Kate’s 2¢: “Lost in the Forest” by Sue Miller

“Lost in the Forest” by Sue Miller

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

    Blair Brown did a good job of narrating this story. Tales of child abuse are always hard to read and harder to understand and hardest to forgive.

A few take-aways:

–She missed her even more when she was still around.

–A lie would lock her into all kinds of implications.

–It reminded him of all the feelings of inadaquacies and failure.

–He felt that everything he’d worked for was sslipping away.

–Whatever use you made of me, I made of you.

AI from the web:

Sue Miller is a best-selling American author known for her novels that often explore family dynamics, relationships, and the complexities of modern life. She has written numerous critically acclaimed books, including The Good Mother, Family Pictures, and While I Was Gone, the latter of which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. Miller’s work frequently delves into themes of marriage, infidelity, motherhood, and the search for identity. 

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Lost in the forest DB59666

Miller, Sue. Reading time: 8 hours, 39 minutes.

Read by Blair Brown.

Family

Psychological Fiction

When her beloved stepfather dies in a car accident, young teenager Daisy, the middle child in a blended family, falls apart. The rest of her family struggles on, but Daisy is seduced by an older, married man and enters a dangerous adult world. Some explicit descriptions of sex and some strong language. Commercial audiobook. 2005.

Downloaded: July 3, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “What Harry Saw” by Thomas Moran

“What Harry Saw” by Thomas Moran

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

    Bruce Nelsondid a good job of narrating this book that takes place in New South Wales. Harry shares a stream of consciousness to make the narrative arc plausible.

A few take-aways:

–How everything shifts and changes between people

–There doesn’t seem to beany going back, once a change has happened.

–How you behave one time, isn’t any indicator of how you’ll behave another time.

–Autumn to Autumn and ‘round again.

–Life is like some long-distance race: no real finish line.

Thomas Moran is an author of fiction, known for novels like “The Man in the Box”. He also has a strong connection to the world of journalism, having received a Pulitzer nomination for his investigative reporting. 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Moran was born and raised near Baltimore. He attended the University of Maryland and The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. At twenty-eight, after five years as a journalist, he earned a Pulitzer nomination in investigative reporting for a series of stories on Mafia activities in New York City. He has written five novels, several of which have been nominated for the IMPAC Dublin prize. In 2001, Moran was awarded the prestigious Tennessee Williams Fellowship by the University of the South.

Moran’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Hebrew, Chinese and Japanese. Moran and his family divide their time between Woodstock, N.Y., New York City, and Europe.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

What Harry saw DB56538

Moran, Thomas. Reading time: 11 hours, 49 minutes.

Read by Bruce Nelson.

Human Relations

Psychological Fiction

Penetrating journey into the mind of Australian veteran Harry Hull. Returning from the Vietnam War scarred and traumatized, he struggles to cope. Harry’s post-war existence is full of emotional and complicated relationships–he has an alcoholic father and a stormy love life. Strong language, some descriptions of sex, and some violence. 2002.

Downloaded: April 27, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “Not Guilty” by Patricia MacDonald

“Not Guilty” by Patricia MacDonald

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Margaret Strom read this tense story very well.  It was unfortunate that it took the son’s desperarate measure to get the mOther to believe him. The ending was very interesting, once we were clued in on the back-ground of it all.

AI from the web:

MacDonald grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and has a master’s degree from Boston College. Before writing her own novels she was a book editor and was once an editor for a soap opera magazine in New York. She is married to writer Art Bourgeau. They live in Cape May, New Jersey and have one daughter.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Not guilty DB56778

MacDonald, Patricia J. Reading time: 14 hours, 20 minutes.

Read by Margaret Strom.

Suspense Fiction

Psychological Fiction

Keely Weaver is shocked when her second husband drowns in their pool. She is stunned when her teenage son, Dylan, is accused of his stepfather’s murder and also that of his father years ago. Keely uses all her resources to find the real killer. Some violence and some strong language. 2002.

Downloaded: July 3, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “Beneath Dark Waters” by Karren Rose

“Beneath Dark Waters” by Karren Rose

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Lee Osorio did a great job of narrating this lengthy book. I felt the author had introduced too many characters too soon for me to keep track of, but eventually each came into focus. Their place in the narrative became apparent and I like the way the author drew them all together for the ending.

