thegeekyblogger's review against another edition
4.0
Listened for Review (Tantor)
Overall Rating: 4.50
Story Rating: 4.50
Character Rating: 4.50
Audio Rating: 4.00
First Thought when Finished: Off the Edge by Carolyn Crane was unique, full of suspense, and I really liked Mac and Laney to boot!
Overall Thoughts
1: Laney, Laney, Laney--you were a totally unique leading lady. Smart, sassy, but also a little dense. I don't know why but that made me love you!
2: Mac! I would seriously let you dissect my linguistics anytime :)
3: Setting--Holy Globe-Trotting! These men are just stirring up trouble and/or fixing problems all over the place. Rather impressed.
4: (I have already read book 3) This is my favorite book in the series so far by just a smidge and that is all Laney.
5: Love when a person in a story can go through the grinder and still see good in life! LOVE THAT!
Audio Thoughts
Romy is a solid narrator that I can count on to deliver a story. She has the ability to capture and enhance a character through pacing and attitude. That came in especially handy with Laney. Overall she does a great job!
Part of my Read It, Rate It, File It, Done Reviews
Overall Rating: 4.50
Story Rating: 4.50
Character Rating: 4.50
Audio Rating: 4.00
First Thought when Finished: Off the Edge by Carolyn Crane was unique, full of suspense, and I really liked Mac and Laney to boot!
Overall Thoughts
1: Laney, Laney, Laney--you were a totally unique leading lady. Smart, sassy, but also a little dense. I don't know why but that made me love you!
2: Mac! I would seriously let you dissect my linguistics anytime :)
3: Setting--Holy Globe-Trotting! These men are just stirring up trouble and/or fixing problems all over the place. Rather impressed.
4: (I have already read book 3) This is my favorite book in the series so far by just a smidge and that is all Laney.
5: Love when a person in a story can go through the grinder and still see good in life! LOVE THAT!
Audio Thoughts
Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger /Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins / Publisher: Tantor Audio
Romy is a solid narrator that I can count on to deliver a story. She has the ability to capture and enhance a character through pacing and attitude. That came in especially handy with Laney. Overall she does a great job!
Part of my Read It, Rate It, File It, Done Reviews
setaian's review against another edition
5.0
Laney is on the run. She sent Rolly, her violent and abusive husband to prison, but he isn't one to forgive and she can never let her guard down. She has landed in Thailand where she works as a singer in a friend's hotel...far from his reach. Until Rolly's second in command and main enforcer walks into the restaurant where she is having lunch.
Macmillan is a hunter. But his weapon isn't a gun, it's words. Since he lost everyone he loved in a terrorist attack, he has used their very own words to hunt down evil doers around the world. He is in Thailand hunting the Jazzman, a criminal with a weapon to sell, a weapon that in the wrong hands could bring governments to their knees. When he sees Laney singing in the hotel where the auction is being held, he immediately knows she is on the run, he feels an immediate connection to her, and then he discovers she might hold the key to catching the Jazzman.
Romantic Suspense is a genre dominated by a few archetypes and a few recurring themes. I don't often see something I haven't already seen a bunch of times. But Carolyn Crane always, and I really do mean always, surprises me. She somehow finds these completely oddball ideas and manages to build believable and thoroughly entertaining stories around them.
Solid gold five stars.
Many thanks to Crush Star Multimedia and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC
Macmillan is a hunter. But his weapon isn't a gun, it's words. Since he lost everyone he loved in a terrorist attack, he has used their very own words to hunt down evil doers around the world. He is in Thailand hunting the Jazzman, a criminal with a weapon to sell, a weapon that in the wrong hands could bring governments to their knees. When he sees Laney singing in the hotel where the auction is being held, he immediately knows she is on the run, he feels an immediate connection to her, and then he discovers she might hold the key to catching the Jazzman.
Romantic Suspense is a genre dominated by a few archetypes and a few recurring themes. I don't often see something I haven't already seen a bunch of times. But Carolyn Crane always, and I really do mean always, surprises me. She somehow finds these completely oddball ideas and manages to build believable and thoroughly entertaining stories around them.
Solid gold five stars.
Many thanks to Crush Star Multimedia and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC
audiobookmel's review
3.0
My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.
