JAM

Very interesting and quite different idea for a book

Revisado: 05-09-25

I found all the women in the story interesting, although each one just one notch too much. Alison got tedious with her constant fear and neediness, Erica was a bit too successful and forceful and Summer a bit too caring and compassionate for a teenager. Myra was fabulous as the mom, I really enjoyed her and the husband both the women fell for was the perfect unlikeable jerk.
And as always I really enjoyed Tanya Ebie. She’s a wonderful narrator, her voice flows faultlessly, she does men’s and children’s voices just as well as the women’s, you are never distracted by her style and her voice is warm and pleasant to listen to. In a narrated book the reader is so important and I always look forward to books Tanya narrates. I also very much appreciated no sex scenes-you never know with SM what you’ll get as she has written some pretty raunchy books, way too descriptive and uncomfortably close to porn, but happily, this was not one of those.

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Great narration, confusing beginning

Revisado: 03-23-25

The narration of these series was very good, mostly well executed, although male voices were rather annoyingly whispered, but still distinguishable.
The beginning is very confusing. This series, 6-7 books long has approximately 18 characters, many of whom we find almost immediately. The beginning chapters simply throw us into the story with the feeling you missed a previous book, especially with Lovely, probably the pivotable character with whom I never connected. Despite her description in the series I never felt for her. She was just not relatable with all her tea and stones and reading auras. Something always felt off with her character.
Overall I found the series entertaining and enjoyed it, but maybe a bit too many characters and not all were as well developed as I would have liked. Hope’s other series, Amelia’s Island was an A to this B series.

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Pleasant enough story, but the narration was bland.

Revisado: 03-16-25

Sadly, a story weighed down by a rather bland narrator. Male voices particularly poor. As these are audible books and costing no small amount the standard should be higher with Audible.

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Reads like a food diary

Revisado: 12-19-24

This was a simple, sweet listen, but it was marred by the unflagging repetition of what everyone drank-the wines-what they ate-down to every single persons order-the many, many references to cheeses and endless meal descriptions. Where was the editor in this?!?! Surely any good editor would have sent this back for a rewrite!!
The romances were sweet, but boring. These were people who would have good, strong marriages without any fiery romance. I loved the good relationships everyone had with everyone else, but there was little conflict and the book just feels flat. It could have been far better. The author has talent, she just needs a good editor and to go deeper with her characters.
This book was saved from being a complete snooze by a stellar read by the narrator. Considering she didn’t have much to go on her voice was warm, wonderfully varied and rich for each character, unobtrusive and very engaging.

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Stellar performance

Revisado: 06-25-24

I’m very ambivalent about this story. On the one hand it was very well written, kept me engaged throughout, loved all the character development, going back and forth in time for each character, the strong bond of the “sisters”, the ending was excellent and well played out, now my but. But if you’re like me and visuals get stuck in your head, the description of childhood abuse is freaky and disturbing. If you’re sensitive to that you may very well want to skip the book. I also did not like the deviant sexual encounters (certainly pertinent to the plot but still very disturbing) and descriptions of lesbian sex (although relatively mild) is not something I want to read.

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Not worthy of paying for this!

Revisado: 07-29-23

A very tired story line of, “My fiancé died and I’m only destined to be miserable!” Heard over and over and over until wow, she’s suddenly renovating an old hotel, revamping the owners business, planning a wedding in one week, hosting a camera crew filming her doing all this, falling in love and, oh yes, discovering in the last pages that she just happens to show up in the same town as where the rest of her hitherto unknown family came from!!!!!?

Terrible narration. Some narrators read a story, others tell it. This one had terrible male voices, poorly emoted, overly emoted, too dramatic, too intrusive, too many sharp T and K endings to sentences.
If all the other positive reviews make you still want to listen at least get it from the library for free. This one isn’t worth having in your library. And although I appreciate the end message, that your lost love one is still with you in spirit, they are not orchestrating your life like this one implies.

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Excellent story in every way

Revisado: 02-04-23

I loved this book, loved going back in time and getting a real glimpse of life in Alaska in 1944, loved that particular setting, loved how clean the story was, the family connections, the love between grandmother and granddaughter, the ending, and very important in an audiobook, the narration!!

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Disappointed

Revisado: 02-01-23

Here is one of the few times a movie far outshines the book. I found the author did a poor job developing Jason’s character and giving him a personality the listener could empathize with, something the movie did a stellar job of. The book came across as too preachy and Jason was simply a receptor for all the pontificating of the author. He learned too easily for a spoiled obnoxious wealthy young man-unlike the movie. The author chose to take the easy path of straight out preaching instead of developing a story with passion, conflict and hard earned lessons. The continual worry the lawyer had about Jason learning this months lesson was too repetitious and his reminiscence about his wise old friend also redundant.
The audio part was also a big disappointment. The jarring music in between chapters sounded like something out of Cinderella-loud and jarring and more like introducing a Prince at a ball than a new chapter. Tom Boswell is too well known as the kindly, pedantic dad in Happy Days and his voice never made it past the kind paternal fatherly voice of that character. He never came close to sounding like a prestigious lawyer, a billionaire or a spoiled young man. The movie motivated me to listen to the book, if I’d listened first I never would have watched the movie. Hollywood did do a couple ridiculous things with this book, but it was far more compelling than the audio version of the book.

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Predictable

Revisado: 12-20-22

Not terribly original, the writing not stellar. If you can get this on your library app and save your money for something you’ll want to listen to year after year. The part that really didn’t appeal to me was the over the top monetary gifts.
The reader did a nice job although her rendition of male voices and a child’s voice were not good.

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Totally delightful

Revisado: 11-24-22

With the exception of the housewife and her husband. You can’t first describe someone one way and then switch the personality so completely at the end. But this was an insightful, heartwarming, fun and clever story, read very, very well. Highly recommend!

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