For the first 110 pages I kept thinking "This is interesting. This is interesting." Then came one paragraph on page 125. One paragraph. And by the time I finished reading the paragraph, I was moved to near tears. 

 

But unfortunately, i would hit a bump on the road called "life" that forced me to not read the book for three or so months, but I got right back to it. And what a read. You really LIVE this story. You care for these people, flaws and all. Their problems become your problems, you feel their triumphs. The prose was top rate, the story engrossing. I will be buying copies for other people to read - I loved it that much. Can't recommend it enough.

So it's fall and I decided to read a baseball themed book. Baseball is one of those sports that is a strange blend of physical, psychological, and zen and I think it makes for a good story backdrop. I had no idea I how fantastic this would be.

The Brothers K is the great American novel of the late 20th century that you have never read. What happens when you mix a baseball playing father with a Seventh-day Adventist mother? To start, you get six kids, four brothers and twin sisters. Throw into the mix an atheist grandmother, reconstructive surgery, the Vietnam war and coming of age, and you get a touching, funny, poignant and simply wonderful family story.

I have never read "The Brothers Karamazov" so I cannot draw any parallels, I will leave that to the fancy NYT reviewers. I have read Jonathan Franzen, and I did recognize a similarity in the somewhat indulgent characterization and storytelling style. That comparison might be the kiss of death for some readers, but for me it's a definite plus.

My review of "No Wake Zone" by Linda Lovely was published in Audiobook Monthly Magazine! Like Dream Student by J.J. DiBenedetto my review was featured in Volume 2 of this wonderful new magazine.

And here is my review of "No Wake Zone":

"In the nearer term, I think various developments in biotechnology and synthetic biology are quite disconcerting. We are gaining the ability to create designer pathogens, and there are these blueprints of various disease organisms that are in the public domain – you can download the gene sequence for smallpox or the 1918 flu virus from the Internet." -Nick Bostrom

"Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire." – Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Marley is more than ready for a vacation. After her adventures in "Dear Killer", the first in the Marley Clark mystery series, going home to visit her 79-year-old feisty aunt May and her much-loved cousin Ross in small-town Iowa seems just the thing to relax. Boy, has Marley got it wrong.

Volunteering at the last-minute to waitress for Cousin Ross on his double-decker excursion boat, “The Queen”, Marley is surprised to find that the wedding reception for local billionaire Jake Olsen is to celebrate his marriage to her best friend from college, Darlene Sherbert. But the surprises don’t stop there as Marley witnesses Jake flying over the stern of the Queen and into the icy Okoboji lake waters. Diving to the rescue Marley, a 52-year-old retired Army colonel, finds herself not thanked for her attempted rescue, but instead relegated to leading the suspect list. What’s a retired Army intelligence officer to do, but investigate?

Convoluted, vicious family battles over the will lead police on a wild chase, as family members drop dead one after the other. Things get worse when one of Marley’s old enemies, Quentin Hamilton, arrives on the scene. Tasked with protecting not only Jake, but also his biotech empire, losing his client is sure to drive Hamilton wild. And who better to subject to his ire than Marley, whose recommendation he believes cost Hamilton an important military contract?

While furiously jealous heirs brawling over a billion dollar inheritance seems the most logical reason for bodies falling left, right, and sideways, all is not as it seems. For the situation is much direr than first assumed. Jake’s firm conducts biological materials research for the military – and missing materials are killing the heirs.

"Our conversation veered to the topic of scientific advances and their potential for good or evil."

With help from her cousin Ross, her former Pentagon boss, General Irvine, and FBI agent Sherry Weaver, Marley must help find the murderer before more die, and before the biologicals originally meant to save lives instead slaughter millions. At the same time Marley must protect her aunt, while also enjoying a blooming relationship with local attorney Duncan James.

What happens, and why, makes for an edge-of-your seat thrill ride which will keep you guessing. Linda Lovely balances suspense and thrills with a strong theme of family, both the good aspects and the bad. Marley is one of my new favorite heroines. Sure, she is a retiree, but she is still a vivacious and active woman, with a healthy sex drive to boot. Marley, all of us “Boomer Ladies” salute you!
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I received No Wake Zone from the author via Audiobook Monthly in return for my honest review. As you can tell, I enjoyed the book immensely. I have spent hundreds of hours enjoying audio books, from literary classics like "Frankenstein" and "Little Women" to modern stories of the quirky, the romantic, the terrifying and everything in between. What is not to like? I can listen to my books while doing other things such as quilting or knitting, or even working in my flower beds. Or I can simply curl up in a chair with a quilt and a cup of tea, close my eyes, and enter a new and wonderful world.

The pleasure of an exceptional narrator can add further levels of enjoyment, actually making me part of the story. Sadly, the narrator for "No Wake Zone" falls into the “not as pleasurable” zone for this reader, however this is solely a case of personal preference.

Overall, I truly enjoyed Linda Lovely’s No Wake Zone and have purchased "Dear Killer" the first in the Marley Clark series. However, I purchased the electronic version rather than the Audible edition to increase my reading pleasure. I will also be watching closely for Ms. Lovely’s next Marley Clark adventure, "With Neighbors Like These."

I received No Wake Zone from Susan Keefe, CEO of Audiobook Monthly in return for a realistic review for her magazine. All thoughts are my own.

Check out the Linda’s commentary on Audiobookmonthly (dot) com

Author Information:

A native of Iowa, Linda Lovely has called the South home for more than thirty years. She lives with her husband beside a peaceful South Carolina lake, where she regularly perturbs the geese and one honking big turtle by jumping off her dock for a swim or pedaling (yes, pedaling not paddling) her kayak.

Linda is a member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and the South Carolina Writers Workshop. She feels quite lucky to have found both close friends and exceptional critique partners—snarky, funny, talented and generous—through these writer organizations.

4.14295510

“I realized that if I didn’t wake the next morning, no one would miss me”

There are times when I search for a murder mystery, where the crime will take place in a small village; the suspect pool will be restricted to a certain number of people. The detection would be done by an amateur sleuth, with the local police made to look like bumbling fools. And, the plot shouldn’t be too filmsy, although far from being gory or violent, it must be strong with a nice dose of twist. In short something in the style of Agatha Christie or Margery Allingham.

Deborah Crombie’s first book, “A SHARE IN DEAH” featuring the duo of Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James, had all the above mentioned points, except the amateur detective solving the crime. But since Kincaid was a Scotland Yard man, and the murder fell outside his jurisdiction, he unofficially became the amateur sleuth in the plot. The murder took place in a hotel set in a Yorkshire village; the suspect pool was limited. The local police was led by a foul mouthed no-good inspector and the amount of blood and gore was nil. The plot was a typical whodunit. Highly enjoyable and satisfying. The length and the pace suited the book fine; and the psychological elements if present were mercifully negligible, and if present I failed to notice it.

Duncan Kincaid, is a gentleman detective. No cuss words, no losing temper, and being a bachelor he also had the tendency of being infatuated with the female characters he meets (a sense of déjà vu leading to Inspector Morse, maybe!!). He as an easy going charm and a sense of humor which makes him very difficult to not like. Sergeant Gemma James, a single mother, though being a sidekick and being introduced late into the book, has a personality of her own. She is not just a sidekick lingering in the shadows of the main protagonist, a fact supported by Kincaid, when he talks about and appreciates her ability as a policewoman. And, he is a bachelor, she is a single mother, so definitely something will brew in the next installments between these two.

A highly enjoyable mystery, recommended to any crime fiction reader who likes British style whodunits.