I would give this book a 3.5 rating. It kept me intrigued throughout the book. The narrator did a great job conveying the characters. So this book follows an FBI team trying to catch a serial killer named the Piggyback killer. The MC Special Agent Vicky Collins has just been assigned tot he task force trying to make a name for herself. While helping the team track down a killer Collins is also trying to track down a brother she never knew even existed. Throughout the book Collins is left wondering is she adopted or did her dad have an affair? Is her brother alive? So many questions but Whelan does a great job answering everything at the end of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley for a audiobook version of the book. This is an honest review.

A thrilling listening as the book has so many twists and turns with an ending that you just won't expect! Love it!!

"He is gay because his brothers showed him porn at a young age and that led to sexual deviance!!!!??!??!?! "

"He was my friend, he kissed me yesterday, but I have a boyfriend "

"I'd rather he cheats on me with 3 women at the same time but with a man "

But when she almost has sex with a stranger in a hot tub, while having this same boyfriwnd, that is perfectly fine.

I am done with this book!

2 stars = it was ok

So many trigger warnings. Like, all the trigger warnings.
I was offered an e-ARC copy of this book by the publisher, and in reading the book, I think I liked it more than in listing to the ALC audio that I received through Net Galley. I'm not sure if it was the narrator's voice that I disliked or if I had to pay more attention to the story while listening rather than reading. (I think I tend to skim-read a lot, especially with e-books).

I would not have picked it up if not for it being offered to me as an ARC, as I don't usually go for FBI type suspense books. But overall, I don't feel like the book really met up with it's description, overall. I might consider looking for other books by the author, it seems that she had several titles, and I don't think the writing was really 'bad', but I will have to look for trigger warnings more closely, because - wow.

Thanks to the author and publisher for the eARC of this book in exchange for my review. Thank you to Net Galley for providing with an audio ALC copy.

Vicky Collins has a semi normal life as an FBI agent. She and her real estate boyfriend have a comfortable life in San Diego. Vicky is recruited to join an elite task force for the FBI to investigate a serial killer, when this happens she has to submit paperwork and finds she has a long lost brother. This doesn’t make any sense, Vicky grew up in a loving home with great parents and siblings she knows. Then the secrets begin to unravel and it’s more than Vicky could ever imagine.

The premise of the book was great, a classic game of cat and mouse. Whose the good guy? Whose the bad guy? However, it just did not mesh well for me. The characters were not likable. The plot was extremely predictable and not climatic.

Trigger Warnings:
*Assault
*Death
*Murder
*Rape
*Sexual Assault
*Stalking


Thank you to NetGalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own

Vicky is an FBI cybercrime agent assigned to find a serial killer. What she didn’t expect to discover is what she had in common with him.
   There are so many secrets that are unlocked in this fast paced psychological thriller. Vicky’s feelings about her family and her personal relationships all take a nose dive after making a discovery that sets this story on its fast paced journey. The reader is repeatedly shocked by Vicky’s discoveries.
   I must admit, her resolve in the end was a surprise response to what transpired in her life.
   The reader of the audio book brought all the characters to life.

A new author for me and I will be reading more of her works. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to review the novel. The family and friends intertwined relationship and secrets had me speculating in several directions, but never the right one. I actually listened to it rather than read it. Loved the narrator.

This was fast-paced with an intriguing plot line and and excellent narrator. The protagonist was a tough-as-nails female FBI agent who had so many admirable qualities. I loved that she didn’t take crap from anyone yet had a big heart and empathy when it mattered. I found the story to be both exciting and original and look forward to listening to more audiobooks by this author.

This book exceeded my expectations! Several seemingly unrelated characters tell their story. When you start to connect the dots, you won’t want to stop reading! And I doubt you’ll be able to predict the shocking and twisty ending.

