My 2023 AudioBookReviews

I listened to quite a few AudioBookReviews this year. For some reason I often find them harder to review (and to like) than paperbacks so I’ve decided to only give a rating in general and only give a more complete review of what I found the worst and the best audiobook that I listened to this year. Let’s see if I can surprise you…

The Prisoner by B.A. Paris :

False Witness by Karin Slaughter:

The Drift by CJ Tudor:

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllistar:

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer – I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth – and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

This is one of the most enjoyable audiobooks I listened to so far. It’s narrated by Dawn Harvey and Christine Lakin and I absolutely loved both voices (I only found out now that Christine – the younger voice – is actually kind of a celebrity and starred in a 90’s TV show called “Step By Step”).

Anyway The Only One Left is a story about Kit, a caregiver who doesn’t really have a choice but to accept a position at Hope’s End where she needs to take care of Lenora Hope, someone suspected of murdering her entire family. Kit isn’t without a mysterious past either because rumor has it she had a hand in helping her terminal mother die.

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

The novel is very atmospheric and there are a lot of strange things happening in the crumbling manor but it can’t possibly be Lenora moving about, can it? But then who is keeping Lenora from telling Kit what happened on that fateful night, and why?

I couldn’t figure this one out AT ALL. Riley Sager is still at the top of his game with awesome twists and turns and I’m telling you, this mystery is a killer read! It’s amazing that he could surprise me so much with such a small setting and cast but my jaw practically dropped to the floor when reading this one. I’m afraid to say I already made my top 10 post this year but it really deserves a place among my most favorite reads this year.

Could you hate your neighbour enough to plot to kill him?

Until Darren Booth moves in at number 1, Lowland Way, the neighbourhood is a suburban paradise. But soon after his arrival, disputes over issues like loud music and parking rights escalate all too quickly to public rows and threats of violence.

Then, early one Saturday, a horrific crime shocks the street. As the police go house to house, the residents close ranks and everyone’s story is the same: Booth did it. But there’s a problem. The police don’t agree with them.

Since I loved The Only Suspect so much I thought I’d try one from the backlist as an audiobook. Those People centers around some fateful events and the people in the street of Lowland Way that could be responsible for it. Ant and Em, Finn and Tess, Ralph and Naomi, and Sissi across the street all have their reasons to hate their newest neighbours Darren Booth and Jodie -I-dont-even-know-her-surname. Booth is the neighbour from hell, playing loud music and keeping everyone awake next door, blocking the street with his many cars since he started to sell them from the house… The problems are numerous and they build up and up and there’s nothing they can do.. until one night the tables are turned. Who’s behind it though and will it have the desired effect?

Have you read Murder on the Orient Express? Well I advise you to do so beforehand because the author gives away the entire plottwist of Agatha Christie’s novel. I’m sorry but that’s so not done and totally unnecessary as well. She might throw the reader a line that this novel might be similar but it is not. There you go, you might as well know.

Those People wasn’t all that interesting, it was a bit too slow for my taste and I didn’t really care much about the people, except for Sissi who owns a b&b and suffers greatly from the attitude of the man living across the street. Her guests are leaving bad reviews so she might have no other choice then to close her business, if the site doesn’t make her already. I also found it not so easy to distinguish the who’s who of some of the characters, they didn’t really stand out so much individually.

The whodunnit was surprising and so was the victim in this story but the characters were not developed enough and it was not always easy to keep everyone apart. The case was intriguing but it was all a bit drawn out so since I don’t have a two and a half star graphic I’ll give it three stars. I can hardly believe it’s the same author who wrote this novel I absolutely loved (The Only Suspect), her writing seems to have grown massively. If it was the other way round I’d probably would have given up on her now but I know what she’s capable of so I do keep an eye out for future work!

The Family Upstairs | The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell #AudioBookReview

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

It’s rare but here’s finally another audiobook that I loved. The fact that I immediately continued with the sequel says it all. I wasn’t a fan of this author (I rated my first read of hers in 2009 with only 2 stars) but I gave it a second try and made a complete turnaround now. The Family Upstairs was very engaging, tragic and full of madness.

