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Title: Shoot Me

Author: Carrie Knowles

Narrator: Eric G. Dove

Format: Unabridged

Length: 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-10-11

Publisher: Mind Wings Audio

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

A break-in goes awry when Louis discovers an elderly woman at home. Unfortunately for him, the woman has decided she doesnt want to go on living since her husband has died. The love of his life is Joanna, his partners sister. He doesnt want Joanna to discover that he and her brother are in the business of stealing and dealing antiques. If Joanna finds out, about the business and the old lady, hes sure shell leave him.

Editorial Reviews:

Eric Dove's animated and gritty performance makes Carrie Knowles' tale of crime and secrecy pulse with tension. The award-winning narrator brings all his tools to this audiobook, giving life to the two "antique dealers" Art and Louis, and the rest of the characters. Shoot Me follows Art and Louis as they continue their habit of stealing antiques to stock their store's shelves. However, after an ill-planned robbery puts Louis face-to-face with an elderly homeowner who's lost her will to live, Louis has to figure out just what is the right thing to do.

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Title: An African Affair

Author: Nina Darnton

Narrator: Mia Barron

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-09-11

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

New York Times and Newsweek contributor Nina Darnton, a former resident of Nigeria, uses her intricate knowledge of Africa to pen this, her thrilling debut novel. New York journalist Lindsay Cameron is in Lagos, Nigeria, to report on the assassination of a prominent Nigerian politician. But what begins as a race for exclusive interviews and coveted inside information leads Lindsay to a deadly trail of political corruption and greed.

Members Reviews:

Praise for An African Affair

Nina Darton has introduced a smart, sassy character for readers who enjoy adventure mixed with intrigue and romance.

Lindsay Cameron is a journalist who knows the ropes of her trade. While reporting in Nigeria she seeks to learn the plans of a brutal dictator, bent on maintaining control of his African state. Knowing a successful story could be the pinnacle of her career, Lindsay pushes forward in the true spirit of free journalism to bring to light the chaos and injustices of life in Lagos.

Along the way she meets a man unlike one she's come across before. As her longing for romance gets the better of her, she finds herself meeting people and visiting places that define the dangers of daily life in Lagos never before realized. It is not long before she doubts who she can trust and soon finds her quest for the story of her career could well in fact be her death warrant. Still, Lindsay Cameron pushes forward to a climax that not only reveals the story of a lifetime, but questions her own future as well.

An African Affair is written with skill and imagination. It is fast-paced, realistic, and I felt as though I was working alongside Lindsay Cameron throughout the story. I'm sure we'll be reading more books by Nina Darton. I for one am waiting for her next novel.

David Lucero, author of THE SANDMAN

An Affair to Remember

A wonderful way to take a trip this summer. This is an engaging adventure/mystery/modern relationship tale with episodes you'll recognize from the news, people you may have read about, and places you'd like to learn about. They are all woven into a fast-moving atmospheric tale that makes you feel you are there, and with people you're glad are there with you. Intimately observed and gracefully reported.

Best African Fiction Since Out of Africa

A Great summer read.

Darnton brings the reader deep into the fabric of 1990's Nigerian Politics and life with a sensitivity rare from an American writer. The novel is not just entertaining and interesting, but I felt like I learned alot as well.

I just saw the author interviewed on NY 1 and she mentioned that she will soon begin writing "A Spanish Affair."

I can't wait.

Nancy Drew Lives . . .

"She hurriedly put on cream-colored linen slacks and a green silk top that set off her auburn hair."

So her hair is auburn, not titian. Bess and George are missing, too, or maybe not . . . in any case, Mildred Wirt Benson still lives, as the prose style of this mystery shows. It feels like there are way too many gerunds; way too many expressive verbs and adverbs in the dialogue tags. And what appear to be plot conventions -- such as the constant suggestions that she leave the country -- can't be relied on to turn into anything.