A big thank you to netgalley and OrangeSky Audio for my ALC of this audiobook. It’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts on this one. This one wasn’t great. The premise of this book sounded really good to me but the execution just didn’t work. I felt the suspense in this one lacking and at times the story felt disjointed and clunky. It was also missing the strong female lead that I was hoping for. Vicky drove me nuts, and a lot of the storyline and dialogue had me going ‘huh?’ who would ever do/say that? In fact, I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. I was also pretty annoyed by some of the homophobic content and stereotypes. The narrator also didn’t work for me. I found the different character voices a little cringy and more than once I found the tone used didn’t fit the situation.

That said, the story was engaging enough to keep me listening until the end. I can’t say I would recommend this one though.

EXCERPT: She was haunted by her vivid imagination, recollecting the possible events Emma had to suffer through under her care.

Emma must have been awake and aware, feeling every thrust and hearing every groan, lying there helplessly. She had already surrendered control over her body when she suffered a traumatic brain and spinal injury as a little girl. She was in a head on collision with a drunk driver. Her parents lost their lives in the accident, and young Emma had been living in the care facility ever since. Her brain could sense touch and other sensations but was unable to respond to anything. She couldn't move or talk. She only lay in bed, eyes set on the blank ceiling. Someone so evil - capable of taking advantage of her disability - didn't deserve to live in society.

ABOUT 'IF I HAD TWO LIVES': "You're telling me I have a brother I don't know about?" When ambitious law officer Vicky Collins transferred to the FBI, she thought she was ready for anything - until a DNA background check brings up the criminal record of a brother Vicky didn't even know she had. Tracking down her mysterious sibling might be the only way she can cling to her career in law enforcement - but what price will she and her family have to pay when their darkest secrets come to light?

As the truth emerges, it sends Vicky's career, relationship, and mental health spiraling to pieces all around her - and that's before her investigation uncovers one more disquieting possibility: That the secrets she's revealed might link members of her own family to the murders committed by the Piggyback Killer - the same serial killer she'd been assigned to investigate just prior to her suspension.

MY THOUGHTS: I struggled to finish this book, and in retrospect I wish I had abandoned it. The problem is that I have read and enjoyed other books by this author, but I could find no trace of the talent that has kept me frantically turning the pages in those books. It feels and reads like it was written by someone else.

The writing style is wooden. Clunky. It doesn't flow and isn't at all suspenseful. The premise sounded great, and I was looking forward to an enthralling and twisty story, but it never happened. Dialogue is forced, unnatural.

Vicky's character is cold and rigid. And I hated that she blathered on constantly about not feeling that she could spend the rest of her life with her partner, and not wanting to have her children with him, but not doing anything about it! I was expecting a positive character, a role model, but Vicky is portrayed as judgemental and shallow. Very shallow. Very judgemental. Not a smidgen of compassion in her.

There are just so many things about this book that I disliked that if I catalogued them all, I would run out of space.

And sorry, but I didn't even like the narrator, Kristin James. Her men's voices are appalling.

For a very short book, this took me a long time to get through.

Reading is a personal and subjective experience, and what appeals to one may not please another. So if you enjoyed the excerpt from If I Had Two Lives, and the plot outline appeals, please do go ahead and read it. Just because it wasn't for me, doesn't mean that you won't enjoy this.

⭐.5

#IfIHadTwoLives #NetGalley

I: @authorabwhelan @orangeskyaudio

T: @AuthorABWhelan #OrangeSkyAudio

#audiobook #contemporaryfiction #crime #familydrama #mystery

THE AUTHOR: A.B. Whelan currently resides in California with her husband and two children. When she isn't writing, editing, marketing, or researching her next book, you can find her walking her two rescue dogs, socializing online, coaching soccer, or doing another DIY project with her husband.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Orange Sky Audio via Netgalley for providing an audio ARC of If I Had Two Lives written by A.B. Whelan and narrated by Kristin James for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

This book was way too much for me. The characters are all so awful, and the plot was all over the place. Big miss for me.

Narration wasn’t bad though. I did enjoy listening to them speak, just the content was meh.