   I enjoyed this book and missed several on-line meetings to continue reading straight through to the end.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.karenrosebooks.com

Karen Rose (born Karen Rose Hafer in Baltimore, Maryland, United States) is an internationally bestselling, RITA-award winning romantic suspense author. Rose was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. She met her husband, Martin, on a blind date when they were seventeen and after they both graduated from the University of Maryland (Karen with a degree in chemical engineering), they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Karen worked as a chemical engineer for a large consumer goods company, earning two patents, but as Karen says, “scenes were roiling in my head and I couldn’t concentrate on my job so I started writing them down. I started out writing for fun, and soon found I was hooked.”

Her debut suspense novel, Don’t Tell, was released in July, 2003. Since then, she has published more than fifteen novels and two novellas. Her twenty-fifth novel, Say No More, was released in August 2020.

Karen’s books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, London’s Sunday Times, and Germany’s Der Spiegel (#1), and the Irish Times, as well as lists in South Africa (#1) and Australia.

Her novels, I’m Watching You and Silent Scream, received the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award for Best Romantic Suspense for 2005 and 2011. Five of her other books have been RITA finalists. To date, her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Karen’s books are set in different US states. The books are connected, and characters from previous novels usually make appearances, even if they are not from those places.[1]

A former high school teacher of chemistry and physics, Karen lives in Florida with her husband of more than thirty years and her dog, Loki.[2]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Beneath dark waters DB128255

Rose, Karen. Reading time: 19 hours, 53 minutes.

Read by Osorio, Lee.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Romantic Suspense

“There’s no safe place for a child to hide when the danger comes from every direction. Public prosecutor J.P. “Kaj” Cardozo has lived in New Orleans for only six months, and he’s already working on a high-profile celebrity sexual assault case that has made headlines all over the country. But when his son becomes the target of a kidnapping attempt as a threat to Kaj, he is desperate to keep him safe and turns to a private investigative firm famous for their protection services. A former marine, Val Sorensen is glad to have found a new career with Broussard Investigations, and her latest assignment as the bodyguard of ten-year-old Elijah Cardozo reminds her why: Val is a kick ass guardian with a tender heart. Through her duties, Val grows fond of the boy–and his handsome father. But when the high-stakes investigation reveals an explosive network of crime through a revived drug gang, lingering deep-seated corruption in the NOPD, and a group of murderers-for-hire targeting Kaj, Elijah, an

Downloaded: June 5, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “Harlot’s moon” by Edward Gorman

“Harlot’s moon” by Edward Gorman

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Jack Fox did a good job of narrating this book. It shows up the seemier side of the priesthood, that’s for sure.

Local mystery, crime author Ed Gorman dies at 74 | The Gazette

Edward “Ed” Gorman was an American author known for his crime, mystery, western, and horror fiction. He was also a prolific anthologist and editor. He wrote under various pseudonyms, including Daniel Ransom and E.J. Gorman. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Joseph Gorman Jr. (November 2, 1941 – October 14, 2016) was an American writer and short fiction anthologist. He published in almost every genre, but is best known for his work in the crime, mystery, western, and horror fields. His non-fiction work has been published in such publications as The New York Times and Redbook.

He contributed to many magazines and other publications, including Xero, Black Lizard, Mystery Scene, Cemetery Dance, and the anthology Tales of Zorro.

Personal life[edit]

Gorman was born and grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he spent much of his adult life as well. He lived for extended periods in Des Moines, Iowa; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Chicago, Illinois. He was married twice, first to Catherine Anne Stevens for seven years. He next married Carol Gorman (née Maxwell), an award-winning children’s and young adult author. They were married thirty-four years until his death in 2016.

Writing career[edit]

After twenty-three years in advertising, public relations, writing political speeches and producing industrial films, Gorman published his first novel Rough Cut (1984). Soon after he quit his day job and dedicated himself to writing full-time (thanks to his wife Carol’s full-time teaching job).

Gorman considered himself a genre writer. In the 1970s Gorman won a short story contest sponsored by Charles Scribner & Sons. An editor there suggested he expand his winning story into a mainstream novel, but Gorman gave up after six months, saying, “I was bored out of my mind. I am a genre writer.”[1]

Gorman’s novels and stories are often set in small Midwestern towns, such as the fictional Black River Falls, Iowa (the Sam McCain series), or Cedar Rapids, Iowa (The Night Remembers). For his Dev Conrad series, Gorman drew upon his years as a political operative.

