OYENTE

Cassandra

  • 13
  • opiniones
  • 279
  • votos útiles
  • 84
  • calificaciones

Loved It!

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-30-24

Jane Casey is brilliant. I really enjoyed this spinoff of the Maeve Kerrigan series and I hope it turns into another series, excellent in its own right. This book does read just fine as a stand-alone but it’s fun if you know the background of the characters. Suspenseful, twisty and memorable! Highly recommend.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Psychological suspense at its best

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-11-23

I really enjoyed The Other Mothers. It was compelling. I was hooked at the beginning and then it was a marathon listen. I thought the writing was good, the plot interesting & the characters well-developed. I liked this book a little better than the author’s first novel. Overall, highly entertaining and I would definitely recommend.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Suspenseful and entertaining

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 01-23-21

I enjoyed the audio version of Possession by Ann Rule. I thought the writing was really good, authentic in the characterizations and descriptions, and the story flowed nicely. I was captivated from the first chapter through the very end. I would highly recommend this audiobook. Definitely worth your credit!

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esto le resultó útil a 14 personas

Excellent Book

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-26-20

This audiobook sucked me in from the very beginning and didn't let go. I absolutely loved it. Great plot and characters, suspense, superb narration. What more can you ask for? Listen to this one, you won't be sorry! Highly recommended.

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esto le resultó útil a 25 personas

Is something happening here?

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 06-27-18

Because what it is ain’t exactly clear.
I can’t remember the last time I listened to an audiobook where, for the first 80 percent of the story, absolutely nothing happens.
I enjoyed Paris’s Behind Closed Doors-suspenseful, engaging characters, full of action. I kind of liked The Break Down- some interesting plot twists. But Bring Me Back? Please, bring ME back out of this book and put me somewhere where I can watch paint dry.
Summary, no spoilers. Finn had a girlfriend, Layla. Layla has red hair and also has a sister, Ellen. Layla disappears one cold winter’s night in France. Twelve years later, Finn is happily engaged to Ellen. Ellen has an obsession with Russian nesting dolls. A Russian doll shows up at the house. A possible sighting of Layla (of a woman with red hair) plus Russian doll equals OMG! Layla’s back! Layla emails Finn. I’m coming for you/Ellen. Finn doesn’t know what to do. Everything stays stagnant as the emails sound more and more ridiculous (you have three days left. Two days. One day). More dolls show up.
It is benign and boring. It’s downhill from there. I give the book two stars because 1. I finished it; and 2. Eventually some stuff happens.
I didn’t really enjoy this book and I don’t think I would choose to read it again if I had the time and credit back. I hope for better from BA Paris’s next offering. Not recommended, because it’s just not that good.
As for the narration, I love Cathleen McCarron, but she has so little to work with in this novel.

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esto le resultó útil a 67 personas

Slow paced, weird POVs, insipid characters

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 12-03-17

This story did not resonate with me because I didn’t like the writing style and because I couldn’t develop a strong interest in any of the characters, and the story just didn’t hold my interest.
The author employs a clunky multiple point-of-view style to tell the story using one of my very least favorite POV styles as the main one: a sort of first and second person mix where the second person is not YOU the reader but YOU, another character. So mom is saying, ‘Beth, we looked for you but you were gone, weren’t you, Beth?’ (Interspersed are tiny parts told from the bad guy’s POV and then Beth’s own story). This is probably a personal preference but it really bugged me.
In addition, I found the characters insipid and too many aspects of the plot were just pushed past the point of fictional unbelievability. The parents came across as too naive and so did Beth, even for small town residents. When characters are pushed too far past the mark, it makes me disconnect from the story. The narration was good, but it could not save the book for me.

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esto le resultó útil a 11 personas

Give Me the Child will give you a heck of a read!

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 08-04-17

I was thrown over, under, around and through by this book, surely a 'sleeper hit' that, in my opinion, knocks down the competition among some big-name new releases this summer.

