Monday, May 15, 2017

Armchair Audies Review: Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial by Rabia Chaudry


Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial by Rabia Chaudry narrated by the author



I was not one of the people that listened to Serial but of course, I have heard about the story, this book really gave a much more in depth look at this case and I can see why everyone was saying he is innocent. I was totally hooked on the story itself and will now be watching this case with interest.


                My thoughts on the narration:
I do wish that there had been a male narrator for the parts from Adnan’s prospective because it got a little confusing going from Rabia’s point of view to Adnan’s without so much as a tone change or saying Adnan at the start of his parts. The author did an okay job narrating this book but it was a straight read, which made it a little boring because she tended to get monotone for my tastes.






3 ½ Stars

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Armchair Audies 2017






It is almost time for the Audie Awards  so that means it is time for the Armchair Audies. This year I decided to do something completely different and picked the Non-Fiction Category and I found many of these books very fascinating. Starting next Monday I will post my reviews then will be getting together with Meg from Meg’s Book Reviews (and Recipes) and we will pick our winner.

See you next week!

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall narrated by Jenna Lamia



The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall narrated by Jenna Lamia

I loved this book…I loved all the characters and wish the book hadn’t ended!

I honestly fell in love with Polly and her daughter Willow these two had me laughing and crying both are such fantastic characters and I do mean characters.  When we first meet Polly she has a falcon on her shoulder during a school meeting, I loved the during this meeting there is a line that Willow says,

 “I was in fact a liar, I had told some lies and even worse some truths about my mother to my classmates, in my defense she was great fodder and this was years before she killed our neighbor.”

How can anyone resist that line? I had to know more about Polly and so does Willow. Willow is a late in life child and her father died before she was born so it was pretty much Polly and Willow against the world, yes, she had older siblings but they were older and out of the house already. We do meet them and I loved her brother Shel her sister is kind of an odd duck but that is to be expected.  I really enjoyed the scenes with Shel and the resolution of this storyline was very fulfilling.

Willow understands her mother is older than most of the kids but she worries most about her mother getting THE BEAR which in Polly’s world is cancer and this does make Willow a little anxious about Polly. Also Willow is really curious about Polly’s younger years all she knows is her mother has never gone back to her hometown and that something awful happened there and Willow is bound and determined to find out, just as determined as Polly is to keep her secrets.


Jenna Lamia’s narration was fabulous she was perfect as Willow and she also got to do some other fun voices like the Preacher at the end oh my that was great narration. Fabulous job.

Fans of CeeCee (Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman)  Starla  (Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall) or Swan ( The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield) will love this book as much as I did. Southern fiction, funny and oh the feels.

5 Stars

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan narrated by, Peter Ganim



The Unquiet Dead: A Novel (Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1) by Ausma Zehanat Khan narrated by, Peter Ganim



This was an interesting book not only a good mystery but an excellent history lesson about the war in Bosnia and the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.

Esa & Rachel handle minority-sensitive cases but their new case doesn’t seem to fall under that purview or does it. Christopher Drayton was murdered but why are Esa & Rachel on the case? Drayton had a secret a big one and some people knew did one of them kill him? Was he really who he said he was or was he a Bosnian war Criminal living in obscurity right next door to refugees?

I really liked this story, we get a nice background on our two main characters and how they ended up as partners. I will be curious in the next book to find out even more about Rachel and her brother.   I also found it very fascinating to have some of the transcripts from the war tribunal as that really added a lot to the story. I also liked the setting in Canada and couldn’t help thinking of a crossover book with Inspector Gamache. 

Peter Ganim’s narration was very good and I was glad to have the correct pronunciations to people’s names. There was only one voice that grated on me and that was the hysterical Melanie Blasant, just in the one section it got a bit screechy but she was an awful person so I’m not positive it was her or the voice I was reacting to. I would definitely listen to more books narrated by Peter Ganim.

I have already bought the 2nd book in this series and look forward to the 3rd book coming soon. I highly recommend this series, the writing was very good and the characters are ones I believe you will get behind and really like.


4 Stars