Audiobook Review: She Wouldn’t Change a Thing by Sarah Adlakha

When Maria Foresman agrees to see a new patient named Sylvia, she has no idea how profoundly her life will change. She travels back in time to when she was seventeen years old and hadn’t met her husband, much less had two children with another one on the way.

Sarah Adlakha’s She Wouldn’t Change a Thing is a novel with time travel at its core but it is less concerned with the mechanics of time travel as much as time travel’s impact on Maria and several other characters. The novel starts off with an extended look at Maria’s life pre-time travel so that we can feel the loss and desperation to get back to her original timeline with her. There are also several other narrative threads that seem tangential at first but slowly become connected to Maria’s story and dilemma.

And Maria does face a dilemma about time travel — equipped with knowledge of one potential future, can she make alterations to the timeline and possibly jeopardize the future as she knew it?

Adlaha’s character-driven time travel is one of the more intriguing stories I’ve read or listened to this year. The power of “what if”

Audiobook Review: Well Traveled by Jen DeLuca

I’m at the point where I no longer classify romance novels I listen to while working out as guilty pleasure — I’ve decided that for this year, I will enjoy them without the guilt.

So, when Jen DeLuca published another entry in her rom-com set at Renaissance Fairs, I put it on reserve on Libby and was pleasantly surprised when it quickly arrived. It was then I realized that I’d had last year’s installment in my to-be-read/listened-to list for a while — and that I’d have to skip it (for now) to enjoy Well Traveled. And while my inner continuity self balked at this decision, it did not make a huge difference in the overall scheme of things. DeLuca’s novels are self-contained and while they may feature characters from previous novels, not knowing every nuance of the previous three stories won’t necessarily hurt here.

After the first three novels in the series were set in Maryland, the fourth installment casts a wider net for it setting. Louisa Malone (better known as Lulu) is a driven, high-powered attorney who has been chasing the partner ring for years now. Watching as lesser qualified candidates get her shot at partner and frustrated by the long hours for what feels like little reward, Lulu quits her job while visiting a North Carolina Ren Faire, memorably drowning her cell phone in the wash tub of one of the acts.

But instead of immediately jumping into the job-search mode, Lulu decides to take some time off to decompress and figure out her next steps — and that’s where The Dueling Kilts enters the picture. Lulu (through her cousin from previous novels) arranges to be part of the traveling singing group for a few months and embraces living off the grid for the summer. While Lulu attempts to gain some clarity and perspective, she begins to notice Dex, the guitar player for the group who is a bit of a lady’s man on the Ren Fair circuit. (Dex was featured in the second novel in the series).

But is there more to Dex than just the guy with a girl in every Ren Fair?

As with previous installments in the series, DeLuca’s characters are on-point in Well Traveled. It’s a nice change of pace to see DeLuca expand the world of her Ren Faire romcoms a bit with this installment. And while I was rooting for a happy ending for Dex and Lulu, I can’t help but feel that perhaps romcoms at the Ren Fair are starting to lose a bit of their steam (pun kind of intended here). Yes, the growing attraction is well-handled and there are plenty of legitimate obstacles for our couple to overcome (thankfully, both parties act like adults for the most part, discussing things and not just ignoring them until they become seemingly insurmountable speed bumps), but there were moments where the setting felt a bit too familiar.

Obviously, I have enjoyed DeLuca’s work (I’ve read three of her four novels at this point), but there was part of me that wondered if it might not be time for DeLuca to take a page from Lulu and get out of her comfort zone. I’m hoping her next novel might see her find a different setting or set of circumstances for her characters to meet and fall in love. I think stretching her wings a bit for her next novel would be a welcome change for this reader/listener.

Audiobook Review: Doctor Who: The Romans by Donald Cotton

As Doctor Who celebrates its sixtieth anniversary later this year, the Target audiobooks line looks to complete the range that began a decade and a half ago. For the first seven months of the year, the range is releasing one story from each classic series Doctor that hasn’t seen the audio light of day until now.

And honestly, the range may not get a better classic Who release than the first novel of the year, “The Romans.”