I love the stories in this series, which I’ve listened to out of order. I listened book three last year and enjoyed it. This series consists of a guy who is deep undercover. It is hard to tell if he is a good guy or a bad one. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The heroine for Off the Edge, Laney, is on the run and hiding for a very dangerous man. She is a little naive, but not too bad. There are a few things I don’t like about this series. There are phrases that are repeated too frequently. Also, each character goes by so many different names, actual first name, actual last name, undercover first name, undercover last name and nicknames. It was a little hard to keep up who we are talking about. Neither of these prevented me from enjoying the story overall.
Narration
Narration by Romy Nordlinger while not my favorite, wasn’t bad. I think it was mostly the non-dialogue that I didn’t like. When she was voicing the characters, I didn’t mind the voices used.
I love the stories in this series, which I’ve listened to out of order. I listened book three last year and enjoyed it. This series consists of a guy who is deep undercover. It is hard to tell if he is a good guy or a bad one. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The heroine for Off the Edge, Laney, is on the run and hiding for a very dangerous man. She is a little naive, but not too bad. There are a few things I don’t like about this series. There are phrases that are repeated too frequently. Also, each character goes by so many different names, actual first name, actual last name, undercover first name, undercover last name and nicknames. It was a little hard to keep up who we are talking about. Neither of these prevented me from enjoying the story overall.
Narration
Narration by Romy Nordlinger while not my favorite, wasn’t bad. I think it was mostly the non-dialogue that I didn’t like. When she was voicing the characters, I didn’t mind the voices used.
nononanette's review against another edition
4.0
I love the characters in this book. Unusual and I thought she gave them great depth and wonderful character and relationship development. The plot was intriguing and clever, a bit far fetched. I really liked the premise behind the Associates; seems like they would make a great hollywood movie series. I would only say the amount of torture the hero goes through and can still function at such a high level, while totally believable in hollywood, is less believable in a book.
schomj's review
3.0
3.5 stars
Fun, fast, adventurous. Rounding down because it was too gross for me sometimes (torture scenes, graphic threats of sexual violence.) I liked the sci-fi linguistics stuff, though I did wish some sounds had been described in IPA (oo is different in look than in smooth, in my dialect) but that's more due to my own word nerd tendencies that anything wrong with those passages.
I do think it's funny that I've had this as an unread ebook for years and finally got around to reading it after checking out the paper version from my library. Unsure if that's a sign that I prefer to read in paper, or that due dates are the only reason I get anything done.
Fun, fast, adventurous. Rounding down because it was too gross for me sometimes (torture scenes, graphic threats of sexual violence.) I liked the sci-fi linguistics stuff, though I did wish some sounds had been described in IPA (oo is different in look than in smooth, in my dialect) but that's more due to my own word nerd tendencies that anything wrong with those passages.
I do think it's funny that I've had this as an unread ebook for years and finally got around to reading it after checking out the paper version from my library. Unsure if that's a sign that I prefer to read in paper, or that due dates are the only reason I get anything done.
ela_35's review
2.0
While this book wasn’t rushed, everything happened in a short amount of time where there was a lot going on constantly which didn’t let the characters get to know each other.
The plot was ok but it was a bit unrealistic and I didn’t like how the book only showed what happened in those weeks. There should have been more chapters after everything happened to show Laney and Peter properly interacting with other characters and doing normal things.
I didn’t really like Laney and Peter’s relationship as it didn’t really seem like they had one. I got that they both liked words but I just didn’t really see their connection.
I didn’t like the last chapter that was set 6 months after the chapter before it as it was completely different to the rest of the book. The setting was completely different, the situation and the way the characters acted were different too and it was all sudden as the whole book is intense, there are lots of action scenes and then suddenly everything is different without really showing how it happened or what the characters were doing now. It did mention their plans and new careers and other things but none of it was shown, it was all just described.
I want to try at least one more book in this series and Thorne’s seems like it will be an interesting one but I’m not sure if I’ll finish this series as while it says that the associates are a close knit group, you don’t see it and with chapters from Dex’s POV, it just seems like they’re all pawns and mean nothing to him.
The plot was ok but it was a bit unrealistic and I didn’t like how the book only showed what happened in those weeks. There should have been more chapters after everything happened to show Laney and Peter properly interacting with other characters and doing normal things.
