Fatal Hearts

By: Norah Wilson

Narrated by: Alexander Cendese

Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

The reports stated Josh McBride’s death was from sudden cardiac arrest, but homicide detective Boyd McBride can’t shake the idea that his identical twin brother’s death was somehow connected to his search for the adopted boys’ birth parents. Josh must have been close to the truth…and it cost him his life.

When Boyd comes to medical resident Hayden Walsh’s ER looking for answers, she agrees to help with his investigation because Josh was a friend. As unnerved as she is by her attraction to the detective, she knows it will be impossible to avoid romantic entanglement…and the mess that comes with it.

The investigation uncovers dangerous secrets, and Boyd and Hayden’s passion ignites. Only they can keep each other safe from a threat that lurks inside a life-long mystery.

©2014 Norah Wilson (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Suspenseful, Mysterious and Sexy

Any additional comments?

Take a murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns that keep you guessing, add a full romance with a Happy Ever After ending, sprinkle it with at the edge of your seat suspense and you get Fatal Hearts by Norah Wilson! I thorough enjoyed this well written novel, the characters and the storyline. The title of the book makes sense to me now and no other would have done this book justice! I know I will read more books by this author.
I bundled my kindle book with the professional narration, so that I can switch back and forth. Love the narrator's gravelly voice and deep timber, which made up for not quite getting the female voice of Hayden right. Otherwise, I could listen to this narrator forever!

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

This couldn't have been more predictable

I think my 1 star rating says it all. The romance was incredibly trite, and the narrator was heavy handed with the main character's bedroom intonations. He made the female lead sound about 12. For a book set in Canada the ancillary characters, particularly Morgan sounded like a cross between a surfer
Stoner dude and an uptight wasp. And this was suppose to be a small town detective. And the Sylvia character sounded southern.

But worse yet is the completely obvious set up of the mystery. The main character is suppose to be a detective his dead brother an investigative journalist and the clues were so obvious I found myself yelling at the book on several occasions. I only completed this book on the off chance that all the obvious clues were laying out a humdinger of a twist.

Only slightly less annoying was the romance. The over use of words like luscious and glorious.

So disappointed.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Well Crafted Romantic Suspense

Homicide detective Boyd McBride twin brother Josh McBride died suddenly while investigating their birth parents. Boyd can't shake the feeling someone murdered his brother to keep his birth parents a secret. Boyd decided to do everything like his twin brother did the last few weeks until his death.
Which includes being around Josh best friend Hayden Walsh an ER doctor. The investigation uncovers a dangerous secret, and one person will do anything including murder to keep that secret.
The mystery was great because you got to ride along trying to figure out who could be the murderer and who are the parents. The author didn't throw tons of suspicious characters at the reader instead the author made you care for everyone in the book even down to the murder. The book wasn't full of twist and turns that took away from the main mystery or romance instead they only helped build the story with the reader feeling very satisfied.
The romance between Boyd and Hayen was a little odd at first but at the same time it made sence as the book ended.
Being a romantic suspense there is sex but during that time a relationship is also built so when the end happens you know the author thought it out and it made sence. There were moments where the book would get a little to chatty but at the same time the author was building relationship with people in the town. I knew about half way though the book who the murderer was and a good idea why but the ending was still great and I loved the book.

At $7.34 for a 10 hour plus book it was a great listen and a bargain

Alexander Cendese did a great job with the delivery of the story.

9 of 15 people found this review helpful

Fatal Hearts

This was a very good story. It was a little heavy on the mystery & a little light on the romance for my preferences, but well done nonetheless.

awesome

really loved this book. can't wait to read other books by this author.loved it alot

Romantic Suspense

Would you listen to Fatal Hearts again? Why?

No. It was an ok story, but not one I feel I would revisit in the future. I have read it and there would be no twists or turns.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Fatal Hearts?

When you get to the altercation where you know who was definitely the bad guy. That was pretty good.

Have you listened to any of Alexander Cendese’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was my first listen to this narrator. Loved when he did Boyd's voice, but that unfortunately was the only one that I loved. The story portrays the female as a strong character and I all I could see was a cheerleader when I heard him do her voice. Bad stereotype I know, but there it is.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Protect your heart at all costs.

Any additional comments?

I struggled to stay with this, but I was glad that I did. There was a lot of minutia with the investigation, but the pay off was nice in the end. I could really appreciate that the author was able to make it to the romance and make it convincing because the leads had been painted into a corner because of their relationship to Josh.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Nice read..

Any additional comments?

This was a pretty good murder mystery and love story, very sensual and sexual. I really liked Boyd and Hayden.
I liked Morgan and Grace, too. AND, oddly enough, I liked Josh, even though he was dead throughout the book.
I figured out who the killer was early on but it was still a good drama. I would recommend this book and read this author again.

As to the narrator: Alexander Cendese did a wonderful job. The men sounded like men and the women sounded like women. Every person had their own distinct voice. I would definitely listen to him again.

3 of 7 people found this review helpful

Great story but audio a bit weird

I really enjoyed the book.. Good story with a great plot plus romance and a bit sexy, but the audio was a bit weird when the narrator (with his big deep voice) tried to portray himself as female.. It was difficult to take seriously at these points I'm sorry to say.

Slow moving plot - didn't finish

I had to give up on this one. I should have been warned when the first five chapters covered only one day, during which the Hero simply re-traced what he had done on his visit two weeks earlier.

The pace was just sooooo slow. At one stage pages and pages were devoted to beer and pizza: Was the pizza cold, did it need reheating, does the beer need to go in the fridge, did the H buy the beer first, or the pizza, and so on and so on….. The conversation was banal, the electricity between the main couple was zero and the beer and pizza evening was the most boring date night ever.

The plot could have been good but as we got pages of details about only one other character, it was pretty obvious who the baddy was going to be.

And I am sorry to admit I did not like the narration. The narrator has a wonderful sexy deep voice, which made his attempt at a female voice sound awful. The h sounded like a rather silly child and it was very disconcerting to listen to.

Meanwhile the H was the most incompetent cop ever. He made guesses based on no facts whatsoever and then decided these guesses were facts. Nothing about the investigation made sense. We are expected to believe that police dogs spent all day searching the running trails that the victim had been using, to find his missing phone/notebook, but they did not bother to also search the car park where his body was found? His missing notebook was somehow going to be hidden in a bed and breakfast room that had already been cleaned out and searched? And surely if someone was a suspected murder victim and his phone was missing, the police could get hold of the records for that phone? And why did the heroine, twice (!) express great surprise to hear there was a market for stolen phones? Then we get pages of details about how criminals break into cars and steal things? Why? There was simply screeds of pointless information that did not advance or add to the plot in any way.

This book just seemed to drift around in places it had no need to go, while the plot went nowhere. I stopped listening after 4 hours, simply lost interest. Sorry, because I have loved other Norah Wilson books, but this one was a miss for me.