Book 1 is about David Thompsen who moves in with his children (Clemency and Finn(eas)) and a woman called Birdy in tow with the Lamb family. David starts to take over the whole house and everybody needs to comply to his rules. His influence on the others grows organically but as the novel progresses his dictatorship spirals horribly out of control. The adults seem to be under his spell but young Henry Lamb is very observant and starts to ask questions about their situation. How can a young boy take on such a controlling leader though when he finds himself all alone in this? In another thread in the present 25 year old Libby Jones inherits the house where she was found as a baby. All the other children who lived there disappeared and the adults were found dead.

The two plotlines went along great together and I loved how the author worked her way towards revealing Libby’s family history and the family’s deadly end. This novel started out as one thing but then suddenly had cult-like vibes and I was captivated by it all. I felt sorry for Henry but at the same time the author attributed a sort of creepiness as well to him, what with his obsession over Finn. Was it a young man’s exploration of his own identity or was there more to it? It was strangely addictive trying to reach a conclusion. I can’t think of any negative to say about this very atmospheric novel that had no trouble at all drawing me in.

The narration was great as well  and if you’re new to audiobooks this is certainly one I’d recommend.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

In the sequel to The Family Upstaires there are three plotlines to follow. There’s the continuation of Libby’s new family life with the search for her father, there’s a police investigation into a murder (or two) and there’s the story of Rachel and Michael (he happens to be Lucy’s ex-husband).

I enjoyed all three plotlines but one of them stood out for me as I noticed I was always looking forward to returning to Rachel’s story more than the others. It might be because it was again the most emotional of them so that it had the biggest impact on me. This storyline provides similarities to the one in her first novel, which is probably why she wanted to play with this format again. Another situation but again where there’s a domineering man involved, and where you simply don’t see what’s coming at first. If you haven’t learned a lesson to be cautious in life with who you meet and pick up on certain signals and then act on them immediately, then I don’t know what will. In this instance Rachel meets Michael and what follows is a whirlwind romance. When it’s too good to be true, it usually is. Michael seems to want it all to go his way and when Rachel doesn’t follow him in his ways, he acts up. It was easy to root and care for Rachel and I hoped she would come out of this unscathed.

The search for Libby’s father was a bit slow and what I’d feared for after all the build up (Henry trying to hide his whereabouts with all of his means from his family in order to find him on his own) didn’t happen at all. So the twist felt a little anticlimatic, hence the four stars instead of five.

Overall this book gave me the closure that I needed after that first novel’s rather open ending. It is necessary to read these books in order so that you understand this family before you start the second book.

In both books the characters were really well developed and I felt an emotional attachment so really well done, I absolutely enjoyed listening to these two fabulously narrated audiobooks!

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid #AudioBookReview

A lifetime holding it together.

One party will bring it crashing down.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the centre of attention and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro-tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them…and what they will leave behind.

Even though Malibu Rising isn’t typically the genre of novel I’m used to reading, I don’t regret giving it a go. This was my second read by the author and having listened to this novel I think I already have a good idea what her bestseller The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo would be like.

Malibu Rising is a family drama about the Riva’s. The story starts with a very young and yet to be famous Mick who tries to win the heart of June and it ends with the current love lives of their children Nina, Jay, Hud and Kit (Katherine).

I really loved the chapters set in the past with the heartbreaking romance between Mick and June. I was captivated with their push and pull relationship and I rooted hard for them, well for June most of all because the pitfalls of fame and the lure of Mick’s many female admirers make him quite an absentee father. All things considered it’s quite a tragic story, and the star of the whole novel is Nina, which was clear quite early on and I’m so happy the ending revolved around her as well.

The narration by Julia Whelan was fabulous all the way through and although there were many scenes worth mentioning then I’d say the scene between Carrie Soto and Brandon, shouting on the lawn in front of Nina’s house was done with so much vigour that it’s one of my favourite moments.

The only remark I can make is that the party wasn’t all that interesting and when it is finally in full swing there were too many characters arriving and they didn’t really add anything important to the story. When they were mentioned again in the round up I didn’t know half of them anymore. Against all this background turbulence the Riva children flock together once again and the big question they’ll have to answer is what they’re going to do, whether they’ll stand together as a family or not. I’m happy I didn’t need to make that choice on their behalf but I believe they did the right thing.

Overall this was an enjoyable audiobook where I enjoyed some parts more than others. The party guests took away from the story and they dominated that part a bit too much but the ending was so apt. The Riva mansion going up in flames as mentioned in the synopsis and in the prologue of the novel didn’t even feel so bad anymore in the end, which was a finding I hadn’t expected at all. It wraps up the story beautifully.

