Tag: fiction

An Advanced Listening Copy Review of Switched by Sarah Ready

Switched
Series: Ghosted #2
Author: Sarah Ready

Narrators:
Kelsey Navarro Foster

James Anderson Foster
To Be Published: February 20, 2024
Audiobook: 10 hours 12 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To:  February 2-12, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Description:

For Serena Otaki, free-spirited Californian, life is simple. She loves smashing atoms at The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. She loves Star Trek, spicy tofu, and her cat, Captain Purrk. She loves her messy (slob-fest) apartment, her chaotic brand of organizing, and staying permanently, happily unattached.

Life is perfect. She has one true love—physics.
Loving a man isn’t in her future.

For Henry Joules, uptight Brit, life is simple. He loves making analog black holes, drinking piping hot tea, and organizing his pencil tray. He loves his family, red meat, and obsessively cleaning his spotless apartment.

Life is perfect. He has many loves—physics, family, friends. He can’t wait to find the woman of his dreams.
Love and marriage are in his future.

One perfect night Serena and Henry meet. Sparks fly, particles collide, the universe comes to a halt, and…

It was a mistake.
They’re too different.
It won’t work.

Love isn’t in their future.

Until an electric storm causes an unexpected event at the particle collider and suddenly—they’ve switched.

Serena is in Henry’s body.
Henry is in Serena’s body.

And both life and love are suddenly very, very complicated.

Jessica’s Review:

Wow, Jessica listened to another romance novel and really enjoyed it! This is the second in the Ghosted series. It isn’t necessary to have read Ghosted before this one because Jillian and Daniel’s story is mentioned in Switched, but I really do recommend it! Their story also continues since Switched happens after Ghosted.  So far in this series we have extremely smart FMCs (female main characters) with STEM careers, that are also nerdy but adorable.  It’s great to have strong female characters with this type of career!

To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the book until Serena and Henry switched bodies. I think it was a ‘me’ thing with some things going on in my life. But once that switch happened the book took off for me. 

Switched is very entertaining and hilarious at times.  We see what happens when you are not just in another person’s body, but someone of the opposite gender! Both Serena and Henry have experiences as the opposite sex. And really, we do see that women really are the stronger gender! Full on hilarity ensues, I just don’t want to say what as a minor spoiler.  We do have a small amount of spice that I could have done without.  Remember…. I’ve figured out that I seem to be a ‘fade to black’/ ‘behind closed door’ romance reader.

Here are some of the tropes we have in Switched:
Fake Dating

One Night Stand
Forced Proximity

We have two narrators: Kelsey Navarro Foster and James Anderson Foster, who are married in ‘real life’! Kelsey did a fabulous job! She really captured everything with the characters down to the ‘bad English accent’ with Serena attempting to be Henry.  James only narrated for one chapter, and for that I was thankful as his voice for this chapter did not work for me. 

Sarah Ready is an author I discovered last year and Switched is the third book I have listened to from her, and I have enjoyed them all!  She’s an author I plan to read/listen to more. And with a third book in the Ghosted series coming out in July, I am ready for another book from her!  And for one who doesn’t really read much romance, that is saying something! And let me just say that the covers of the books in this series… It’s very tempting for me to want physical copies of them because they are just… Gorgeous!

Many thanks to the publisher for having these audiobooks available to listen to and reviewing!

Pre-Order Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

 

Book Review: Prey by Sarah Davis

Prey
Author: Sarah Davis

Published: October 31, 2023
Paperback: 268 Pages

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read:  December 11-27, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

The fall waterfowl migration has brought something deadly to a small North Dakota town.

Dr. Emily Hayes, a veterinarian and single mom, is the first to submit a sample of mutated Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza—coined H5N1 2.0 or Mad Crow—a highly infectious disease that awakens violent aggression in birds and causes human infection.

Just as the community is about to be overcome by this Hitchcockian nightmare, handsome face from Emily’s past arrives—Dr. Jack Connor. He hopes he can help trace the source of the infection.