"You should leave the country tomorrow." Is that supposed to help create an ominous, threatening atmosphere? Or build up to her final departure? It really didn't work either way.

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Title: The Autobiography of Jenny X

Author: Lisa Dierbeck

Narrator: Darla Middlebrook

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-03-11

Publisher: Iambik Audio Inc

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

On the surface of things Nadia Orsinis life appears comfortable and unremarkable Ivy League educated, happily married to a doctor, a mother of three, and a moderately successful photographer. But not all is as it seems. Nadia has been telling lies. Nobody, not even her family, knows about her past, her dark dealings with a U.S. senator, or the scandal she was caught up in surrounding his young son. Then, Nadia receives a disturbing package in the mail and her mask threatens to disintegrate, exposing a horrifying secret. She realizes someone is spying on her, has broken in to her studio and rummaged through her hidden safe. If she cant stop them, she will lose her husband, family, suburban home and the precarious hold on her own singular identity. Meanwhile, from a prison cell in the mountains, a convicted felon named Christopher Benedict is hatching a plot. The leader of a shadowy group of Aktionists, he writes daily to a woman known only as Jenny X. Lisa Dierbecks startling first novel, One Pill Makes You Smaller, gave an unflinching, raw account of a relationship between a charismatic adult man and an underage girl. Set in the gritty art world of the 70s, its surprising humor, honesty and eroticism drew acclaim from numerous publications, including The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, O (the Oprah magazine), Publishers Weekly and The New York Times Book Review, which named it a Notable Book of 2003.

Members Reviews:

Cardboard characters and weak dialogue

Unfortunately, I found the characters to be two-dimensional and cold. There were no likable characters in the book. Furthermore, the they seemed to have shifting characteristics. For example, Christopher has a strong personality and sense of self while in prison, but once released, he seems spineless and pitiful, almost a different person, as if the author had tired of her first character, disposed of him, and replaced him with another.

The nonlinear plot timeline was awkwardly handled, jumping from the past to the present and back again. In some books, this technique is very effective, but in this book, it just seemed awkward and jarring. I found myself skimming through it quickly just to get it over with sooner. I'm glad I only spent $0.99 on the Kindle version.

Two Stars

Weird and dismal story with unlikeable characters and unlikely dialogue and events.

S L O W P A C E

This book was as boring as a mystery can get. The characters were one demensional. The plot...was there a plot? Read something else!

Compelling book about art-making, love, starting over and family. A must read!

I read this book is just two days--I loved One Pill Makes You Smaller and couldn't wait to get my hands on this next one. Dierbeck doesn't disappoint. Like her first, this book is both sensitive and funny. In Jenny X, Dierbeck makes so many keen observations about starting over and beginning agin, the drives to create art and to love, the modern family, choice and change, I read and read, not even realizing that my alarm was going to go off in just three hours. I highly recommend this book--but readers be warned: you won't be able to put it down, so don't forget to set your alarm!

A Quick Read

This was a good "summer read". Read it quickly but it held my attention. Good story and plot lines.

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Title: The Painting and the City

Author: Robert Freeman Wexler

Narrator: Robert Keiper, Ulf Bjorklund

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-03-11

Publisher: Iambik Audio Inc

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

What is the secret contained in Philip Schuyler's painting? Who was the woman he depicted, the innocent woman and her dark stalker? The Kreunen sisters know, but they must re-bury the past. And Jacob Lerner, artist flailing in a sea of commerce, can only press forward, explore his own art and the mystery of Schuyler's painting, aided and manipulated by an animate marionette of rosy glass...

Manhattan, summer, in the rosy dawn of the 21st century, the sculptor Jacob Lerner sees a painting at a friend's apartment and is drawn into an obsessive search for traces of its long-dead painter, fictional 19th-century artist Philip Schuyler, and his subject, a woman called Madame Burgundy. The search leads to the remains of a once-powerful but still wealthy Dutch-American secret society, and carries Lerner through real and surreal Manhattan streets, buildings, and countryside. Finding Schuyler's journal draws Lerner in deeper. Finding the dapper marionette makes it impossible for Lerner to escape. The Painting and the City tells a story of art and its conflict with commerce, the way art can (literally) reshape the world, and the consequences of such a reshaping.

