The Sorority Murder

A Novel

By: Allison Brennan

Narrated by: Amy McFadden

Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

“The 10 Best New Mystery and Thriller Books of December are Giving Us Literal Chills” (E! Online)

“10 Books to Cozy Up With This December” (PopSugar)

A popular sorority girl. An unsolved murder. A campus podcast with chilling repercussions.

Lucas Vega is obsessed with the death of Candace Swain, who left a sorority party one night and never came back. Her body was found after two weeks, but the case has grown cold. Three years later while interning at the medical examiner's, Lucas discovers new information, but the police are not interested.

Lucas knows he has several credible pieces of the puzzle. He just isn't sure how they fit together. So he creates a podcast to revisit Candace's last hours. Then he encourages listeners to crowdsource what they remember and invites guest lecturer Regan Merritt, a former US marshal, to come on and share her expertise.

New tips come in that convince Lucas and Regan they are onto something. Then, shockingly, one of the podcast callers turns up dead. Another hints at Candace's secret life, a much darker picture than Lucas imagined — and one that implicates other sorority sisters. Regan uses her own resources to bolster their theory and learns that Lucas is hiding his own secret. The pressure is on to solve the murder, but first Lucas must come clean about his real motives in pursuing this podcast — before the killer silences him forever.

©2021 Allison Brennan (P)2021 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Juvenile writing and narration

I buy and listen to hundreds of audiobooks a year and chose this one because it was a deal of the day book and was deeply discounted. I am very happy that I didn’t pay full price as this one really was difficult to listen to. The narrator affected an accent and tone that was nearly unbearable. Within the narration there were also different voices that the narrator used when reading dialogue from different characters. The modulation, the tone, the pitch and the speed were all very distracting from the actual book. It put me in mind of “valley girl“ speech from the 80s. The writing itself was also not good. It was extremely repetitive and felt more like a young adult murder mystery than an actual true crime story. If you are looking for case detail and facts, this is not the book for you. This is much more like a teenagers version of how they felt about a crime and a final scene that felt like it came from a after school special. I strongly recommend listening to the sample before buying.

Not my kind of material

This might be enjoyed by some but not the who dunit I expected. Very uneventful and almost boring to me.

Terrific story vexing narration

The story was absolutely splendid. Unfortunately, the narrator made every female sound like quite annoying.

Did not care for reader

Story was ok but the inflections/voices of the characters was really annoying. Her voices for the college girls was like they were all airheads. Not a fan of this reader at all.

Great story

The story kept me engaged until the very end. I’d love to hear more where Lucas and Reagan stories went,

Don't let preconceived notions for you

(As posted in Goodreads)
I didn't have great expectations from this book because of its publisher, "Harlequin" (I am not a romance lover). BUT, the book was fabulous – so much for my preconceived expectations based on little evidence!
What could have been a straightforward cold case story, was very involved and had lots of sides to it. No one was painted dishonestly in order to have a shocking ending, but a lot of the actual events as written were complex and surprising.
There is (so far) one other book in the series, and I'm trying to justify purchasing that content too (nevermind the three years worth of constant listening of audiobooks that I already own…)

Good but too long.

Overall story was good. I like the narrator, even talking like a college student. This book should be edited to 8 hours max as there is so much repetition and story lines going nowhere.

Push past the nasally co-ed voices

Better than I expected. Nicely developed story line. Don’t let the whiny voices deter you from a good listen.

Good story

I like The Sorority Murder, it was well written and the pacing was great. Initially, I was not sold on the narrator (there were a couple of beats at the beginning that I do not feel matched the emotion of the character), but she grew on me by the end. I enjoyed the primary characters (Merritt and Vargas) and hope they return in future stories, although I think Merritt is the character it will be easier to tie into additional investigations. I definite recommend and I look forward to the next title in this series.

The story is ok

The story is ok and interesting . The college girls sound silly and annoying and immature