Psychopaths Anonymous by Will Carver #AudioBookReview

Maeve has everything. A high-powered job, a beautiful home and a string of uncomplicated one-night encounters. She’s also an addict – a functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men.

When she can’t find a support group to share her obsession, she creates her own. And Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Friends of Maeve.

Now in a serious relationship, Maeve wants to keep the group a secret. But not everyone in the group adheres to the rules, and when a reckless member raises suspicions with the police, Maeve’s drinking spirals out of control. She needs to stop killing. She needs to close the group. But Maeve can’t seem to quit the things that are bad for her, including her new man….

Psychopaths Anonymous is a scathing, violent and darkly funny audiobook about love, connection, obsessions and sex – and the aspects of human nature we’d prefer to hide.

This is my second novel by this author and I bought the audiobook with my last Audible credit. I thought I started off on the wrong foot with the first one but now I’m having to admit that this author is probably not a match for me.

First of all, I have come to realize that I prefer books with a clear and predictable structure, a question at the start of a novel waiting for an answer, a heads up on what mystery needs to be solved. I however got into this novel without anything to hold on to except the 12 steps of AA. But where will it lead after reaching step 12, what is the purpose of the story? After a good part of the story, when it dawned on me what ticked Maeve’s boxes, I was questioning if she would get caught as a serial killer, who the next victim would be, and if she would kill her sexual partner in the end, but her overall thoughts didn’t really interest me as much as wanted them to.

Lots of people are fascinated by psychopaths and how their brain works, as am I, and I probably read and watched a few too many romanticized versions where you can find some redeeming qualities in the characters because there was nothing sympathetic about Maeve. I’m definitely not ‘A Friend of Maeve’ in any way. She’s this know-it-all alcoholic psychopath who joins several group meetings (including AA with the intent to steal some ideas for her own group meeting of Psychopaths Anonymous) because she loves other people’s misery and it obviously feeds her feelings of superiority. I didn’t like Maeve at all, but it might be more worrisome if I did.

Psychopaths Anonymous is not for the faint of heart. Even I found it quite crude when Maeve describes one of her murders in gruesome detail, I must be turning soft now I’m a year older. There is a big dose of violence, alcohol and sex within these pages but I’m somewhat surprised myself that what probably bothered me most were her opinions on God and faith. It was a recurring theme and it didn’t sit well with me how she ridiculed people who find support and solace in their belief. Each to their own of course, and I’m an atheist as well but it felt quite harsh and repetitive.

I looked up the traits of a psychopath and she’s a 100% perfect fit so the author did a great job. I won’t spoil where this story is going to go and if she’s able to keep on hiding body parts in her freezer from Seth, the one person she doesn’t grow tired of. I don’t know what the chances are in real life of this ending happening as it was in this novel, but as far as fictional worlds go, I have to say I’m feeling ok with the way the author ended things for Maeve. I don’t regret sticking to it till the end because I simply had to know how it was going to be wrapped up but in all honesty I probably won’t give it a third shot.

I bought an copy of this audiobook. This is my honest opinion.

The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen | Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough #Audiobooks

Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all—until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath their veneer of perfection is a relationship riven by work and a lack of intimacy. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers.

Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate.

When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.

/

I really enjoyed listening to Karissa Vacker and Marin Ireland, the narrators of this audiobook. Karissa takes on Marissa’s voice and Marin is Avery’s in this story. That way we hear from Marissa and her husband Matthew who seek Avery’s unconventional therapist’s support. Marissa fears her husband’s reaction about her infidelity so she confesses in the presence of Avery and hopes she can give them the tools to overcome this and stay together.

Avery knows Marissa is holding back something and is determined to find out what it is. She likes to dig in deep and her methods are unorthodox but thorough. I loved hearing from Avery and she was the most interesting character of the novel.

There is a lot going on in both Marissa’s life and Avery’s lives which make this audiobook anything but dull. There are some interesting side characters too who add to the story in Marissa’s bubbly shopping assistant and Avery’s love interests Derek and Skip. There is also an undercurrent of danger and threat that seems to be related to the complaint Avery made in name of a client, another plotline in the story, but when I found one plotline slowly seeping into the other, I questioned even that and I couldn’t wait to see how everything was related to each other.

There was absolutely nothing I can put my finger on that made me like but not love The Golden Couple. Even if it’s not my favorite title from one of my favorite authors, it was still entertaining and cleverly crafted.

