Brave Girl, Quiet Girl by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Narrated by: Kate Rudd, Jess Nahikian
Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 05-19-20
Language: English
Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Brooke is a divorced single mom, financially strapped, living with her mother, and holding tight to the one thing that matters most: her two-year-old daughter, Etta. Then, in a matter of seconds, Brooke’s life is shattered when she’s carjacked. Helpless and terrified, all Brooke can do is watch as Etta, still strapped in her seat, disappears into the Los Angeles night.

Miles away, Etta is found by Molly, a homeless teen who is all too used to darkness. Thrown away by her parents, and with a future as stable as the wooden crate she calls home, Molly survives day to day by her wits. As unpredictable as her life is, she’s stunned to find Etta, abandoned and alone. Shielding the little girl from more than the elements, Molly must put herself in harm’s way to protect a child as lost as she is.

Out of one terrible moment, Brooke’s and Molly’s desperate paths converge and an unlikely friendship across generations and circumstances is formed. With it, Brooke and Molly will come to discover that what’s lost – and what’s found – can change in a heartbeat.

Thoughts
Every book I’ve read by this author has been really good and this one is too. The book is about a little girl being in a car that is carjacked. I wasn’t sure if this was a good book choice right now with everything going on in the world, but the book took all of that out of my head and into Brooke, Molly, and Etta’s world.

I loved Molly. She was having a hard time just surviving since her mother threw her out of the house. But when she found Etta she did everything she could to keep the little girl safe, and get her back to her mom.

Then there’s Brooke, Etta’s mom. I didn’t like her for a big part of the book, but I love characters that make me want to shake some sense into them. I didn’t like the way she talked to and about her mother, who was letting her and Etta stay with her until Brooke got back on her feet. After Etta was found safe Brooke acted ungrateful to Molly, even though if it wasn’t for her she may not have ever gotten Etta back. Thankfully in the end Brooke and Molly formed a bond and became close.

I hope Hyde continues this story. I would love to find out how things went for all the characters after this book ended. Great characters, great story, great narration!

Cut and Run by Mary Burton

Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 10-09-18
Language: English
Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Twin sisters separated by the past are reunited by unspeakable crimes in New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton’s throat-clutching novel of suspense…

Trauma victims are not new to medical examiner Faith McIntyre, but this one is different. The unconscious woman clinging to life after a hit and run is FBI agent Macy Crow. What the woman from Quantico was doing in a dark alley after midnight is just one mystery. The other is more unsettling: Macy is Faith’s mirror image—the twin sister she never knew she had.

Faith knew that she was adopted, but now she’s finding that her childhood concealed other secrets. Following the trail of clues Macy left behind, Faith and Texas Ranger Mitchell Hayden make a shocking discovery on an isolated country ranch—a burial ground for three women who disappeared thirty years before.

They weren’t the only victims in a killer’s twisted plot. And they won’t be the last.

As the missing pieces of Faith’s and Macy’s dark lives snap into place, Faith is becoming more terrified by what she sees—and by what she must do to save her sister and herself from the past.

Thoughts
This was a great book to get my mind off of all that’s going on. It’s got a lot of twists that I didn’t see coming and kept me in suspense. I kept trying to guess who the bad guy was. Come to find out, all my guesses were wrong.

The book was non stop action and I set the timer on the audiobook a few times so that I could keep listening until I fell asleep without having a very hard time finding the spot I last remembered.

This was the first book by this author that I’ve read but after reading it I checked her other books and next on my list is Hide and Seek which continues with Macy’s story.

If you like suspense/thrillers, you should like this book.

The narrator did a great job!

A Life Without Water by Marci Bolden
Narrated by: Tanya Eby
Series: Life Without Water, Book 1
Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 04-28-20
Language: English

Carol Denman divorced her husband over 20 years ago and has never looked back. But on the day before their daughter’s 30th birthday, John barges back into Carol’s life with a request that threatens the fragile stability she has built.

John Bowman is sick. Very sick. While he still can, he has some amends to make and some promises to fulfill. But to do that, he not only needs his ex-wife’s agreement…he needs her.

With the past hovering between them like a ghost, Carol and John embark on a decades-overdue road trip. Together they plunge back into a life without water…but which may ultimately set them free.

Thoughts
Oh my goodness, this was so good but it was also very sad. I loved going with John and Carol on the journey to fulfill the promise they made concerning their daughter. If it had been me, I would have wanted each of us to do it on our own but since John was sick I would have done it with him like Carol did, no matter what my feelings about him were. I knew the reason why they made the promise but finding out the details of what happened took quite a way into the book.

The trip they took was very interesting, lots of stops in different states and even one stop that really surprised me. In the end Carol realized that not all the things that made her resent John were his fault, some of them were hers.

Even though this book is such a sad story, there are also some uplifting moments and even a few that are funny.

The narrator did a good job and made this a very easy book to listen to.

This is the first book by this author that I’ve read but I’m patiently waiting for the audio of book #2 in this series, A Life Without Flowers which is expected to be released on September 29th of this year.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Narrated by: Michael Scott
Series: Alice in Wonderland, Book 1
Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 10-05-18
Language: English
Publisher: AB Books

In the opening scene of this story Alice is a young girl living in the country and becomes bored by her sister sitting out in the open field quietly reading. When a white rabbit passes by Alice decides to follow it and when the rabbit pops down a large rabbit hole, well Alice follows as well. Once at the bottom she explores a new and strange world where nothing is as it seems and everything continues to change. She meets bizarre and crazy characters who speak in rhymes, riddles and just plain nonsense.

Thoughts
I’ve had this book on my tbr list for so many years but just never got a copy. A few weeks ago I thought it was way past time for me to read it so I got the Audible copy. It surprised me that the book was so short, I thought it would be a lot longer. But one thing happened after another so it didn’t really “feel” that short. I was totally engrossed in the book.

The book was really good. It was silly, funny, and had a great cast of characters. I loved the Queen and all her “off with their head!” comments over and over, when random people did random things.

Other quotes I liked were:
“It would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig.”

“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

A few of my favorites are:
“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.”

”And what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?”

I loved this quote the most since it is very true with what’s happening in the world today:
“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.”

The story started out a bit different than what I thought it was going to and I couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. I thought the flow of the book was great and that Michael Scott was the perfect choice for the narration. I loved listening to him tell this story. Between the writing and the narration I could see the story in my mind.

If you haven’t read this yet, you should. I really enjoyed it.

This will be a book I return to every so often. It was an easy listen and a great story. It got me out of the reading rut I fell back into when  2020 hit the fan.

BTW: I’ve never seen the movie either, so I plan on watching it soon.