Saving Grace

Grace Chandler Mystery, Book 1

By: T. R. Lester

Narrated by: Shannon Edwards

Length: 3 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

When a female body is discovered in the local park, Grace Chandler, a paranormal activity specialist in Tupelo, Mississippi, is thrust into a nightmare.

Under pressure from her acting director to find the killer and a few missing agents from her department, she races against time to find the monster before he can find his next victim.

Will she be able to stop him in time, or will the secrets that are revealed tear her apart?

©2017 T. R. Lester (P)2017 T. R. Lester

Not too sure of this.

This is kind of verging on a 2.5 star, but I'll rate it a 3. Really wish you could do a half star!! Anyway, this is about Grace Chandler, she is a Paranormal Activity Specialist in Tupelo. She deals with anything to do with the supernatural, so when a female body is found with a strange mark on her body, Grace is called into help.

This sounded so good and I was excited to start, but it just fell flat!! Now there was a few things I liked, and I think that there is definite potential there, but there was just too many things that annoyed me for me to enjoy this as much as I'd like!!

Here's what I liked: Plot wise, I liked the take on the different vampire species. It was intriguing and I'd like to know more. I also liked the idea of Grace and the unit she works for. Grace herself was OK. I wanted her to be a little more bad ass, but she was a good MC despite that. I also liked the little twist at the end, because it came from nowhere really.

What I didn't like: I didn't like the stalking bit!! I'm not going to explain that part, but I just found it so unnecessary and down right creepy. I didn't like the fact that the werewolf and vamp got on so well. That just doesn't happen, ever!! They very rarely work together, and if they do, there's animosity between them. I know this isn't set in stone, but to me, it's sort of an unwritten rule within this genre. Also none of the characters appealed to me too much! There wasn't any that I cared about, nor did I particularly care what happened to any of them.

In all, all I can think of to sum up my feelings about this is meh. It was readable and there were parts that I liked and parts I didn't. I do think there's potential there and I do think I'll check out the next one, just to see what happens.

Shannon Edwards was OK. She didn't really change her tones or cadences to add any tension to the story, nor did she change her voices for the characters enough, but she was clear and easy to listen to.

I was voluntarily provided this audiobook for free from the author, narrator, or publisher. This in no way affected nor influenced my thoughts.

An Urban Fantasy Written in Present Tense

The narrator has a quite distinct accent, but I liked it. I thought she did a good job, especially with the male voices, which were really good. And whoever did the audio mixing did some cool effects, like making people on the phone sound further away. I liked that. I would definitely listen to another book by this narrator.

As for the story, the first chapter was pretty gory, graphic, and brutal, a kidnapped woman being forced to give birth to a monster. I received the audiobook in exchange for an honest review and had to finish it or I would have abandoned it during that chapter.

But once I got past that, the characters were interesting and the story did draw me in, especially once we were introduced to Draven. I really liked him and suspect he and Grace are mates. I especially enjoyed the author's version of vampire lore, which was really interesting. I also really like Gideon. I don't like love triangles, though, and it definitely seems to have been set up for that.

I'm not sure I would continue with the series, mainly because there was a lot of profanity that did not seem necessary and really disrupted my enjoyment of the story. Also, I really hate when a novel is written in present tense.

There was also a good deal of repetition, such as when a key fight scene was repeated from the villain's point of view, after we already knew the outcome and had moved on with the main characters.

All of that said, it was a fairly interesting thriller. It's definitely more of a thriller than a mystery, since we know from the beginning who the bad guy is and there's not really anything to solve or figure out. There was a big twist at the end that I didn't see coming, which was really interesting. Although a little sad.

If it wasn't for the love triangle, the abundant profanity, and the fact that it was written in present tense, I probably would give the next one in the series a try. As it is, I'll probably pass. Many people like those things, though, so if you're one of them, give this a try.

Oh, spoiler alert, for those like me who hate such things, the story ends on an enormous cliffhanger.

Saving Grace

While sometimes the story was interesting,there was a bit too much repetition.Shannon Edwards narrated Grace nicely,the rest was done rather badly.I am not sure if the halting reading was meant for some characters,or not.“I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.”

Good Read

Story plot was good. Narrator did an excellent job with the different voices throughout the narrative.

Really not good

Vampires, werewolves, strigoi, secret forced bloodbanks.. Its a of blend of Twilight and The Strain but done really badly. A werewolf and a vampire that both have the hots for a human woman.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review so I felt obligated to finish listening to the book but honestly my eyes hurt from rolling them so much at the dialog.. This just reminds me of bad fan fiction. I'm sorry, I just can not recommend this to anyone.
As for the narrator, meh.. It was hard to tell if a better book might do her more justice. I often felt like I was being read to by an elementary school teacher. That's just not what I want in an audiobook narrator.