Trailer Park Wives

By: Denise Gwen

Narrated by: Lindsey Corey

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

Why, oh why, did Anne Marie Whitehall take her own life, swallowing away her pain and her grief with a handful of Nembutal capsules and a bottle of Merlot? Does Samantha Jacobs, the red-haired vixen grinding away on a pole at the Revue know?

Or perhaps Deena Cook, harried mother of four and a regular visitor at Children's Services?

Or does Cierra Maldonado, mother of two children by two different men, not receiving a penny of child support and working as a cocktail waitress at a chi-chi club in downtown Cincinnati know why?

Or perhaps Lettie Robinson, a 400-pound housewife of three healthy and hungry little boys, who knows the meat display at Wal-Mart better than the inside of her own trailer.

Well, someone knows why Anne Marie Whitehall committed suicide, but she isn't talking.

And everyone wants to know who the raven-haired, glacially thin woman is: the one who's walking around the trailer park and sending secret notes to certain dear - and dearly departed - friends.

©2014 Denise Barone (P)2015 Denise Barone

Trailer Park Train Wreck

Trailer Park Wives is a really heavy character driven story. It revolves around four different women from the trailer park and their lives after the death of their friend. You build a close and personal relationship with the four women which makes their problems feel more relevant. Needless to say the lives of trailer park women are not that great. Nothing really pleasant happens to these women and you get a lot of insight into the hardships people in trailer parks can endure. You get to see what women will do for money, temporary love, and friendship.
The story is more about the four main characters than it is about figuring out why Anne Marie took her life. Each one of them has problems and are all essentially fighting to maintain their families, livelihood, and friendships. The characters don't even really start looking into the death until towards the end of the book. The book didn’t have an ending either and will be continued in the next in the series. I actually didn’t want the book to end. As sad and depressing as this story was I found myself drawn to it like rubber necks at a car accident. And this wasn’t a small wreck, it is a full four alarm train wreck. I really want to keep going with this series. I can see how this story can be quite difficult for some people to listen to but as a huge horror buff I found this was just a different kind of horror.
The narrator did a fantastic job. I really enjoyed her narrating voice and her character voices were great. She made it quite easy for me to tell who was talking. Her drawl was fitting for the voices of trailer park wives. Glad to see she narrates the next book in the series.
I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

A very strange Book.

This Audio Book is a matter of taste.It is not easy to digest and is not
uplifting but that is the point of the Writer.Life is not pretty especially if you were born on the wrong side of the tracks.

To those who enjoy this genre then perhaps this Book is for you.


The Narrator did a good job with difficult material.



This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

10 of 11 people found this review helpful

Crazy Funny Book For Sure!

This was very different than what I am used to reading. There is some crude language, some very obese women, strippers, neglecting moms, irresponsible babysitters, drug trafficking, betrayal, some mystery around an unexpected suicide, and all men are a waste of space. There are crazy moments, funny moments, bonding moments between the women that live in the same trailer park. We are familiar with the stereotypes and this audiobook brings them to reality.

The narration was excellent and brought the story to life.

Anne Marie’s suicide seems to be more complex than at first glance. The story is told in multiple POV. We learn about each of them and their struggles. We are left with multiple cliffhangers. I’m planing to get the second book to see how this story concludes.

"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

I'm still in shock

An excerpt from the last chapter in this book: 'Oh it would be so nice. It would be so sweet to get a grandchild to raise before she turned 40. She would quit stripping, that was for good and sure.' That should pretty much sum up this listen.

Don't get me wrong, this book stayed true to the genre and along with the strippers, child neglect, obese women and no good men, it provided some great female bonding, happy and sad moments, and strong family dynamics. What it did not provide was the reason for Anne Marie's suicide.

I liked the narrator. This listen could have easily slipped into 'caricatureville' but Corey was really adept at making her voices unique and resonate in sync with the issues each character was facing.

I didn't hate the listen but I didn't love it enough to want to listen to book two.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

What the...

First of all, this story grabbed me and kept me until the end. Very different characters and each one is strong. I wish I could talk to someone about the ending. When it ended, I couldn’t believe it was over.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Not my cup of tea

The narrator is excellent. She handles the variety of characters well.

This is a hard book (storywise) to review. The author is clearly talented, but the story gets bogged down in heavy situations and graphic descriptions. On one hand, the author writes in a way that elicits an emotional response. My own responses were visceral (sadness, disgust, anger, frustration). The descriptions are vivid. But this is also where the author fails to provide balance. The story and character building consists of four women's dismal lives being built terrible decision by terrible decision. Not so much character building as digging deeper into a mud pit.

Books give us a glimpse into the lives of others and are a form of escapism. I didn't find any humor or light moments. Yes, I know this is the reality of some women. They struggle to get by, they're constantly fighting for survival. That's well and good, but these characters are not living in a way that is empowering (taking ownership of their situation). They are victims.

