This audiobook was just okay! I think the narrator was great, and the story was good, but there was a bit of weird things added, and some storylines did not really fit in. I think that it was creepy and weird, and it made me think a lot and also be scared. I loved the new genre and how it evoked emotion!


Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

This is a lot. So twisty. So evil. So weird.
What the heck? I ended up loving this but at first I was just confused and frustrated. The ending explains it all. It reminded me of some Michael Creighton.

Thank you to NetGalley, L. J. Shepard, and Dreamscape Media for the audiobook. Ella Lynch delivered a fantastic narration. This book was a thrilling experience that fans of Shutter Island will appreciate. I was amazed by the unexpected twists and turns, and I also found the historical insights into far-right groups to be very engaging.

The Trials of Lila Dalton ⚖️

Rating: ⭐️💫
Genre: Mystery
Pub Date: August 27, 2024

Lila finds herself standing in a courtroom in front of jurors, but has no memory of who she is, why she is here, or even what this case is about. As she pieces clues together she comes to find she is defending a man accused of mass murder in a bombing.

Wooo, this one was a doozy. The plot of this sounded absolutely up my alley. I love a courtroom drama. Throw in some amnesia, and this sounded like such a fun mystery. As things get rolling along, it gets chaotic very quickly as well as confusing. I think the author tried to do way too much to really pack a punch, and it just didn’t work. I also struggled with the amount of legal jargon. I’m not sure if this was due to my lack of familiarity with how the legal system works in the UK, or if it truly was too in depth.

What I did enjoy was the audiobook narrator. She had such a pleasant accent, and really did a great job at delivering all of the characters with a unique tone. I never had to question which character was speaking.

Mildly spoiler-ish below:

[There were just so many odd or intense topics all thrown in. Everything from government conspiracies, neo-Nazi groups, mind control, to quantum theory. It was overwhelming and weird for me. I really think had this author stuck to the basic plot of Lila’s amnesia and the need to figure out her court case and how to handle it, they truly could have had a great book on their hands.]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Dreamscape Media, for the ALC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC. This book started off gathering my interest and attention until about the halfway point. Once I got there, I have no idea where the story went or what I just read. The story is able to keep interesting but felt like it had too many aspects to understand what was happening. The ending alone was disappointing.

Lila Dalton, a woman with amnesia, wakes up in a courtroom to find herself the lawyer for a man accused of mass murder. Stranded on a remote island where the most serious crimes are tried, she must prove her client's innocence while struggling to trust anything around her, including her own memory.

This has a super interesting premise, and a really strong start, but if I'm being honest.... It was a mess. There were just so many ideas happening simultaneously that it was hard to follow. It felt like the author was trying really hard to include surprising things, but it got way too convoluted and none of the ideas were fully realized. This could have used another round or two of editing.

I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley and this is my voluntary and unbiased review.

I don’t know how to describe this one. It never clicked for me. While the premise was peculiar and interesting, I felt that the entire story lacked structure. For the first 40%, it just went around and around with random clues here and there. I felt like it was an episode of Black Mirror meets a conspiracy thriller, but it plateaued. Random details. Just all around odd.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape for this ARC Audiobook.

I am sorry to say this was a DNF for me at about 30%. The premise of this book was intriguing, and has a lot of potential, but fell short on execution.
I found the book to be too slow at times yet also too complicated. The narrator did a great job on her reading and I would listen to her again on another story.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to review this book. This was a DNF for me.

I'm having trouble staying convinced of the logic of this book, my suspension of disbelief just isn't working...it feels more than a little unlikely, and I'm really over the main character trying everything she can to escape from this apparently inescapable place. I am curious how it will be resolved, but I find myself unable to listen for more than a few minutes at a time before it feels too farfetched again. Just not the story for me.

Thank you for the opportunity. Best of luck.

This courtroom drama had me hooked in the beginning. The character development and plot were well done and intriguing initially.
As the story went on it felt like the book lost a lot of steam and the author just crammed as much as possible in the last few chapters without much rhyme or reason. It felt like initially the author knew what they wanted and then as the story went on it began going different avenues trying to figure out what it should be in the end. Felt indecisive and just a mess. Although the premise of the story appeared promising initially, the story overall ended up being just "okay".

Lila is a defense attorney who has no memory of who she is or what is going on. She finds herself on a remote island in a court room with a judge and 12 jurors looking to her for answers. As time goes on, she discovers that she is defending an accused terrorist who killed 27 people in a bombing. Little memories come and go, and Lila has a hard time grasping onto what is real. As things intensify, Lila questions everything not knowing what is real and who she can trust. Who is guilty in these cases, or is this all just a conspiracy? There are many twists and turns. The story is constantly developing.
I listened to the audio book and felt the narrator, Ella Lynch, did a fantastic job with the book she had to read. I believe she is part of the reason I was able to finish this book overall.


Thank you, Dreamscape Media, L.J. Shepherd and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of this audiobook. I unfortunately had to DNF at 30%. This book was really slow and I couldn’t get into it.

DNF at 20%. I was bored. I didn’t care what was going to happen. I thought this would be a great potential but felt very let down.

