Jealous, child-bearing women live and love.
Category: Skip it
Better Homes & Corpses by Kathleen Bridge read by Vanessa Daniels
A decorator who wants to sell antiques on Long Island finds a dead body will doing an inventory for a wealthy woman. Not really about decorating and not really a mystery.
The Second Chance Cafe by Alison Kent read by Natalie Ross
Hope Springs: A foster child lovingly raised in an old Victorian house comes back, buys the old house, and opens up a Bakery Cafe where she can sell her special brownies.
Everything to Lose by Andrew Gross read by Tavia Gilbert
“It was no longer about the money, it was that innocent people had died.” This insincere, formulaic, unremarkable thought is thought yet again by Hilary the victim in the 68th Chapter of this disappointing ‘thriller’. Another poor and pretty mother, another psychopath, another Asperbergers child. Who cares?
Tidewater Inn by Colleen Coble read by Devon O’Day
Libby, an archeological historian who works on historic preservation is informed that she has inherited a run down inn in a beach town where her father lived. “Why isn’t this place in the historical register?” she asks the Sheriff, who is helping her find her kidnapped friend. The kidnapping makes a semi romantic semi coming-into-money story into a (bad) mystery. Asking “What would Jesus do?” turns a (bad) romantic mystery into (bad) Christian fiction. Good narrator, though.
Lisa Gardner, Touch & Go
Lisa Gardner is a genius at thesis statements. My favorite is: “a family is a system” (Hide). Or maybe: “A computer is a portal, you know, an entry point into your home.” (The Neighbor)
This book’s thesis statement is: “Pain has a flavor.” And like all good thesis statements, it tells you what the book is about.
And like all of Gardner’s books, Touch & Go bubbles and boils and troubles in all the right ways. Yeppers, this is a thriller. But does it have to give such an ugly picture of the family, of fatherhood, of wealth? Must you listen to another 5 hours of human beings torturing, humiliating, or degrading other human beings. This isn’t the evening news.
If you find yourself skipping one track, then another, and another, just turn off the audio. Isn’t that better?