DANGER CLOSE

Danger Close by Cameron Curtis
Book 1 in the Breed Thriller series
Narrated by Jared Zeus
Genre: crime fiction
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Danger Close:

They were powerful and ruthless, but they made one mistake. His name is Breed.

Ex-Delta Force sniper Breed has spent most of his life at war and now he’s trying to make some time for peace. But when a veteran from his old unit is murdered in El Paso, Breed feels duty-bound to bring the killer to justice. A feeling that only grows stronger when his friend’s widow and son are also murdered.

As he uses all his specialist skills to uncover the truth, Breed finds himself working with some unlikely allies — a devious CIA operative, and a determined Latina reporter. Together, they uncover a conspiracy to launch a massive attack on US soil.

The terrorists are confident — they have powerful friends in the Mexican cartels and US law enforcement. But they have reckoned without one thing — Breed.

Source: Info in the "About Danger Close" was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56974798-danger-close on 08/10/2023.

Buy Link(s):

 

My Thoughts:

This author has the tendency to kill everybody off. Not as bad as Joe Abercrombie. But close enough. That is one of the main reasons why I stopped reading Joe Abercrombie no matter how good his story telling quality is. And now we have another author with the same tendency... **sigh** ...I had to take time out to grieve. This contributed to this book being slower than the 8 hours and a half that it is supposed to be.

The plot though, I did not expect that! I was totally conned in by the character! Shows you just how gullible I am!

Delta Force

This is a very violent read. I would not recommend this book to younger readers.

This is my first Jared Zeus audiobook and I would listen to him again.

Quantitative Evaluation:

Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4.5
Writing Style = 3
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = (8 hrs and 26 mins listening time)
Plot = 5
Narration = 5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries

Books In The Breed Thriller Series:

 

Meet The Author

About Cameron Curtis:

Cameron Curtis has spent thirty years on trade floors as a trader and risk manager. He was on the trade floor when Saddam’s tanks rolled into Kuwait, when the air wars opened over Baghdad and Belgrade, and when the financial crisis swallowed the world. Having written fiction as a child, he is the author of the Breed action thriller series.

tiktok | facebook | instagram | amazon | goodreads

The Narrator

About Jared Zeus:

Deep, versatile and characterful with charm and depth.

I grew up in New Jersey. Lived in New York and L.A for several years.

My accent is generic American — very versatile. Can do all American accents but specifically New York, Southern States and Californian.

I also run Stratford-upon-Avon Studios in England — specialising in Voiceover.

jaredzeus.com | linkedin | goodreads

FTC Disclosure:
The ebook and audiobook were bought with private funds.
No money received for this review.

MIRANDA

Miranda by Sherry Foster
Book 6 in the Safe Haven Wolves series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook

About Miranda:

An unforgivable betrayal.

An unthinkable curse.

A desperate act.

When Merry brought her future mate home, she did the unthinkable. Her mother, Miranda, leader of the witch clans, had a plan for her future and a shifter male wasn’t in that plan. But Merry didn’t care about plans, she cared about Donavan.

Their love was magical. The acceptance of the witch clans, non-existent.

Conditions were made a non-existent.

Donavan.

Source: Info in the "About Miranda" was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43973072-miranda on 06/11/2019.

Witch's wolf

My Thoughts:

I am not a fan of historicals so this book got read mainly because: 1. I am a fan of this series already. 2. I wanted to know what happened after the rescue mission from the last book. And of course I'm glad I did because it is a fun little book to read.

The main story arc ended about three quarters into the book. Then it is just fillers after that. Good fillers mind, but nothing much to do with the main story. It does points to some interesting twists in the series, though. So still really good. The abundance of text errors still annoys me though!

At 170 pages, this is another short and sweet read!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 5
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4.5
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 5
Cover art = 3.5
Pace = 5
Plot = 3.5
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

Meet The Author

About Sherry Foster:

Sherry fell in love with reading when she was young and never lost her love of words on a page. She enjoys fantasy and science fiction along with a few other genres. She has two grown children and eight grandchildren who keep her on her toes.

She writes fantasy but has plans to branch out into other genres eventually.

www.sherryfosterauthor.com | twitter | facebook | facebook page | instagram | amazon | goodreads

FTC Disclosure:
The different formats of this book were purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.

DEAD TO THE WORLD

Dead To The World by Annabel Chase
Book 1 in the Crossroads Queen series
Narrated by Vivienne Leheny
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobook

About Dead To The World:

Lorelei Clay isn’t like other people.

