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The Summoning

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Member Reviews

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

The Summoning is a gripping and haunting novel that explores the dark side of grief, loss, and the supernatural. Kit Capriol is a widow who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks and whose daughter is in a coma. To make ends meet, she uses her acting skills to pose as a medium and contact the dead for their grieving relatives. But what starts as a harmless scam soon turns into a terrifying ordeal, as Kit begins to experience disturbing visions and voices that seem to come from beyond the grave.

J.P. Smith masterfully creates a suspenseful and atmospheric story that keeps the reader on edge throughout. He skillfully blends elements of horror, thriller, and mystery, while also delving into the psychological and emotional aspects of Kit's character and her relationships. The Summoning is a novel that will haunt you long after you finish reading it, and make you question the boundaries between reality and illusion, life and death, and sanity and madness. It is a must-read for fans of the paranormal genre and anyone looking for a chilling and captivating read.

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Great narrarator, The Summoning was a slow burn thriller that I enjoyed and kept me guessing the entire time.

This is one of those books that I truly didn't know what to expect going in, but The Summoning was a pleasant surprise.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape for the advance access to this audiobook.

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I enjoyed this read. Kit is an actress/medium who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks. Kit’s daughter Zoey also suffered a traumatic event and is unable to speak. When Kit meets Dave it seems that her life is getting better but is it? Now the séances are starting to feel more real to Kit. This was a fast paced psychological thriller.

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Incredible, the story was easy to follow and get lost in, and the characters were relatable. I had a great time listening to this book.

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I love creepy books especially when I’m listening to them. I also love an unreliable narrator , shady characters . I kind of was on the right te k and I enjoyed and was intrigued how it would all come together . It did not disappoint ! An intriguing entertaining quick audiobook to listen too.

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Are you ready for a creepy read? I loved this atmospheric gothic tale. It’s just the right amount of suspense and scary as the plot builds. I loved the characters and the the author develops both the back story and character personality well. This novel kept me turning pages far into the night. I recommend this one if you love some scary vibes- but make sure to keep all the lights on!

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Kit is a struggling actress who uses her acting skills to defraud people who lost loved ones, especially in 9/11. She convinces the vulnerable that she can contact the dead. Then, some of the dead seem to really be speaking to her. This sounds spookier and more interesting than it turned out to be. <spoiler>It wound up being just another “woman in jeopardy” plot, gussied up with a hint of the supernatural.”</spoiler> I listened to the audiobook narrated by Ann Marie Lee. I didn’t care for the narration and thought that it was irritating and seriously overacted throughout. The book may be better if you don’t listen to it.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher.

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Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for this advance listener copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Summoning introduces us to Kit, a struggling actress who lost her husband on September 11 in the North tower of the World Trade Center. Since losing her husband and witnessing her daughter fall into a coma, Kit labels herself as a medium and pretends to connect people with their deceased loved ones. She's very convincing. Convincing enough that she ends up on the radar of a couple of NYPD detectives.

This story encompasses several different genres. It begins as a family drama about a struggling widow with a very sick daughter. It then becomes a supernatural thriller, once Kit's seances become all to real. Kit begins to believe she's actually talking to the dead. The third act of the book is more of a mystery novel.

This wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't really great either. I enjoyed the story. I thought the author tried to throw in too many twists and it would have been just as cohesive had the author dropped the paranormal part of it. I recognized what the author was trying to achieve here, but I thought it muddled the story. None of the characters stood out to me and many of the characters ended up getting jumbled up in my mind. It was a good effort, but fell somewhat flat.

Overall, three stars.

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I really enjoyed this audiobook and the narrator. I personally have never read a book with a medium, but wow was this book so interesting.

Imagine being able to communicate with ghosts - how spooky would that be. I’m this story, our main character is a medium and “talks” to ghosts.

I really enjoyed the narrator and pacing of the story, such a great read. I definitely recommend for a spooky read.

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The Summoning by J.P. Smith was a little too creepy for me, unfortunately, and I had to set it down for another time when I am in the right frame of mind for a good scare.

