Audiobook Review: Bitter Spirits by Jenn Bennett

by Carol7 Comments
Title: Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1) Author: Jenn Bennett Read by: Amy Landon Published: May 14, 2014 by Tantor Genre: Historical Romance, Paranormal Romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Audible Aida Palmer performs a spirit medium show onstage at Chinatown's illustrious Gris-Gris speakeasy. However, her ability to summon (and expel) the dead is more than just an act. Winter Magnusson is a notorious bootlegger who's more comfortable with guns than ghosts. Unfortunately for him, he's the recent target of a malevolent hex that renders him a magnet for hauntings. After Aida's supernatural assistance is enlisted to banish the ghosts, her spirit-chilled aura heats up as the charming bootlegger casts a different sort of spell on her. On the hunt for the curseworker responsible for the hex, Aida and Winter become drunk on passion. And the closer they become, the more they realize they have ghosts of their own to exorcise... Bitter Spirits is not perfect. Like too many romances, it falls into cheesy...
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Audiobook Review: The Devil’s Workshop by Alex Grecian

by Carol8 Comments
Title: The Devil's Workshop (The Murder Squad #3) Author: Alex Grecian Narrator: John Curless Published: May 20, 2014 by Penguin Audio Genre: Mystery Rating: 2 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Audible London, 1890. Four vicious murderers have escaped from prison, part of a plan gone terribly wrong, and now it is up to Walter Day, Nevil Hammersmith, and the rest of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad to hunt down the convicts before the men can resume their bloody spree. But they might already be too late. The killers have retribution in mind, and one of them is heading straight toward a member of the Murder Squad, and his family. And that isn’t even the worst of it. During the escape, the killers have stumbled upon the location of another notorious murderer, one thought gone for good but now prepared to join forces with them. Jack the Ripper is loose in London once more. I've mentioned before that my ratings are entirely subjective. It's my reaction...
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Audiobook Review: The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan

by Carol6 Comments
Title: The Crimson Campaign (Powder Mage Trilogy #2) Author: Brian McClellan Narrator: Christian Rodska Published: May 6, 2014 by Hachette Audio Genre: Flintlock Fantasy (whatever that is) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Audible GUNPOWDER AND BULLETS WILL DETERMINE THE VICTOR. When invasion looms... Tamas's invasion of Kez ends in disaster when a Kez counter-offensive leaves him cut off behind enemy lines with only a fraction of his army, no supplies, and no hope of reinforcements. Drastically outnumbered and pursued by the enemy's best, he must lead his men on a reckless march through northern Kez to safety, and back over the mountains so that he can defend his country from an angry god, Kresimir. But the threats are closer to home... In Adro, Inspector Adamat wants only to rescue his wife. To do so he must track down and confront the evil Lord Vetas. He has questions for Vetas concerning his enigmatic master, but the answers will lead Adamat on a darker journey. Who will...
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The Problem with Audiobooks

by Carol13 Comments
I'm an unrepentant end-reader. I will get partially into a book and just have to read the end, see who survives, who the killer was, if the couple finally gets together. I still read the rest of the book, but I feel better knowing how it all turns out. I don't like the stress inherent in not knowing. Yes, I realize that for many that's one of the draws of reading, but not for me so much. I'm also a skimmer. Sometimes I skim through a page, getting what I need to but skipping over some of the details. Both of those are quiet easy with traditional books And that's the problem with audiobooks. I can't skip ahead to the end, at least on my player, because I'll lose my spot. I can't skim over any bits because I'm stuck with the narrator's pace, probably a good thing actually, although with some books where there is a lot of repetition it can...
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Audiobook Review: Angelica’s Smile by Andrea Camilleri

by Carol4 Comments
Title: Angelica's Smile (Inspector Montalbano #17) Author: Andrea Camilleri Translator: Stephen Sartarelli Read by: Grover Gardner Category: Mystery Audio published: June 24, 2014 by Blackstone Audio Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Audible | Amazon | Book Depository A rash of burglaries has Inspector Salvo Montalbano stumped. The criminals are so brazen that their leader, the anonymous Mr. Z, starts sending the Sicilian inspector menacing letters. Among those burgled is the young and beautiful Angelica Cosulich, who reminds the inspector of the love-interest in Ludovico Ariosto's chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso. Besotted by Angelica's charms, Montalbano imagines himself back in the medieval world of jousts and battles. But when one of the burglars turns up dead, Montalbano must snap out of his fantasy and unmask his challenger. I like this series more in theory than I do in fact. Angelica's Smile was okay, but not outstanding. Of course, it probably didn't help that I missed all the Orlando Furioso references, since I'd never heard of it, let alone read...
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Audiobook Review: Delicious! by Ruth Reichl

by Carol10 Comments
Title: Delicious!: A Novel Author: Ruth Reichl Read by: Julia Whelan Category: Fiction Audio published: May 6, 2014 by Random House Audio Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Audible | Amazon | Book Depository Billie Breslin has traveled far from her California home to take a job at Delicious, the most iconic food magazine in New York and, thus, the world. When the publication is summarily shut down, the colorful staff, who have become an extended family for Billie, must pick up their lives and move on. Not Billie, though. She is offered a new job: staying behind in the magazine's deserted downtown mansion offices to uphold the "Delicious Guarantee"-a public relations hotline for complaints and recipe inquiries-until further notice. What she doesn't know is that this boring, lonely job will be the portal to a life-changing discovery. Delicious! carries the reader to the colorful world of downtown New York restaurateurs and artisanal purveyors, and from the lively food shop in Little Italy where Billie works...
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