Gorman was one of the founders of Mystery Scene magazine, and served as editor and publisher until 2002. His column, “Gormania,” continues to appear regularly in its pages.

In comics, he has written for DC, Dark Horse, and most recently Short, Scary Tales, which will be publishing adaptations of his novel Cage of Night (as Cage of Night) and the short story “Stalker” (as Gut-Shot).

Kirkus Reviews has called him “One of the most original crime writers around.” The Bloomsbury Review noted: “He is the poet of dark suspense.” The Oxford Book of American Crime Stories said: “His novels and stories provide fresh ideas, characters and approaches.” Jon Breen at Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine once noted, “Ed Gorman has the same infallible readability as writers like Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Donald E. Westlake, Ed McBain, and John D. MacDonald.”

Though Gorman was long considered to be a “prolific” writer, his pace of production slowed markedly after he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2002; it was incurable but he fought it for 14 years.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Harlot’s moon DB48362

Gorman, Edward. Reading time: 5 hours, 48 minutes.

Read by Jack Fox.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Psychological Fiction

Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Former FBI psychological profiler Robert Payne is asked by a childhood friend, Father Gray, to investigate the murder and mutilation of a fellow priest in a seedy motel. Payne discovers additional grisly murders among the parishioners and narrows his search. Strong language and violence.

Downloaded: April 27, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “The Giver” by Lois Lowry

“The Giver” by Lois Lowry

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   I downloaded this book from BookShare. It was digitally recorded.

   I thought the story was well done and would appeal to the target age range, as well as adults that might be reading this to a child, who might have a lot of questions Some of the answers can be found in the other books in the series.

   I appreciate the inclusion of the study suggestions for students.

A few take-aways:

–Our people made that choice. The choice to go to sameness.

–There aren’t any choices. I want to ake up in the morning  and decide.

–It doesn’t matter what you wear…It’s the choosing that’s important.

–The Giver wasn’t allowed to share the books with his spouse.

–When I am called before the council, I give them advise.

–Without the memories, it is all meaningless.

–The worst paart of holding the memories, is not the pain. It is loneliness of it.

–The community is dependent, back and back and back, to hold the memories.

He saw the wide river must have come from elsewhere and will go to elsewhere.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

loislowry.com

Lois Ann Lowry (/ˈlaʊəri/;[2] née Hammersberg; born March 20, 1937) is an American writer. She is the author of many books for children and young adults, including The Giver Quartet, Number the Stars, the Anastasia series, and Rabble Starkey. She is known for writing about difficult subject matters, dystopias, and complex themes in works for young audiences.

Lowry has won two Newbery Medals: for Number the Stars in 1990 and The Giver in 1994. Her book Gooney Bird Greene won the 2002 Rhode Island Children’s Book Award.

Many of her books have been challenged or even banned in some schools and libraries. The Giver, which is common in the curricula in some schools, has been prohibited in others.

Life[edit]

Lowry was born on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, to Katherine Gordon Landis and Robert E. Hammersberg.[3][4]: xi  Her maternal grandfather, Merkel Landis, a banker, created the Christmas Club savings program in 1910.[5]: 24  Initially, Lowry’s parents named her “Cena” for her Norwegian grandmother, but upon hearing the news, her grandmother telegraphed and instructed Lowry’s parents that the child should have an American name.[5]: 12 

Lowry was the middle child. She had an older sister named Helen, and a younger brother named Jon.[6] Helen died of cancer in 1962,[3] but Lowry and her brother still share a close relationship.[6]

Lowry’s father was an army dentist, whose work moved the family all over the United States and to many parts of the world.[3] Lowry and her family moved from Hawaii to Brooklyn, New York, in 1940, when Lowry was three years old.[3] They relocated in 1942 to her mother’s home town in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, when Lowry’s father was deployed to the Pacific during World War II.[3] Lowry began reading at three years old, and after first grade, she skipped second at the Franklin School in Carlisle.[3] As a child, she dreamed of becoming a writer.[7]

After World War II ended, Lowry moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan, where her father was stationed from 1948 to 1952.[3] Lowry attended seventh and eighth grades at the American School in Japan, a school for dependents of those involved in the military. She returned to the United States when the Korean War began in 1950.[3] Lowry and her family lived in Carlisle again in 1950, where she attended her freshman year in high school before moving to Governors Island, New York, when her father was assigned to First Army Headquarters there. Lowry briefly attended Curtis High School, on Staten Island,[3] then graduated from high school at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights, New York, attending from 1952 to 1954. She then attended Pembroke College, which became fully merged with Brown University in 1971.[3][4]: xi  There she met her future husband, Donald Grey Lowry.

