Audio: Life on the Leash - Victoria Schade

Audio CD, 9h

Narrator: Em Eldridge

Published September 18th 2018 by Tantor Audio

Chic-lit/romantic fic

For review

My Thoughts:

Cora quit a good job with god pay and followed her passion instead. To train dogs. I did like the fact that she took a chance and went with it and she is great at it. I do not like dogs but she made me want to like dogs. She was sweet, kind, loved dogs beyond anything, and ack, with one flaw, her taste in men. But hey, a heroine needs flaws too.

She trains dogs. She hangs out with her roommate Maggie. She meets new people as she gets new clients. She spews vitriol over a famous dog trainer (who sounds like such an arse!). And she gets a crush on someone who is taken. Yes here red flags went on, I do not like a poacher, but I mean it is not her fault she fancies someone who is taken, someone who might be flirting with her. A woman has eyes and she does her best to keep it proper. It was a dangerous route to take storywise, but it did feel like she needs to learn. And hopefully find a good man. But who am I kidding. That blurb already spilled it, someone else might be in the wings too. She just have to see him.

I liked all the dog personalities and her friends. They were great. Then there was hunky Charlie who seems so right, kind, thoughtful...but taken. A dilemma for sure.

Conclusion:
A fun story that also has some deeper things to say about training and dogs. I enjoyed it.

Narrator

I like her voice and she was great here. She really fit the part.

Blurb

Cora Bellamy is a woman who thrives on organization. She's successfully run her own dog training business for years, perfectly content with her beloved rescue pitbull as the main man in her life. She's given everything to her business, and her lack of social life (or slobber-free clothes) has been completely worth it. But all that changes when she meets Charlie Gill, the hottest client she's ever had. The only problem? Charlie's taken. Luckily, Cora has a new friend-the sweet, lovably geeky Eli Crawford. More loyal than a retriever, he's always there to help Cora with her problems, including her love life. That's why she's shocked to realize that even as things start heating up with Charlie, there might just be a more-than-friends spark between her and Eli, too. As Cora's life gets more tangled up than a dogwalker's leashes-and as she prepares to audition for a dog-training TV show that may irrevocably change her entire life-she has to figure things out before it all goes straight to the dogs. Charming, witty, and warm-hearted, Life on the Leash inspires you to cheer for every underdog looking for love.

Audio: Summer Bird Blue - Akemi Dawn Bowman

Audio CD, 9 h

Published September 11th 2018 by Tantor Audio

YA fiction

For review

My Thoughts

Why do I keep listening to emotional YA books? I have no idea, and here I am again. Another powerful book.

Rumi was in a car crash and now her sister is dead and she can not deal. She is angry at the world, at her mother, at everyone. She is depressed and she keeps thinking that she should be dead instead of Lea who had it all figured out. Because Rumi does not have it all figured out. She does not know what she wants to do with her life, she does not know what her sexual orientation is. There are so many things she does not know and she believes she has failed when she does not know them. I mean poor kid! Everyone wants to have it all figured out, few do. And it pains to see how she struggles with her grief. She both wants to feel Lea near, and to forget for a while. And to finish one last song...

The book takes place in Hawaii as her mother was from there. It's a beautiful setting to a sad book. It works so well. There are also great side characters. Like her next door neighbor Kai, who doesn't have it figured out either, but who is always there with a smile. And grumpy elderly George who yells at her. They are people she need in different ways.

There was a lot of pidgeon English. Most spoke like that and in audio it works well. I felt like I was there with them.

There is sadness, that is obvious. She has a lot to grief to deal with, and at times I did not know how she ever would pull through and find good things in life again. But she will move on to the next stage of grief eventually.

Conclusion:
A good book with an impact.

Narrator Em Eldridge

So I am not sure who great she was with the accents, but for me they sure worked! Her pidgin was good and I felt I was there with them all. From Kai, to Rumi to old George

Blurb

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn't have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of-she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea. Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the boys next door-a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn't take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago-Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish. Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible. 

Audio: Bring me their hearts - Sara Wolf

Audio CD, 12 h

Published August 21st 2018 by Tantor Audio (first published June 5th 2018)

Bring Me Their Hearts #1

Em Eldridge (Narrator)

YA fantasy romance

for review

My Thoughts

This is one of those cheesy books that are good, but yes so cheesy. At least there was no love triangle! I was really surprised by that.

The Positive:

The narrator! She was great and I can promise you that if I had read this I would not have finished it. But the narrator made it fun. I liked her monster voice (and from what I can see that would have been annoying in text). But here it worked great cos you could not see the weird way it was written.

Interesting world where witches have been hunted to almost extinction. Though since they create heartless isn't that a good thing? I mean they are evil. but then the author points out they are not evil. But they create heartless! But then we learn that Nightsinger only creates heartless from those who are dying. But they are still slaves! Anyway, as you can see, an interesting world. Plus a new god who I already loathe, boooo new gods, they always come with genocide.

I do like witty banter (to a certain degree). And I guess to survive in this world you have to be able to do it, cos everyone sure did it (so yes yes both pos and neg, neg it being way too often)ö

The negative

Zera has been heartless for 3 years. She has in that time become a master thief and a master swordswoman (only for 1 year she has had a 10 year old "warrior" helping her). But sure, sure, I am sure she got that good that quickly *eyeroll* I am tired of YA heroines that are so perfect and good (and then the author mentions that she has been killed 47 times, and then a man saves her) But she is still the best warrior around. *eyeroll* Please stop with this in fantasy YA. Just stop it.

She wears her sword to her coming out...she wears her sword to church. Omg, I get it, she has a sword! Those are times that sword should be left at home. I get it, women can wear swords in this world, stop rubbing it in. Men would not wear swords all the time either.

Her sword is rusty, then it is not, then it is. Make your mind up.

She is frankly a little spoiled brat. She talks back all the time, she is rude, and the prince loves her for that. There is this line between speaking your mind and being sarcastic all the freaking time. I got to be too much. What was she 13? No, 19 really.

Why Nightsinger the witch lets a 16 year old and 10 year old guard her beats me. I would kill real warriors and have the guard me. Not silly kids.

She talks about killing 5 people all the time! Being all torn up cos they were unarmed. Ahem, they killed and butchered your family. Cut yourself some slack!

The In between

Obviously they fall in love too quickly, but hey it is YA. Kids fall in and out of love all the time.

And it is silly and cheesy like a B movie and it makes it fun to listen too. Yes it has negative parts and positive parts. And it is SO YA. YA fantasy lovers will eat it up! They will swoon over the romance and the back talk and root for them to get the baddie. As for me...not the biggest YA fantasy fan ;)  This brought nothing new to the game, at all. Also it reminded me of that cheesy Caelena books, they both being awesome at what they do, and in reality they suck, but not really as they are awesome.

Conclusion:

If you like YA fantasy, then you will absolutely like this one

Narrator.

She brings it home for me. A good narrator can pull off anything.

Blurb

Zera is a Heartless-the immortal, unaging soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger's control, she serves the witch unquestioningly. Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a prince's heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum: if she's discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy Zera's heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles. Crown Prince Lucien d'Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him-every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him-until the arrival of Lady Zera. She's inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The prince's honor has him quickly aiming for her throat. So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all. Winner takes the loser's heart-literally.