I received this audiobook from the publishers via Netgalley for a review. FBI agent Vicky Collins find out she has a brother she never knew about this and trying to find a serial killer means plenty of twist in this novel. The narrator does a very good job of bringing this book to life.

#InANutshell – How the heck is this book rated so highly on GoodReads with 70% ratings being 4+ stars!?!??!?!?

Story:
The premise of the story is great. And what a start to the book! There are two fairly long but fabulous prologues and both hook you in immediately. The main narrative introduces us to 34 year old Vicky Collins, who seems to be having the best & worst week of her life. Having accepted her new role as an FBI special agent, she is assigned to a case about a serial killer who seems to have no distinct style of his own but piggy-backs on other murderer’s modus operandi. Her FBI background check meanwhile reveals a startling fact: she has a brother that she didn’t even know about. Now Vicky is divided between locating the serial killer and finding her lost brother, until she realises that the two searches might be the same.

Isn’t that a fantastic plot structure? It would have been so thrilling to read if it had been handled well. Sadly, everything else in the book fails to match the expectations.

Writing:
The plot outline is good, no doubt about that at all. The entire puzzle fits in together very well, and the twist at the end caught me by surprise. While not a thriller in a strict sense of the word (there’s hardly any tension in the book except in the climax and the first crime scene doesn’t appear until 50% into the book,) the book will still make you proceed further just to know what happens at the end.

While the story unfolds very quickly, there are many needless scenes in the book. (Till the end, I didn’t understand why Tyler’s character was relevant to the plot. I was hoping he would come up in some twist at the end but he simply disappears. That entire arc was a waste of pages.)

Also, I don’t appreciate authors putting across their own strong opinions in the form of character thoughts. There are so many instances in the plot when Vicky seems to be spouting some clichéd opinions or facts that no person would think/say aloud in a routine conversation. I wish I could have noted down every instance but the disadvantage of an audio version is that you can’t bookmark every such conversation. In a dramatic book, such sentences could get by if written well. In a thriller, they hinder the pace and flow of the story.

Another thing I disliked in the writing style was the excessive physical descriptions. Oh God! Everything from the hair to the eyes to the skin colour of every single character is provided when they first appear in the story. And though this is done frequently to establish a visual in the minds of the readers, it is shown, not told. Not in this book though.

Characters:
When you see a book with a woman FBI officer as the lead character, you look for a positive role model. Vicky unfortunately failed to establish any kind of connect with me as her character is quite self-contradictory and short-sighted.
- Vicky is supposed to be a cyber-crime expert, yet throughout the investigation, the only time she uses any kind of technology is with her car GPS to reach various places. She doesn’t use the internet for any kind of search, nor does she use her smartphone to take notes or record conversations. Cyber-crime experts are usually tech geeks, so this behaviour is quite odd.
- She is highly judgemental and starts profiling everyone she meets, sometimes without any reason whatsoever. For instance, there’s a scene with a forensic pathologist who appears in the book only that one time. And yet we have an entire character analysis done by Vicky based on just her looks. In fact, for every character she meets, her entire initial judgement is based on their appearance. If a criminal is handsome, “I don’t understand what he’s doing here in prison with his good looks”. If the forensic pathologist is beautiful, “How come she chose this career when she could easily have been a model!”
- She is shocked when her boyfriend of a decade ends up in bed with his male business partner. She then begins her psychobabble again: that she should have understood his homosexual tendencies when she saw that he was quite feminine in his behaviour and obsessed with his looks almost like a woman. In one single sentence, this insults homosexuals as well as women. How did this type of stereotypical rubbish pass by the editors?
- She seems to have nothing in common with her boyfriend Doug. I don’t get their connection at all, and failed to figure out why such a strong independent woman was stuck to such a narcissistic prig right till the end, even after the above-mentioned incident with the business partner.
- She is proud of her sister for being a fire-fighter and herself too for being a police officer and considers this a good step for women. Yet, in an interrogation scene with a criminal, she doesn’t hesitate to unbutton her blouse in order to get the information she requires. And no, she wasn’t under cover at this time, but in a prison meeting area. What self-respecting police officer would flash her boobs at a criminal to get information?
(In fact, I was confident after this scene that this book is the perfect bad example of a "man-writing-woman". But no, the author is a woman, And that stumps me even more about she could write like this!)

