Read A Series in a Month Challenge May 2020 Results @Loreth @MissJulieMcKay #BrillianceAudio @Limabean74 @BerlsS #SeriesinaMonth #LoveAudiobooks

Posted May 31, 2020 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Book Review / 12 Comments

 

My choice is the Angie Pallorino series by Loreth Anne White.  I purchased all the audio books through Audible. I’ve enjoyed some of this author’s other works.   I’m also on a mystery/thriller / suspense mood so this series was a fit.

 

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

Read A Series in a Month Challenge May 2020 Results @Loreth @MissJulieMcKay #BrillianceAudio @Limabean74 @BerlsS #SeriesinaMonth #LoveAudiobooksThe Drowned Girls by Loreth Anne White
Narrator: Julie McKay
Series: Angie Pallorino #1
Published by Brilliance Audio on June 20, 2017
Genres: Romantic Suspense, Mystery
Length: 16 hours, 22 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
AmazonAudibleLibro.fm
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star

He surfaced two years ago. Then he disappeared ...

But Detective Angie Pallorino never forgot the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victim’s foreheads.

When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes. Could he be back?

Then the body of a drowned young woman floats up in the Gorge, also bearing the marks of the serial rapist, and the hunt for a predator becomes a hunt for a killer. Assigned to the joint investigative task force, Angie is more than ready to prove that she has what it takes to break into the all-male homicide division. But her private life collides with her professional ambitions when she’s introduced to her temporary partner, James Maddocks—a man she’d met the night before in an intense, anonymous encounter.

Together, Angie and Maddocks agree to put that night behind them. But as their search for the killer intensifies so does their mutual desire. And Angie’s forays into the mind of a monster shake lose some unsettling secrets about her own past . . .

How can she fight for the truth when it turns out her whole life is a lie?

I expected the genre but The Drowned Girls was so much more.  It’s also a character journey of Angie Pallorino and her personal history and issues.  There are family secrets which I expect will take the series to unfold.  There was also more sex than I expected.

Angie is a detective with the sex crimes unit.  Her partner was killed about 6 months ago and she is working with new partners.  She gets a case which seems to tie in with an old series of rapes.  It quickly turns into a homicide and then there’s a new homicide with similarities. The case and what happens to these women is brutal.

Angie has been wanting to move to homicide plus she has history with the older cases. So she wants to be on the task force to track this killer.  She is put on the task force, with a new member of homicide.  They are developing a personal relationship which only complicates matters. There is also so much politics and misogyny.

The complexity of the case and Angie’s character progression give this a more realistic feel and seems more like a mystery than a romance.  I’ll be very curious to see the direction the series takes for Angie, both personally and professionally as the story arcs other than this case are just starting.

Listen to a clip:


This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

Read A Series in a Month Challenge May 2020 Results @Loreth @MissJulieMcKay #BrillianceAudio @Limabean74 @BerlsS #SeriesinaMonth #LoveAudiobooksThe Lullaby Girl by Loreth Anne White
Narrator: Julie McKay
Series: Angie Pallorino #2
Published by Brilliance Audio on November 14, 2017
Genres: Romantic Suspense, Mystery
Length: 12 hours, 32 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
AmazonAudibleLibro.fm
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star

Detective Angie Pallorino took down a serial killer permanently and, according to her superiors, with excessive force. Benched on a desk assignment for twelve months, Angie struggles to maintain her sense of identity—if she’s not a detective, who is she? Then a decades-old cold case washes ashore, pulling her into an investigation she recognizes as deeply personal.

Angie’s lover and partner, James Maddocks, sees it, too. But spearheading an ongoing probe into a sex-trafficking ring and keeping Angie’s increasing obsession with her case in check is taking its toll. However, as startling connections between the parallel investigations emerge, Maddocks realizes he has more than Angie’s emotional state to worry about.

Driven and desperate to solve her case, Angie goes rogue, risking her relationship, career, and very life in pursuit of answers. She’ll learn that some truths are too painful to bear, and some sacrifices include collateral damage.

