Category: LGBTQ Audio Books

An Ali Audiobook Review: What Remains by Garrett Leigh and Craig Beck (Narrator)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
what-remains-audiobookWeb designer Jodi Peters is a solitary creature. Lunch twice a week with his ex-girlfriend-turned-BFF and the occasional messy venture to a dodgy gay bar is all the company he needs, right? 

Then one night he stumbles across newly divorced firefighter Rupert O’Neil. Rupert is lost and lonely, but just about the sweetest bloke Jodi has ever known. Add in the heady current between them, and Jodi can’t help falling hard in love. He offers Rupert a home within the walls of his cosy Tottenham flat—a sanctuary to nurture their own brand of family—and for four blissful years, life is never sweeter. 

Until a cruel twist of fate snatches it all away. A moment of distraction leaves Jodi fighting for a life he can’t remember and shatters Rupert’s heart. Jodi doesn’t know him—or want to. With little left of the man he adores, Rupert must cling to what remains of his shaky faith and pray that Jodi can learn to love him again. 
I liked this but I didn’t love it. The story follows the relationship of Rupert and Jodi as they experience some serious problems. I don’t want to say more about it because it really can’t be discussed without spoilers. Unfortunately there is another pretty famous book in this genre with the same plot and I could not stop comparing the two. This book has the same dream like quality that makes this author’s writing style unique but overall I wasn’t drawn in like I usually am to her stories. I was never super attached to the characters either. I never felt emotion other than a little sadness and I feel like this should have been a tear jerker. I spent some time wondering if I would have been more emotional if I wasn’t comparing with the other book but I don’t think I would have been. There was just some connection missing for me in this book. So…..not bad by any means but wasn’t as good as I usually find this author’s work.
The audiobook was narrated by Craig Beck and I thought he did an excellent job.  His voice is wonderful and he did a equally good job on both of the main characters as well as the side characters.  I think this was the perfect narrator for this story.
Cover by: G.D. Leigh:  I like the cover.  It’s a nice, striking cover that immediately catches your eye.
Sales Links

Audiobook Details:

Audiobook, 424 pages
Published January 3rd 2017 by Riptide Publishing (first published July 4th 2016)
Original TitleWhat Remains
ASINB01N1XNY5D
Edition LanguageEnglish

BLOG TOUR: People Fish by Medella Kingston (excerpt and giveaway)

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PeopleFish by Medella Kingston

Publisher:  NineStar Press
Release Date: January 23rd

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Purchase Links

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Synopsis

 

Her Cree grandmother called it the gift of seeing, but for Petra “Pete” Orvatch, knowing things in ways that defy explanation has made reality and fantasy blur in a world where the clocks literally go backward. Her fascinating and clairvoyant mind is a riddle that many doctors have tried to solve with medication. Love comes her way unexpectedly when she meets Fiona Angeli, a stunningly beautiful single mother. A risk-taker by nature, Fiona is not scared off by her new lover’s psychic abilities and eccentricities.

 

The two of them share passion and secrets on a magical and surprising journey, and their torrid love affair takes them to thrilling new places until betrayal divides them. Both these women fight battles within themselves; Fiona must gain control of her dangerous compulsions, and Pete’s onerous gift ultimately puts her at risk of losing herself in the gap between delusions and the real world.

 

Title:  PeopleFish
Author: Medella Kingston

 

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Female/Female
Length: 118000

Genre: Romance, lesbian, bisexual, paranormal, Addiction, psychic ability, romance

Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33546115

Excerpt

PeopleFish

Medella Kingston © 2017

All Rights Reserved

 

 

Pete looked up from the mystery she was reading and scanned the faces in the waiting room. There was Tired Pinched Mom, with faded blond ponytail and dark roots coming in. She had one kid under control and was now quietly negotiating with the other. Next to this trio sat Man Too Large for His Seat, who seemed to be staring at his shoes or sleeping with his eyes open. In the corner was someone so nondescript she couldn’t instantly name her—then it came to her: Any Woman. This woman was neither thin nor large, short nor tall, and had a slightly exotic yet familiar face. She looked as if she could be from many different places, like Greece, Morocco, Central America, or New Jersey. She was text-messaging so quickly, Pete half expected her thumbs to spark and set fire to her phone.

