24. Tell Her Story by Margot Hunt

listened on Audible (Aud Original)
?? pgs. - audio only (2:52)

2022
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 3/23/24
Goodreads rating: 3.60
My rating: 3.75
Setting: 

My comments: Read by Dakota Fanning and a cast of others.  A journalist who has been fired from her job is living in her sister and brother-in-law's guest house in Florida and waitressing at her brother-in-law's tavern.  When her sister suggests that she start a podcast about the 20-year-old murder of a beloved high school teacher, she agrees, which sets off a series of events that eventually solve the cold case.  Quite a twist!

Goodreads synopsis: From the author of Buried Deep and The House on the Water comes a shocking thriller about a young podcaster who’s investigating a cold case in her hometown and determined to uncover the truth at any cost.

Paige Barrett was living her dream as a journalist in New York City, racking up bylines as a staff writer at The Razor, a cutting-edge online magazine. But when she’s suddenly fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, she finds herself back home in the quaint seaside town of Shoreham, Florida, waiting tables and living in her sister’s guesthouse.

Restless and itching for something meaningful to occupy her time, she decides to launch a true-crime podcast about the death of Jessica Cady, a beloved teacher who died mysteriously 20 years earlier. The case went cold with no leads and no suspects, but the more Paige digs into the woman’s death, the closer she comes to a killer. In a small town like Shoreham, it’s impossible to keep a secret forever. 

56. Indentured Bride by Yamila Abraham

read on my iPhone: free AudibleEscape
narrated by Desiree Dunn
Unabridged audio (1:32)
2016
54 pgs.
Steamy SciFi/Alien Romance
Finished 3/21/2020
Goodreads rating: .3.41 - 199 ratings
My rating: 2

First line/s:  Tabitha cut the ridge of a saccus nut with her laser and then waited for her vision to stop blurring.  She separated the shell as carefully as she could with her trembling fingers.  Then she tried to nudge free the malleable core.  This is when things started going dark.  She closed her eyes and rocked gently in her seat.  If she tired to keep working she'd rupture the core.  She had to wait until the room stopped spinning.

My comments:  My favorites to choose of these free AudioEscape books are the books about aliens, I'm not sure why...and they're all pretty darn BAD.  I keep choosing to read them though.  This one was really just a short story, or perhaps a novella?  An hour and a half long, with the first hour introducing the characters, the setting, what's happened to earth, and a little about its alien invaders.  The protagonist is a slave who works 18 hours a day and also used as a medical guinea pig who has now been given the chance to become a concubine.  The last 20 to 25 minutes of the story is the steamy part, and the story would've been halfway decent without this in-depth explanation.  What really cracks me up is how many of these other galaxy aliens are physically constructed in the same ways as humans.  Maybe that's part of the reason I like Ice Planet Barbarians so much, there are at least a few outward dissimilarities that make it a little more believable.  I read this because it was short and alien-related.

Goodreads synopsis:  Cruel alien masters have oppressed Tabitha for the last ten years. An Alliance observer discovers that she’s been experimented on and pulls her from the slave colony. She’s going to be granted the privilege of becoming an indentured bride.
          Tabitha doesn’t see her new assignment as a privilege. Her duties seem pretty clear cut, and she knows what Hax-Rah aliens are like. The last thing she wants is to be stranded on a moon with one.
          Hex-Lord Jaxil took an isolated mission for a reason, and he never asked for a bride.
          A riveting and scintillating sci-fi romance novella by the author of Bride of the Keil Warriors!