Members Reviews:

Great New Author

I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of this work. I'll be looking for more from this author.

The story is deep and complex. It brought me back - I wanted to keep reading because I wanted to understand - and it is an intricate plot that spans centuries. I recommend you give it a try - now - while it still has an introductory price. Don't use a credit, just buy it, you won't be disappointed.

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Title: A Stand-Up Guy

Author: Michael Snyder

Narrator: Adam Black

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-02-11

Publisher: Zondervan

Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Oliver Miles is a stand-up comedian who makes his real living as a third-shift security guard at an historic Nashville hotel. Every morning on his way home from work, he stops to have breakfast with his mother, although it's been six years since she's recognized her only son. In search of his true comic voice, Oliver experiments with the juxtaposition of both highbrow and lowbrow humor, alternating between the cerebral, sarcastic, surreal, and inane.

One night, an impromptu rant on relationships turns excruciatingly personal and Oliver finds himself reduced to quiet tears onstage. The crowd finds this hilarious. Oliver finds it embarrassing, yet cathartic; then later resolves to only tell the truth in his act. As he becomes more enamored with Mattie Holmgren, the hotel's night auditor, he discovers her sneaking into guest rooms in the middle of the night. Eventually, his infatuation for the adorable kleptomaniac haunting the very hotel he's been hired to protect becomes fodder for his stand-up act. His lack of sleep, combined with the realization that the only place he can be totally honest is in a room full of strangers, combine to stoke his greatest fear: Oliver is turning into his mother.

As his relationship with Mattie begins to blossom, it becomes clear he won't be able to keep her away from his shows forever. Oliver must eventually come clean - to see if the truth really will set him free. As usual, he decides to do it from the stage... on the biggest night of his career... and with Mattie Holmgren watching.

Members Reviews:

likeable but not all that funny...

I kept waiting for it to be funnier.. which is maybe my mistake. It's a nice little story about growing up and falling in love while battling the past...with a little show biz side story. But overall, I was just okay with it. Nothing to jump up and down about. I feel like it all could have been pushed a bit further...

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Title: Want to Know a Secret?

Author: Sue Moorcroft

Narrator: Karina Fernandez

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-11

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 14 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

When hard-up Diane Jenner's husband is injured in a helicopter crash, she discovers a secret that generates them money. James North knows that money doesn't buy happiness. He's always been there for his wayward wife and daughter - but that doesn't stop him wanting Diane. James and Diane always put family first - which means that what happened in the back of James's Mercedes is a really bad idea. Or is it?

Members Reviews:

4 stars. Very enjoyable and a good ending.

Husband did despicable things I hadnt read before.

This was a really good story with interesting secrets that I didnt expect and interesting ways of finding out about those secrets. I liked the changes Diane went through. It feels like womens fiction because there is a lot of story about various characters. It feels like its moving a little slow, but not really. It just doesnt have the action and suspense that Im used to. Its about ordinary people, how they live, what they do. I was fully immersed.

I cant believe how bad Dianes husband was. What he did... and it gets worse. I was in the mood for a husband doing bad things with divorce in the offing. This fit the bill. I liked the way her husband was not happy in the end. He had to settle for things he didnt want. Diane got revenge. Revenge might not have been her goal but it was the result of her standing up for herself and doing what was best for herself and others. The revenge was subtle but good. I loved Dianes happy and successful end.

There was a good secondary story about Tamsen and what helped her out of her problem.

I was surprisingly pleased with the first sex scene. The guy kept thinking the girl would resist or slap him, but she didnt, so he did a little more thinking she would resist, but she didnt, so he did a little more. I enjoyed being in his mind during this. This felt different from other sex scenes. I suppose other authors have done something similar, but it felt fresh to me.