 

Doesn’t anyone people-watch anymore? Was she the only person left who liked to read faces and create narratives? Maybe so. She’d never stop doing it. She’d been spinning this stuff since she was little—much to the annoyance of her mother. Instead of acknowledging the creative gifts of her child, or at the very least being entertained by them, she’d say, “God will punish you, Petra Marie, for thinking bad thoughts about people and making up lies.”

 

Some traits must skip generations, because Grandma Sweets had the right attitude. She’d join right in and embellish her granddaughter’s rough outlines of strangers’ lives with additions that could only come from a seasoned mind. If Pete said a passenger on the bus looked guilty, Gram Sweets would say, “Of course he looks guilty, he ought to! Instead of cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving, he cooked his wife!”

 

Her reminiscing was perforated by the staccato ring of a telephone.

 

“Cambridge Holistic Health and Wellness Center, please hold.”

 

Please hold? No one else is on the line; is this receptionista just fucking with the caller? Pete dog-eared the page in her paperback, closed it, slipped it into her bag, and decided to devote all of her energy to observing. She was just about to make up a story about the receptionist when her eyes landed on something strange. She hadn’t noticed the cheap plastic clock on the wallpapered wall before, but now she couldn’t take her eyes off it because the second hand was moving backward.

 

At first she thought she was seeing things, since her imagination was such a well-developed muscle. So she did something that made her feel seven instead of thirty-seven. She closed her eyes to reset, inhaled a long, slow breath, and then opened them, hoping this simple act could alter what she saw, or make things feel right again. She didn’t return her gaze to the clock right away, but rather avoided its face like you would dodge direct eye contact in a volley of flirt-and-stare with a stranger who’d caught you looking.

 

She panned her eyes evenly over all she had just taken in. Now the previously obedient child of the two was acting petulant, Man Too Large for His Seat actually was asleep, and Any Woman had stopped texting and was staring back at Pete. This startled her a bit. She looked away and then forced herself to look at the clock again. The red second hand was still moving backward and now instead of 2:27, it was 2:26, and the room seemed brighter to her than it had been just a minute ago.

 

“Petra Orvatch?”

 

She heard the automaton call her but she couldn’t move—she felt obligated to monitor the clock and confirm that it was in fact going backward, but knew she shouldn’t say anything about it. It was one of those times when she couldn’t expect people to understand her. These occurrences had happened ever since she could remember and could be confusing, amusing, or even downright dangerous.

Meet the Author

 

About the Author

Medella Kingston fell in love with writing at an early age and published articles, poems, and stories when she was growing up. She wrote, performed, and sold songs for movie soundtracks, and continued writing short stories for her own pleasure. She currently sings in the band Omnesia, which has aired locally on UC Berkeley’s radio station and been heard as far east as Goa and the Mumbai University. She lives with her partner and their two dogs in the East Bay. PeopleFish is Medella’s first novel, and she is currently working on a new book.

Author Links

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Tour Schedule

1/23 – On Top Down Under – http://ontopdownunderbookreviews.com/

1/23 – Scatteredt Thoughts And Rogue Words – https://scatteredthoughtsandroguewords.com/

1/24 – Molly Lolly; Reader, Reviewer, Lover of Words – https://mollylollyauthor.wordpress.com

1/24 – Stories That Make You Smile – https://authoraddisonalbright.com

1/25 – Erotica For All  http://eroticaforall.co.uk

1/25 – Divine Magazine – http://divinemagazine.biz

1/26 – MM Good Book Reviews – https://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com/

1/26 – Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents – http://fangirlmomentsandmytwocents.blogspot.com

1/26 – Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews – http://wickedfaeriesreviews.blogspot.com

1/26 – Boy Meets Boy Reviews – boymeetsboyreviews.blogspot.com

1/27 – Happily Ever Chapter – https://www.facebook.com/happilyeverchapter

1/27 – Sharing Links and Wisdom – http://sharinglinksandwisdom.blogspot.com

1/27 – Love Bytes – www.lovebytesreviews.com

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive an ebook of their choice from NineStar Press
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