Narrated by Joyce Bean
Was it romance or women’s fiction? The main focus of this story is the relationship between the hero and the heroine, leaning it towards romance. It’s the writing style that makes it more like women’s fiction – a lot of prose was dedicated to the secondary issues and characters. It comes across more like a story of a modern woman and the trials she faces in her day to day life, which is what I consider women’s fiction.
Journalist and author Sabrina Stone’s life is irrevocably changed when her son is born with severe brain damage. Her husband becomes more and more estranged, and her writing is put aside so she can take care of her baby. She first meets investigative reporter Derek McGill when he tries to include her son’s story in a report on mental health issues. Soon after, Derek is convicted of murder in what is clearly a case of self-defense. While Sabrina’s marriage and life fall apart, she turns to Derek in prison, where they develop a relationship based on the brief moment of attraction from their first encounter.
There are so many issues tackled in this book – Sabrina’s family dynamics, with her parents and brother all authors of different genres; Derek’s desire for revenge for his wrongful imprisonment; Sabrina’s struggle to raise a severely retarded child. And my real problem with the story? I got bored! It went in so many directions, none of them very compelling. Sabrina divorces the first rat of a husband; Derek gets out of prison and vows revenge; Sabrina’s oddball family continues to plague her. Where was the story? What was the real plot? I saw all the various predictable conflicts coming a mile away.
Joyce Bean is really the consummate professional narrator. She is able to keep the story moving, and she developed discernible voices for all the various characters. But she couldn’t keep the story from droning on and on and on. She couldn’t turn Delinsky’s mediocre plotting and predictable dialog into a compelling listen. She wasn’t able to make the characters any more interesting.
I should mention the story’s original publish date was 1988. I was impressed at how few references in the story truly dated it – the usual, no cell phones, no Internet, and the fact that Derek was a Vietnam veteran were really the only obvious clues.
I get the sense that, as audiobooks become hotter commodities, publishers are snapping up backlists and getting them recorded to cash in. That goes along with the trend to publish every possible romance book ever written, regardless of how ill-conceived, poorly edited or short – to the point of incomplete – it is. Why they are doing this, when there are so many wonderful romance novels as yet unrecorded, I have no idea. Apparently my idea of a business model for publishers differs from the one they are following!
Melinda
Narration: B
Book Content: C-
Steam Factor: Glad I had my ear buds in for the very few moments of passion
Violence: None – well, there was some off-screen violence, so maybe minimal
Genre: Contemporary romance/women’s fiction
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Commitments was provided to AudioGals for review by Brilliance Audio.