I didn’t really like Laney and Peter’s relationship as it didn’t really seem like they had one. I got that they both liked words but I just didn’t really see their connection.
I didn’t like the last chapter that was set 6 months after the chapter before it as it was completely different to the rest of the book. The setting was completely different, the situation and the way the characters acted were different too and it was all sudden as the whole book is intense, there are lots of action scenes and then suddenly everything is different without really showing how it happened or what the characters were doing now. It did mention their plans and new careers and other things but none of it was shown, it was all just described.
I want to try at least one more book in this series and Thorne’s seems like it will be an interesting one but I’m not sure if I’ll finish this series as while it says that the associates are a close knit group, you don’t see it and with chapters from Dex’s POV, it just seems like they’re all pawns and mean nothing to him.
red_enigma_94's review
3.0
Now I've finished Book Two, and I must say that I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first book in this series. I still loved the idea of super smart agents hell bent on saving the world. Our hero, Macmillan aka Professor Maxwell was a sexy linguistics expert. I found that a rather unique skill/talent for an agent, but very intriguing. Laney, aka Emmaline...aye, yi, yi! She escaped to a faraway country to hide from her crazy ex-husband. I will say that she definitely made things a bit interesting.
When she and Macmillan/Maxwell first met, I thought Laney was adorable, kind of quirky, although very inquisitive. She and Maxwell had good chemistry and a lot of potential of being a sexy couple. But there were several other instances where Laney's intuition told her things weren't right, yet it took a LOT of convincing on Maxwell's part. By then, she'd already found herself in a volatile situation. I knew a lot of it had to do with who to trust, but when your radar practically sends up a flare, you listen.
I was super annoyed with Laney throughout this story, and when the heroine (or hero) wears on my nerves, it makes it extremely difficult for me to root for the couple's HEA. The rest of this story was more of Laney not listening to the warnings of an experienced agent to run and be safe from being thrown back into the clutches of the psycho ex-husband...over and over. Needless to say, I really wanted to strangle this heroine.
Again, I'll say that the linguistics aspect was unique and absolutely phenomenal. I was really intrigued and enjoyed how the study of language was used as a way to track and capture some of the world's most dangerous criminals. As far as this couple goes though, Macmillan deserved a better heroine.
When she and Macmillan/Maxwell first met, I thought Laney was adorable, kind of quirky, although very inquisitive. She and Maxwell had good chemistry and a lot of potential of being a sexy couple. But there were several other instances where Laney's intuition told her things weren't right, yet it took a LOT of convincing on Maxwell's part. By then, she'd already found herself in a volatile situation. I knew a lot of it had to do with who to trust, but when your radar practically sends up a flare, you listen.
I was super annoyed with Laney throughout this story, and when the heroine (or hero) wears on my nerves, it makes it extremely difficult for me to root for the couple's HEA. The rest of this story was more of Laney not listening to the warnings of an experienced agent to run and be safe from being thrown back into the clutches of the psycho ex-husband...over and over. Needless to say, I really wanted to strangle this heroine.
Again, I'll say that the linguistics aspect was unique and absolutely phenomenal. I was really intrigued and enjoyed how the study of language was used as a way to track and capture some of the world's most dangerous criminals. As far as this couple goes though, Macmillan deserved a better heroine.
labraden's review against another edition
3.0
This was a good book, but not as good as I expected after reading so many great reviews about the story. The male lead is a spy who does most of his work as a linguistic expert, analyzing language to determine who the person is that his organization is looking for and finding guilty parties. The book was obviously well researched, but the amount of time that is spent explaining the linguistic aspects of the story become a distraction and slow the story down in places. Also, the main female character frequently resists doing things that she knows are right because she is too cautious. Her choices make her a hard character to like.
prgchrqltma's review
5.0
Characters: abused woman in hiding, linguist/agent
World Building: forensic linguistics, Bangkok
Plot: track down weapons dealer, foil abusive husband
Sex: medium
Read another: Yes
Crane is my catnip. I couldn't put this one down. Maybe a little too insta-lust.
World Building: forensic linguistics, Bangkok
Plot: track down weapons dealer, foil abusive husband
Sex: medium
Read another: Yes
Crane is my catnip. I couldn't put this one down. Maybe a little too insta-lust.