Here's an example of what bothered me. One of the characters is asked to take off her watch and jewelry while entering a courthouse. Her husband starts arguing with the guard about his belt buckle/pocket knife. Then, she and her husband disrupt court proceedings, call civil servants hideous names...and then wonder why they're reprimanded. Later, a lawyer wearing a neat suit and carrying a designer bag comes in through security and the character assumes the lawyer's life is "so easy," and falls down a rabbit hole of self-pity. (I have a Ph.D. and I worked hard to earn it. A lawyer carrying a nice bag isn't a sign of an "easy life" - it's the fruit of hard work.) Every interaction feeds into the victim narrative.

The plot is so heavy on descriptions that there is little forward momentum. It's hard enough reading about one character's hard life (with exhibits A-Z), but multiply that by four with an occasional, 'Oh yeah. Anne Marie died.'

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Sad but realistic

I found this to be an interesting book because it is a realistic look at many trailer park families. I can attest to this from personal experiences. I actually knew people like this and their reality was very close to this story. I didn't find anything about this story funny. It was depressing and heartbreaking. It was quite disappointing and frustrating to be left hanging at the end. I felt like it just ended abruptly. Although it is well-written and the narration was excellent, I don't believe I will listen to the next one. I was voluntarily provided this review copy audiobook at no charge by the author, publisher and/or narrator.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I luv this SOO much...until the last sentence!

This has to be one of my favorite books I've gotten since I started reviewing audio-books! It was so funny and yet real. I loved how all the girls from the Trailer Park call wall-mart, wall marts. I cracked up every time. My poor husband, I kept pausing his TV so I could tell him what was happening in the book! I think it was a little extra fabulous for me because I grew up in a upper middle class area in NJ with horses and stuff. I moved to SC, in a trailer park when I married my hubby (now that's true love!). So I know exactly how spot on Denise Gwen was in her writing. The only thing I found that was a little hard to believe was the price of the OCs that Samantha was selling. 300 for 20mg is more than rock stars and rappers pay! lol (I'm 13 months clean/sober!). Oh and that was one heck of a cliff hanger! I couldn't believe it stopped like that. But I still LOVED this book, a lot. I really hope that I have an opportunity to review the next book in the series!! The narration was also perfect! I definitely love and recommend this book!

This book was given to me at my request (Thanx Denise!). I am providing a HONEST and VOLUNTARY review.

If you didn't hate my review, please hit the HELPFUL button. I'd like to get a better ratio lol.

this book was given to me at my request for review

I enjoyed listening to this book kept wondering what happened to make the the people who lived in the trailer park live and act like they did.

Great Narrator! Good Story

Narrator Lindsey Corey does a great job with this story. I love the way she brings different characters to life in this audiobook. At times this audiobook is hard to listen too because of the subject matter. But I kept listening because Lindsey drew me in from the very start.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

All you can eat at the O.K. Corral.

To be perfectly honest, when I finished this book, I was uncertain whether to give it a star rating of five, or only three. Five for the total involvement I had felt with the four main protagonists around whom this story is woven. Or three at the sudden shock of its unexpected ending at a very vulnerable point for three of them - and no conclusion to the original question, why did their ever cheerful good friend, Anna Marie, without any warning, commit suicide a few days before Easter?

Batesville Lakes Trailer Park is the less than desirable home location of four female friends. Made beautiful mostly by the undeserved road names like Rosepetal Lane and Tulip Trace, the Park is the seedy site of older style trailers, with narrow surrounding ground space for a garden and drug using teenagers with nothing much to do other than hang out together. The four women find comfort and even fun in each other's company including a girl's bowling night out every Thursday. They used to be five but the story begins on the day of that fifth woman's funeral. Anne Marie had always seemed the happiest of the group, their confidante and supporter, so her sudden suicide by drugs and wine was a devistating shock especially since she was a Catholic. She had not given even the slightest hint to her friends of what she intended and it increasingly began to haunt them. Why did she do it?

This is not a murder mystery in the usual sense. Indeed, there is really very little story at all, other than the incidents, longings and sorrows which daily occur individually to the group of four during the weeks following the funeral. But as their lives slowly evolve, the question emerges ever louder in the story itself, why did the happy, the lucky one of their original group, kill herself?

Mostly well written, the dialogue is good and the friends emerge as very real people. Their situations are not necessarily pleasant, one is a sex worker, one works in a Bunny bar, all are parents and some described scenes tend towards the lurid. But there is also an empathy built between each one and the reader. The narration by Lindsey Covey is excellent. Her voice is pleasant, an easy listen, and she reads with good pace and intonation, giving all of the protagonists clear and appropriate definition increasing the reality of each one. There are occasional repeated lines or phrases, but whether this is a glitch in the editing or a quirk of the text itself is difficult to say.

I was fortunate in being freely gifted a complimentary copy of Trailer Park Wives by the rights holder, at my request, via Audiobook Boom. Thank you so much. After a slightly slow start on my part, it absorbed me in a way that few books do, hence my surprise when it ended. I understand that there is a second book, Trailer Park Wives, Double Width Edition, which continues the story and this has instantly entered amongst books at the top of my must read list.
Not, perhaps, a book for everyone. There are sex scenes, and comments, which could upset some people. And no violent action, either. There is also talk and use of drugs in a limited way and hints of abuse. But for anyone who enjoys really getting to know characters who çome to life as three dimensional people , and with a growing mystery to solve, this book is highly recommended.