She isn’t even like other supernaturals. Her specialties are the nightmares of the living, communication with the dead, and cooking bacon until it’s golden brown and perfectly crispy — no magic required.

Six months ago she moved to the ultimate fixer upper, a monstrosity from the Gilded Age that borders the local cemetery in the sleepy Pennsylvania town of Fairhaven. Lorelei is content to spend the next few years in solitude, renovating the house and avoiding humanity, until a missing young woman disrupts her plans. Lorelei’s search for the teenager means crossing paths with the residents she’s successfully avoided so far, including the human police chief, the coven, a cursed vampire, the assassins guild, the werewolf pack, and the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring owner of The Devil’s Playground, an elegant nightclub that caters to the local supernatural clientele.

Lorelei plans to find the girl quickly and return to the privacy of her castle walls before anyone learns her secrets, but you know what they say about the best laid plans…

Source: Info in the "About Dead To The World" was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144085997-dead-to-the-world on 12/01/2024.

Buy Link(s):

 

My Thoughts:

So what does Fairhaven have that it is chuck full of supernaturals??

So, what exactly IS Lorelei?

What is that raven doing in the cover? Is that the black bird hanging around the Castle? What is it's story?

I do not like inconsistent plotting. She did her due deligence so she knew the way. That tells me that she did a recon (reconnaissance) so she knew the place before the meeting. But she does not know that the trail climbed? So what kind of recon did she do??

This is not my first Vivienne Leheny audiobook. Not even the second. Or third. With previous audiobooks, this narrator seemed ok. But for some reason in this one, Vivienne Leheny seems to pronounce words a little to quickly at times. Too "heavily"? Like, I thought she said "ha", instead of "hello". And I thought the character was being rude. But the ebook clearly says "hello" and not "ha". What was that all about??

Quantitative Evaluation:

Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 3.5
Story itself = 3.5
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4
Pace = (7 hrs and 23 mins listening time)
Plot = 3.5
Narration = 4

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries

Books In The Crossroads Queen Series:

 

Meet The Author

About Annabel Chase:

Annabel Chase is the author of urban fantasy and cozy mystery novels. She would love to live in a magical town where she can shop at Ready-to-Were for the the perfect outfit, flirt with hot angels and vampires, and cook gourmet meals without exerting any effort.

annabelchase.com | twitter | facebook | instagram | amazon | goodreads

The Narrator

About Vivienne Leheny:

For over two decades, Vivienne Leheny has worked professionally in New York City and Los Angeles as an actor, voiceover artist and writer. She’s appeared on Off-Broadway and regional theatre stages, been screened at numerous film festivals (including Sundance in the 2019 opening night film: AFTER THE WEDDING), toured the northeast doing stand-up, and her writing has been published in national publications.

Vivienne has built a successful audiobook narration business, reading under her own name as well as under the pseudonyms, “Nola Zandry” and “Lily Collingwood.” She has a home studio and records using punch & roll software. Currently narrating six ongoing series, she also has numerous stand-alone book narrations, all of which are doing brisk sales on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. She’s narrated titles for Harper Collins, Macmillan, Recorded Books, and Simon & Schuster, among other audiobook publishers.

Vivienne will soon be recording her 150th audiobook narration.

Her audiobook narration course, The Voice in their Ear, has been a sell-out Maine Media Workshops+College, where she’s also taught her Putting Your Voice to Work: Building a Career in Voiceover curriculum, while her Breaking Into Audiobooks seminar for the SAG Foundation fills up quickly and with long wait lists. She’s also taught audiobook narration at the Caymichael Patten Studio.

She’s recorded over a thousand promotions for NBC programming (Saturday Night Live, Nightly News, Days of our Lives, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), including over a decade with The Today Show. She’s also done promotional spots for HBO, Showtime, and Bravo. Vivienne has voiced numerous national commercial campaigns, including Coca Cola, Fruit of the Loom, Florida Orange Juice, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Maxwell House and Revlon.

Her narration work has run the gamut, from Chain Gang Girls on Oxygen to Charles and Di: Once Upon a Time on TLC, from Fine Living’s Esquire’s Man at His Best to the six-part series Killer Outbreaks on Animal Planet, where she was the voice of the Bubonic Plague and West Nile Virus. She’s also the voice for the mysterious and disturbing “Phoenix Project” in the popular video game Assassin’s Creed, Unity.

www.vivienneleheny.com | twitter | facebook | goodreads

FTC Disclosure:
The ebook and audiobook were bought with private funds.
No money received for this review.