I was totally unaware of the narrator Karina Fernandez, which means she was very good.

Genre: contemporary romance, divorce

Are there really women as stupid and naïve as this

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I guess I would change the main character, her daughter and the husband. Oh my, that would be the entire book really. Diane is so naïve and forigiving I just wnat to shake her hard. She is married to the biggest jerk in history and she hasn't just up and left years ago, it makes the story phoney and unbelievable. And the daughter, oh my, the daughter. She is 20 and still cries for her parents to stay together even though she realizes the dad is a jerk. Need I say more? Grow up!!

Would you ever listen to anything by Sue Moorcroft again?

Maybe. I have listened to one of her previous books and enjoyed it quite a bit more than this one.

Which character as performed by Karina Fernandez was your favorite?

None

Do you think Want to Know a Secret? needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No! Not at all! I wouldn't buy it!

ENTERAINING BUT PREDICTABLE

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

PROBABLY NOT.

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Title: The Vow on the Heron

Author: Jean Plaidy

Narrator: Jilly Bond

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-26-11

Publisher: Isis Publishing Ltd

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Edward the Second has been barbarously murdered in Berkeley Castle on the orders of his wife Queen Isabella and her lover, and 15-year-old Edward the Third is now king. Young Edward has already fallen in love with Philippa of Hainault and, to prevent him enquiring into the details of his fathers death, Isabella allows the marriage to take place. While some suggest that Edward has a claim on the French throne, he is reluctant to pursue it. It is only when Robert of Artois arrives that the king is provoked into action. When Robert presents Edward with a dead heron and compares him tauntingly to the timid bird, Edward vows to attack France, heralding the beginning of the Hundred Years War

Members Reviews:

It passes the time

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Well i was at a loss for what to listen to and so i tried this. Jean Plaidy is a prolific author and does a half decent job, however she does tend to enforce her biases, which were very much of their time, ie sexual mores, the behavior of women etc. But it was ok

Has The Vow on the Heron put you off other books in this genre?

Well, to be perfectly honest i will not read another Jean Plaidy because i feel that modern research disproves her analyses. But she's not too bad really.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

The narration was good, it matched very well

If this book were a film would you go see it?

If this audio book were a film, i'd watch it if someone else was paying

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Title: The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Author: Monique Roffey

Narrator: Adjoa Andoh

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-05-11

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England, George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidads new national party, to whom she pours out all her hopes and fears for the future in letters that she never brings herself to send. When George discovers Sabines cache of letters, he realises just how many secrets shes kept from him - and he from her - over the decades. And he is seized by an urgent, desperate need to prove his love for her, with tragic consequences...

Members Reviews:

I really had a problem with the fake accents

What did you like best about The White Woman on the Green Bicycle? What did you like least?

It is a thought-provoking story but I regret buying the audio version because the narrator cannot do a Trinidadian accent and opted for a Ja-FAKE-n one instead. If you know Trinidad the lack of authenticity may ruin the story..

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I would have preferred to have had it in linear sequence rather than going back in time half way through.

How could the performance have been better?

Answer me this- how convinced would you be by a story set in Wales when all the Welsh people had (dodgy) Scottish accents? There is no such thing as a generic Caribbean accent! Couldn't you get a Trinidadian (or someone who could do the accent to narrate this story)

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Title: The Cry of the Go-Away Bird

Author: Andrea Eames

Narrator: Clare Corbett

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-01-11

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Elise loves the farm that is her home; she loves playing with beetles and chameleons in the garden, buying sweets from the village shop and listening to the stories of spirits and charms told by her nanny, Beauty. As a young white girl in 1990s Zimbabwe, her life is idyllic. Her clothes are always clean and ironed, there is always tea in the silver teapot, gin and tonics are served on the veranda, and, in theory at least, black and white live in harmony. However this dream-world of her childhood cannot last. As Elise gets older, her eyes are opened to the complexities of adult existence, both through the changes wrought in her family by the arrival of her step-father Steve, and through her growing understanding of the tensions in Zimbabwean society. As Mugabes presidency turns sour, the privileged world of the white farmers begins to crumble into anarchy.