I could go on and on about why Vicky left me befuddled with her behaviour but I guess this much is enough. A saving grace would have been possible if there were some other strong or memorable character in the lead. Unfortunately, Vicky is the only lead and most of the secondary characters just come and go as needed. So other than physical descriptions or their minor appearances, we don’t know anything about them and they too don’t have much time to make an impact. Many of the secondary plots are left midway or unexplained, thereby creating plot-holes.

Why did I still complete this book? The credit goes entirely to the narrator Kristin James. What a voice! What a performance! Right from the very first word she read aloud, I was dazzled by the impact of her voice and her portrayals of the various characters. Towards the end, I almost felt sorry that she was giving her best to read this kind of a book. I would love to hear more books narrated by her. If she could make me hear this book, she could bloody well read the dictionary aloud and I’ll hear it happily! For the narration: a well-deserved 5 stars.

Not for the book though. I should have stayed away from this book.

Thank you, NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio, for the audio ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I decided to listen to this audiobook as today is the publishing day for it! I am so glad this was my pick for the day because it kept my mind so busy I was able to get so much done around the house because I just couldn't stop listening! This is a fast-paced investigative psychological thriller. I really loved the main character, Vicky, for the most part but did find her inability to divulge details to her partner extremely frustrating because she refused to ask for help at any point. This made for a nerve-wracking yet exciting latter half of the book. This did not have a single dull moment. I was so confused how one of the POV's came in to play until the very end when it hit me right before the reveal and I was completely shocked. This had some great twists and turns and I would definitely read more by this author. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. 8.5/10

The Short Version: OOOOPH! This was a PAINFUL audiobook. It’s a twisty mess mired in clunky prose, terrible characters, and a mish-mosh of troubling issues (diversity, sexism, homophobia)

The Long Version: I received an advanced copy of this audiobook thanks to NetGalley and Orange Sky Audio in exchange for an honest review.

There was very little redeemable in this book, I’m dumbfounded it’s gotten such good reviews because this was slop. I was disengaged by the end of the first chapter because the dialogue was so unnatural and clunky. For example a nurse finds out a woman in a vegetative state has been raped and impregnated, she alerts the head of the facility who basically wants to cover it up, but then in describing his plan says

“We can draw blood from the fetus and compare it to the male employees, we have everyone’s blood type on file which is good.”

Later when the nurse is at home, troubled by the events of the day her husband comes to call her to bed.

“Honey are you coming to bed?”
“I’m trying, I just need to see something beautiful to ease my soul”

Who talks like that in casual conversation!? Sadly it didn’t get much better from there. The book is short and it almost feels like there was a novellas amount of content and they layered on words to call it a novel.

The plot of the book wasn’t awful and the twists contained were surprising enough, but dear god the muck you plod through to see that.

The main character is unprofessional, homophobic, and all around unlikable. She probably would have been fired in real life.

The book also had a weird fixation on diversity, but did it in such a forced way. They would go out of the way to make sure you realized a character was black or Asian or Hispanic, but sometimes these characters weren’t even around for 3 pages. It felt like they were trying to go “LOOK! we have an Asian person! And a black person! And Hispanic people!”

The book also made every male character a horrible sexist piece of crap. There was no subtlety and if the book was trying to convey the issues women deal with in modern society, like casual sexism, bludgeoning you over the head with sexist archetypes is just lazy, not progressive or thought provoking.

The narrator of the audiobook was solid and she made the listening bearable, but I felt bad for her having to read this.

1.5 out of 5 rounded down and 1 of those stars was for the narrator’s solid performance.

