audio tech should try making the internal voice lower rather than louder. I received a free copy of this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Great paranormal mystery

Intriguing mystery, a second chance romance, and a seriously destructive ghost all come together to make one of the most entertaining listens I’ve had lately. Excellent narrator as well. I received a free review copy of this audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Second chance romance and a ghost

This is one of those books that you’re sad that it’s over. Claire is a psychic, who has been hired to solve the haunting of a house in Gull Harbor. On her 1st day, she stops by a tavern and realizes that the owner is non other than the man who broke her heart 5yrs ago. At first, the ghost did not take kindly to Claire’s inhabiting the house and threw things around, emptied the refrigerator and broke a window. With her ex, Max, help, and encouragement from the owner of the diner, Claire digs in to solve the mystery surrounding the ghost. However, not everyone is happy that Claire is asking questions. This book is chocked full of mystery, as well as a couple who never got over each other and rekindling the flame. Some tense moments when someone gets seriously injured but all ended well. Fantastic ending! Just sorry that it’s over!
I accepted a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

A Story of Love, Ghosts, and Mystery

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

This is a very well-written and captivating book in which the paranormal blends well with every day life. It is pretty credible because of it, and we learn to sympathize with the struggles faced by Claire who finds herself caught in a triangle of dramas in which a restless ghost, the lost and found-again love of her life, and a father unable to accept her life choices, are all competing for her attention and abilities to solve problems.
Maria, the ghost, is a tormented soul that cannot rest, but her violence soon gives way to gratitude and love as she learns how Claire is able to help avenge her death.
Max's figure is a little enigmatic at the beginning and we don't know if we should love or hate him. However before long all is explained and put to right, so yes, go ahead and love him since at the end he proves to be a great romantic.
The narration was also very well executed. All in all, this audiobook will leave you with that sweet feeling that all's well that ends well.

Some mystery some romance

Mostly a romance with long lost boyfriend and girlfriend running into each other and working through what happened years ago. She talks to the dead and is in town to solve a ghost haunting mystery. He just happens to be living in the same town she visits. She is staying in a haunted house to find out if there really is something there. Not terribly scary, but it's a murder mystery that kept my interest. Kristin James was a good narrator for this story. I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator.

Narration complementary of story, genre, character

As should be expected, you get that heart-pounding intensity of drama with this paranormal romantic suspense with a mystery of flavor sprinkled in by the various twist and turns that are presented. There was a darker side of this one. It carried the secrets, lies, betrayal, and more all close to the vest. You could feel the skin chill and the goose bumps rise with the way things were unfolding. Max loved Claire. Claire felt betrayed and haunted by Max.

These two had a past together and now the future will be affected by the events taking place. Their second chance will determine much. But first they must survive all that has begun to happen (again) at Gull Harbor.

Max and Claire together was something nice. Max and Claire apart was a challenge at times. I had my moments when I thought Max could have stood up and took a stand. Then I had my times when I just wanted to slap Claire. Though neither of the two would make my top list as hero/heroine or best couple, they did make an impression on me. I followed them into the suspense of getting all the details of this mystery. I coasted along as the two of them reignited the passion they once held for the other.

The narration provided by Kristin James was a match for the theme of the book. There was something in the quality of her voice that drew you in and allowed one to feel connected. Regular speed was just too slow for me and gave a dragging feeling to the narration. upping the speed allowed for just the perfect flow and visualization to take place. I found the narration to be clear, clean, smooth. The diction, pitch and tones were complementary of the characters and genre.

Spooky Romance Mystery

Claire has taken on the biggest case of her career, the haunting of a house in the small town of Gull Harbor. The residents moved out because they were being terrorized, and now Claire has the summer to get to the bottom of the ghost situation. On top of the challenging case, Claire runs into Max, the man she loved who broke her heart five years before. Claire has no idea how, but she is determined to solve the mystery and avoid Max.

I had been wanting to read this book for years because I am such a sucker for a paranormal mystery- through in some romance and it is just about perfect for me. When I had to opportunity to listen to an audio version of the book I was ecstatic and did not want to pass it up. I am happy to report that the book lived up to my long standing expectations mixing the mystery, paranormal and romance drama nicely to create the whole package.

Ok, so the reason my review went from 5 stars I felt for most of the book to the 4 stars I overall rated it was pretty much 100% due to the ending. The conflict in the book had been building the entire story and then was resolved within a tense chapter and then a few sentences wrap up later. I felt left out, like I missed seeing the end of a movie and a friend gave me a quick sentence filler! I wanted to see everything go down, not just casually hear how it resolved in passing. And the resolution was way too easy! Sure, we already knew who the killer was as well as the victim within the first 25% of the book, but I wanted more drama, more action, more suspense when it came to conflict. But that is just me, I like to see the action instead of hearing about it. I am sure others will love how the author wrapped up the mystery. (Keep in mind I loved the actual ending of the book, just not the mystery ending).

At first I was not sure if the narrator and I were going to mesh, I had my doubts. I am such a super picky listener and I have a short attention span so if I don't like the narrator I can't get into the book. It seemed as if the narrator was whispering when the book first started but as the story progressed it became less of an issue, more just a tone in her voice than an actual whisper and I was not bothered by it at all. As a side note, I now listen to all my audiobooks at 1.5x speed, anything slower is too slow for my attention span.

This was a standalone story with a happily ever after, a perfect rainy day mystery to lose yourself into and potentially get a startle from at times. I would easily read more books from this author as well as listen to more stories read by the narrator. Overall I felt like the audiobook was the complete package.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Kathryn Knight. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

I would have loved this book IF...

I would have loved this book if Claire had been less of a clueless wimp and if the paranormal aspects had taken less of a backseat to her tired ‘romance’ with Max. There was SO much potential for Ms. Knight to have hit it out of the park with this one, but she just seemed to get caught up in overused tropes, slow pacing, and a lackluster second-chance romance. This was one I struggled to finish.

I found myself wanting to scream at Claire more than once. YOU ARE A MEDIUM, HIRED TO DEAL WITH A RESTLESS GHOST WHO IS MORE THAN HAPPY TO MAKE HER PRESENCE KNOWN. DO YOUR DAMN JOB! Her constant distress/distractions (Max, her mother, the past) made it take waaaay too long for her to solve the mystery surrounding Maria. Following her struggle to bridge the communication barrier between them grew tedious pretty quickly, and it slowed down a story that was already lagging. Max played his part well enough, though I wish he’d been given a more unique personality/character arc. Overall, I found him to be depressingly predictable, Hollywood hunk, and vanilla. The bad guy was…gah, I kinda wish he’d just been left out entirely. His little snippets of story were distracting and didn’t really seem to add any value beyond reminding the reader he existed and was bad.

The pacing in “Gull Harbor” was terrible and I half-wonder if the issues stemmed from Ms. Knight trying to make it too many things. “Jack of all trade, master of none” and all that. As the reader, I figured out what happened chapters before Claire did and it made me a little crazy to watch her clueless stumbling, pushing Maria aside for no other reason than to extend the story length, the pointless misunderstandings with Max, etc. The climax was too short, ended too easily, and because I was already ambivalent about the characters, it didn’t really carry the expected punch. This book was definitely more about the romance than the spook-factor and I almost wish it hadn’t been marketed as paranormal anything, as that categorization led me to expect a lot more than I got.

As far as narrators go, Kristin James was okay. She has a nice voice and she made it easy to differentiate characters without overdramatization, but I felt her emotional range was limited to ‘normal’ and ‘angry/constipated’. At times, characters WERE angry, so the latter was appropriate in those instances. However, her attempt at conveying concern, tension, suspicion, etc. sounded exactly like anger, leading to something of a misconstrue of their emotions. The audio quality was professional, without any distracting hums, buzzes, background or narrator movement-type noises.

Random side note: I do think the cover is awesome and spooky, sooo, kudos to the artist!

Bottom line: A predictable, slow-moving story that was only redeemed by a halfway-decent narrator. If you’re looking for suspense or a riveting haunting, I’d skip this one.

**I received a complimentary copy, in exchange for my honest review, as part of an Audiobookworm Promotions tour**

Nail biting fun ...

Gull Harbor is another great ghost story by Kathryn Knight that will keep you guessing. It's a standalone like The Haunting of Hillwood Farm was, but with new ghosts and characters to discover. One of the many great things about Ms. Knight's stories is that there's always more than one mystery to unravel, the story of the dead and the living. This isn't just a story about a medium communicating with a ghost, it's also a love story about two stubborn and confused people trying to find their place in the world and each other's lives. Claire and Max will have you frustrated as hell and rooting for them at the same time. The sex in this tale is extra steamy and the danger is high, making for a nail biting fun ride. I can't wait to read more great stories by this author where mediums find love, help confused ghosts, and heal their own wounded souls.