©2011 Andrea Eames (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Members Reviews:

I can still hear them

Sometimes when I read a story, it sticks to my bones like a good stew. This was such a story. The vibrant descriptions and beautiful characters will stay with me for a long time.

... can't even begin to imagine what it must be like, to pack a suitcase with what you most ...

I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like, to pack a suitcase with what you most treasure and leave behind the only life that you have ever known. This book gripped me emotionally. I have read many books on the fate of Zimbabwe and its people, but this is the first one that was set after the bush war. I thought Andrea Eames did a good job, so sad to see people who love Africa, because of the awful circumstances they find themselves in have to go and live on another continent. I enjoyed it.

You really feel as if you're there

This book is worth reading just to get an understanding of what it was like in Zimbabwe for white farmers during the early stages of the Mugabe regime. It's very suspenseful and clever.

As a New Zealander, I well remember a large number of white Zimbabweans migrating here in the 1990s, although at the time I had no idea what they'd been through (I was about 15 at the time). It turns out the author was one of those migrants (albeit a child at the time) and she now lives in my town.

This book has really helped me understand why those people "with the strange accents" (!) joined our community, and what they had goone through before they arrived on our shores.

A MUST READ!

A MUST READ! Such a touching book. I loved it! Andrea has a great talent for creating an image in the reader's head and making you think you are actually experiencing what she wrote. I have already bought her other book, The White Shadow, and can't wait to read it.

Fortunately they were out of the country when the worst ...

My children can definitely relate to the early parts of the story. Fortunately they were out of the country when the worst of the problems occurred.

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Title: Annabel

Author: Kathleen Winter

Narrator: Laurence Bouvard

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-10-11

Publisher: Random House AudioBooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador in the far north-east of Canada, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people share the secret the babys parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to go through surgery and raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows up within the hyper-male hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self a girl he thinks of as Annabel is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life. As Wayne approaches adulthood, and its emotional and physical demands, the woman inside him begins to cry out. The changes that follow are momentous not just for him, but for the three adults that have guarded his secret

Haunting and sweeping in scope, this is a first novel as much concerned with its characters as it is with their predicament, as much about humanity as it is about a rigidly masculine culture that shuns the singular and the unique. Told with great elegance and empathy, Annabel is the powerfully moving story of one persons struggle to discover the truth and the strength to change, to find tenderness in a severe and unforgiving land.

Members Reviews:

A Book Worth Reading Again!

was enthralled with this story, not only because of the subject matter, but also because of the way it was written. Kathleen Winter wrote sensitively about a child born with both feminine and masculine genitalia and how he and his parents coped with his unique sexuality in a community in Labrador, more isolated than most. What was also different about the writing here was the author's choice to use the omniscient third person point of view. It allowed the reader to get into the heads of so many of the characters and add a dimension that is often missing in these kinds of stories. It's a book I hope to read again. I rarely read a book twice unless I find the writing exceptional. Highly recommended.

Kudo's to K. Winter. This is NOT a sex novel.

I was unsure about this book when I began to read it. It was recommended by a professional friend as a sociological study. I expected a transgender rant, but was intrigued to discover a well written clinical assessment of the identity conflicts caused in a child by unbalanced parental expectations and improper medical distortion of a child's body at birth. The father's need for a son eclipsed the child's need for correct gender assignment. The attending physician's surgical imposition on the body of the infant without thorough exam to determine the nature of the choices was nothing less than criminal negligence of the most crippling kind. The miracle is the psychological balance sustained by the principal character through the nightmare of biological confusion and his adaptive balance after the error was adjusted. This book avoided degrading into a Gothic eroticism by the author's compassionate narrative of the experience of Annabel's emerging integrity defined in honest self-perception.