Heartstealer

By: K. T. Bryski

Narrated by: Blythe Haynes

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Sara Wolfe was told three things: Her husband and sister-in-law died in a backwater village. Wraiths are only stories. Her nephew needs her.

She believes none of it. Following her husband's supposed death, Sara travels to Grey Run in search of answers, quickly becoming embroiled in the village's old hurts and older magic - Grey Run sits on the crossroads between the human realm and the Gloaming: a shadowy world of ghosts and little gods. With the curtain between the worlds thinning, Sara must unravel the truth behind her husband's disappearance - because the wraiths are not the only ones lurking in the night.

©2015 KT Bryski (P)2016 Lauren Harris

the ending was much better than I expected

Audio:

Listening on audio was almost a disservice for this book. There are too many points of view to keep track of. If the point of view switched and I did not catch it then I would have to rewind or hope that I would catch up by who they were talking about. It got easier as the story moved along but with so many points of view, it took a while.

The narration was very good. Blythe Haynes does a great job at keeping the voices distinct. There are many different types of accents were very well done. When Evelyn was a child was the easiest to understand. The only problem I had with the audio was the echo when someone was talking to someone else in the gloaming. It also happens when someone is talking to someone else when they are remembering a conversation. This echo grated on my nerves a bit so I was happy that it was not prevalent throughout.

The plot:

The plot got better as it went along. It took me some time to get into the story, probably due to the changing perspectives. That said, as I listened to Evelyn I enjoyed it more and more. As the story got to about 70% I was more curious about how it was going to end.

Sara’s husband has disappeared and she is trying to find out what happened to him. She also has to deal with the fact that she is supposed to now take care of her nephew as her sister-in-law also died.

While Sara is collecting evidence for her husband’s disappearance, as she never believes he or Charlotte are truly dead, she starts uncovering evidence that leads her even more to believe he is not dead. She does get to know the residents and gets close to some of them and although poor Findley. There is just something about him that stands out. The fact that he grabs Sara and scares the crap out of her frustrated me a bit. At the very beginning of the story, when she is trying to decide who is the best guardian for Findley, he takes a hold of her and is crying. Her response did not ingratiate me to her at all. It took me a while to warm up to her after this. In her defense, she is quite young to be taking care of a 10 year old, but still he’s a child that just lost his mother. Have a heart!

As the plot goes on, I wound up disliking how, once the villain is known, it goes back and forth. Memories are charmed and the people forget who the villain is. This goes on for quite a while and it seemed like it was way too long. Fortunately, I wanted to know what was going to happen next so I was interested in the ending. Fortunately, the ending was much better than I expected and worth the wait.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.

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