Audiobook Review: Hard to Get by Laura Moher
Hard to Get
Series: Big Love from Galway #3
Author: Laura Moher
Narrators:
Michelle Price
Paul Bellantoni
Published: April 15, 2025
Audiobook: 9 hours 45 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: April 14-20, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
Single and determined to stay that way, Andi Salazar treasures her independence, her charming small town and the dedication to hard work she inherited from her beloved Gram. To blow off steam, she occasionally takes the stage as a voluptuous bombshell singer who can rev you up even as she breaks your heart with a song.
Big, blond math teacher Kevin Mahoney is fresh off a bad breakup when he moves to Galway, NC. The school year’s about to start, and he’s determined to find the real Kev, not the “vanilla” guy his ex-fiancée didn’t want to marry. When he sees Andi onstage and then collides with her in the hallway, he damn near bursts into flame, and their hot, sweet hookup leaves him wanting more.
The man is entirely too attractive though—too endearing—so Andi breaks it off with very firm “no” to a second date. But when their work brings them together again, Andi and Kevin slowly embark on a friendship instead. Andi’s beginning to trust a man for the first time in maybe ever. Kevin’s beginning to enjoy having opinions of his own– and squabbling about them with his new friend. Silently they both yearn for more, even though they realize friendship is safer. But then something unexpected turns their lives upside down in the best way possible.
Jessica’s Review:
I have listened to all three books in the Big Love from Galway series and have enjoyed them! These are romance books with plus size female main characters and male characters that you can’t help but falling for! These books also have spice with open door scenes, yet the books also deal with serious issues. In Hard to Get, the issue dealt with is domestic violence.
Andi and Kevin are both dealing with their own personal issues and going on their own journeys: Kevin has moved away and is starting over in a new location far from home after his fiancé decided she did not want to marry him. Andi is independent woman with a family history that still greatly affects her today.
I identified with Andi as she is independent and has built up her own walls due to her family past. Having gone through a divorce last year, in those ways I am similar to Andi, though you would never see me taking the stage and singing like she does!
We do have a spicy beginning, but after a while it does get toned down as the characters journey moves toward friendship and then its progression through the rest of the novel. I don’t have to have open door scenes, but Moher can write them!
Kevin was just… like Angus in Curves for Days, I just adored and crushed over him! I really enjoyed their journey even though Andi frustrated me at times. Once the reader and Kevin learns her backstory, we understand her issues.
The issue of domestic violence is throughout the story as Andi works at a domestic violence shelter. She even goes to the local high school football team and gives a presentation that strongly affects everyone in the room. Andi is meant to do this job!
The narrators Paul Bellantoni and Michelle Price have been the narrators for all three Galway books. I did have some trouble with the second book because of this as Bellantoni’s voice was Angus for me, but fortunately I did not have this issue with my third trip to Galway! Both Bellantoni and Price were fabulous! They really brought these characters to life and delivered on all the emotions these characters had! And Bellantoni’s voice is just… let’s just say I really enjoy his voice!
I will definitely we looking at any future novels that Moher will be writing.
Many thanks to the publisher Dreamscape Media for granting me a copy to listen to and review for all three books in the Galway series!
Book Review: The Stranger In Her House by John Marrs
The Stranger in Her House
Author: John Marrs
Narrators:
Elizabeth Knowelden
Soneela Nankani
Steve West
Published: February 13, 2024
Audiobook: 10 hours 11 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 24-29, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
A stranger has infiltrated your family…and now he’s taking over.
Paul’s just here to help, or so he claims—sent by a charity for vulnerable people to do odd jobs for elderly widow Gwen. But for Gwen’s daughter Connie, there’s just something about Paul that rings alarm bells from day one. He’s a little too kind, a little too involved…Worse still, Gwen seems to have fallen under his spell.
The last thing Connie wants is a stranger meddling in the safe routine she’s built around Gwen. She loves being the one Gwen turns to for cooking, cleaning and company. But the more Paul visits, the more Gwen is relying on him. By the time he conveniently finds himself between homes and has no choice but to move in, Connie is certain he’s trying to push her out completely.