In the dead of night, madness lies….

Emma can’t sleep.

Check the windows….

It’s been like this since her big 4-0 started getting closer.

Lock the doors….

Her mother stopped sleeping just before her 40th birthday, too. She went mad and did the unthinkable because of it.

Look in on the children….

Is that what’s happening to Emma?

Why can’t she sleep?

I loved reading Behind Her Eyes in 2017 and Cross Her Heart in 2020 so this was the author’s third book for me. Insomnia definitely leans towards Behind Her Eyes with the story hung up on one shocking twist. Even though I’m not a fan of unrational things I could get behind what she had planned all along so I didn’t feel cheated in the end. My patience was pushed to the limit at the beginning however and I have to congratulate myself for seeing it through.

This was one of the biggest slow burner novels I have read in the last years and it was only at 40% into the story that the first big exciting thing happens that pulls the story open and presents at least a mystery I could perhaps get my head around more. Up until that point Emma Averall is having weird thoughts, she has numbers in her head, she recites certain words (which will stick in your head too by the end of the book!) and there are a few other strange things happening that remind her of her childhood. She’s worrying about her 40th birthday coming soon because her mother went crazy on her 40th birthday and she wonders if the same is happening to her. The author doesn’t give anything more to cling to so despite all this weirdness I felt a little bored at times and I didn’t feel as much tension as was probably intended. Thankfully a suspicious death marked the turning point and I became more interested in Emma and her family from thereon.

I didn’t really feel the connection with Emma but that didn’t deter me from my goal to find out the truth. Emma is an unreliable narrator so during the whole story I was left wondering if she really did have mental health issues and whether she had anything to do with this death. I didn’t want to believe so but there was always some degree of uncertainty. The author seemingly enjoyed keeping her readers in the dark, only ramping up the craziness a few notches as the story progressed so, much like Behind Her Eyes, I had to wait till the end for it all to make sense.

You have to undergo this story and wait for the surprise but if you do hang in there is a great twist waiting for you in the end.

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward – The Housemaid by Sarah A. Denzil #AudioBookReviews

This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his daughter, Lauren, and his cat, Olivia, in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.

All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies.

You think you know what’s inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you’ve come across this story before. In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, something lies buried. But it’s not what you think….

Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for this or maybe it was because of the animal cruelty (of birds) described in the first chapters of the novel but it wasn’t a good start and it ended up being quite a challenging audiobook, even though I quite liked the narration. The Last House on Needless Street was soooo weird for sooo long! I really struggled in the beginning and if it hadn’t been because I had already heard so much about it and seen this novel on favorite lists I’m not sure if I had continued. But perseverance is my middle name (ahem) so I’m happy I finally know the secret of this book. The plot is original although it went very slowly and didn’t make much sense at times what was going on. There are three voices in the novel and Ted Bannerman is this strange guy who lives in a delipated and boarded up house next to a forest. Olivia the indoor cat loves Ted and makes observations now and again. Then there’s Lauren, Ted’s daughter, who isn’t always there but when she is her moods are often eratic. I had guessed the clue of the story early on but not the exact extent of it, how encompassing it would turn out to be. In the end the author made it even more difficult with the stairs, the basement, the colours of the rugs and it almost became a bit too much to digest. I like seeing things in my mind but it was impossible to conjure up how this would look on screen or in real life.

I understand why so many readers praise it and talk about it so much because it really is special and the idea behind it – as the author explains in the afterword – is great but if you ask me if I want to read/listen to it again then the answer is no.

Housemaid wanted.

Skills required: discretion, and the willingness to go the extra mile.

It seems like the perfect job. Great wages, accommodation provided and all located within the walls of Highwood Hall, a stunning stately home owned by the Howard family. Not many little girls dream of becoming a maid, but this is an opportunity for me to get back on my feet. And for me to revisit my past….

But I soon realise I’ve made a mistake. The strict housekeeper, Mrs Huxley, watches my every move, emerging from the shadows when least expected. Lord Howard’s son, Alex, takes an interest in me, and as a former addict, I find myself drawn to him because I know he’s bad for me. There’s a general atmosphere of unease at Highwood Hall, from the narrow tunnels laced throughout the sprawling house, to the abandoned north wing, rumoured to be haunted. It’s easy to imagine the secrets hidden within these walls, like the secrets I hold close.