Lowry left the university in 1956 after her marriage to Donald Grey Lowry, a U.S. Navy officer.[3] The couple moved several times from San Diego to New London, Connecticut, to Key West, Florida, to Charleston, South Carolina, to Cambridge, Massachusetts and finally to Portland, Maine.[4] They had two daughters, Alix and Kristin, and two sons, Grey and Benjamin.[3] While raising her children, Lowry completed her degree in English literature at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine, in 1972.[3] After earning her bachelor of arts, she continued at the university to pursue graduate studies.[3] In the mid-1970s, Lowry worked as a freelance writer and photographer.[7]

In 1977, at 40 years old, Lowry’s first book, A Summer to Die, was published.[3] In the same year, she and Donald Lowry were divorced.[3] Two years later she met Martin Small in Boston and was in a relationship with him for over 30 years, until his death in 2011.[8][9][10] From 2014 she has been in a relationship with Howard Corwin, a retired physician.[3]

Lowry’s son Grey, a USAF major and flight instructor, was killed in the crash of his fighter plane in 1995.[11] Lowry acknowledged that it was the most difficult day of her life, and she said, “His death in the cockpit of a warplane tore away a piece of my world, but it left me, too, with a wish to honor him by joining the many others trying to find a way to end conflict on this very fragile earth.”[12]

As of 2023, Lowry divides her time between Maine and Naples, Florida, and she still remains an active writer and speaker.[3]

Writing career[edit]

Lowry first began her career as a freelance journalist. In the 1970s, she submitted a short story to Redbook magazine, which was intended for adult audiences, but was written from a child’s perspective.[3] An editor working at Houghton Mifflin who read the Redbook story suggested to Lowry that she should write a children’s book.[3] Lowry agreed and wrote her first book A Summer to Die, which was later published by Houghton Mifflin in 1977 when she was 40 years old.[3] The book featured the theme of terminal illness, which is based on Lowry’s own experiences with her sister Helen.[3]

Lowry continued to write about difficult topics in her next publication, Autumn Street (1979), which explores themes of coping with racism, grief, and fear at a young age.[3] The novel is told from the perspective of a young girl who is sent to live with her grandfather during World War II, which is also based on her own experiences of having her father deployed during World War II. Of all the books she has published, Autumn Street is considered to be her most autobiographical.[3][1]

In the same year of publishing Autumn Street, Lowry also published her novel Anastasia Krupnik, the first installment in the Anastasia series.[1] The series, which touches on serious themes with a humorous approach,[3] continued through to 1995.

Lowry published Number the Stars in 1989, which received multiple awards, including the 1990 Newbery Medal.[13] Lowry received another Newbery in 1994, for The Giver (1993).[13] The story focuses on the experiences of a twelve year old boy, Jonas, who becomes the apprentice of the Giver. The Giver is the protector of memories that have been suppressed by the community.[7] As of 2021, The Giver has sold over 12 million copies,[14] and it was one of the most frequently challenged books of the 1990s.[14][15] On the impact of The Giver, Lowry said in an interview with School Library Journal, “That’s why teachers love using the book. They can find many books with as compelling a plot as The Giver. But they can’t find many books that provoke adolescents—who are tough nuts, anyway—to see issues that confront their world and to be passionately interested in them.”[7]

After publishing The Giver, she went on to publish another three companion novels that take place in the same universe: Gathering Blue (2000), Messenger (2004), and finally Son (2012), which tied all three of the previous books together. Collectively, they are referred to as The Giver Quartet.[1] The New York Times described the quartet as “less a speculative fiction than a kind of guide for teaching children (and their parents, if they’re listening carefully) how to be a good person.”[11]