But Angie Pallorino won’t let it go. She can’t. It’s not in her blood.

Wow.  Angie just doesn’t give up.  We get more of her family history and it’s explosive. It puts Angie in all kinds of danger, at work and personally.  In spite of the emotional blows, Angie does an incredible job of putting together information and staying ahead of multiple police cases.

She and Maddocks don’t really get any time together. They both try to protect each other as best they can.  It’s not easy.  Angie is focused on learning about her biological parents, no matter how dangerous it might be.  Maddocks has his own cases and ends up out of town.  Angie tries not to tell him anything so he doesn’t end up in trouble for things she is doing.

I found this exciting, with enough action, all the way through.  There’s some repetition of memories from her childhood.  Angie does push things to a legal limit. She also is not thrilled with her work, sidelining her, when she has worked so hard.  In the end, it gives her time to pursue the information she needs for closure on her past.

Listen to a clip:


This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

Read A Series in a Month Challenge May 2020 Results @Loreth @MissJulieMcKay #BrillianceAudio @Limabean74 @BerlsS #SeriesinaMonth #LoveAudiobooksThe Girl in the Moss by Loreth Anne White
Narrator: Julie McKay
Series: Angie Pallorino #3
Published by Brilliance Audio on June 12, 2018
Genres: Romantic Suspense, Mystery
Length: 12 hours, 52 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
AmazonAudibleLibro.fm
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star

Disgraced ex-cop Angie Pallorino is determined to make a new start for herself as a private investigator. But first, she and her lover, newly promoted homicide detective James Maddocks, attempt a quiet getaway to rekindle a romance struggling in the shadows of their careers. The peace doesn’t last long when human skeletal remains are found in a nearby mossy grove.

This decades-old mystery is just what Angie needs to establish her new career—even as it thrusts her and Maddocks back into the media spotlight, once again endangering their tenuous relationship.

Then, when Angie’s inquiry into the old crime intersects with a cold case from her own policing past—one that a detective on Maddocks’s new team is working—the investigation takes a startling twist. It puts more than Angie’s last shot at redemption and a future with Maddocks at risk. The mystery of the girl in the moss could kill her.

I love Angie’s progression in her own emotional journey. At the beginning of The Girl in the Moss, Angie was in a bad place personally and professionally.  Personally, she was distancing herself from Maddocks as she tried to deal with all the things she had learned about her past.  Professionally, she was trying to figure out what to do with having lost her job with the police force and being on thin ice with the only private investigative firm which would hire her at all.

Angie and Maddocks take a trip to be alone together, out in nature. A dead body is discovered and things go wild from there.  But like a phoenix, Angie rises from the ashes and finds a new way to make her living.  The case she ends up solving nearly kills her, which is almost as usual, but she is smart and determined. I figured out a piece of it quickly but not everything.  It’s an action-packed ride.

Listen to a clip:

Rating Breakdown
Plot
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Writing
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
Characters
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Narration (Audio)
One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Overall: One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star

Narration:

Julie McKay is a new narrator to me.  I was very comfortable with her voices, male and female.  The male voice all sound very similar, where the females have a bit more differentiation. She also ended up doing some accents.   I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

About Loreth Anne White

Loreth Anne White is an award-winning, bestselling author of romantic suspense, thrillers, and mysteries.

A three-time RITA finalist, she has also won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Romantic Crown for Best Romantic Suspense and Best Book Overall, in addition to being a Booksellers’ Best finalist, a multiple Daphne Du Maurier Award finalist, and a multiple CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award winner.

A former journalist and newspaper editor who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now resides in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with her family. When she’s not writing, you will find her skiing, biking, or hiking the trails with her Black Dog.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • COYER-20

Posted May 31, 2020 by Anne - Books of My Heart in Book Review / 12 Comments


12 responses to “Read A Series in a Month Challenge May 2020 Results