On my first day, I receive a mysterious package. I open up the pretty gift box to find a miniature doll version of me trapped inside a dollhouse. In this scene I’m dead, lying in a pool of red paint at the bottom of the perfectly recreated staircase. Someone sent this threatening diorama to me, but who even knows I work at the hall? And what do they want?

I know only one truth: my perfect job is turning into my perfect nightmare.

I enjoyed The Housemaid in the format of an audiobook. The narrator Sophie Rundle spoke with clear pronounciation and had a pleasant voice and I’d certainly not mind listening to her again in the future.

The story takes place in the present but I sometimes really felt I was transported to the Victorian era and the modern references almost felt out of place. I did get used to this unusual blend and I became fascinated quite soon with the strange diorama that turned up on Ruby’s first day. Who was it from and what was its purpose? Did someone want to see her gone before she had even started? There were definitely strange things going on in that house and it was all very atmospheric.

I really enjoyed the first three parts of the book but I found it harder to enjoy the final part. The characters were interesting and believable, but then at the end it all seemed a little far fetched to me. There were some shocking truths in the end that I hadn’t entirely seen coming so there is that but it unfolded as if someone had pulled a plug and there was not enough explanation to make me believe what I read. I think I would have liked it more if Ruby had found out more gradually so the pacing would have been more consistent with the rest of the novel and motives and thoughts could be more developed so it would sound more believable.

All in all it was not a bad novel per se and I see the potential of this author’s writing so I might give another novel a go in the future if I have the opportunity.

Of dog walkers and yoga retreats: Sleeping Dogs Lie by Samantha Downing | The Getaway by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen #AudioBookReviews

I chose two short novellas (around 2 hours of listening time each) because I love reading books written by these authors and I wanted to see if their audiobooks would be equally brilliant.

Shelby works as a dog walker in northern California, and she’s just finished up her bi-weekly trip to the park with a husky named Pluto. When she brings him back to his house, she finds his owner – Todd Burke, a well-known local businessman and founder of an organic supplements company – lying on the bathroom floor, dead. A detective arrives on the scene. As she interviews Shelby, the body is inspected by a medical examiner, and more cops search Todd’s home, it becomes clear that the victim’s life was less picture-perfect than his clean-cut persona might lead you to believe.

If you love animals you’ll enjoy listening to this audiobook. I normally give novellas a miss but I fell for the mention of the author and the dog in Sleeping Dogs Lie. The author managed to create an entertaining mystery about the murder of a husky’s owner. Pluto seemed like a goofy and affectionate dog, especially with his interest in neighbouring little doggie Daisy. I didn’t expect the dog and his dog walker to be so front and center of the story but I loved that it revolves around them. Pluto’s owners had joined custody, his neighbour wanted him to leave his dog alone and threatened to kill Pluto…  So who killed Todd? Detective Grady tries to make sense of it all. There are a few suspects but I totally didn’t expect this outcome. Great twist and motive!

Prepare yourself for a transformative experience. Sometimes, life’s setbacks contain hidden gifts. Here at Lakewood, you’ll find the space to unwrap them.

A weekend at the Lakewood Retreat is exactly what Chloe Powell needs. Freshly unemployed after her boss loses a reelection campaign, the former press secretary desperately wants a break from the bustle of Washington, DC. A flier posted at her yoga studio leads her to the getaway, which looks amazing: Organic meals, celebrity testimonials, and a serene private property within driving distance of the city.

It’s so perfect, in fact, that Chloe’s barely bothered by the intensely personal questions she’s asked in her application, or the unnerving social experiments her enigmatic host, Sebastian, imposes on her once she arrives at his remote cabin. But when a mysterious new guest shows up, Chloe can no longer suppress her rising panic: This place is not at all what it seems.

Another duo that knows how to deliver unexpected twists. Unfortunately, for some reason and especially knowing what this author duo is capable of, I expected more from it. It started off really good, I was hooked at the start and alarm bells went off as soon as Chloé arrived at the retreat. There was that unsettling feeling where you can’t put your finger on what is wrong exactly hanging in the air and possible scenarios were trying to take form in my head. When another guest finally arrives it became clear what was going on but I didn’t feel as excited with this twist as I should have been. The tension was ramped up in the end and I did cheer Chloé along. This was ok but you’re not missing out if you haven’t listened to this.

I downloaded these audiobooks from Audible for free, as part of my membership. Do let me know what your thoughts were if you have listened to these audiobooks in the past!

