Ripple of Secrets

Rose Gardner Mystery Novella, Book 6.5

By: Denise Grover Swank

Narrated by: Shannon McManus

After her assistant DA boyfriend's near brush with death, Rose Gardner hopes to make it through the holiday season with a minimal amount of drama. But she can't forget the promise she made to the king of the Fenton County underworld in exchange for Mason's life. What's worse, she's not the only one keeping secrets - Mason has been working on a hush-hush case in his private time, Joe is grappling with the sudden reappearance of his sister after a mysterious two-year disappearance, and Hilary continues in her single-minded quest to secure a commitment from Joe at any cost - for motives only she understands.

Though peace and quiet is all Rose wants, it's the last thing she's liable to get. And the ripple of secrets in her life threatens to create an undertow that will endanger her and everyone she holds dear.

©2015 Denise Grover Swank (P)2015 Denise Grover Swank

I really like this series

Most of the characters are really great but some should have been stepped on at birth. The narration was really very well done.

Great series! Don’t miss this.

Love. Love and Love. I don’t know if another series I love more! The Rose Gardner series has been so much fun to read. I just wish there were more!!

Blown away!

This is BY FAR the best Novella of the series. Wow. What an incredible listen.

Short continuation of book #6

Not sure why this information couldn't have been rolled into book number 7....but at least it wasn't a short recap like some of the others.

Skip this book!

It's gives a background story that is just too dark & depressing. And doesn't fit the series. Wish I never read it :(

Needs a Trigger Warning

This novella is incredibly dark and includes graphic rape scenes, most involving a minor. I had no idea based on the books that came before in the series. I feel sick and can’t bring myself to finish it.

Interesting in-between novella

Trigger warning - this book includes two violent encounters against women that is not disclosed in the book description. I would have skipped this book if I had known.

This novella gives us a glimpse of the aftermath of Rose’s shenanigans in the last book, the attempts on Mason’s life, and Hilary’s surprise pregnancy. We get the story from multiple POVs - Rose, Mason, Skeeter, Joe, and Hilary. We get to see back story for these characters as well as their current thoughts and motives. I now have a slightly better opinion about some characters and a worse opinion about others. This does end on a bit of a cliffhanger. Despite being short, the novella was well written, the characters had dimension and the storyline was engaging. This novella is not really a standalone, it needs to be read after the previous book in the series in order to get the full effect of the plot lines.

Shannon McManus did a good job narrating the story and characters into life with enough change of inflection, tone and cadence to voice multiple characters fairly convincingly.