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Kurt Mandry

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced mafia romance

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 11-23-24

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Amazing story continuation in the second part of this duet with great twists along the way and some totally unexpected moments, ending on a hea note. Gabby (Brie) continues her life in LA, while continuing to nurse her broken heart from Cross (Christophe) and a newly broken heart with Jake's betrayal in feeding information to Dante about Brie's whereabouts and more. Christophe is now seeing Gabby's former best friend Adrianna and is engaged to marry her breaking Gabby's heart further.
Turns out that Cassian is Gabby and Cross's son, hidden from him and the family to keep him safe from the Mafia world. Dante is back and trying to kidnap Gabby, and attempts to kidnap Gabby. While Gabby and her LA friends are in NY for a friend's wedding dress appointment, Dante grabs Cassian instead in hopes of luring Gabby to him. Gabby goes to Cross knowing he is the only person who could help get their son back safe and sound. Atelo is actually alive, in LA tracks down Dante, locates Cassian, and bonds with him during the trip to NY where Gabby and Cross. The hat is out of the bag that Cross and Adrianna had planned to keep Gabby safe while Cross and the families continue to hunt down the murder targeting his family for control of the business and ultimately Cross always wanted to end up with Gabby and now with a son cannot imagine being with anyone else.

Favorite Quotes: "'Things are always so simple with our first love. We go all in and completely give ourselves to them-hear, body, and soul. We hold nothing back because we don't know we need to....Our first loves, we love without fear. With utter abandon, we give them everything, and once that trust is betrayed, we never love like that again. We always hold something back for ourselves.'" - Gabby (Brie)

"'I'm not sure I'm even capable of love anymore. I care about you, and I don't think we have to always be at each other's throats. We don't have to be enemies, but I think we both know it will never be love. I gave my heart away over twenty years ago, and she never gave it back."' - Cross

"'That pain you feel now, it will never go away. When you lose the love of your life, it's like a piece of your soul is ripped from your body, and you will walk around half a man for the rest of your days.'" - Marcello

"Just goes to show, you can dress betrayal up in head-to-toe Chanel, and it will still be just as ugly." - Gabby

"I take a moment to look around at this room full of women-all strong and fiercely protective of Gabriella and each other. I can't help but fill with pride. We think of them as the weaker sex, but in reality, the are a force, especially when they stand together." - Cross

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-08-24


Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25

Audiobook (Audible) - Kira and Aehako decide to be mates even without the quee conformation and Kira fears she never will purr because she’s ‘barren’ due to damaged reproductive organs as a child. The green and orange aliens come back to try and collect their ‘property’. Kira is brilliant in not only her plan but the execution of the plan to get rid of these evil aliens.

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Underdeveloped characters and storyline

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-03-24

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

***SPOILERS INCLUDED BELOW***

audiobook (audible) - interesting story, love the adventurous aspect of the fmc to try and save her brother by any means necessary though I feel that she does recover quickly from the mmc's deceit and deception. I feel like this could have been better worked through this. Also it seems a bit underdeveloped/thought through with the reader as to why/how the mfc creates such an elaborate ruse to exchange her brother for the diamonds. It seems like a large jump for the character to make from being super concerned and unaware of what her brother has been up to, and then creating this elaborate plan to go up against this Mafia/Mob/Drug Lord with no real considerations for the situation she's putting herself into. Like she lives in Las Vegas so it's not like she wouldn't be so unaware of what kind of situation/trouble she'd be getting herself into and have no real concern for how her plan will play our and no real discussion about her plan even just internally before enacting it. The mfc seems to come off a bit desperate to be connecting with this new person (mmc) in a way she's never done before and then spending every single day together somehow without questioning the reasoning as to why the mmc wants to continually connect daily with her given that she hasn't been with anyone since her divorce. The story doesn't fully explain why the mmc doesn't follow up on his original suspicions on her money status that he questioned before investigating and planting evidence after they investigate things further. Like how is this overlooked. There is a mini insight into what I believe will be book 2's story characters but not 100% sure and seems a bit out of place in this book if this is not the lead into the next story.

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Decent story with horrible narration

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-20-24

Had to purchase the kindle version to fully understand the story due to the virtual voice narration skipping duplicative words and failing to differentiate between dialogue and regular story text making it super confusing to follow without the physical text to accompany the audio.

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Horrible Audiobook

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-14-24

The lack of feeling, tone changes, and overall performance of the AI detracts horribly from the story making it impossible to follow and get into. Had to stop after 2 hours just couldn’t continue.

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Monotone Vocals- story/dialogue difficult 2 follow

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
1 out of 5 stars
Story
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 07-17-24

The virtual voice does not change tones, speaking style, or anything to give a listener any idea of who is speaking what dialogue which makes it super hard to follow without reading the book in tandem. The virtual voice is a lot quicker than standard voice artists do, thankfully we can slow it down but I'd much rather have the individual characters' voices differ so it's easier when listening to know who is speaking to whom especially with all the dialogue that doesn't precede or follow a speakers name/title. Sadly, the story is greatly impacted with just the audiobook version alone and I'll have to purchase the Kindle version so I can re-read and follow along for a better idea of the story.

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Shocking

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 07-17-24

The story seemed to end and wrap up super quick, and could have really had a longer togetherness before they ended up fighting again and getting back together again.

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Amazing Story and Writing

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-06-23

Rebecca does not disappoint in this second installment of the Empyrean series. The audiobook is good, occasionally the character voices change for one another and can be confusing if not also reading the words along with the audiobook. Overall a great job on this complicated work given the vast number of characters represented.

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Beyond Word and Worlds

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 11-13-22

The narrator has brought an even deeper character development to the authors already detailed characters that has one physically, mentally, and emotionally addicted not only to this single story but to the next books. The beyond word and worlds new take on an old love story of desire and heart shattering loss is vividly brought to life with Laura’s vocals. She is able to clearly and distinctively differentiate between the many characters and their varying emotions to the point that the listener doesn’t need to be told who has spoken what phrase and statement.
This reminds me of a perfect Sci-Fi Romance mix surrounding a character romance connecting an Assassin and a Psychokinetic with a tiny bit of spice and an evolutionary post war world with hints of alternative dimensions.

If you love Sci-Fi or Romance you’ll love this with an easy bridge to connect these two genres.

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