In early 2020, she released a book of poetry, called On the Horizon, charting her childhood memories of life in Hawaii and Tokyo, and the lives lost during the attack on Pearl Harbor and the bombing of Hiroshima.[16]

During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, American publishing company Scholastic Corporation asked Lowry to write a new introduction to Like the Willow Tree, a story of a young girl living in Portland, Maine, who was orphaned during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. The book was first published in 2011,[17] before being reissued by Scholastic in September 2020.[18]

Critical reception and banning[edit]

Throughout her works, Lowry has explored several complex issues, including racism, terminal illness, murder, the Holocaust, and the questioning of authority, among other challenging topics. Her writing on such matters has accumulated both praise and criticism.[19] The Chicago Tribune has said a theme running through all of her work is “the importance of human connections.”[20]

By 2000, eight of her books had been challenged in schools and libraries in the United States.[19] In particular, The Giver received a diversity of reactions from schools in America after its release in 1993. While some schools adopted it as a part of the mandatory curriculum, others prohibited the book’s inclusion in their classroom studies.[11][21] According to the New York Times in 2012, The Giver had been perennially near the top of the America Library Association’s list of banned and challenged books since its publication.[11] In a 2012 review of Son, the New York Times said the 1993 publication of The Giver had “shocked adult and child sensibilities alike”.[22] In 2020, Time magazine described The Giver as “a staple of both middle school curricular and banned book lists.”[23]

According to biographer Joel Chaston, Lowry’s most critically acclaimed works are Rabble Starkey, Number the Stars, and The Giver.[4]: x 

Impact[edit]

Biographer Joel Chaston described her as “clearly one of the most important twentieth-century American writers for children”.[4]: ix 

Robin Wasserman, a writer for The New York Times, said “In many ways, Lowry invented the contemporary young adult dystopian novel”, pointing out that in 1993 it was “unusual and unsettling” for children’s literature to address topics of political oppression, euthanasia, suicide, or murder.[22]

From BookShare:

The Giver (The Giver Quartet #1)

Lois Lowry

9780006748281

1993

The Giver: Curriculum Unit (The Giver Quartet #1)

Gathering Blue: A Play (The Giver Quartet #2)

Messenger (The Giver Quartet #3)

Son (The Giver Quartet #4)

Synopsis

The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. Lois Lowry has written three companion novels to The Giver, including Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

Copyright:

1993

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

208 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780547946962

Publisher:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Date of Addition:

11/04/21

Copyrighted By:

Lois Lowry

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Children’s Books, Literature and Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy

Grade Levels:

Seventh grade

Reading Age:

12 and up

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Kate’s 2¢: “Guilty: a gripping psychological thriller that will have you hooked” by

“Guilty: a gripping psychological thriller that will have you hooked” by

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Terry Donnelly did a good job of narrating this book for NLS. I enjoy the suspense and the “come uppence” that was well deserved.

A few take-aways:

–The longer the delay, theharder it became to confide in her.

–Excusing is losing.

–An atmosphere of stressed, argumentative and high octane creativity.

–I should have fought to the death to keep what was precious to me.

–Is it possible to go forward without looking back?

–Beginning again when you’ve lost everything, is painful.

From the web:

Laura Elliot has written eight novels which have been widely translated. Also known as June Considine, she has written twelve books for children and young adults. She has also worked as a journalist and magazine editor. She is a full-time writer from Dublin, Ireland, where she lives with her husband, Sean.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born June Bolger, Considine grew up in Finglas, Dublin. She has written for adults and children. She writes under her own name and using the pen name Laura Elliot. She has written solo novels, series and short stories. She has been published in anthologies and her work has appeared on the radio. She also worked as an editor and journalist as well as a ghost writer.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Her work was shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Award and for the Bisto awards. Considine lives in Malahide, County Dublin.[1][2][5][6][7]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Guilty: a gripping psychological thriller that will have you hooked DB126887

Elliot, Laura. Reading time: 14 hours, 36 minutes.

Read by Donnelly, Terry.