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I loved the premise for this story - the 9/11 ties and the down on her luck psychic drew me in right away. I found the narration excellent but the overall story was a little too slow moving for my tastes despite being marketed as a thriller/mystery/suspense novel. Things do pick up towards the last half and the ending was satisfying enough that I was glad I stuck with it. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ALC!

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This was a well-written story with a lot of very interesting plot threads and unique characters. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble getting through it due to the narrator. She had a great voice, so I couldn’t tell this from the initial excerpt, but as the story progressed I found the narrator’s reading to be very overdramatic and unnatural. I completely agree with a previous reviewer that a lot of the character accents and mannerisms were stereotypical and somewhat cringeworthy, especially for me as a former New Yorker. I would actually love the chance to read this book in physical form without this narrator because I think the story itself was great but I just could not get past the narrator on this one. I don’t want to penalize the good story too harshly so I’m giving this four stars overall but I was really not a fan of the narration and it made me take quite awhile to finish what I think would otherwise be a page-turning and fascinating book.

Thanks to Dreamscape Media for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Not a bad read but just not my cup of tea i guess, also felt long for the amount of pages somehow lol but would recommend

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The Summoning by J.P. Smith isn't the type of novel I usually read, but it seemed perfect for spooky season. This is a case where the concept is more interesting than the novel.

The premise: Kit Capriol's life is in shambles. Her husband died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, then her daughter collapsed on a subway platform and has been comatose for three years, and now her financial status is precarious because she can't get any acting roles. Desperate to pay her daughter's growing medical bills, Kit uses her acting skills (and a wealth of publicly-available obituaries and tributes) to market herself as a medium for families whose loved ones also perished on September 11, 2001. Then she begins hearing voices during her sessions and items are unexplainably moved in her apartment. Does Kit really have the ability to communicate with the dead?

The concept of anyone, especially a fellow victim, deceiving September 11 families is creepy on a human decency level. Given that starting point, I expected a great deal of "spooky creepiness" in this novel, but it didn't deliver. I'd classily this as psychological suspense more than a thriller or paranormal.

The audiobook is narrated by Ann Marie Lee who provides a great performance, but her voice sounds considerably older than I envisioned the main character which disconnected me from the story. Thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the review copy.

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A mix of suspense, thriller, psychological, with a bit of the supernatural thrown in for spice.
The character development was very good, leaving just enough detail out until closer to the finish. It really keeps you thinking, wondering what's possible, and what was that noise??!
Such an enjoyable presentation, I finished it in one sitting.
This audio presentation was VERY well done. The performance of the story was intense at all the right moments.
Thank you to NetGalley, J.P. Smith, and Dreamscape Media for the advance audio copy; my opinions are my own..
#TheTruthofitAll #NetGalley

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Recived audio version of The Summoning for review from Netgalley.

The narrator was good, and portrayed different voices for the characters adding depth to the story.

The story includes touches of paranormal, murder and thriller. The story has some unexpected turns in the plot. Overall I found the audio book to be a fun and creepy read.



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#J.P.Smith
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Kit is a struggling actor dealing with the loss of her husband and a tragic accident that left her daughter in a coma and needing long term medical care, in an effort to try to pay the bills she decides to try a new role as a medium and connect her clients with loved ones that have crossed over. She knows it’s a role and she isn’t really a medium but she justifies this as helping them get closer and giving them a sense of peace. David and Tony are police detectives who have Kit on their radar for fraud. Tony is resentful David has gotten the lead on this case and Tony is desperate to close it so he can get a promotion and better pay that he deserves. David has become enchanted with Kit and becomes entangled in her life but is he really interested in Kit or is it just part of his investigation?

I’ll be honest, this book starts out slow. So slow at times that I had to walk away and a few times I struggled to come back to it. I hate having to add books to my DNF list and although this book wasn’t ever horrible, it just was slow and I wasn’t invested enough to care how it ended but I did stick with it and about 2/3rds of the way through I was glad I did. Once things started to pick up speed the momentum never died down. When the book ended, I did have some questions left unanswered but nothing that will keep me up at night. I did struggle to connect with Kit. She wasn’t very likable in my opinion although I could understand why she was compelled to do what she did. She was also frustratingly naive at times. I did give this book 4 stars though rounded up from 3.5 ⭐️ based off the last third of the book otherwise it would have been a 2 star review. The narrator was decent and I didn’t mind listening to her at all.

