Gone

By: Karen Fenech

Narrated by: Rebecca Cook

Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

FBI Special Agent Clare Marshall was separated from her sister Beth in childhood when their mother tried to kill them. Now, Clare learns that Beth lives in the small town of Farley, South Carolina but when she goes there to reunite with Beth, Clare discovers her sister is missing and that someone in the town is responsible for her disappearance.

Clare receives an offer to help with the search from fellow FBI Special Agent Jake Sutton. The offer is too good to refuse, though that is exactly what Clare wants to do. Jake is Clare's former lover, a man she cannot forget and who has an agenda of his own. While Clare tracks her sister, someone is tracking Clare, and finding her sister may cost Clare her life.

©2013 Books In Motion (P)2013 Books In Motion

Gone...Wow

This was a good book...and the audio was fantastic. I would recommend this book and the audio too ! The book-audio kept you interested from beginning to end. l like reading the book and before I go to sleep setting the timer for an hour and listening to the audio .

Passionless murder/romance..

Yet another book where the publisher tells an author that “sex sells” so she drops a sex scene in the book and thinks that’s a good thing. Believe me, it’s not! If you can’t write some kind of sexual attraction then don’t write sex in your book because it just stupid. And, by the way, there was nothing hot and steamy or explicit or anything but vanilla about it. I have no idea why the sex was even in this book.

That being said, it was a decent murder mystery. Jake was likable but I’m not so sure about Clare. I really get tired of the attitude “I can do it myself or I can take care of myself or I don’t need anyone,” you know what I mean. That was Clare’s attitude through the whole book. It became very tiring.

In the end I couldn’t figure out why Clare would want to go back to New York and pack up her stuff and come back to Farley. That was one unfriendly town, and the killer was a surprise. He was also one vicious murderer, having been at it for 15 years or more. The things he did were just horrendous.

There was a little swearing and the F-bomb was released 1 time.

I got this through KU.

As to the narrator: The other reviewer gave her 1 star because of the accents but I don’t think she did badly at all. My family mostly lives in Tennessee so I, too, am familiar with southern accents, so we all hear things differently. My main concern is whether her men sound like men, and they did. Rebecca Cook has a deep voice anyway so I knew she could do a man’s voice well. And she read with emotion, too. She didn’t make Sammie’s voice sound little-girl-like but I was OK with that.

Boring....really, really bad southern accents!

What disappointed you about Gone?

I found the character of Claire to be an insular, brittle character. While I get the angst about her past...she blames Jake for walking away - but in my opinion he had good reason. She continues to pout about him walking away - while freely admitting she can only give so much of herself and waaaahhh...why isn't that enough? Chicken....Then there's the plot. I found the set up of how Clare winds up in this little out of the way town in South Carolina where her former lover Jake just happens to live an is a "resident" FBI agent highly implausible. So Clare is looking for her sister, she is supposed to be an FBI agent, but she pulls the really dumb and very trite mistake of going into dangerous situations with no back-up. When the main characters start down that road - I find it very hard to keep buying into the plot. Not to mention when you head into the climax and she has the tactical advantage at one point and doesn't follow thru and finish the job....and turns her freaking back on the bad guy before being sure he is down! Yikes that is soooooo dumb.

Has Gone turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

How could the performance have been better?

Worst southern accents ever! I am a southerner....we don't talk that way. Really. And why do southerners from small towns always get portrayed as redneck and not quite bright! Insulting!

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

A bit of anger and disappointment in the overall book.

Any additional comments?

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