As the zoonotic infection spreads, unleashing unimaginable violence and turning birds into lethal creatures, Emily and Jack must overcome their differences and face the secrets that have kept them apart if they are to find a way out of this deadly biological nightmare.

Please be advised with these trigger warnings: Violence, animal death, human death, outbreak/ COVID 19.

Jessica’s Review:

Sarah Davis is a veterinarian, and she writes what she knows! (With some creative licensing).  With Prey, Davis takes a crossover of bird flu and swine flu to create mad crow. We do have references to the COVID-19 pandemic happening in the past, and let’s face it: A medical thriller written in present times of course COVID-19 was going to be mentioned.  It’s a part of our past, present, and will always be around.

I am a big fan of the 1995 movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman, Cuba Gooding Jr and Rene Russo, so I was excited to get a chance to read this novel! And Prey takes off full steam ahead from the beginning! We get very aggressive bird attacks against humans. The description is very vivid, so reader discretion would be advised. 

The reader also gets multiple povs with short chapters, so this novel makes for some good and quick reading! For the romance readers, there is a little bit of a second chance romance added in to the mix, so there isn’t just deaths and killer birds! 

In case you didn’t know a group of crows is called a murder, and Prey brings on a new meaning to this term!  There were a few times as I was reading this book that I would be on the road and would pass a grouping of crows that might or might not fly off, which kind of freaked me out: But how could I not be while reading this book! Especially with one particular attack that happens early on!

 I did like the ending, we have an ending but not! With a virus that may always be the case. Prey has a little bit of just about everything to it: Action, terror, horror, killer bird, romance, secrets, hope, and a little bit of supernatural.  It should have something for most readers!

I really do like the cover to Prey: It is simple but also not! It achieves what it needs to do and catches my attention!  This is one I would definitely pick up in the bookstore to see what it is about.

It was surprising to know that Davis has never seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds! She mentions that in her author notes. I wonder if that is still the case now?   

Many thanks to Sarah Davis for sending me a paperback copy to read and review! I enjoyed it and I hope more people read it!

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

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Book Review: Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

Skipping Christmas
Author: John Grisham

Narrator: Dennis Boutsikaris
Published: November 6, 2001
Audiobook: 3 hours 42 minutes

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: December 4-5, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars

Audiobook Description:

Imagine a year without Christmas. No crowded shops, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That’s just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they’ll skip the holiday altogether. Theirs will be the only house on the street without a rooftop Frosty the snowman; they won’t be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash; they aren’t even going to have a tree. They won’t need one, because come December 25 they’re setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But, as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences – and isn’t half as easy as they’d imagined.

A classic tale for modern times, Skipping Christmas offers a hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that has become part of holiday tradition.

Jessica’s Review:

 I read Skipping Christmas many years ago and was only reading it again because it was December’s read for the book club I am in. As I started it, I remembered what was going to happen.  If you have seen the movie Christmas with the Kranks then you know what happens.  I had seen that movie once as well and just didn’t like it.  I remembered Jamie Lee Curtis and Tim Allen played the main characters so I pictured them as I was listening to this short audiobook. I also remembering not really liking the movie and the book was just average for me this time around.  It’s a lot of slapstick comedy ( I mean it is Tim Allen in the movie!).

Luther and Nora’s daughter has joined the Peace Corp and this is her first Christmas away from them.  Luther does the math and saw how much they spent last Christmas so he comes up with the idea of “Let’s just skip Christmas and go on a cruise!”. The book deals with the aftermath of that decision. And a lot of people make their thoughts clear on it. 

I just didn’t really think highly of this book. Not everyone celebrates Christmas so to each their own.  Just let the Krank’s do what they want regardless of what they have done in the past! And OMG, No Christmas party!!?!?!?  For shame!!!!

Regardless of how you feel, everyone (over)reacts to the Krank’s decision, with an unexpected twist that comes if you haven’t seen the movie or read the book; you see how everyone can come together to make Christmas something after all.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Christmas with the Kranks movie trailer:

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