Ruth M

Exciting Infotainment for All Ages

Revisado: 03-18-23

Although The Last Saxon King is written for the YA market, it is as entertaining and informative for adults as it is for younger readers. The main characters are likeable and believable, and the page-turner story line keeps the reader/listener engaged from page one through the epilogue. Mark Sanderlin is one of the best narrators I've ever listened to. After listening to more than a thousand audiobooks, I have my favorites, but I found Mark Sanderlin's presentation to be equal to the best of them. He first captivates the reader with his portrayal of 16 year old Dan Renfrew, with his teenage innocence, but then he convincingly transitions through a multitude of good guys and bad guys in current day New York and Anglo-Saxon England. He even gives a credible feminine voice to Sam, Dan's female partner.
Andrew Varga has written a Newbery Award level book for young readers and adult fans of historical fiction. In the first of his planned Jump in Time Novels, he has introduced the reader to an inquisitive hero who is destined to explore first-hand events in history and to learn about the people who lived through those events. I cannot wait to read/listen to his next book, The Celtic Deception.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

What happens in Vegas....

Revisado: 11-07-17

Full Service Blonde is not only an entertaining mystery, it is a Las Vegas buffet of situations that prove that what happens in Vegas can happen anywhere… anywhere that has legal brothels an hour away in one direction and a Sekhmet Temple an hour away in the opposite direction. Copper Black, an aspiring newspaper reporter, finds herself becoming intimately familiar with the people and policies of each when she steps out of her role as calendar girl, the person who reports on society doings to investigate the murder of Victoria McKimber, a prostitute and the winner of a national sales contest for a line of famous beauty products. In this prequel to Getting Off on Frank Sinatra, 24 year old Copper moves to Las Vegas from Connecticut to take a job at The Las Vegas Light. It’s the Christmas holidays and her long-distance boyfriend, Daniel, is scheduled to spend a quiet and romantic week with her and her family, but as she showed in Getting Off on Frank Sinatra, Copper unlike her metallic namesake is a magnet for chaos, confusion and murder.

The narrator, Em Eldridge, gives Copper just the right amount of both bravado and vulnerability. She delivers Copper’s dialogue with a light, sassy innocence, but she’s equally adept at portraying the other characters with the appropriate levels of concern, gravity or menace they require.

Perhaps not everything that happens in Las Vegas can happen anywhere, but Edwards deals with a wide range of issues that occur everywhere…homelessness, corruption, land deals, homosexuality, abandoned children, sexual harassment in the work place, stereotyping, dysfunctional families, learning disorders, and questionable motives of charity supporters to name a few. In addition, she gives a fascinating description of the design and protocols of an actual brothel. She also dispels myths about the morality, motives and intelligence of women who work in brothels and she acknowledges the anti-Las Vegas bias that people often feel before they know the real city. This book might be considered a cultural guide to Las Vegas with its description of actual places and its veiled references to well-known Las Vegas places and personalities, but it’s first and foremost a superb story with a likeable and believable cast of characters.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

If it's real, it will survive.

Revisado: 09-08-17

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

When they declare their love for each other as teenagers, Edward Spencer IV (Ted) and Olivia de la Vega never imagine that they’ll spend the rest of their lives finding and losing each other as their careers and circumstances draw them apart, but keep them tethered by the slenderest of strings. Cast as Guinevere and Lancelot in their high school’s production of Camelot, Ted and Olivia were like Shakespeare’s “star-crossed” Romeo and Juliet. Ted, the only son of a wealthy manufacturer, and Olivia, the only daughter of a cleaning lady, may have come from different social and economic worlds, but they share a passion for music and for each other. Through a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, they are torn apart and spend the next three decades building careers and lives without each other, Ted as a concert violinist and Olivia as a movie star. Only when Olivia inherits a rare violin, the missing Guarnerius Merino Rose, and contacts a violin appraiser, is there a chance that the strings linking them to their past might be able to tighten once again. Megan Edwards has crafted a beautiful love story, rich with references to musical pieces, performance art and great literature. She incorporates views of life at an elite private boarding school with those of performing in concert venues in international locales. Besides being a story of love found and lost, hers is a story of family ties and the impact of submitting to or rejecting expectations. Only children, as Olivia explains to Ted, have more to live up to because, “…they don’t have any siblings to take the spotlight off them and they have to carry the burden of their parents’ expectations alone.” As Ted reflects on the course his life has taken in this first person narrative, the narrator of this audio book, Carlyle Coash does a brilliant job of subtly increasing the vitality and passion of his delivery. As a privileged teenager, Ted has a kind of bland existence, but after the colorful Olivia da la Vega brings out his passion for his music and he gains confidence, he becomes a dynamic force in both his personal and professional life. The increasing pace and intensity of Coash’s narration reflects Ted’s development and adds a wonderful dimension to Edward’s enchanting story.Edward’s Strings is a truly superb story that will illicit thoughts of lost loves and possibilities to which anyone who has ever been in love can easily relate. Playlists of the musical pieces mentioned in Strings are available online at meganedwards.com/strings.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

A Justified Purchase

Revisado: 08-07-17

What did you love best about A Justified Bitch: A Las Vegas Mystery (Las Vegas Mysteries)?

