Hard Truth

By: Mariah Stewart

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Two children who mysteriously disappeared many years ago are the last thing on Lorna Temple's mind when she returns to her Pennsylvania hometown to sell the old family property in the wake of her mother's passing. But instead of memories, the fields where Lorna grew up yield something utterly chilling.

Years ago, Lorna's nine-year-old best friend Melissa Eagan mysteriously disappeared, followed shortly after by her older brother. Now it turns out that Jason's bones have been moldering on the Temples' land for two decades. When Lorna's enquiries to the local police are only met with hostility, she enlists the help of ex-private eye T.J. Dawson to dig up the dirt of the past and see what lies beneath. But the mystery, and the grave, turns out to be much bigger than the Eagan case, and the killer is still at large.

©2005 Marti Robb (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Another Winner...in my book!

The second book in Stewart's Hard series follows Lorna back to her hometown after her mother's death. Her only plans are to scatter her mother's ashes and then clean and sell their family home. But as soon as Lorna arrives, a tragedy from her past is dredged up, along with new and even more frightening secrets that nobody in town could have imagined.

When Lorna steps in to help a woman she thinks is being wrongly accused for the crimes, she finds herself part of a select group determined to find the truth and not just a scapegoat.

Mariah Stewart has done an excellent job with bringing these characters to life. Her story is dark and involved, but the personalities of the main characters keep the story from being too deep. Stewart has a great writing style and this one proves her talent, yet again.

Karen L. Syed

Hard truth- Easy Listen

A very well writen novel, great characters, fast paced story line. Awesome ending. I will purchase more books from this author. Reminds me of the Kate Wilhelm books with Barb Hathaway. This narrator did some of those books as well. Very enjoyable, a fast read.

Pretty good

This is A pretty good book worth the price although the plot could have been laid out a little better but a descent read all the same....

ok

I think the author just missed a great book and should have left out the MUSH.

Just OK

Although there was not much suspense or tension in this story, it nevertheless was somewhat able to hold my attention. My criticism of it was that I did not note any character development mostly because the story is told from the viewpoint of Lorna and therefore it was a little more difficult to become completely engaged in the story.

Mariah Stewart Does it Again

This book also started out a little slow, but by the time I get to this one, I was looking for it to be a little slow at the beginning. She does a good job of character building in the beginning of the novel. The reader really gets to know, Lorna, the main female character. There is a lot going on in the story for Lorna, but she seems to handle it pretty well and she tries to help someone less fortunate than she is. T. J. Dawson is a great character too although his character is a little less developed than Lorna’s. Regan and Mitch are also in this book, so you get to see them again which is always fun, to see characters from other books in the new one. I liked that Regan and Mitch were brought into this book as well, and you get to see Regan and Mitch’s friendship growing and blossoming while seeing T. J. and Lorna’s grow. There isn’t much of a romance to this book, but it is there, soft and simple in the background and hinted at. It’s nice to see the mystery build as relationships change grow while the world seems to be twirling around the characters like a tornado of information, detective work, and speculation. It’s really a good book. I recommend that readers read the books in order, but it’s not really necessary. They can be stand-alone books.

Again, as with the first book in the series, the narrator did a good job. I don’t mind that she is continuing the series.
For me this book started out really slow. I liked how it builds up, but I'm so used to just jumping in that having a book move so slow at the beginning was kind of hard for me; hence, the rating of only 4 stars. Other than that, the book was awesome. I loved everything about it: from the plot and storyline to the characters was great. I like the way she pulled, Regan, the true crimes writer into the storyline and built on her character. It was nice to see her in each part of the book, and have her help with the building of the case. There isn’t much romance in the novel, but there is a building of friendship and relationships. You can actually see the couples in the book growing closer as the danger and intrigue takes over in the novel. Mariah Stewart is one of the authors I like to read a lot of, so she didn’t disappoint me with this one either. I was hoping for a little more of a romance because that’s what I’m used to from her other books, but other than that, I enjoyed the book. Even though there was so much going on and the cases in the book were kind of scary and there were moments of solemnity and sadness, there were moments when you just had to smile or even laugh out right, which added to the novel’s charm and mystery.

The narrator was pretty. At first, I was a little skeptical, but after a while, she grew on me. She’s not very good at the male voices, but I can distinguish characters from each other because of the way she changes the pitch and tone of her voice. For the most part, I think she did a good job, and I wouldn’t mine reading another set of books she’s read.

If you’re looking for a good mystery and want to play whodunit, give this book a chance. The person who did it was on my suspect list, but I didn’t actually know until Mariah Stewart revealed the killer exactly who he was. Happy reading.

Nothing special

It was good but nothing special as the title of the review says. I did want to know how it ended and was surprised. The character development is shallow. I really didn't care one way or the other what happend to them. I just wanted to find out how it ended.