After a recent diet of novels did little more than translate the shooting script to the printed page, “The Romans” is a delightful breath of fresh air. Told in epistolatory style, the varying first-person viewpoints are well-done and delightful. Whether it’s the Doctor believing that the slave he keeps seeing looks an awful lot like Barbara to Ian wondering if an alternate timeline through his actions and writings to Nero’s uncertainty as to whether he rules Britain or not, the shifting perspectives keep you on your toes — and laughing all the way.

This may be one of the wittiest and laugh-filled entries from the Target line, with Cotton clearly not giving two figs and going for the gusto. This may not please the strictest of fans who want the novel to mimic the story we got on-screen. However, this one falls into that canon of later Target books that enhanced and deepened the enjoyment of the TV stories. (I can’t wait to get to this serial in my current rewatch of the classic series if only to recall the various thought processes and reflections Cotton gives us here).

The audiobook only enhances the enjoyment of this novel, featuring a wide range of talented narrators bringing each person’s section delightful to life. The cover gives away which actors appear, though the version I purchased didn’t detail who narrated which part (or at least if it did, I didn’t look), thus ensuring some smiles and pleasant surprise over the all-too-brief running time of the audiobook.

My only disappointment comes that the audio range couldn’t lure William Russell out of retirement to read the portions of the story told from Ian’s point of view. But that is just nitpicking what is one of the more enjoyable and delightful entries in this range.

Listening to “The Romans,” I now feel I have to listen to Cotton’s other two books for the range, though I may take a bit of a gap between them. Right now, most other Target books are going to pale in comparison to this one.

A superb beginning to celebrating sixty years of Doctor Who.

Holiday Audiobook Reviews: The Twelve Dates of Christmas and The Upside Down Christmas

The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss

With the title The Twelve Dates of Christmas, I expected Jenny Bayliss to do more with each of the holiday-themed blind dates than this novel ended up doing. Instead, it’s a friends-to-lovers romance between a local coffee shop owner and the girl who moved back to town to take care of her father.

Bayliss earns all the tension and undercurrent of attraction between coffee-shop owner Matt and newly returned to town Kate. She even throws in a few speed bumps for the two — they slept together once in their teens but never talked about it, Matt has a girlfriend, Kate is meeting twelve potential suitors that could steal her heart away. My big issue with the book is that the speed bumps are easily removed with little or not subtlety of foreshadowing. The biggest is when Kate goes on a date with Matt’s girlfriend’s ex and he admits he still loves his ex. So, we can all see where that is heading.

And yet despite being somewhat predictable, I still kept listening. Odds are that was due to the English accent of the narrator Elizabeth Knoweledon (the irony that her name sounds like Noel and this is a holiday romance isn’t lost on me).

Overall, a predictable romance that doesn’t quite live up the promise or premise of the title.

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The Upside Down Christmas by Kate Forster

Following the death of her mother and her father remarrying, Marlo moved from England to Australia to start her life again.

Five years later, she’s living with flatmate Alex, working as a legal secretary, and dating a nice enough guy. Well, until the guy leaves a Halloween party with someone else, and Marlo is suddenly left questioning all her life choices.

Oh, and she’s also seeing a growing romantic interest in her flatmate, Alex, rearings it’s head.

The Upside Down Christmas is light and frothy enough –and that may be the biggest issue I have with the story. Marlo feels like she’s just sitting back, waiting for things to happen in life, rather than having any kind of motivation to make strides herself. Even when she decides to go back to school and pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer, it feels like good things just fall into her lap because she’s a nice person.

And while the roommates to more storyline is solid enough, it just’s a hair too predictable for its own good.

All in all, this is one that should have taken a queue from the title and maybe made Marlo’s life a little more upside down before giving her (inevitable) happy ending.

Audiobook Review: Resting Scrooge Face by Megan Quinn

Nola and Caleb were quite the item in their small town years ago but broke up when Nola wanted to pursue her dreams in New York City and Caleb wanted to stay in town.