Who is playing games? The Christmas Murder Game / The Other Mrs #AudioBookReviews

This Christmas is to die for…. Let the game begin.

Lily Armitage never intended to return to Endgame House – the grand family home where her mother died 21 Christmases ago. Until she receives a letter from her aunt, asking her to return to take part in an annual tradition: the Christmas Game. The challenge? Solve 12 clues, to find 12 keys. The prize? The deeds to the manor house.

Lily has no desire to win the house. But her aunt makes one more promise: the clues will also reveal who really killed Lily’s mother all those years ago.

So, for the 12 days of Christmas, Lily must stay at Endgame House with her estranged cousins and unravel the riddles that hold the key not just to the family home, but to its darkest secrets. However, it soon becomes clear that her cousins all have their own reasons for wanting to win the house – and not all of them are playing fair.

As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, the game turns deadly. Soon Lily realises that she is no longer fighting for an inheritance, but for her life.

Twelve clues. Twelve keys. Twelve days of Christmas.

But who will survive until Twelfth Night?

I listened to numerous samples on Audible and I chose The Christmas Murder Game because a. then I could finally say that I read a Christmas themed novel this year and b. I loved the narration by Laura Costello instantly, she has a very pleasant voice to listen to. Oh and if there ever even needed to be a third reason, I also do love a locked-in type of novel on any given day.

I was spoilt with the characters, well until, one by one, they started to die of course. But when Lily enters Endgame House, a hotel and conference venue that comes with its very own labyrinthe next to it, she is met by her cousins: the ever lovely Sara (not!), Rachel en Holly (I appreciate the author for choosing a lesbian couple among the family and for not making a thing of it), and then there’s Rony and his wife Philippa, Tom and Lily herself who both arrive single.

I was eager to get started with the clues but the start was a little slow as the first clue only happened when I reached Chapter 9. But when we were off we were off with a good start. Each of the twelve days of Christmas has a clue in the form of a sonnet which leads to a key. The sonnets were intriguing but too hard for me to find the clues in them myself so I had to be led by Lily (as she’s the star who can solve them with ease) which was quite ok for me even though I had hoped to be able to unravel some of it myself.

The clues were a nice touch but I enjoyed the search for two killers most of all. There is of course the killer in the house whose only goal is to get his or her hands on the house but there’s also the search for the person who killed Lily’s mother Mariana and because that happened 20 years earlier it was safe to assume that it was someone else than the present killer, but who and why?

I can’t say I didn’t see some of it coming in the end, especially when they’re down to only a few persons but I was very interested to see how Lily would escape death and with her quick thinking she definitely didn’t let me down. I was quite satisfied with the way the story ended. Maybe not the most memorable novel out there but all in all quite an entertaining audiobook.

When Sadie moves with her husband, Will, and their two children to a tiny coastal town, it’s a fresh start. Will swears the affair he was having back in the city is over, and Sadie believes him. But their new beginning is tainted when a local woman is murdered, leaving Sadie convinced there’s a killer in their midst.

Hot-headed, beautiful Camille is obsessively in love with Will. She’s even prepared to follow him thousands of miles to stake out his new home in secret – and in doing so, becomes the only witness to a brutal crime.

But who is Camille really, and what is her connection to the dead woman? And as the murder investigation deepens, whose secret will be revealed as the darkest of them all?

The narration (mainly by Piper Goodeve) was fine but I did pick this one up because of the author. I read and loved Kubica’s first novel years ago (about an abducted girl) and while I have another paperback on my tbr pile, I couldn’t resist choosing this title to listen to.

There’s a really big twist in this novel which will illicit a five star rating if it hits you from the side, but I actually read a novel with the same twist in 2014 and it was such an unforgettable twist, so it was literally staring me in the face this time with a big neon flash. The idea was formed in my head when Will and Sadie were summoned to their son’s school and I found confirmation not much later again by things that were said. From then on it was simply enjoyable to see how the author cleverly manipulated the reader in the rest of the story.

The Other Mrs also serves several snippets of a 6 year old girl named Mouse, and at the beginning it really wasn’t clear how these fit into the whole story, or even who the girl is. Is it the little girl of the dead woman, Imogen when she was young, Camille, Sadie? With my growing insight it did start to make sense though and I liked that the author chose to insert this background story. Mouse – whose real name we don’t get to hear until the end – tries to be a good little girl but ‘fake mom’ calls her ‘a rodent’ among other things, when her father isn’t around to hear it. I can usually handle reading about domestic abuse fairly well but it became more heartbreaking as time went on and it hurt to hear this anonymous girl talk about what was happening to her without knowing what was going on. It is relevant to the story though and it definitely helps to understand all of it in the end.

