Audiobook Review: The Otherworld by Abbie Emmons
The Otherworld
Author: Abbie Emmons
Narrators:
Alex Picard
Edward Black
Eric Smies
Published: December 5, 2023
Audiobook: 13 hours 49 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: August 18-25, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 2.5 stars
Book Description:
Orca Monroe wants only one thing for her eighteenth birthday: to experience the Otherworld—the mysterious “mainland” across the sea that her father has forbidden her from visiting.
Growing up in a lighthouse on a remote island, Orca has lived isolated from the world… until one day when she finds a cell phone washed up on the beach. Orca has her first conversation with Jack Stevenson, a young man whose older brother, Adam, has gone missing after crashing his seaplane off the coast. Orca becomes Jack’s lifeline and his reason to hope that Adam is still alive. While her father is away, she scours the island for the missing pilot—determined to help Jack find his brother and prove to her father that she’s strong enough to take on the world.
One stormy night, Orca finds Adam Stevenson collapsed on her doorstep. As she nurses him back to health, she finds herself spellbound by his inquiring mind and rugged good looks. Simultaneously, Adam is captivated by her wild beauty and pure heart. But with a ten-year age gap between them—and her father’s determination to keep Orca protected from outsiders—Adam knows they can never be together.
Resigned to give Orca up, Adam returns to the mainland—but Jack refuses to leave her trapped at the lighthouse. Blind to the fact that his brother is in love with her, Jack offers to show Orca the world she’s always dreamed of. But when she leaves her island for the first time, Orca begins to realize that the mainland may hold more dark secrets than she ever imagined… and the two brothers she helped bring back together may be the very people she tears apart.
Jessica’s Review:
**This review will have spoilers.**
The Otherworld is YA as the main character just turned 18, but deals with a love triangle with two brothers, one also 18 and the other being 28. I did not have a problem with the age difference between Orca and Adam, but her living on an island with just her father, she possesses an innocence and then her naiveté that made her come off younger. In some ways this novel reminded me of Disney’s The Little Mermaid with Ariel and Eric, but no villain.
I liked Adam, of the two brothers, he was the better choice. Some of that comes with age, which Adam has 10 years over his brother. Jack definitely acted like a much younger brother who still has a lot of maturing to do.
I did not agree with the ending. Despite being an adult, Orca needs more ‘growing up’ IE: She needs to actually experience more of the world and meeting more people before settling down with the first man she meets. She is thinking she is in love, when in essence it is just lust and her hormones starting for the first time. At times Adam tries to fight his feelings, but in the end, feelings win out over common sense. Jack is also a hormonal 18-year-old and it shows. He does have a bit of a redeeming arc towards the end.
I found the side story of Orca’s parents intriguing. It was a ‘side quest’ for Adam and Orca as she encounters ‘the otherworld’ for the first time. Orca’s mother was harsh. But being harsh was no reason to leave your infant daughter with just her father on an island with no one else. While in ‘the otherworld’ the listener gets to experience with Orca eating pizza and discovering a few other things. But for me, Orca needed to live and experience more of ‘the otherworld’.
Again, this is a YA novel and is for YA readers. I am far from the target audience and my opinion of this book shows that. This is a novel that just did not work for me.
All three narrators did a great job portraying Orca, Adam, and Jack. For me they captured the characters essence perfectly.
I read Emmons “Tessa and Weston books” (100 Days of Sunlight and Tessa and Weston: The Best Christmas Ever) several years ago and adored them. I remember Emmons saying on social media that she is working on another T&W book. I will need to re-read the other two again before reading that one once it is released.
ARC Review: Tessa & Weston: The Best Christmas Ever by Abbie Emmons
Tessa And Weston: The Best Christmas Ever
Series: 100 Days #2
Author: Abbie Emmons
To Be Published: November 1, 2021
208 Pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: October 11-22, 2021
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
It’s Tessa and Weston’s first Christmas together, and Tessa is determined to make it the best holiday ever. But when her estranged mother shows up with a suitcase and plans to stay for two weeks, Tessa’s hopes are shattered.
Bitter from the past and still holding a grudge, Tessa is in no mood to give her mother a second chance. The holiday season may be a time of reconciliation with family, but Tessa believes her mother will never change. Why get close when she’s just going to leave again? Tessa realizes there is only one way to save this Christmas: avoid her mother as much as possible.
With the best intentions in mind, Tessa chooses to not tell her mother about Weston’s disability. But when they meet face-to-face, Tessa is mortified and ashamed by her mother’s insensitive remarks. Weston begins to think he is the real cause of Tessa’s shame. His old demons resurrect to haunt him with doubts: What if, one day, Tessa stops loving him because of his disability?
Determined to prove his love for her, Weston makes it his mission to be the best boyfriend ever and works to reunite Tessa with her mother. Meanwhile, Tessa plots elaborate ways to avoid “mother-daughter time” at all costs. One scheme leads to another, until Tessa finds herself tangled in a web of deceit — and, worst of all, lying to Weston.
When the secrets between them force Tessa and Weston to face their greatest fears, they must confront the inescapable question: Is true love worth the risk of heartbreak? Is it ever too late to forgive and start over?
The Best Christmas Ever is a heartwarming holiday follow-up to 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons. You’ll love this touching story of forgiveness, family, and first love.
Jessica’s Review:
I don’t tend to read Christmas romances, but when the author gave me an opportunity to read an advanced copy of Tessa and Weston’s continuing story I had to read it: I mean this is Tessa and Weston!!!
