STAFF PICK: Her Pretty Face by Robyn Harding

Posted on July 10, 2018 by admin

Post by Laura Laidman

Title: Her Pretty Face
Author: Robyn Harding
Narrator: Kirby Heyborne, Cassandra Campbell, Rebekkah Ross

Frances Metcalfe has a secret; a secret that could tear apart her home, her family, and the one real friendship she has managed to forge. But in Robyn Harding’s Her Pretty Face, Frances isn’t the only one holding on to a dark secret that lies in waiting just below the surface of her life.

Between her distant husband, her difficult son, and the gossiping mothers at her son’s school, Frances finds solace in Kate Randolph. Kate is everything Frances is not – confident, beautiful, successful, and happy. It’s with her that Frances finds motivation to come out of her shell and move past the pain that haunts her. Unfortunately for Frances, Kate isn’t everything she seems. Darkness looms in Frances’s new friend, one that might be worse than anything Frances herself has to hide away from the world.

Told from three perspectives, Frances herself, Kate’s rebellious teenage daughter Daisy, and DJ, a young man with a haunting past of his own, Her Pretty Face is a perfect pick for fans of domestic dramas and thrillers alike. Each perspective is read by its own narrator, with Kirby Heyborne (Gone Girl), Cassandra Campbell (Small Great Things), and Rebekkah Ross (All The Missing Girls) all giving amazing performances. They bring Frances, Daisy, and DJ to life with the passion and desperation that each character radiates.

Full of twists and turns, Her Pretty Face was an audiobook I just couldn’t press pause on. Each chapter brought the characters deeper down their own dizzying rabbit holes, which twisted together as the story progressed. Fans of true crime will love this one too, with its subtle influences from famous crimes that were interesting to pick up on. Her Pretty Face is the perfect listen for those long summer nights.

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STAFF PICK: Spymaster by Brad Thor

Posted on July 3, 2018 by Jemma Wolfe

Title: Spymaster
Author: Brad Thor
Narrator: Armand Schultz

It’s summertime, and to me, that means road trips, poolside lounging, twilight walks, and breezy, easy reads. Brad Thor’s new thriller, Spymaster, is just what I’ve been looking for.

It’s a classic political thriller romp through Scandinavia, Europe and the Baltics as special agent Scot Harvath leads a team of elite operatives on a mission: thwart the Russians’ plan to sabotage NATO, destabilize the Western world, and invade and conquer unsuspecting countries (Hitler-pre-WWII-style).

Told in short chapters that jump between Washington, Russia, and Harvath’s current location, Spymaster’s pacing is quick and never drags. Brad Thor sprinkles plenty of cliffhangers throughout, and the question of “what’s going to happen next?” reverberated around my head for the whole 10 hour listening experience.

The whirlwind settings and a cast of interesting characters make for a fun listen. We meet Jasinski, the Pole who may-or-may-not have a thing for Harvath; Oleg, the Russian terror orchestrator; Ryan, the gorgeous and well-connected Washington ex-CIA director; and we learn more about Scot Horvath, the Navy SEAL turned covert counterterrorism operative who has been around the block, to say the least.

With a long list of major characters – each with unique accents, veteran Brad Thor narrator Armand Schultz really has the opportunity to shine. He’s a familiar voice to fans of the Scot Harvath series, having narrated the past 10 or so titles. Spymaster is number 17. For a newbie like me, Spymaster was an easy entry point into Thor’s colorful world, and I never felt that I was missing out on any of the action because I didn’t have a background in the series.

Whether you’re a stalwart fan of the author or just looking for something new, Spymaster is a great accessory to summer – especially when paired with a cold beer and your feet in the sand.

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STAFF PICK: The Woman In The Woods by John Connolly

Posted on June 11, 2018 by admin

Post by Miranda Winters-Sayle

Title: The Woman In The Woods
Author: John Connolly
Narrator: Jeff Harding

A young woman is found buried in the Maine woods, her body showing signs that she gave birth shortly before her death. Private detective Charlie Parker is hired to recover the missing child — but he isn’t the only one looking him. Someone else is interested in the whereabouts of the child, and they are leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.

The latest installment to John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series has something for lovers of various genres: mystery, paranormal thriller, and horror. What makes the audiobook even more exciting is that it isn’t a typical “whodunit” mystery — in fact, the reader is made aware of the whereabouts of the child within the first few chapters. The question is: Who will find him first?

I was a little hesitant to listen to this book as a first time Connolly reader. Launching headfirst into the 16^th title in a series can be intimidating. However, the author does a fantastic job of giving enough information that I felt like I knew Charlie Parker without being overwhelmed with exposition of the events from previous titles in the series.

Listeners are able to follow both Charlie Parker and his adversary Quayle as they search for the missing child. This was hands-down my favorite part of the novel, as many authors do not allow the reader inside the head of the antagonist. Quayle is the perfect villain: clever, cruel, and absolutely creepy.

Fans of previous Charlie Parker audiobooks will be pleased to know that Jeff Harding continues narrating the series. His tone matches what you would expect from the protagonist in a gritty detective novel that doesn’t disappoint.