Even though I figured out the biggest twist (debatable) I was still very surprised in the end because the author had one more surprise up her sleeve. I nearly fell off my chair when I read it because there was no foreshadowing for this turn of events!

This novel has everything in it to keep you hooked so I do recommend this thrilling mystery! I’d give it a star more if it hadn’t been so obvious early on what was going on. I’m definitely very interested to read some of Kubica’s other novels now.

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins #AudioBookReview

Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She’s seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous.

Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace?

Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.

I’m a fan of the actress Rosamund Pike since I saw her in her role as Amy in Gone Girl and now she’s also one of my favorite narrators, if not my most favorite one so far! I give 5 stars for the narration of this novel and 3.5 to 4 stars for the plot. There were plenty of characters in this novel and thanks to the brilliant narration each character had its clear own voice. The narration was delivered with a lot of intonation as well and I loved how Pike shouted and sang and cried quite convincingly throughout the novel, I wasn’t bored for a second. I’m convinced that being an actress is a big advantage for the narration of audiobooks.

The whole plot revolves around a numerous cast of people living close together, Laura, Carla, Miriam, Irene and Theo and their involvement in each other’s lives and in the lives of Angela and her son Daniel, the two characters who ended up dead not long apart from each other. Miriam’s narrowboat was positioned next to Daniel Sutherland’s boat so she had a good view who came and went and she saw Laura on the fatal day. Does this mean that Laura stabbed him to death? Laura is a bit of a clumsy girl, she was a victim in a hit and run accident when she was young and faces many difficulties every day which results in sudden bursts of angry behaviour. She’s 25 and often does shopping for Irene, the old lady living next door to Daniel’s mother Angela, who in turn was the sister of Carla. Miriam feels a kinship to Laura because she was a victim too as a student when she was lured into a desolate house which she only narrowly escaped. Intermittent with the general story there’s also snippets of a book called ‘The One Who Got Away’ which was fascinating to listen to although it didn’t feel as if it blended in exactly with the rest of story. After a while though it did became clear that there’s an issue that arose with its publication which also plays an important part in the story.

The author certainly took on a lot, I think you get the gist that this was not a simple story but a complex one with connections between the many different characters. I found it hard to distinguish Irene and Miriam’s story right away but with the building of their histories and lives they soon became two very different people in my mind too. I have to say that after a while I was so caught up in the tragedies of their lives (Carla and Theo lost their little boy for example) that I didn’t miss that there wasn’t a lot of progress happening in finding out who killed Daniel. It’s only in the third and last part of the novel that the big mystery received all the attention and after a few twists and turns and some red herrings, the mystery came to a satisfying conclusion.

In essence: A Slow Fire Burning is a complex family drama and it was fulfilling to discover how the puzzle pieces of the deaths finally fit together.

3 #AudioBookReviews with family drama

I’m still listening to audiobooks and it’s going very well thank you (I signed up for 3 months of audible at 2,99 £ so there’s definitely more to come too). I picked a few titles that interested me but that I wouldn’t necessary pick as a first choice to read. Normally that would mean I wouldn’t get to these books in the next 10 years but now, thanks to them being on audio and being able to squeeze in 15 or 30 minutes here and there, I can review them much sooner. 

Here are 3 audiobooks with some serious family drama and a bit of mystery. I loved Everything I Never Told You most of all but do check out Hurry Home and The Wife Stalker too! 

Hurry Home by Roz Nay

Alexandra Van Ness has the perfect life. She lives in an idyllic resort town tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, shares a designer loft with her handsome boyfriend, Chase, and has her dream job working in child protection. Every day, Alex goes above and beyond to save children at risk.

But when her long-lost sister, Ruth, unexpectedly shows up at her door, Alex’s perfect life is upended. Growing up, Ruth was always the troublemaker, pulling Alex into her messes, and this time will be no different. Still, Alex will help Ruth under one condition: we will never, ever, talk about the past. But when trouble befalls a local child, both women are forced to confront the secrets they’ve promised to keep buried.