Picking up after 100 Days of Sunlight which I just adored, Tessa and Weston’s first Christmas together is very quickly approaching and then the unexpected arrives in the form of Tessa’s estranged mother. She also wants to heal wounds and Tessa wants nothing of it.
T&W (Tessa and Weston) is a short novella sequel that focuses on everything it needs to while giving you all the Christmas feelings that Christmas stories have. T&W will definitely put you in the Christmas spirit. It deals with family, forgiveness, and the joys and pains of young first love. After this second novel with Tessa and Weston, I want to read even more of their story and to see them mature and grow into adults with each other.
After two years from the publication of 100 Days of Sunlight, T&W comes as an unexpected, but most welcome surprise filled with lots of sweetness. This is a clean first love/romance story, with some minor foul language.
Do yourself a favor and pick this one up on November 1st! I had not even finished my advanced copy and clicked that pre-order button. As with 100 Days, the cover of T&W has small images that reflect the story you are about to read. I cannot wait to have my copy to put next to 100 Days!
Pick both novels up if you have not read either one and get ready to fall into the Christmas spirit! Get some cookies and hot chocolate to snack on as you read! And just maybe I will start reading some Christmas romances one day soon…
Tessa and Weston: The Best Christmas Ever is highly recommended! Many thanks to Abbie Emmons for inviting me to be a part of her ARC Team for this upcoming release!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
#Diverseathon2021: 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons
100 Days of Sunlight
Author: Abbie Emmons
Published: August 7, 2019
315 Pages
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: July 8-15, 2021
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
When 16-year-old poetry blogger Tessa Dickinson is involved in a car accident and loses her eyesight for 100 days, she feels like her whole world has been turned upside-down.
Terrified that her vision might never return, Tessa feels like she has nothing left to be happy about. But when her grandparents place an ad in the local newspaper looking for a typist to help Tessa continue writing and blogging, an unlikely answer knocks at their door: Weston Ludovico, a boy her age with bright eyes, an optimistic smile…and no legs.
Knowing how angry and afraid Tessa is feeling, Weston thinks he can help her. But he has one condition — no one can tell Tessa about his disability. And because she can’t see him, she treats him with contempt: screaming at him to get out of her house and never come back. But for Weston, it’s the most amazing feeling: to be treated like a normal person, not just a sob story. So he comes back. Again and again and again.
Tessa spurns Weston’s “obnoxious optimism”, convinced that he has no idea what she’s going through. But Weston knows exactly how she feels and reaches into her darkness to show her that there is more than one way to experience the world. As Tessa grows closer to Weston, she finds it harder and harder to imagine life without him — and Weston can’t imagine life without her. But he still hasn’t told her the truth, and when Tessa’s sight returns he’ll have to make the hardest decision of his life: vanish from Tessa’s world…or overcome his fear of being seen.
100 Days of Sunlight is a poignant and heartfelt novel by author Abbie Emmons. If you like sweet contemporary romance and strong family themes then you’ll love this touching story of hope, healing, and getting back up when life knocks you down.
Jessica’s Review:
OMG, 100 Days of Sunlight knocked The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue out of my #1 read for this year (my double review with Kim is here.) Though we still have plenty of time left in 2021, I was not expecting this when I started reading this book: It made me cry! Addie LaRue came very close, but this one did it to me! I have had this book since the beginning of the year and was able to get it read for June’s prompt for #Diverseathon, which is a main character that is disabled. In fact, in 100 Days we get both characters with a disability: One whose blindness should go away and another who lost his legs.
100 Days deals with grief through loss, acceptance, recovery, hope, and multiple types of love. Both Tessa and Weston are our narrators and the book takes place in present day and also Weston’s past with him losing his legs. At the beginning of the novel Tessa has already been blind for 21 days and she is an angry and scared girl. Her sight is supposed to return around 12-14 weeks which is 98 days, but what if it doesn’t? She is also dealing with her loss of independence. She is a poetry blogger, but how is she to continue when she can’t see? Her grandparents try to help by placing an ad in the paper for help and in the picture comes Weston. He asks Tessa’s grandparents not to tell Tessa about his missing legs and Tessa treats him as anyone else: terribly.
Over time the two connect and grow close. Both are determined, yet stubborn and also scared. Weston is conflicted: Should he tell Tessa about his lack of legs and be treated differently once her sight returns or vanish from her life afterwards?
OMG, I had so many emotions reading 100 Days. Weston took so much from “Angry Tessa” but he understood her feelings. Over the course of the novel you really grow to care about both characters and want a happy ending, but not sure what will happen. And I totally started crushing on Weston- I have a book boyfriend! I don’t think I have been able to say that for a long time.
I absolutely loved this novel, and it is a debut novel by indie author Abbie Emmons. And the cover is just gorgeous! Every object shown on the cover has a meaning that we see over the course of the novel.
This novel would work for those ages 12 and up and is on the mild side of language and thematic elements.
100 Days of Sunlight is 1000% recommended!
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#Diverseathon201:
For full details on this year long readathon, please click here.
And don’t forget about the awesome GRAND PRIZE at the end of the year. Click the link here for that information.
July’s host is Kesara at readswithkesara over at Instagram. She is having a giveaway of One book valuing up to $20 from the Book Depository or Amazon (for US based winner) Be sure to check out her Instagram for full details on that giveaway.
Be sure to check out her YouTube Channel!
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Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK