Audiobooks

Showdown – by Tilly Bagshawe

Reviewed by Johni Caitlin Morgan
Wife of company driver,
Amstan Logistics Inc.

Listening Time: 6 hours
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Retail: $29.98
Genre: Romance

Plot: Bobby Cameron is the illegitimate son of a California cattle rancher. Milly Lockwood Groves is the pampered daughter of an English millionaire horse breeder. At the age of 10, Bobby is dumped on his father’s doorstep by a mother who has become tired of the responsibility of raising a child. He grows up with the dream of turning the cattle ranch into a horse-training farm. Milly grows up with the dream of becoming a famous jockey. The world of horses is a small one, where their lives become intertwined, as do their hearts. But the real world invades in the form of devastating losses, both emotional and financial. Their losses send each on a separate journey to obtain their individual dreams. The results of poor judgment, misunderstandings and bad decisions will test their coping skills and their love for each other.

What was your favorite moment? My favorite scene occurs in a trailer where Milly is surrounded by those who have used her for their personal gain. She drops a verbal bomb on the group that becomes a catalyst that will make the bad guys pay for what they have done to her.

Which character was your favorite? Wyatt McDonald is my favorite character. Although he is a secondary character in the story, his keen senses of loyalty and integrity make him a very likable character. The fact that he seems to be one of the few characters in the story with any common sense makes him stand out also.

Does the book have a message or theme? Passion, greed and love are all themes that run through this story.

What did you like or dislike? I liked the basic plot of the story. The “boy meets girl and falls in love” story is always a good one. However, I believe the story would have been better with fewer characters. As the story progresses to the midpoint, you will almost need a score card to figure out who is doing what to whom. The numerous subplots are entertaining and sometimes even believable, but they tend to distract you from the main story.

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Would you recommend this book to friends? I would recommend this book for your entertainment, but I suggest you pop this one into the player at the beginning of the drive when you are refreshed and alert. When the numerous subplots begin to form and the secondary characters step to the front of the stage, you will need an alert mind ot keep track of where they fit into the main story.

Narrator’s style: The author should be grateful for this narrator. Sonya Walger breathes life into characters that very easily could have otherwise been shallow and boring. With this book, I believe the narrator is the real hero of the story.

How would you grade the book? B-


Notables
Exit A – Anthony Swofford

Seventeen-year-old Severin Boxx lives on Yokota, an enormous American Air Force base on the outskirts of Tokyo. Like most of the other young American men on the airbase, Severin is mad for Virginia Kindwall, the base general’s daughter, who is a hafu – half American and half Japanese. Beautiful, smart and utterly defiant of her father, Virginia has become a petty criminal in the Japanese underground just outside the base, around the nearby rail station’s Exit A.

Severin is soon caught up in Virginia’s world, but their romance is short-lived as they find themselves in deep trouble and subjected to the enormous, unforgiving tensions that remain between the United States and Japan in the wake of World War II. Years later, Severin and Virginia remain lost to each other – until an emotionally frayed, 30-something Severin embarks on a quest to find Virginia and reclaim the part of himself taken from him when his boyhood abruptly ended.
Unabridged on 8 CDs
Simon & Schuster Audio
$39.95

The Castle in the Forest – Norman Mailer
In his first major work of fiction in more than a decade, Norman Mailer sets out to explore the evil of Adolf Hitler.

The narrator, a mysterious SS man in possession of some extraordinary secrets, guides the young Adolf from birth through his adolescence. En route, revealing portraits are offered of Hitler’s father and mother, sisters and brothers.

A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in the Forest delivers its myriad twists and surprises with astonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between good and evil. At its core is a hypothesis that is employed with stunning originality.
Unabridged on 15 CDs
Simon & Schuster Audio
$49.95


Drivers, here is your chance to review the latest audiobooks. Tell our readers what you like or dislike about the plot and characters, and why you would recommend it to other drivers. Above is one of the audiobooks available in the Truckers News audiobook library. Contact Kristin Walters at (800) 633-5953, ext. 1204, or via e-mail at [email protected] to reserve an audiobook. It will be sent to you free of charge for your review. Audiobooks are available on a first-call, first-served basis.

Audiobook Sources
Audiobooks may be purchased or rented from the following sources:

AUDIO ADVENTURES, (800) 551-6692, for 14-day rental of most major titles.
CUTTING AUDIO, (800) 670-5220, www.cuttingaudio.com, for purchase.
HIGHBRIDGE AUDIO, www.highbridgeaudio.com, for purchase.
OASIS AUDIO, www.oasisaudio.com, for purchase.
Simply Audiobooks, www.simplyaudiobooks.com, for rental of most major titles.
Simon & Schuster Audio, (800) 223-2336, for purchase.
Audiobooks from these publishers, Random House, Time Warner, Audio Renaissance and Topics Entertainment are available for purchase from www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.borders.com.

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