It’s her word against his, though, and as her attempts to unmask him become ever more desperate she’s not the only one left wondering if she’s lost her grip on reality. But when events start spiralling rapidly out of her control, should Connie wage all-out war on Paul and risk losing Gwen forever—or has that been his plan all along?
Jessica’s Review:
Whoa: Another John Marrs book that delivers! How does he come up with these twisted ideas?!?! We have mother Gwen and daughter Connie. Connie takes care of Gwen who suffers from Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Then Paul comes into the picture: He was sent in by a charity that helps the elderly who are also sick. Paul starts doing small jobs and pulls himself fully into Gwen’s life. Slowly he begins taking over Gwen and her home. Is Paul honest or does he have ulterior motives? What is Connie to do?
Both Connie and Paul were unlikeable to me. Connie just rubbed me the wrong way despite trying to help her mother. The only one I felt empathy for was Gwen. Marrs captured a character’s descent into Dementia and Alzheimer’s with compassion and understanding. It seems like he must know someone who has suffered from those dreaded diseases.
This novel is so much more than it seems! I can’t give my thoughts on one character without it being a possible spoiler. John Marrs can just do a one, two, three punch when it comes to twists: Just when he delivers one doozy of a twist, you better get ready, because he is about to deliver another one!
I will definitely be working on reading more of Marrs books.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
ALC Review: Remote: The Six by Eric Rickstad
Remote: The Six
Series: Remote #1
Author: Eric Rickstad
Narrator: Ari Fliakos
To Be Published: April 8, 2025
Audiobook: 8 hours 34 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: March 10-21, 2025
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
A serial killer is rampaging across the country, tying families to chairs–arranged in puzzling tableaus–then murdering them, without leaving a trace of evidence.
FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark has been hunting the Tableau Killer for eighteen months but is always two steps behind in a maze of dead ends. He has no understanding of why the killer stages the scenes so meticulously or chooses entire families. Burning out, Stark is forced to take on a new partner, Gilles Garnier.
Garnier, an odd loner with a vague past, claims he’s a remote viewer who “sees” people, places, and events far away–remote–as if they’re right in front of him. Stark knows this sort. Cons. Wannabes desperate to worm their way onto a sensational case. Stark dismisses his new partner as a fraud … until Garnier precisely describes a new Tableau Killer crime scene from hundreds of miles away.
As Stark and Garnier track the Tableau Killer across the country, they start to believe they finally have the advantage. But Garnier’s ability to remote view fails him and leaves him ill and weak. Then Stark realizes how the killer has stayed ahead of them all this time. The reason is more terrifying than either man can fathom.
They face a killer who may be unstoppable, and stand at the abyss of a conspiracy so ominous, it shakes their reality to the core.
Jessica’s Review:
This novel is released tomorrow, and I am sharing my review with you today!
The Six is the first in the Remote Series with the second book scheduled to come out July 8th. The Six is about a serial killer, the Tableau Killer, who graphically kills families. This is a dark and could be a disturbing book to some readers because the Tableau Killer does kill children. The Tableau Killer has been killing for eighteen months and Special Agent Stark grudgingly ends up with Gilles Garnier, a partner with a unique ability. And together Stark and Garnier track down and try to hunt down this killer before he tortures and kills another family. All while uncovering many secrets.
Stark is our main character and he is a very flawed and unlikeable person. He has been working this case for sometime and is also estranged from his family. We see both Stark’s professional and personal lives. I was leery of Garnier for most of the book, but he did eventually grow on me.
The main story is solved with The Six, but the ending also leads into the second book in the series which as of now is scheduled to be released on July 8th. I might just be interested in continuing this series. Especially seeing that the narrator for The Six Ari Fliakos returns to narrate the second book in the series: The Five. I really enjoyed his narration, Fliakos definitely added to the ‘creepy factor’ of this novel for me!
The Six is my first novel by Rickstad, and I may find myself looking at what else he has written!
Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
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