Tag: Kristen Ashley (Page 4 of 8)

A conversation about Kristen Ashley and Walk Through Fire – with Ana, Michele, Gisele & me

November 13, 2015 / Kaetrin

Some friends and me did a kinda-sorta buddy read of Walk Through Fire by Kristen Ashley (it wasn’t entirely synced – I had to play catch up but the ladies kindly waited for me). After, we met in a Google document to share our thoughts about Kristen Ashley books in general and Walk Through Fire in particular. Here it is, at Immersed in Books by Ana Coqui. Thank you to Ana for organising the shared document and hosting the post.

I’ll have my own slightly more detailed review of Walk Through Fire going up here in a few days. I’ll add a link when it’s live.

Hold On by Kristen Ashley

October 26, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I had this one pre-ordered from Amazon. I bought the audiobook too and switched between them. The audiobook is narrated, very well, by Erin Bennett.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Since she was young, Cher Rivers knew she was not the kind of girl who got what she wanted. A girl who could hope. A girl who could dream. She knew a happily ever after just wasn’t in the cards for her.

In love for years with the last bastion of the ‘burg’s eligible bachelors, Garrett Merrick, Cher worked hard at making him laugh. Being one of the guys. Having him in her life the only way she could. All this knowing he was in love with another woman.

The Merrick Family is known for loving deep. So when Cecelia Merrick was murdered, it marked the Merricks in a way none of them recovered. Both Cecelia’s children found love. Both turned their backs on it. But Garrett “Merry” Merrick knew in his soul the woman he divorced years ago was the one for him.

Until the night when Cher took Garrett’s back and things changed. The Merrick family loves deep. They also protect fiercely. And with his eyes finally open, Garrett sees the woman who truly is for him and he goes after her.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): It’s only fairly recently that I’ve listened (mostly) to the other books in this series so the characters and stories were fresh in my mind. I was really excited to see that Cher was getting a story and that Ms. Ashley flipped the “one true love” theme of the series for Merry. Apart from At Peace where Violet and Cal had not previously met, all the other couples in the series had history going back many years. And, throughout the series, it was Merry and Mia. They’d been married but because reasons, they’d also been divorced and Merry was pining. Or, at least that’s how it looked. This is actually dealt with pretty fast in Hold On. Merry imploded his marriage because his head was messed up over his mother’s violent death. That cast a pall over Colt and Feb as well, so readers of the series will understand how that can happen. He pushed Mia away and that was that. Except, the narrative is turned around now because people start saying, “hey, she didn’t stick, she knew you were messed up but she didn’t fight for you. She is therefore NOT ‘the one’. Get your head out of your butt and look around.”
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Games of the Heart by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Rachel Fulginiti

August 29, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I received a review copy via Audible Studios.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) From the balcony of his house, Mike Haines can see the quiet, commonplace beauty of the Holliday farm. But what he remembers is the little sister of his high school girlfriend, Dusty, who grew up there. As a teen, Dusty had gone off the rails but when she was a kid, she was sweet, she was funny and she had a special bond with Mike. But after high school, she took off and Mike never saw her again.

Then tragedy strikes Dusty’s family, she comes back to town and Mike thinks she hasn’t changed back to the sweet, funny girl he knew but instead continued to be selfish and thoughtless, leaving her family alone to deal with their mourning. So he seeks her out and confronts her in an effort to understand what went wrong and to force her to sort herself out.

He finds out quickly he’s wrong about Dusty Holliday. Very wrong. And right after Mike discovers that, the bond they had years before snaps back into place in ways he would never suspect.

But Mike Haines had a bad marriage then he played games of the heart for a good woman. And lost. In order to protect himself and his kids, he’s cautious, he’s careful to read the signs and he’s not interested in finding a woman he has to fix.

Then he learns what happened to Dusty and he thinks she needs to be fixed. He swings, he misses and in this new game of hearts, for Dusty, Mike just got strike three.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): When I read At Peace at while ago, I enjoyed the character of Mike Haines. Kristen Ashley has written a few books now where there has been a kind of love triangle. I say kind of because it is always clear who the prime couple is – In Mystery Man, the couple were Hawk and Gwen, and Tack was the one who missed out. In At Peace, it was Joe and Violet and Mike was the guy who didn’t get the girl. Tack, of course, got his HEA with Tyra in Motorcycle Man and now Mike gets his HEA with Dusty. I liked Mike in At Peace. He was a nice guy who really cared about Violet and, if not for Joe, she probably would have had a happy life with him. They could have made it work and they had genuine feelings for each other. Generally, I’m not big on love triangles because either one of the guys (usually it’s two guys and a girl) is a dirtbag or both of the guys are great and one has to miss out. What I really like about the way Ashley does it is that I know that there will be a book for the other guy at some point, that he will get his HEA and that he is a good guy and the feelings he has for the heroine (and hers for him) are respected – even by the hero who ends up with the girl. This seems unusual to me and, apparently, it means that I can enjoy the love triangle as a way of showing more love for the heroine, as showing she is “worthy” of love and that she is in demand, without getting too bent out of shape that she will end up with the “wrong guy” or that the “other guy” will be pining away for the rest of his life/turn into a jerk. Also, the love triangles don’t drag on too long and that helps.
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For You by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Liz Thompson

July 18, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This is one from my personal library.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Lieutenant Alexander Colton and February Owens were high-school sweethearts. Everyone in their small town knew from the moment they met they were meant for each other. But something happened, and Feb broke Colt’s heart; then she turned wild, and tragedy struck. Colt meted out revenge against the man who brought Feb low, but even though Colt risked it all for her, Feb turned her back on him and left town.

