Headshot

By: John G. Hartness

Narrated by: Iesha Nyree

Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

She's a black belt. She's a world-class sniper. She's a sophomore. Meet Cindy O'Shea, a normal high school student dealing with homework, a best friend who's a geek, a single mom with her own issues, and the toughest after-school job in the world. She's an assassin. Follow Cindy; her best friend, Tina; her nemesis, Tamara; and Tina's hottie brother, Jason, to New York City for a Broadway show with a little postshow kidnapping and mayhem for an after-party.

©2015 John G. Hartness (P)2016 John G. Hartness

excellent! just like the rest of his books!

definately worth the credit! i hope he continues this as a series, because of cliffhanger

LOVE IT!

First, I wish it was longer. Second, think of 007 as a precocious teenage sophomore girl.
Third, she has a best friend would she completely devoted to and protective of her. Fourth, remember she has all the wit and skill of 007. What do you get? A bad ass teenage girl who does has a unique job.

Low quality audio! Good short story/book.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Re-do the whole recording. 'The quality is deplorable, audio cut and pasted to death all thru the reading.. Differing pitch volume etc etc several repeats of words and other things wrong with it.

If you’ve listened to books by John G. Hartness before, how does this one compare?

I do not think there was much difference from John's earlier or later works other then that the main character is a really capable teenage girl instead of a goofy 20 something guy nor a Bubba..

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Narration was acceptable if one is able to ignore the myriad of technical issues and plain terribly unprofessional way the audio is put together, if that makes any sense.

Was Headshot worth the listening time?

Yeah well worth it. I would probably have enjoyed it more if the whole "book" was a bit more fleshed out tho.

Any additional comments?

I am rating this offering 3 out of 5 all categories more for what the book is not and for the awful quality of the audio production then anything else.

The narration is good, not spectacular but more then adequate.

I think that Cindy could do with some more training on the torture of men.. I do not really think the .22 torture she so espouses to be the most effective. Quoting Kipling..

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

Above quote well lets just say most men will loose their shit at the thought of incensed women with sharp objects etc.. The female of the species usually being way more scary then us males.

Sweet, Chirpy and Deadly

What did you love best about Headshot?

Having only read Bubba the Monster hunter, I loved his mirror opposite, tiny, young, and feisty. Cindy O'Shea has all the problems of any 16-year-old girl but a different sort of day job--she's an assassin. The juxtaposition of the problems was a lot of fun, and Hartness made it believable that such a young woman could do what she did.

Who was your favorite character and why?

For a secondary character, the blonde bimbo rival brings depth to Cindy as well as making the story more interesting, providing conflicts and twists that challenge everyone in the story.

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

I liked this performance, but I haven't listened to any of her other work. She does the occasional accent appropriately.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It was pretty much what I expected, except for a big character twist. That made it more fun. YA is not my favorite genre, but this one was well done.

Any additional comments?

I'll be looking for more stories about Cindy and her posse or whatever the kids call it when they hang out these days.

Belivibily is somewhere around zero

The plot was formulaic. It read like a creative writing class exercise.

The violence was excessive. There was simply no need for all of the killing. I don't mind violence at all but this was simply not necessary to fill the needs of the story.

The the entirety of the nature and interaction of the relationships pushed believability beyond the boundary.

The characters were shallow insipid and sociopathic. This is a very very sick group of people with no moral center.

There is no profanity or sex in the story which leads me to believe it is targeted for the 14-19 group. It so this novella is nothing more than a training scenario for psychopathy.

Heavy on high school and kneecapping

Maybe I’m too old for high school assassins, maybe I needed the urban fantasy component of most of this author’s works, or maybe I just needed better Buffy (or Bubba) quips. This was an okay novella featuring a 16 year old whose go-to move is kneecapping folks. The narrator’s voice didn’t resonate with me. There’s no profanity, sex, politics, or religion … and also little humor and only comic-level violence.
What was left was a decent concept that was nowhere near as quirky as the Mean Girls meets
Gross Point Blank novella I was hoping for.