As the Christmas season approaches, Nola is back in town following a break-up and trying to avoid Caleb, the boy who broke her heart. In a town full of the Christmas spirit, neither is really feeling it and starts putting down those feelings on paper in the form of anonymous letters that get passed back and forth by the town mailman.

Meghan Quinn’s Resting Scrooge Face (the name Caleb assumes for his letters to Ho Ho No) is a perfect holiday confection — sweet and a bit sugary. Quinn allows us just enough time to invest in the characters (I understand Nola features as a supporting character in other stories) but wisely doesn’t make us spend too much time doing the “will they or won’t they” rom-com dance. A diverting audiobook.

Audiobook Review: The Year I Stopped Trying by Katie Heaney

High school is going well for type-A personality Mary. She’s got the grades, the SAT scores, the parental respect.

That is, until one day, Mary wonders what would happen if she didn’t do her homework that one time or try so hard on that next test. She even starts flirting with the guy in her school who is rumored to know how to get drugs and only shows up to class occasionally. Before long, Mary has stopped doing her homework and is spending long afternoons riding around in the car with the boy, wondering when anyone might notice and what they will say.

Katie Heaney’s The Year I Stopped Trying features witty, dry narration by first-person narrator Mary in an authentic coming-of-age story. What drew me in was Mary’s voice, what kept me listening was the authenticity of her journey over the course of the novel. I read Heaney’s non-fiction work Never Have I Ever a couple of years ago and couldn’t help but wonder how much of Mary’s journey of self-discovery was similar to Heaney’s.

All-in-all, an enjoyable read/listen with a good performance by the narrator Kristen DeMarco, who captures Mary’s voice perfectly.

Audiobook Review: Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus by Phillip Hinchcliffe

Arriving on the island of Marinus, the first Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan are reluctantly enlisted to seek out four of the five computer keys of Marinus that will restore the Conscience of Marinus.

In the lore of classic Doctor Who, The Keys of Marinus is a story that worked better when the episodes were produced each week instead of in filming blocks for an entire serial. Each episode features a different location and adventure as the TARDIS crew transports across the planet, looking for the keys.

The script feels like writer Terry Nation is trying out a few of the tropes that he will revisit time and again over the course of his career. We’ve got hostile plant life, a well-placed chasm, and even more of Nation’s favorite things to include in a script. As a quest storyline, it holds up well enough with the team not spending too much time in each location, thus allowing the story to gather and keep some momentum.

That’s not to say it’s necessarily a classic of its era. “Marinus” is good and it certainly as a few moments. But overall, this one isn’t the strongest of the first season of Doctor Who.

What’s odd about this novelization is that it comes from fourth Doctor era producer Phillip Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe has little or no connection to the era and while he does a nice job of adapting the original scripts to the printed page, the novel doesn’t go much beyond that. There are little hints about Sabetha and Altos falling in love and Hinchcliffe tries to make the Voord a bit more threatening and scary.

This is another one that I skipped in my initial collection of Target novels, probably due to it having one of the more generic covers in the range. Or it could be my younger self found this one a tad on the dull side, even with the quest throughline driving the story.

The audiobook is up to the usual standards I’ve come to expect from the BBC audio range. I won’t say this is the best sample of the audio range, but it works well enough. Narrator Jamie Glover’s work is good though it’s not quite the stand-out of the range. There were moments I kept wishing William Russell had found time to be lured from retirement to perform one last Target book for our listening pleasure.

#20BooksofSummer: Audiobook Review: Doctor Who and the Power of Kroll by Terrance Dicks

Back in my early days of Doctor Who fandom, some friends caught a few moments of “The Power of Kroll” and incredulously mocked me because the Doctor somehow defeated a giant squid creature using a tiny stick. Of course, I tried to explain to them exactly what was happening in the scene and how it wasn’t really a tiny stick, but my pleas fell upon deaf ears and taunts about the budgetary limitations of my favorite show.

Years later, removed of the mocking jabs of my youth, I’ve come to see that “The Power of Kroll” is a rough draft for Robert Holmes’ triumphant “Caves of Androzani.” And while most fans will be quick to cry that its the scripts that make classic Who so special, the comparisons between “Androzani” and “Kroll” show sometimes there are other elements involved as well.