I first read this book as an ARC and loved the characters, the plot, the Old Las Vegas vibe, and the book’s message of recovery and redemption, but I “read” it a second time as an audiobook, and I am enthralled! The narrator, Jane Oppenheimer, is magnificent. I’ve listened to hundreds of audiobooks, and she’s one of the best in the business. She is able to give a unique voice to a long list of diverse characters, from Helen, the wacky widow who still communicates with her dead husband, Bobby, to the uptight, prissy psychiatrist to whom she is assigned, to her solicitous sister, Pat, to teenage boys, to a pair of multi-ethnic lesbian hairdressers and to the various down-on-their-luck men and women in Helen’s circle of friends and neighbors.

Helen Taylor wasn’t always a crazy, voice-hearing hoarder. A Berkeley graduate, she and her husband lived a normal existence as high school teachers who loved the outdoors. Bobby’s death in a hiking accident hurled Helen into another world where she survives by hoarding items and reselling them at a weekly flea market. When her neighbor’s dismembered body is found, Helen becomes the focus of the police and her estranged sister’s attentions. The well-meaning sister, Pat, brings her son Jordan and Helen’s teenage son Marc, to Las Vegas to protect Helen and to try to establish normalcy in her life. Through Pat and Jordan’s efforts to sort through the detritus of Helen’s home and lifestyle the reader is exposed to a Las Vegas population of street people, flea market vendors, public servants and elite private health providers. Through Marc’s efforts to appreciate Las Vegas as only a teenage boy can do, the reader is exposed to showgirls, the behind the scenes choreography of an actual performance and hotel security.

A Justified Bitch is an engaging mystery with dark humor and witty repartee between characters. Bobby and Helen’s humorous observations of the people and situations around them are revealed in comical similes such as “…as busy as a pimp with one whore.”

H.G. McGinnis brings a unique perspective to the telling of a Las Vegas story. As a dresser for the big production “feather” shows of Las Vegas’ recent past, she’s been at the heart of the glamour and excitement of iconic Las Vegas. As a native of Las Vegas, she’s lived in the neighborhoods away from the bright lights of The Strip and has seen them transform as populations, housing trends and the economy change. Her characters are like the struggling disenfranchised citizens of any American city, but thanks to McGinnis the reader is reminded that they also exist in the glamour capital of the world.

The book is wonderfully entertaining, but the audiobook brings the story to life in living color! I recommend both reading the book for the benefit of being able to go back and reread particularly humorous or insightful comments and listening to the book for the ability to be transported into Helen’s world and to hearing the people who surround her the way she hears them.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Who knew murder could be so much fun?

Revisado: 01-23-17

What made the experience of listening to Getting off on Frank Sinatra the most enjoyable?

Edwards has created a delightfully quirky character in Copper Black, a writer for The Las Vegas Light and unexpected discoverer of a murder scene. She’s curious but often clueless (which isn’t a good thing for someone who ends up investigating a murder). She’s dogged in her determination to learn the truth but often has delayed interpretations of seemingly insignificant observations. Although she’s basically law-abiding, she dances along the edges of legality from time to time. In short, like the Las Vegas commercial, she has “just the right amount of wrong.”

What other book might you compare Getting off on Frank Sinatra to and why?

Like Stephanie Plum and Kinsey Millhone, the heroines of the Evanovitch and Grafton novels, Copper is smart, likeable and humorously quick-witted. She is surrounded by a diverse group of characters in her personal and professional life who define her by allowing her to expose her strengths and flaws.

Which scene was your favorite?

A chase scene through the streets of Las Vegas takes the listener on an adrenalin-fueled tour from residential areas, through desert landscapes to the heart of the city's iconic Strip.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Copper's observations and her reactions to the situations in which she finds herself with the other characters are a constant source of chuckles.

Any additional comments?

The talented narrator is able to evoke the earnestness, energy, intelligence and humor of the 20-something Copper with a fitting cadence and intonation. Edwards not only delivers a delightfully entertaining mystery, she introduces listeners to a view Las Vegas most tourists don't get to experience.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña