5/25/15

Maggie Vaults Over the Moon by Grant Overstake, Tavia Gilbert, Audiobook Narrator



Maggie Vaults over the Moon  
By Grant Overstake  

Narrated By Tavia Gilbert   
6 hrs 
Downpour Audiobooks


If you haven't had the pleasure of listening to an audiobook read by Tavia Gilbert, do
Tavia Gilbert Narrator, image
Tavia Gilbert Narrator 
yourself a treat and listen to any of the 300 audiobooks she has narrated. Ms. Gilbert has a beautiful voice and reading style. Her male characters are simply amazing, to the point you forget that only one person is reading. Ms Gilbert's artful interpretation of each character regardless of age or gender is superb. Words fail to express the powerful presentation Ms.Gilbert accomplishes narrating Maggie Vaults Over the Moon.. 

Audiobook Review of Maggie Vaults Over the Moon, by Grant Overstake

Grant Overstake, author of Maggie Vaults Over the Moon. image
Author Grant Overstake
Maggie Vaults Over the Moon, is a heart wrenching story about a farm girl on the brink of womanhood, when both her brother and boyfriend are torn from her life in a tragic automobile accident. Grain Valley, Kansas is a tightly knit small community that rallies to give support to Maggie, her parents and her beloved grandmother. Even so, no amount of outpouring can quench Maggie's broken heart. 

With her brother gone, she does her best to tackle farm chores that he and their father did and driving a grain truck was one of the toughest ones, physically taxing, and emotionally draining she garners her as yet untapped inner strength, overcomes her fears and gets the job done. 

Cover image of Maggie Vaults Over the Moon
Maggie Vaults Over the Moon
Author Grant Overstake
Day by day Maggie and her family move on with their daily life coping as best they can and Maggie finds solace by retreating to the barn where she and her brother spent many happy hours talking, playing, and reading. One day Maggie has something remarkable happen causing her to throw herself wholeheartedly into pole vaulting. Pole vaulting is physically challenging, absorbing every free moment of time she has to exercise, practice, and steadily increasing the height of the bar.  

Before long Maggie becomes a very good pole vaulter and enters a college competition, giving her a chance to show her skills. This is an excellent Young Adult book dealing with intense emotions and finding inner strength, defining the perimeters of character and talents. With Tavia Gilbert narrating six hours flew by. Read another review of Tavia Gilbert  reading Parrots Prove Deadly.

5/6/15

Fundraising the Dead A Museum Mystery, Book 1 By Sheila Connolly Narrator Robin Miles


Fundraising the Dead

By Sheila Connolly A Museum Mystery, Book 1

Narrator Robin Miles10 hrs and 38 mins.

Audible Studio's


Narrator Review of Robin Miles


Robin Miles seems more in sync with Nell Pratt than with Meg Corey in the Orchard Mysteries. Nell is likeable, intelligent, and classy with few personality flaws. She does not waste time with self doubts. Ms. Miles with her own classy voice and educated tones establishes Nell's temperament and identity. A very pleasurable listen when graced by the talented Robin Miles.



Photo image of Robin Miles
 Robin Miles 

Audio Book Review: Fundraising the Dead by Sheila Connolly A museum Mystery Book 1.


I downloaded the Ebook version of Fundraising the Dead. It didn't work out very well. I haven't turned the pages of an actual book for many years and about four years since reading an Ebook and it was a short one.

It was flat and tasteless without a narrator reading it. It loses so much impact and dimension. Nuances are missing, intonations are zero, and my eyes are moving faster than my brain can create a visual.

I turned on the audio book and followed along with the lovely reading by Robin Miles. What I was hearing was intent, emotions, dramatizations and flavor that only comes with an audio book and a great narrator. I heard fifty shades of sound that just are lacking in flat one dimensional text. It's unimaginable to me to read a book, unless there were no other alternative.

Image of Sheila Connolly, cozy mystery writer
 Sheila Connolly 

Nell Pratt, is a professional beggar of funds for the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, and she is good at it. She has organized a gala event to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the society, with two hundred of the crème de la crème of Philadelphia's richest and most influential people invited.

Nell is frantic with the long list of things that still need attending to before the party starts in just a few hours, when an enraged Marty Terwilliger, storms into Nell's office demanding immediate attention. Marty Terwilliger, member of the board, and contributor of the vast and important donation of the Terwilliger papers, is not someone to be casually dismissed. Some valuable Washington letters are missing from the collection and she knows she saw them very recently, and she wants to know where they are.

Nell's not sure why Marty had come to her with this and not Latoya Anderson, vice president of collections or even Charles Worthington, president of the Society. After promising to see what she can do while easing her out the door, she hurries to Alfred Findley's, cubicle. Alfred knows more about the collections than anyone else at the foundation and has been entering everything into a computer database for the entire fifteen years that he's worked there.

Alfred reveals that he had for some time thought items have gone missing from the collections, and although he's given monthly accounts to Latoya every month, nothing has been done about it. Meg is shocked and upset and vows to herself that she will look into it and ask Alfred to make a list of everything he thinks has gone missing. Alfred says he'll stay overtime and leave a copy on her desk so she can have it the next day.

Good to his word Alfred creates the list and Nell later catches sight of him at the party and knows he must want a few words with her but she can't talk to him while schmoozing with the guests. Later she notices Alfred is gone and she doesn't see him again till the following morning, dead in a pool of blood. Horrified, Nell, calls 911 and the wheels of justice begin to turn.

Nell's missing items list is on her desk as promised, it's long and all are very desirable and priceless items. She recognizes their value, but not to their full amount she goes on the internet to research them. The round figure she gleans from her research is alarming, Nell gets an unsettling feeling that Alfred's death is suspiciously related to the missing items. Although the police have deemed it an accidental death.

My favorite part of the book is when Nell, Marty and Marty's friend Elizabeth Farnsworth, (Libby to her friends,) conspire to trap the thief with a very devious and amusing plan. I had to laugh out loud when this trio of crafty and foxy women get together to lay out the groundwork for their cunning plot. Alfred's death, and the missing Washington letters, lead to major changes in Nell's life and a new romance with the dashing cousin of Marty's, a special agent for the F.B.I., James Morrison (Jimmy).