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STAFF PICK: Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

Posted on June 5, 2018 by admin

Post by Laura Laidman

Title: Neverworld Wake
Author: Marisha Pessl
Narrator: Phoebe Strole

What if you had the chance to pause time, to redo a day until you get it just right? A day to undo the mistakes of the past? That’s just what Beatrice Hartley and her friends get to do in Marisha Pessl’s Neverworld Wake. It is in this Neverword that they quickly realize that reliving the past is not a gift, but a curse.

A year ago, Beatrice’s boyfriend Jim, the driving creative force of her friend group, died under mysterious circumstances. Though deemed a suicide by the local police, not one of them believed it. Now, Beatrice returns to her hometown to find out just what her friends know, and what they’re hiding from her. It is in the fabulous, isolated manner belonging to her former best friend Whitley that a mysterious figure joins them and explains that time has become stuck in a loop. A loop that can only be broken if they make a cruel and painful choice.

Neverworld Wake starts out as five young adults dealing with reliving the same day over and over and how it affects their relationships with one another and their own psyches. As the story progresses, it takes surprising twists and turns that I never saw coming. Neverworld Wake isn’t just a YA version Groundhog Day. As the plot races forward, the narrative jumps the expected tracks into something so much bigger, and so much better. I never knew what to expect with every passing minute of the narration and the final revelations left me reeling for days.

Told from Beatrice’s perspective, the wonderful Phoebe Strole captures exactly the personality of ‘Sister Bee’ as her friends have always teased her. Sweet, slightly naive, and yet tirelessly working for the friends, her performance perfectly exudes the Beatrice that I pictured as I listened along.

Neverworld Wake is a perfect mix of sci-fi, mystery, and personal drama that I’ve come to expect from Marisha Pessl. While listening to the audiobook, I found myself picturing Neverworld Wake as the next big Netflix hit. With it’s creative blend of Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why, all while telling its own unique, intriguing story, it wouldn’t surprise me if an adaptation was announced in the future.

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STAFF PICK: Tin Man by Sarah Winman

Posted on May 15, 2018 by admin

Post by Miranda Winters-Sayle

Title: Tin Man
Author: Sarah Winman
Narrator: Sarah Winman

The first thing I noticed when I began Tin Man was the beautiful prose. The author, Sarah Winman, gives detailed descriptions of everything in her novel. By the time I finished the book, I could easily visualize every character, place, and object of importance in my mind’s eye. Every character felt real, as though I could easily have passed them in the street. This aspect is especially important for a novel like Tin Man, which introduces itself as a romance but turns out to be more of a character study of two men who found love.

Tin Man allows us to get inside the heads of Ellis and Michael who befriended one another in their teen years and quickly developed their relationship into something more. However, we discover at the beginning of the novel that Ellis married a woman named Annie, and Michael doesn’t seem to be in the picture. The rest of the novel is unravelling the threads to their story. What happened as they grew from young boys to men?

I wish I could say more, but this story greatly relies on mystery. When I began, I had nothing but questions.

Reading tin man was almost like putting together a puzzle — you slowly build towards answers, but nothing makes complete sense until you get to the heart of it.

Winman does a fantastic job of making sure to answer every question. Her reveals are surprising, and sometimes heartbreaking.

Tin Man relies on memory to tell the story. Time is not linear through the novel, as we begin in the present day and work our way backwards. Winman’s beautiful writing executes this perfectly: there is never any confusion over whether you are reading the past or present.

It was a real treat to have Sarah Winman narrating her own title. Having a female read a novel in which both protagonists are male can sometimes be jarring, but Sarah encapsulated the tones in which Ellis and Michael would speak. I think this is something special that only an author narrating their book can accomplish.

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STAFF PICK: The Language of Kindness by Christie Watson

Posted on May 8, 2018 by Michelle

Title: The Language of Kindness: One Nurse’s Story
Author: Christie Watson
Narrator: Christie Watson

When both of my grandmothers were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I was warned that their declining memories would mean that they could confuse the past with the present. In both cases, they talked about their lives as nurses as though in real time, unearthing stories that were once too intimate to share at family parties and Sunday dinners.

During a recent conversation with my maternal grandmother, she rattled on about what she was cooking for dinner that night and, in nearly the same breath, told me she had to go check on her patient. These memories confirmed what I always knew, and what anyone who loves or is a nurse knows — it is more than a career, but a lifelong passion defined by resilience, kindness, and compassion.

Christie Watson was a nurse for 20 years. In The Language of Kindness, she shares the powerful details of beloved patient relationships, including nursing a premature baby who defied its odds of surviving the night, washing the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire to remove the toxic smell of smoke, and comforting a patient suffering from an excruciating heart-lung transplant.

Like all nurses, Christie is there during some of our most vulnerable moments. The Language of Kindness is made even more compelling as Christie narrates it herself. Her steady and assured tone, even when narrating the most emotional parts of the audiobook, demonstrates her ability to remain calm under stormy circumstances, a trait she shares with my grandmothers.

I’m grateful to Christie for both her dedicated career and for giving me the perfect gift to give the nurses in my life. For too long, the only books for people in the medical field have been for doctors. This audiobook is easy to understand even if you haven’t taken Nursing 101, and will give listeners a new appreciation for one of the toughest and most overlooked professions.

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