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I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I was able to listen to the audiobook version of The Summoning via NetGalley.

Kit Capriol is an actress in New York City, widowed by her husband 18 years ago in 9/11, and her now 17-year-old daughter has been in a coma for 3 years. It has been some time since Kit has found an acting job, and she is struggling to pay her bills, so she comes up with the idea to act as a medium. She comes by her clients by perusing the memorials of 9/11 and contacts theirs surviving family members, stating their loved ones have been in contact with her. Sometimes this doesn't work, but other times, the loved ones want to believe her as they hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to the deceased. So they venture to her home, and participate in the seance in which Kit acts on the research she completed of the deceased. As an actress, she is able to come up with many accents, which makes the seances more believable. Over time though, Kit stops acting, as she begins to feel these spirits in her presence and she has experiences outside of the seances that frighten her as well.

While listening to the audio version of this story, I found the narrator, Ann Marie Lee, was very easy to listen to and follow along with as she changed between characters. I was really excited for this story as I wanted to know why Kit began actually seeing and hearing the spirits she was acting as. There was even a chapter in which she saw the death of a young boy and the unfortunate circumstances regarding his death without her having done any research on his life. But the paranormal portion of the story just died off and became more of a thriller. I enjoyed the thriller portion of the story, but I was disappointed that the paranormal portion just died off with no kind of exploration into why she was all of a sudden seeing and hearing these spirits. Because of this, I couldn't rate the story more than 3 out of 5. The way the synopsis is written it seemed like it would be a bigger part of the story, but compiled together, all of Kit's paranormal experience could have been written into 3, maybe 4 of the 77 chapters.

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Loved is an understatement. I loved the entire book, had my usual don't mess up the ending moment, and freely admit Smith made me proud to be a reader. The ending could not have been better.

The subject matter and story background may need trigger warnings; however, my concern was for the 9/11 background. This was handled beautifully.

Ann Marie Lee was amazing. As a result I am adding a narrator page to my journal. (Kudos to NetGalley for asking with cover likes or not about the narrator.).

I am not rehashing the synopsis. I am going to state, I am not impressed with swearing, and delete a star when it happens and want authors to know they cheapen their own work. There may be swearing in The Summoning. I seem to recall a moment, but didn't make a note. For me, if there is swearing the author wrote so well it fit, and my intelligence wasn't insulted.

Thank you NetGalley, Dreamscape, J.P. Smith, and Ann Marie Lee for accepting my request to review this book.

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I listened to the audiobook of The Summoning by J.P. Smith and really enjoyed it. The narrator, Ann Marie Lee was wonderful. The Summoning was a slow burn psychological thriller with lots of twists, turns and suspense. I really enjoyed the main character, Kit Captiol.

Kit lost her husband on 9/11. Peter died when the twin towers were attacked. He had been a chef in the Windows on the World restaurant and was working when the planes attacked. Kit was an actress but parts were hard to come by. To make ends meet, Kit had become a medium. Every anniversary after 9/11, Kit would scan the newspapers for memorials that were being held. Kit would contact the surviving family members and offer to help them make contact with the loved ones they had lost. Soon the seances Kit conducted became increasingly more real. Kit felt weird sensations and actually started hearing voices. She was no longer acting. Kit felt the presence of actual spirits. Around this time, Kit met a handsome and charming man at a bar she often frequented. His name was Dave and he was a detective. Kit enjoyed his attention and started to develop feelings for him. Kit also had a daughter, Zoey. Kit and Zoey had been waiting for a train to go home one afternoon after Zoey’s piano lesson when Zoey witnessed a horrific act and was now in a coma. Kit’s life was about to get even more complicated and a bit more dangerous if that was possible.

I was not sure what to expect from The Summoning but I really enjoyed it. This was the first book that I have read by J. P. Smith even though this was his ninth novel. I will definitely read more of his books in the future. The Summoning was published on September 7, 2021.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media LLC for allowing me to listen to this advanced audiobook of The Summoning in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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