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A Soft Place to Fall by Barbara Bretton read by Wendy Tremont King

Jealous, child-bearing women live and love.

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?

19 Years of Reviews

Meg, a rude, prickly, well dressed matchmaker goes to a celebrity resort with a famous actor, hiding his homosexuality. The resort promises privacy, secrecy, security. She spars and eventually falls in love with the owner. But instead of privacy and secrecy, the resort harbors someone who takes pictures of the actor and hisSeduced by Sunday by Catherine Bybee read by Tanya Eby

Jake is the kind of guy that tells his girlfriend to stop using some pheromonal perfume by Clinique because it "messes with his head". But apart from perfume, he is singularly unfussed. He is streetwise, he is attentive, and he belongs inside his own body. But he belongs nowherePower Play by Joseph Finder read by Dennis Boutsikaris

When she catches some of her wealthy highschool students plagiarizing their English papers, Carly wants to fail them. Instead, the School Headmistress tells her that she is being vindictive, and that Carly must overlook the "childish lapse in judgement" and give them another chance. It is on that veryA Table by the Window by Lawana Blackwell read by Andrea Gallo

Author of 41 books of Christian fiction (and never a best seller) gets used to living with her annoying mother-in-law and her hapless daughter while she complains about her life to God. It is not at all evident that God is interested. A Case of Bad Taste by Lori Copeland read by McMurdo-Wallis, Cristine

This is so well read, so well thought out, so well organized that it stands out as a motherlode of precious advise for anybody who wants to work better, be better, CHANGE. Remember your fifth grade teacher? The one that was a little pretty, a little strict, a little scary? TheBernadette Dunne reads Work Less Make More by Jennifer White

There's nothing like a kitchen-fuck, standing up against an old refrigerator, the ketchup bottle and the jar of mayo rolling around inside, the bag of peaches falling off the top.... There's nothing like two cops, fucking. But its a signature love scene, painterly, pointilistic, confessional. Mushrooming metaphors. And very veryDarkness Peering by Alice Blanchard read by Alyssa Bresnahan

A conspicuously intelligent society wife with perfect manners and an unfaithful husband is driving home from the country club and her BMW is hit by a huge truck. Stuck inside the car, she promises the Gods to do good, if only she does not go up in flames. She doesThe Social Climber of Davenport Heights by Pamela Morsi read by Isabelle Gordon

Looking for a good mystery, I start listening to a story about: ...a woman with nightmares about a recent firey accident who has a dinner party. A malicious event leads her to confront the caterer, who tells her to ask her husband about it. We find out much laterRandom Victimy

Like listening to a brand new Stones album (if you're old enough to know what an album is...) If a video of you coveting your neighbor's wife captured the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 would you rally to the Flag and turn it in? Night Fall is full ofNIGHT FALL by Nelson Demille Narrated by Scott Brick

We get information in clumps, tangles, bunches. There are facts, mixed up with opinions, references, foreign words, sounds and descriptions referring to where we are talking, what is going on where we are talking, the distraction-ridden machinery of a technologically frenzied environment, analogies dragged in from confused personal archives,Fiddlers by Ed McBain read by Charles Stransky

Incongruous, unlovable, post-Vietnam: a weatherman and a reporter make the Minnesota TV newsroom hummm. Dixie Quinn locks into the weather and doesn't let go. Rick Beanblossom, burn-victim, works behind the scenes, behind his mask. Their curious, uneven characterizations are ambushed midway by a grim, hopeless plot. Quotes: "Y'all take care now" (The weatherman's lastThe Weatherman by Stephen Thayer read by George Guidall

Matt Payne is back, attracting bullets and bad guys and the failed sons and daughters of old Philadelphian society, and WEB Griffin is in fine form in the digital age, as romantic and jolly as always. But instead of showing us into the salons and bedrooms and backbenches ofThe Traffickers by W.E.B. Griffin read by Scott Brick

Jesus Mary and Joseph in Rocksburg, Pa. Heartflipping. Smile wrenching. Honestagawd. Self-conscious, thoughtful, slightly misaligned human being, good son, and Detective Sergeant Acting Chief, Rocksburg Police, Rugs [”because some people think they can walk all over me”] Carlucci, falls in love while investigating death of sociopath baseball legend. Utter-fuckingly wonderful.BRUSHBACK by K.C. Constantine :: Lloyd James

Utterly charming tale of British advertising executive fed up with the petty hysteria of bosses, clients and ex-wives. He quits. He drives to the south of France, meets a beautiful real estate agent, and opens a hotel. But things are not so simple...Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle read by John Franklyn-Robbins

Aristotle says that there are three sexes: men, women, and short women. This book is about that third sex: short, married, murderous women with happy helpful husbands and perky breasts. The kind who play tennis in the morning and spend the afternoon decorating the guest bathroom. The kind who think that wife #3 meansLong Time No See by Susan Isaacs read by Cristine Mcmurdo-Wallis