Fifteen years later Feb comes back to help run the family bar. But there’s so much water under the bridge separating her and Colt, everyone knows they’ll never get back together – until someone starts hacking up people in Feb’s life. Colt is still Colt, and Feb is still Feb, so the town watches as Colt goes all out to find the murderer while trying to keep Feb safe. As the bodies pile up, the feds move in, and a twisting, turning story unravels, exposing a very sick man who has claimed numerous victims. Along the way Feb and Colt battle their enduring attraction and the beautiful but lost history that weaves them together.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): February Owens and Alexander “Colt” Colton grew up together – her older brother Morrie is Colt’s best friend – and they dated as teenagers. Something happened which split them up – something which Feb won’t talk about but which broke her and which Colt doesn’t understand even a little bit (although, I have to say I found his naivety in the circumstances a little surprising. Surely he at least had something of a clue.) While Colt continued his close relationship with Feb’s and Morrie’s parents and with Morrie, he and Feb had basically nothing to do with one another for 22 years. In between they both got married and divorced. In Feb’s case, she married an abusive asshole who beat her and after it became public knowledge, Feb left the ‘burg, only returning for special family occasions. Colt married Melanie and was happy with her for a while but she pulled away from him when they found out she was infertile and they divorced some years before the book begins.
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Golden Trail by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Brian Pallino

June 25, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I was supplied with a review copy by Audible.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Tanner Layne and Raquel Merrick fell in love young, hard and fast and both of them knew a beautiful life they thought would be forever.

Until Rocky left Layne, no explanation, no going back.

Layne escapes The ‘Burg only to come back years later because his ex-wife has hooked herself to the town jerk and Layne needs to make sure his sons get raised right. Layne manages to avoid Rocky but when Layne gets three bullets drilled into him while investigating a dirty cop, he can’t do that because Rocky stops avoiding Layne. They make a deal to work together to expose the dirty cop but they have no idea the strength of their enduring attraction or the sheer evil at work in The ‘Burg.

As Tanner Layne and Raquel Merrick play their game and dance around the pull that draws them together, Layne has to discover the dark secrets buried so deep in Rocky’s heart she doesn’t even know they’re there at the same time untangle a sinister web of crime so abhorrent it has to be stopped… at all costs.

And to do it, Layne has to enlist everyone, including his ex-CIA mentor, Rocky’s detective brother, the town’s unpredictable informant and Layne’s two teenage sons all the while stopping Rocky from doing something crazy and keeping their game secret so Layne won’t get himself dead.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Happily for hero-centric readers like me, Golden Trail is told almost entirely from Layne’s (third person) POV. Perhaps surprisingly, given that I am a hero-centric reader, it took me a while to realise it (doh!). Maybe I was distracted by the fact that when the book opens, Tanner Layne is in the hospital, having been shot three times. Raquel “Rocky” Merrick Astley is sitting by his bed. 18 years earlier she had left him. They’d been happy for three years together and then, suddenly, she left. No explanation, no take backs.
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March Round Up

April 2, 2015 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Rock Chick Redemption by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Susannah Jones – B+ I said in my review of Rock Chick (I read the print version) that I imagined Amanda Ronconi reading the story to me and that this would probably mean I’d be inclined to judge the narration by Ms. Jones more harshly. I listened to Rock Chick Rescue and Rock Chick Redemption for fun, “just for me” listens because sometimes it’s nice for me just to be a consumer and not a reviewer and I wanted my brain to relax for a bit. But I wanted to say something about the narration.

I could wish that Susannah Jones has slightly more vocal range and could portray a larger variety of male voices – pretty much, all the heroes sound the same and they’re really only slightly deeper in pitch than her female character voices. (For regular audiobook listeners, this is a trade off we make fairly often. There are only so many character voices a narrator can perform and many male narrators cannot sound “female” in pitch and vice versa; however, they do adjust their tone sufficiently to give an audio cue to listeners that this is the hero or heroine talking and, provided it’s not grating, that can be enough.)

But, as for the rest, Ms. Jones was brilliant. She didn’t have any trouble with some of the more convoluted sentences Ms. Ashley uses (which I love even though their grammar is sometimes quite tortured) and the completely nailed the humour of the piece. I cannot even express to you how much I love her characterisation of Tex. He is twice as hilarious on audio. Continue reading