Component ratings
Concept/Idea: 4 out of 5
Protagonist: 0 out of 5
Character development: 0 out of 5
Plot: 3.5 out of 5
Pacing: 3.5 out of 5
Narrator’s performance: 4 out of 5
Prose: 1 out of 5
Dialogue: 0 out of 5
Ending: 3 out of 5

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
So thank you to NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio.

Frankly, I was somewhat disappointed in this book. It started off strong, with a brutal incident. Unfortunately, the subject of the first chapter wasn't mentioned again until the end of the book, and from there, it was mainly about a narcissistic (unprofessional) FBI Agent.
The book follows the family secrets of Vicky, as she at the same time tries to uncover the secrets behind a serial killer.
It seems like everything in Vicky's life is falling apart, which of course, is hard to handle - but she manages to take it out on her job and act super unprofessional. I do not know why this bothers me so much. It just really does.
Vicky has a horrible relationship with an Instagrammer who spends more time on his followers than he does with his girlfriend. Throughout the book, Vicky seems like she doesn't really want to be with him - and he seems to feel the same way. Yet they keep being together...
Vicky seems like the type of person who likes to complain about everything and then do nothing to change it. It got a bit whiny.

The book was pretty predictable, and despite the many dramatic plot twist, I kind of saw the ending coming. The book is full of very dramatic turns of events. It frankly started to feel like the author just wanted as many horrible things to happen to try and make the book.
My biggest issue, however, was the way the author dealt with diversity and racism. For some reason, odd comments on racism were mentioned a few times, just to be dismissed. For example; The main character's black friend says how she experiences racism in the US, whereto the main character swipes it away because she doesn't have the time to deal with such discussions at the moment. Then why even write it into the book in the first place? I mean, if you aren't going to do a whole thing about racism, then don't add it at all in your book. It just makes the main character seem ignorant and very, very white.
On top of that, every time a character who wasn't white was introduced, there was so much focus on how he/she looked Hispanic or Asian - even if the character were only there for like three sentences.
Honestly, the whole way of handling diversity in this book made me cringe.
The narrator did not help this issue. She did inappropriate accents, especially for the Hispanic characters, and frankly, that was a bit offensive.
Lastly, the book felt like it was written by a woman who had just caught her husband cheating. There was so much manhating, and basically, all male characters were sexist and cheating.

The good thing about the book was the storyline itself. It was interesting and had many different elements that kept me listening, even after the issues listed above.
The good thing about crime books is that you keep reading to know exactly what happened. The plot was good. It was easy to follow and a quick read. Despite my low rating, I didn't feel like I was wasting my time, and it was rather fun to listen along to the majority of the book. It just, in my opinion, had some significant issues that I couldn't really overlook.

Narrator 5 stars
Lived this narrator!! She was fantastic!!

Story 4 stars
First time I've heard of this author let alone read /listen to a book by her but is so hooked half way through that I went over to kindle and brought two of her books (which I'm looking forward to starting next)
This book had so many twist and it was so good. The reason I didn't give this 5 stars was because I don't understand the relationship with the boyfriend. That really annoyed me.

This book is terrible, I really don't understand how it got so many good reviews. I'm honestly not sure if I was supposed to like or care about the main character. She was an awful person and she should have lost her job. I don't know why the sexist things that other characters do/say are called out but the main character stereotypes just about everyone and thinks/says a lot of homophobic things. The book, in general seems to be homophobic. I don't recommend this to anyone.

My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for allowing me to review this audio.

Book opens with a patient in a vegetative state being impregnated by a staff member. Whodunit? Then we switch to a narrative from the viewpoint of a serial killer. Story then moved to FBI agent Vicki Collins and her first day at the Cyber Crime Unit.

When the FBI runs her background check, it is discovered her DNA matches a man imprisoned that could be her brother, which she was not aware of. As she confronts her parents, many secrets are revealed.

I really liked this book. Big twist when Vicki meets her brother. Highly recommend.