Cat Lupo, forensic psychiatrist and leading researcher of childhood psychopathic disorders, has a problem on her hands. The police have shown up at her door in the middle of the night, accompanied by an 11 year old child named Ruby Winter. Ruby's mother has died in a freak accident, and Cat's husband Tom's name is on the girl's birth certificate. Suddenly, Cat and Tom are adding a second daughter to their family, a half-sister to their sweet and sheltered daughter Freya, who is also 11. But 'happy families' this is not. Things start to go missing from the house; Freya starts withdrawing and acting secretive and not in a healthy way forming a friendship with Ruby; the girl is horrendously rude to Cat, who can barely hide her own dislike; and Tom is getting more and more defensive about Ruby, and Cat starts to wonder what is going on behind the thin veneer of her seemingly happy marriage. Cat had an episode of psychosis herself when pregnant with Freya, which quickly resolved when she had the baby and no harm befell anyone. But the stigma follows her around like a phantom, and when Cat questions Ruby's behavior, it's Cat whose mental state gets scrutinized- and now Cat isn't sure if she can trust those she loves the most. Add in some serious work stress, and you are in for a roller coaster ride!

This book is very well written, intuitive and intelligent. The author describes Cat's own feelings as well as the children she deals with who have various forms of mental illness and disorders with sensitivity and insight. These parts of the story were very interesting and shed light on a subject that I was not familiar with- that is, severe personality disorders in young children. The dichotomy between Cat at home and Dr. Lupo at work was quite well done also. We see her struggle to balance the weight of the personal crisis in her family with the stress of workplace politics especially for an institute relying on grant money, and the upper crust of society who holds the pursestrings.

Cat will stop at nothing to protect her daughter Freya. Readers will love her spirit and her absolute focus on fighting for what is most important. Added to this is a host of great supporting characters, who each lend a hand to help her get to the ugly but necessary truth at the heart of Ruby's story.
This is truly a great read- I enjoyed it so much I couldn't put it down, and finished it on a roll in one weekend. Highly recommended!

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esto le resultó útil a 12 personas

Perfect is Perfect in nearly every way

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 07-19-17

This novel was one of those amazing surprise-finds for me- of a genre that I may not usually choose, but am I ever grateful for having done so. Rachel Joyce has penned a miracle, in my opinion. Full of heart but not sentimental, portraits of individuals showing, in one, the imperceptible tremors of a slide from perfect, that grow big as earthquakes in the haven of a young family; and in another, the present and aftermath of a genius in breakdown who must ascend the mountain decades later back into himself in a changed world.


Ephemeral, beautiful. I listened and I became Byron- I whispered secrets half in French to my best friend who is forbidden to come to my house, bent behind schoolbooks in stolen moments. I made plans, I drew diagrams, I listened behind cracks in doors in darkened hallways, forgetting to breathe. I filled in the blanks, I counted the seconds, I was careful I was the only one who could save my beloved mother.

I lost myself in the moor, in Cranham House, and became Diana, mesmerized by her dancing and fluttering laugh and watching for the goose to lay its egg to save it from the crows, sitting in a row like executioners. I bathed in the false dawn created by bonfires burning mint-green cardigans and pencil skirts. I languished in the twilight, glass in hand, curled in a red velvet chair in a field of daisies by the pond, the poppies just visible over the hill.

I saw what we were meant to see, and I prayed for an accident to befall Beverly to render her paralyzed and mute or possibly dead. I wanted to throw Jeannie out a window onto her horrible face.

I wanted to shake the stupor out of the boy-genius who led his best friend's family into the little life of horrors for his own selfish amusement and, later, to strategically spy on Diana while she crumbled. But then I grew to empathize with the man who never could forgive himself for his childish errors.

I love this book so much. I loved every minute of it. Beautifully written. These characters will kill you with their grace, romance, firerceness, rottenness, beauty, anger, selfishness, and despair.

The narration by Paul Rhys is truly wonderful. He does an excellent job bringing out the truth in all aspects of this novel. I would love to see Mr. Rhys narrate more titles.

Highly recommended.

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esto le resultó útil a 12 personas

Going to any lengths- a good story, with caveats

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 06-26-17

Anna, a popular radio host of a regional network morning show, has just returned back to work from maternity leave. She is struggling to get used to the change and to the fact that her husband Guy left three months earlier. Things are going okay until one evening when Anna is taking her daughter Joni for an evening stroll along the beach, and is suddenly confronted by a seemingly out of it teen boy wielding a knife. Anna is able to defend herself and Joni using a sharp stick comb from her purse, but in doing so, fatally wounds the boy.

