Not Quite Dead

Lowcountry Ghosts, Book 1

By: Lyla Payne

Narrated by: Michelle Haynes

Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

A broken engagement sends Graciela Harper crawling back to Heron Creek with her tail between her legs, but finds the sleepy little town too changed to set her life right. Not even her budding drinking problem can obscure her Gramps's failing health, or erase the mental picture of her first love happily married to her childhood best friend. To top it all off, she's having a heck of time convincing the town's dashing young mayor of her unfit-for-dating status.

When the ghost of 18th century lady pirate Anne Bonny starts insisting on a near daily audience, Graciela has to confront something else she never expected - being certifiably nuts at twenty-five years old.

Her brand new "I don't give a crap" attitude makes it easy to dismiss the mysterious threats that seem to be tied to her search for more information on the long dead pirate, but when her family becomes a target, Gracie knows she needs to find out why the ghost insists on being a constant, reeking companion.

If Graciela can put aside her prejudice against people without a pulse, she may discover that Anne Bonny's problems are intricately linked with her own. The past harbors answers could help the cantankerous spirit find closure, but she is, after all, already dead. If Graciela doesn't move fast, she might find herself doing the haunting, instead of the other way around.

©2014 Trisha L Ziegenhorn (P)2015 Trisha L Ziegenhorn

I really enjoyed listening to this story

If you could sum up Not Quite Dead in three words, what would they be?

captivating, enjoyable, relatable

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I listed to this book on a recent cross country flight and really enjoyed the story and narration!

I'm not sure

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It's a story that is narrated by a narrator with the most boring voice and most of the characters sound the same.

Good Story, Not So Good Narration

I like the story, enough so that I want to read the second book but I will probably read it instead of listen to it.
The narrator was inconsistent in her reading of the book. At times she would speak haltingly, as though losing track of where she was in the material. I did find it endearing that it was evident or at least appeared to me, that she was caught up in the moments of sadness, as I was, and seemed to be trying to read through tears. Her best reading was done during the reading of the diary, when she was speaking as a different character. This makes me wonder if she were intentionally reading haltingly at times because she felt that best portrayed the character? Unknown, regardless the effect was off putting to me and took me out of the story more than in it.
I liked the heroine in this book. Which was a nice feeling since it seems rather hard to like the heroines in most of the newer fiction I've read in the past few years.

I Love This Series

I really enjoyed the characters and how they related to each other. The plot is realistic and fast paced with several twists and turns that keeps the reader emotionally involved in the story. I can't wait to read the next book in this series.

Great story, horrible narrator!

I really enjoyed the story. However, the narrator made LOTS of errors in pronunciation and pausing at the wrong time, or not at all. She actually said, "Viligant" instead of VIGILANT! I own all of these books on Kindle. The author's writing was absolutely fine but the narrator really made a hash of her performance. At one point, a Charleston society matron was speaking and the narrator started off just fine, then switched to a Caribbean accent! What the heck! I'm from South Carolina and I would ROCK narrating this book!

I'm sure the story is fine, but....

I honestly couldn't get past chapter 3 because of the narrator. Ms. Haynes is the wrong narrator for a book set in the South. In my opinion, you need someone who can do the southern accent some justice to add that bit of "spice" to the story. Ms. Haynes just did not have that, so I could not get into the story at all. I think I will find a copy to read on my own.