The novel is about two estranged sisters Alex and Ruth. Alex is introduced first showing her acting in her role as a child protection social worker. She seems devoted to the job, caring while her colleague Minerva doesn’t seem to see that a child is not properly being taken care of. She is righteous and dutiful but even her boss Morris lets himself be convinced by Minerva that the child in question, Buster, is fine to stay at home with his parents. Then Ruth shows up at her home, the sister she hasn’t seen in over 10 years, since Ruth ran away from home. Snippets of the past start to trickle in and something about that past is definitely off but I couldn’t put my finger on what we were dealing with. The change of perspective by each sister was interesting. The biggest question was establishing who the reliable sister was in the story because after a while they both seem quite fitting. It wasn’t a bad story but it didn’t really make me feel excited either.  

Hurry Home is a rather slow burning mystery or family drama, which kept me entertained but the narrator of the story (Hillary Huber) didn’t make the two voices very different so I didn’t feel as much difference between the sisters as I would have liked and it made listening a bit monotonous. 

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue – in Marilyn’s case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James’s case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the centre of every party. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in 1970s small town Ohio. Her father is an American born of first-generation Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous in any setting.

When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt and sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to make someone accountable, no matter what the cost. Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is convinced that local bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it’s the youngest in the family – Hannah – who observes far more than anyone realises and who may be the only one who knows what really happened.

Everything I Never Told You is a gripping page-turner, about secrets, love, longing, lies and race.

 

Another family drama but one that touched me so much more. I really enjoyed listening to the soft spoken voice of the narrator (Cassandra Campbell) and the mystery why Lydia killed herself was quite compelling. Lydia had it all, she was a brilliant student and had lots of friends. She makes her parents proud and it’s safe to say that she’s their parents favorite child too. When her mother finds a packet of condoms in her backpack after her daughter died, it seems she didn’t know her so well after all. The author goes back to that one decisive moment in history that is the first drop in a bucket that will overflow in the end. The story behind their terrible loss takes root even before Hannah was born, with Marilyn’s longing to become a doctor herself. Things definitely took a different turn. 

Everything I Never Told You is a tragic story. It took me a few chapters to get into it, as I didn’t feel it at first when Marilyn and James meet at the university as student and professor in the beginning and their lives didn’t interest me as much, but once Lydia started telling her side of the story, I was completely sucked into it. Lydia is carrying a weight, she does everything to make her parents happy, even at her own cost. It is a story of loneliness, of being misunderstood, of not belonging neither here or there. It seems incomprehensible at the start why she would have killed herself but in the end the tragic nature that led to these deadly consequences is so clear. The story felt very real to me, the story and characters were well rounded and I recommend this audiobook with any reservations.

The Wife Stalker by Liv Constantine

Joanna and Leo seem to have the perfect relationship. Two adorable children, a beautiful house in a chic area of Connecticut – they have the kind of life people envy.

Then Piper moves to town. Piper is young, attractive, flirtatious. It’s almost no wonder Leo is tempted away…

Devastated, Joanna starts digging into Piper’s past, and discovers some very disturbing secrets – not least that Piper’s previous two husbands ended up dead. But Piper dismisses Joanna’s fears for her family as paranoia. Who is telling the truth? Joanna? Piper? The only certainty in this web of lies is that no one is who they appear to be…and no one will escape unscathed.

Another family oriented novel with two women telling the story, the only catch being that you don’t know who is telling the truth. It’s very much a Piper versus Joanna story and with Joanne pushed out of the picture and out of the lives of Leo and her children, it was easy to be on team Joanna from the start. The further into the story the more I questioned Piper’s character too. Her past raises some serious questions and Joanne is convinced Piper wants to harm her children. Is it true? Piper is having difficulties winning the children’s sympathy and it’s clear that Stellie’s behaviour is a struggle for her but would she really harm him? How will Joanna make Leo see Piper for who she really is? I didn’t really like Leo either for putting Joanna aside so casually while she stood by him during his depression and I didn’t understand at all why they chose to tell the children Evie and Stellie that their mother is dead and not let Joanna see them. I felt that quite insensitive and unnecessary. With hindsight it all made sense though.

It didn’t help that I loved the narration of Joanna’s voice so much more than Piper’s. I just noticed that both voices were actually narrated by Julia Whelan but for some reason I thought there were two narrators.

There is also one helluva twist in this novel that I didn’t see coming at all and for that alone it deserves at least 4 stars. Pulling this off takes amazing skill. 

A novel that kept me guessing what the deal was for the longest time!