Hi everyone! Today, I have a review for an audiobook from an author new to me, Mary Kubrica. This is an easy listen with a great narrator, which I picked it up via NetGalley. Also from NetGalley is an ebook I didn’t enjoy, and I post the review so you can see what went so wrong with a story with great promise >>>

Review 1 …

About the AudioBook:

10 hours, 32 minutes

An ICU nurse accidentally uncovers a patient’s frightening past in this chilling thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple.

Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom to a teenage daughter and working as a full time nurse. While on duty at the hospital one day, a patient named Caitlin arrives in a coma with a traumatic brain injury, having jumped from a bridge and plunging over twenty feet to the train tracks below. 

But when a witness comes forward with shocking details about the fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin pushed and if so, by whom and why? 

Meghan has always tried to stay emotionally detached from her patients, but this time, she mistakenly lets herself get too close until she’s deeply entangled in Caitlin’s and her family’s lives. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims.

My Review:

🌟🌟🌟🌟

A slow first half but absolutely gripping for the remainder, with a brilliant narrator and smooth listen.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Audio for this free Advance Review Copy of She’s Not Sorry by Mary Kubrica and narrated by Andi Arndt.

The premise hooked me and the audiobook cover had me held captive. It thrilled me when NetGalley and Harper Collins UK accepted me as an ARC reviewer.

The initial opening is interesting and draws you in. While the first half feels slow much of the time, it also brings in new information and offers bits and bobs which heighten the tension gradually. Then, roughly halfway through the listen, one big twist comes, and then lots follow in quick succession and the pace picks up immensely. From this point I just had to finish the listen.

The many and varied threads are tied up by the end, and the narrator is easy to listen to and great with the different voices. Though the ending is a little open, it’s not a cliffhanger and it left me satisfied enough.

I can’t give too much away because I don’t want to put in any accidental spoilers. Suffice it to say, this audiobook is well worth a listen, and is both soothing (with the narrator’s voice) and gripping. This listen gets a high four stars from me.

Review 2 …

About the Ebook:

How can you live with yourself when you find out the man you love is rotten to the core? Prepare to be hooked by Alice Hunter’s addictive new novel – so shocking it should come with a warning! Available to pre-order now. Trusted officer. Family man. Monster. Becky’s life has been shattered. When she discovered her husband, John – a policeman she once trusted – was a monster, she reported him. But it didn’t lead to any charges. Now, John lives freely with a new girlfriend and her daughter – while Becky battles guilt for missing the obvious signs. Determined for justice, Becky confronts John. But he targets her. He wants her silenced – and at any cost. And now, survival is the only option because he’s not the only bad apple lurking in the shadows… A gripping psychological suspense about betrayal, courage, and the darkness that can hide behind a seemingly trustworthy façade. Perfect for fans of The Doctor’s Wife , Suspects and the Netflix hit TV series You.

My Review:

🌟🌟🌟

2.5 rounded up to 3.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Avonbooks UK for this free advance review copy of the ebook Bad Apple by Alice Hunter.

Great premise let down by poor execution

‘She shouldn’t be driving. The roads were narrow, unfamiliar; each bend took her by surprise as it appeared like magic through the ominous entrails of mist hanging a few feet from the ground.’ This opening paragraph shows the tension, which only mounts as the story goes on.

Unfortunately many errors spoil what would otherwise have been an absolute gem of a book. As you can see with the opening quote, the author uses some wonderful descriptions at times which enrich the narrative, such as the use of ‘ominous entrails of mist’ rather than a simple ‘the mist’. When I read the opening page, I felt sure this would be a 5-star read, especially with the brilliant and topical story premise.

However, scene shifts occur throughout the book, as do passive writing, clumsy sentence structures, and misspellings. At one point, I found myself asking if the book had even seen an editor. [Reviewer’s note: any errors I discovered in the PDF on Kindle, I also double checked in the better formatted version on the NetGalley shelf to ensure it wasn’t down to the format of the PDF.]

Two examples of a good and a poor …

The good: ‘Grief has a habit of knocking on the door again, […]’

The poor: ‘[…] though this is a TV show and the viewer has pressed paused on the remote.’ The pertinent change needed here is to swap ‘paused’ for ‘pause’. Sadly, many more examples abound.

Another thing that had me roll my eyes and complain aloud quite a few times was a plot hole around the use of the main character’s mobile phone. Time and again she questioned whether other people’s phones were bugged or had trackers installed but she never, not once, questioned her own. And if I missed an instance where she did, then most definitely she didn’t check it or change it. The continual overlooking of this basic yet crucial plot point drove me nuts and, along with the other issues, ruined the read for me.

I so wanted to love this book, and the idea is a good one as well as being important and topical. The pacing slowed again and again, and repetitions grew boring, and then there are the wonderful phrases and spot-on observations of human foibles which make this an otherwise great read.

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NOTE ON RATINGS:  I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

 

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!  — Highly Recommended.

4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.

3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read.  Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it. 

2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.

1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

 

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I’d love to hear what you think of these reviews. Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon 🙂

 

For anyone interested, here are the Amazon links …

She’s Not Sorry:

UK … https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

US … https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

 

Bad Apple (to be released 9th May 2024):

UK … https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

US … https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

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Eye Update:

My eye op went well last Tuesday, and I’m continuing to recover. So if some of my responses to your comments are delayed a tad, please understand I’m getting to you as soon as possible and am so grateful for your visit and taking the time to read and comment. Hugs to you all 🤗💕