Suspense Fiction

Psychological Fiction

“It begins with a phone call. It ends with a missing child. On a warm summer’s morning, thirteen-year-old school girl Constance Lawson is reported missing. A few days later, Constance’s uncle, Karl Lawson suddenly finds himself swept up in a media frenzy created by journalist Amanda Bowe implying that he is the prime suspect. Six years later… Karl’s life is in ruins. His marriage is over, his family destroyed. But the woman who took everything away from him is thriving. With a successful career, husband and a gorgeous baby boy, Amanda’s world is complete. Until the day she receives a phone call and in a heartbeat, she is plunged into every mother’s worst nightmare.” — Amazon.com Violence, strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex.

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Kate’s 2¢: “Tapped” by Brynne Asher

“Tapped” by Brynne Asher

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Kristin Allison DID A GOOD JOB OF NARRATING THIS SENSUAL NOVEL. I would prefer to not have so much potty mouth language, though.

A few take-aways:

–She was exceptional in every way, except marriage.

–That man is in another world and all he sees is you.

–I’ll stop here with the take-aways so I don’t spoil the story for you

AI Overview:

Brynne Asher is a USA Today bestselling author known for writing romance novels. She lives in the Midwest with her husband, three children, and a dog. When not writing, she manages her family’s busy schedule and enjoys activities like online shopping, skincare, and decorating. She also appreciates a good cocktail. 

When she isn’t creating pretend people and relationships in her head, she’s running her kids around and doing laundry. She enjoys decorating and shopping, and is always seeking the best deal. A perfect day in “Brynne World” ends in front of an outdoor fire with family, friends, s’mores, and a delicious cocktail.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Tapped DB125993

Asher, Brynne. Reading time: 9 hours, 28 minutes.

Read by Allison, Kristin.

Romance

Romantic Suspense

Suspense Fiction

Women

“My son and I are in danger. The life and death kind. The kind that forces me to make choices no mother should have to. I’ll do anything to keep my son safe and not sacrifice my responsibility to my patients. I’m desperate. Desperate enough to beg broody Special Agent Micah Emmett for help. But he has a job, and it doesn’t include protecting me. Why should he? He doesn’t know me. Or so I thought. Because you can learn a lot about another person when they’re being tapped. And Micah has been watching me for a long time. Now the special agent is glued to my side. And I’ve been tapped in more ways than one.”– Goodreads. Strong language, some violence and some explicit descriptions of sex.

Downloaded: June 23, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “Up to no gouda: a grilled cheese mystery” by Linda Reilly

“Up to no gouda: a grilled cheese mystery” by Linda Reilly

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Mia Gaskin did a good job of narrating this cozy mystery for us. It was a good read with many characters who might have ‘dunnit’. It had an interesting ending, kind of like poetic justice. I would have liked to sample all of the different grilled cheese sandwiches.

A few take-aways:

–At one time or another, we all face hardships.

–What other people think, doesn’t matter. Only the truth does.

from www.goodreads.com

A member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Cat Writers’ Association, Linda lives in southern New Hampshire with her two feline assistants.

Linda Reilly has a degree in Criminal Justice, and has had a career as a real estate agent. She was born in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, and now lives in southern New Hampshire.

 Armed with a degree in Criminal Justice, Linda Reilly once contemplated a career in law enforcement. But life took a twist, and instead she found her niche in real estate closings and title examinations, where the dusty tomes in the Registry of Deeds enticed her into solving mysteries of a different…

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Up to no gouda: a grilled cheese mystery DB128277

Reilly, Linda S.. Reading time: 8 hours, 32 minutes.

Read by Gaskin, Mia.

Cozy Mysteries

“Back in Balsam Dell to heal after the death of her husband, Carly Hale is finally pursuing her lifelong dream–opening Carly’s Grilled Cheese Eatery. After only five months, business is booming as Vermont vacationers and townspeople alike flock to lunch on her Party Havartis and other grilled-cheese concoctions. That is, everyone is but Lyle Bagley, her one-time high-school boyfriend who’s now the town bully–and he just bought the building that houses her eatery and wants her out. After a muenster of a fight, she’s forced to put her nose to the rind and find a solution to keep her business afloat. But then Lyle is discovered dead behind the dumpster of Carly’s shop, and one of her employees becomes the prime suspect. In order to save her eatery and prove her friend’s innocence, she must sleuth out the killer before she’s the one who gets grilled.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Downloaded: May 11, 2025

Download Up to no gouda: a grilled cheese mystery