Pursuing the fifth segment of the Key to Time, the Doctor and Romana arrive on a moon of Delta Manga. A revolutionary station is processing protein from the swamp and sending it home to feed the greater population. One obstacle is a group of natives, who were displaced from Delta Magna originally and now stand in the way of full development of the small moon’s resources. Lurking in the swamp is a large creature, worshiped by the natives and known as Kroll. After some time being dormant, Kroll is on the move again — and is hungry.

#20BooksofSummer Audiobook Review: Doctor Who and the Face of Evil by Terrance Dicks

Featuring one of the best covers in the Target range, The Face of Evil is a solid adaptation of a classic serial from an era when Doctor Who could seemingly do no wrong.

Originally titled “The Day God Went Mad” (at least according to fan legend), The Face of Evil is a tight, taut, confident four-part story from Tom Baker’s third season in the role of the Doctor. Fresh off his adventures on Gallifrey, the Doctor arrives on a jungle planet that he’s visited before and had a huge impact upon. However, the Doctor has no memory of his previous adventure there nor the damage he’s inflicted on the societies there.

Terrance Dicks fills in the gap of the Doctor’s previous adventure with a deft, concise backstory that places the original visit during a slight gap in the fourth Doctor’s first story, Robot. It’s hard not to wish that Dicks had a bit more time adapting this one and an expanded page count because a chapter detailing the Doctor’s first visit might have been welcome.

Instead, we get an adaptation of the solid script, complete with a bit of character work for some of the supporting cast. In many ways, this is Doctor Who‘s take on the original Star Trek trope of a mad computer holding a society hostage. However, there’s no Captain Kirk around to “Gracie Allen” logic said computer into submission. Instead, the Doctor has to find a way to undo an error he made in a post-regenerative haze.

In a season full of classic serials, The Face of Evil is another outstanding outing. The audiobook is full of the usual highlights from the Target audio range from sound effects to dramatic music. Louise Jameson turns in a solid performance for this one, though I will still argue her interpretation of Tom Baker’s Doctor doesn’t always necessarily ring true.

#20BooksofSummer Review: Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Like tie-in novels from my favorite pop-culture franchises, rom-coms are a great way to distract/entertain myself while working out or completing daily life stuff.

But every once in a while, one of those stories breaks out from the pack and surprises you in the most unexpected of ways. That’s exactly what Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Weather Girl did.

Ari Abrams has achieved her professional dream, working for the woman who inspired her to study meteorology at the station she grew up watching. But this dream isn’t exactly everything Ari hoped it would be since her would-be mentor and her ex-husband, Torrence and Seth Hale, spend more time feuding than they do running the station or mentoring the news staff. After a spectacular blow-out at the office holiday party, Ari and sports anchor Russell Barranger hatch a plot to Parent Trap the Hales back together, in the hopes of allowing the station to become more professional and for them to get the professional encouragement and guidance they crave.

It isn’t long before Ari and Russ begin to see each other as more than just colleagues helping their bosses get together. There’s already an undercurrent of romantic tension, one that slowly builds over the course of the novel.

What makes Weather Girl such a refreshing entry in the rom-com field is that both Ari and Russ have obstacles separately and collectively along the way to “happily ever after.” Ari and her mother are clinically depressed and Ari worries that her depression makes her “too much” for anyone who might find out the truth about her. Russell has a “dad bod” and a 12-year-old daughter who is into musical theater. Oh, and he hasn’t…ahem…dated in five years either.

As each obstacle arises in Ari and Russ’s journey together, the characters actually come together in a mature fashion and discuss the obstacles facing them. And while the truth isn’t necessarily a magic cure nor does telling it instantly fix everything, it’s nice to see characters interacting in a mature, believable fashion to overcome obstacles and not allow them to become bigger than they could or should be.

Even late in the game with a huge obstacle arises, it’s dealt with realistically based on what we’ve learned about the characters to this point.

A sweet, funny, authentic-feeling rom-com is nothing to sneeze at. And this may be why this one has lingered with me a bit after I finished listening to it.