Self-defense is clear, and Anna must try to move on even though a very angry mob of people including the boy's mother and father start stalking her. For a while, the police protect her and public opinion goes in her favor.

But then the storyline strays into a morass of baseless assumptions, public overreactions, trumped up speculations of guilt, going so far as ruinous character assassinations and accusations of evil intentions akin to Satan's spawn. Anna's family members are a split jury, and those who arbitrarily decide she is guilty treat her with outright contempt, going so far as to hint to police that she might have a hidden motive. They make my family look like saints by comparison. Despite the fact that Anna had clearly acted in self-defense, and was not charged with a crime, her ex proclaims that HE wouldn't have killed to protect their child, so therefore, the baby would obviously be safer with him. When Anna receives very suspicious emails from an individual called "The Ophelia Killer," who had terrorized the town one summer ten years ago by murdering 5 teenage boys, she offers this evidence to the police, who tell her she shouldn't worry about it but they'll look at the emails if she wants them to. It's things like this that make you stop and wonder what backwards logic is going on in Anna's world- especially at the point where she has no one to turn to except for her Gran and the dead boy's diamond-in-the-rough ex-con brother, who just wants to help her out (again, suspend disbelief).

In that vein, the Ridgmont police come off as highly inept and lacking in basic investigative skills. The Ophelia Killer emails, and other evidence of possible wrongdoings going on in town that Anna tries to give the detectives, is either ignored or used against her for no apparent reason until she becomes a target of hysterical vigilante justice following the police hinting around that Anna herself just might have had a motive to kill that night, rather than straightforward self-defense. I will leave the rest for the reader to discover.

That said, the story kept me listening like crazy even as it drove me crazy. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. I did have empathy for Anna but I wished she would get some backbone especially with that ass of an ex-husband.

There are twists that reveal themselves in the last third of the book that had me reeling and I loved every minute of it.

If the reader can put up with the illogical mess of random, baseless suspicions and accusations and public acts of violence that people stand and watch without jumping in to help her; and can overlook the utterly ridiculous roller coaster of crap propagated by the police, then the reader will be rewarded by an ultimately well written and entertaining psychological thriller. I will be interested in reading more of Tracy Buchanan's work and I do recommend "no Turning Back" as a good use of a credit.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Heartwrenching, Eloquent, Beautiful Story

Total
5 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 06-25-17

It is not surprising that "What Was Lost," Ms. O'Flynn's debut novel, was a stand-out among its peers in the year of its release, winning the First Novel Award at the 2007 Costa Book Awards and shortlisted for the overall Costa Book of the Year award. This book was also long-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize AND the Orange Prize for fiction, and again shortlisted for the Guardian first-book award- plus being a BBC Radio 5 Book of the Month...
I say all this because I think readers should know that this book was so well received critically, but somehow, sadly, was either underrated among us normal readers or not really visible to readers when it was released. Because What Was Lost is truly so wonderfully good. It is also beautifully narrated by Catherine Skinner. She brings these characters right to life and puts so much feeling into their stories. It is an incredible skill to be able to portray so many personalities at so many emotional stages, not to mention different ages and genders.
One can read the plot summary here on Audible or on Amazon. It gives you the basic plot but the book is so much more. Beautifully written, it has subtext, it is haunting, and you will want to re-listen to catch what you may have missed the first time around. There is a sad irony in the story of Kate Meany. I read one summary on a blog that said "Kate pretends to be a detective." I can't think of a worse way to characterize this girl! Kate doesn't pretend. To this 10 year old girl, she IS a detective. One must be able to empathize here with the mind of a child- Kate is a precocious but lonely kid who watched American cop shows with her dad when she was little. Right before he died, her dad gave her a book called "How to be a Detective." Well, it soon becomes Kate's bible and a symbol of what she wants to achieve for her father. But as you read, you learn that Kate's surveillance work has such a sweet naïveté that will eventually put her in great danger. If she were pretending...well, she would know if she sensed danger, when to stop.
This book is short but it's not breezy, in my opinion. It will stick with you. There are metaphors to think about. How the past meets the present and how someone's actions or failure to act 20 years ago may have changed things drastically...but was it supposed to be different? Ultimately, the reader is given the chance to think, and that, to me, is what makes a book excellent. I highly recommend What Was Lost. Thank you to the author for writing such a beautiful novel.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

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