The Trials of Lila Dalton by LJ Shepard receives (just barely 3 stars) ⭐⭐⭐
I was lucky enough to receive an audiobook arc from NetGalley, Dreamscape Media, and the author in exchange for my honest feedback. THANK YOU! ❤️

"I look up to find twelve strangers staring back at me… I realize I’m the one they’re waiting for."

I was very intrigued by the plot idea of this book. I am typically obsessed with legal books, murder mysteries, serial killers, etc. - but this wasn't executed well whatsoever.

This was a very weird book - it started off normal, but it went off the rails.

The input text introduces the story of Lila Dalton, who finds herself in a courtroom without any memory of her life. Despite her lack of personal knowledge, she conveniently remembers all things related to the legal system. Lila must win a trial and uncover the truth about her situation in order to find her way home. The story is filled with courtroom drama and mystery as both Lila and the reader try to piece together what is happening. While the initial intrigue and curiosity are captivating, the complexity of the storyline and distracting events eventually cause the reader's interest to wane. 🙃

This a wild story. I'm glad I had the chance to listen to it. But also, will probably forget about it soon.

This is a speculative fiction, where the time isn't very clear (what year is this?) and the mystery of it all isn't obvious. Lila Dalton wakes up with no memories standing in a courtroom. And she is representing a terrorist. How did she get here, and how is she a lawyer (barrister in this case). UK is now sending their worst criminals to a remote island to be trialed and sentenced and hopefully imprisoned. It is such a weird set up, and Lila hasn't heard of such an island. But she hasn't heard of her own name either, so what does she know? Even though her memories are not coming back to her, she seems to have the skills to represent her client and figure out this mystery of how she got here with the help of a very involved journalist.

This reminded me of another speculative fiction. It is kind of confusing, but interesting. I was invested into this story for a while, until everything went over the top. And then that end.. I'm left with a lot of questions, and wish I had a physical book to understand those last chapters better/slower.

The narrator did a good job. The plot was interesting, but in the end just a lot and confusing. And the characters - well they kind of moved around to unravel the plot, but didn't have much growth themselves. Overall it would be a good book to discuss with others.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for my review copy.

I try my very best to never do this - but I had to DNF at about 24%. As countless other reviews have said, the idea is there! The way new information is introduced - to our MC Lila Dalton and us, the reader - at the same time due to her memory loss was such a creative idea. (If there's another book out there that unfolds this way, I'd love to read it!) Unfortunately, there's just so much thrown at you. So often. And so illogically. It just doesn't work. At first I was interested in figuring out what was going on with Lila and how the trial would end. A few chapters later, so many unnecessarily convoluted issued had popped up I could hardly remember what I had curiosities about anymore.

As I said, I DO NOT do this often. If I say I will review something, I do it whether I enjoy it or not. However this is another 5ish hours of my life I'd never get back and could be spent reading and reviewing another author's work, that I do enjoy. %ish hours is a long time.

This is not a fault of the narrator, she was just fine.

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, LJ Shepherd, Ella Lynch, and Dreamscape Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!}

*Because I didn't complete this, I don't feel it's right to post this review anywhere public-facing. I will only be posting my review here, on NetGalley.

I was so hopeful when I started this book.
I love me a courtroom drama, which made me so excited with the opening scenes.
As the book progressed, it just became so.... odd.
It felt so disjointed, and by the end I had no idea what was going on.
I felt it needs way more structure.

Interesting premise but it fell flat for me. Also very repetitive and got a bit annoying because of it

Yawn

Repetitive and just dull. It had a few moments where Lilah would find something new and it would intrigue me, but it never unravelled in the right way. Lots of back story and history which I found boring and hard to listen to on audio. I need a more fast paced story for audiobooks to keep my interest.

This book started off strong and had me interested from the beginning. Sadly, it lost me about halfway through and went in a direction that just wasn’t for me. I would say the first half is 4 stars, but only 1-2 stars for the second half.

Usually when I pick up a legal thriller, it tends to be more of the vein that there is an amateur detective who just happens to have connections to the legal profession. Given that the summary for this book also contained speculative or sci-fi implications, I didn't expect this to be much different. I was so delightfully surprised to be wrong.

I have never read a book that uses the actual trail process, legal language and debate tactics as a legitimate discovery devise as much as it does 'on the ground' work. I am absolutely not surprised at all that the author has the background as a barrister. It shows in all the best ways. While my own areas of study are in the American system and I am not a member of the bar, the linguistic battle approach and ties of court procedure, rules of evidence, etc were music to my ears. It added such a realistic other-level nature to this.

On the mystery and speculative side it does not disappoint either. What seems like a cut and dry argument about extremism and cult behavior turns out to be so much more twisted and in some ways sickeningly prevalent to current day. It also dangles the questions of reality and feasibility long enough so that you wonder if this really is just a psychological manifestation. The solution of which is a twist that I hadn't quite sifted out but felt so very right for the overarching turns.

The most successful mystery-thrillers keep you guessing, work within a realm of possibility for the world they operate in, and are aware of their setting and the placement of clues. This is all that and more with a wonderful narrative tone, a sympathetic central character, and a two fold mystery that uses a period in our history that has opened up and continues to cycle today. Brilliant work. Absolutely recommend.