Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Macmillan Audio Review - The Little Shop Of Found Things by Paula Brackston

Welsh native Paula Brackston has become an author that I automatically buy, when I learned she was penning a new series featuring mystery, magic and time travel set around an antique shop in the English countryside I knew I needed to read it. When Macmillan audio offered it in their October selections I said. Yes Please!

ps be sure and check back periodically because I'm trying to snag an interview with the author.

Enjoy!


ISBN: 9781427286086
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: 10-16-2018
Length: 12 hours 43 minutes
Found Things #1
Source: Publisher for review
Buy It: Audible


ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:

Paula Brackston, New York Times bestselling author of The Witch's Daughter, returns with her trademark blend of magic and romance guaranteed to enchant in the first audiobook in a new series.

An antique shop haunted by a ghost.
A silver treasure with an injustice in its story.
An adventure to the past she’ll never forget.
Xanthe and her mother Flora leave London behind for a fresh start, taking over an antique shop in the historic town of Marlborough. Xanthe has always had an affinity with some of the antiques she finds. When she touches them, she can sense something of the past they come from and the stories they hold. When she has an intense connection to a beautiful silver chatelaine she has to know more.
It is while she’s examining the chatelaine that she’s transported back to the seventeenth century where it has its origins. She discovers there is an injustice in its history. The spirit that inhabits her new home confronts her and charges her with saving her daughter’s life, threatening to take Flora’s if she fails.
While Xanthe fights to save the girl amid the turbulent days of 1605, she meets architect Samuel Appleby. He may be the person who can help her succeed. He may also be the reason she can’t bring herself to leave.

Listen to a Sample

My Review:


STORY: 5
Brackston showcases her unique iconic blend of magic, mystery and history in her latest genre-bending literary treasure, The Little Shop of Found Things.
With breathtaking backdrops and period perfect dialogue and conduct for the current and early sixteenth century timelines this master storyteller takes fans on a fantastical and believable journey introducing them to convincing characters including a vengeful ghost and treating them to action adventure and an ill-fated love story while solving a cryptic mystery and meting out justice. Xanthe is the stand out in this novel, the perfect star, victimized but not a victim, empathic and compassionate enough to want to travel through time to make things right in spite of the threats of a malevolent specter. Fans of history and mystery who love a little woo-woo thrown in will devour this soon to be bestseller.


NARRATION: 5
Marisa Calin’s narration goes above and beyond. Her accents and inflections are all era appropriate and she does well with the voices of both sexes. Fans will appreciate the care she takes to emit just the right emotions for each scene giving a more in depth experience than reading alone would.


SUMMARY:
Xanthe Westlake and her mother Flora are hoping for a new beginning after the men they loved betrayed them; she was sent to prison for a crime her now ex-boyfriend committed and her mother is going through a painful divorce from her philandering father.
So they’ve moved house from the bustle of London to the quiet hamlet of Marlborough where they've purchased an antique shop. But what they don’t know is that someone has been waiting for their arrival –– someone who’s been haunting the shop for a very long time, someone who’s counting on Xanthe’s gift of connecting with certain found treasures of the past to solve an ages old mystery and save a lost soul.
During a purchasing trip to a nearby grand estate Xanthe is drawn to purchase an antique chatelaine that connects her with it’s tragic past, a vengeful ghost that haunts their shop and a trip back through time to right a centuries old wrong.

More by Paula Brackston




About Paula:
Paula Brackston lives in a wild, mountainous part of Wales. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and is a Visiting Lecturer for the University of Wales, Newport. Before becoming a writer, Paula tried her hand at various career paths, with mixed success. These included working as a groom on a racing yard, as a travel agent, a secretary, an English teacher, and a goat herd. Everyone involved (particularly the goats) is very relieved that she has now found a job she is actually able to do properly.
When not hunched over her keyboard in her tiny office under the stairs, Paula is dragged outside by her children to play Swedish tennis on the vertiginous slopes which surround them. She also enjoys being walked by the dog, hacking through weeds in the vegetable patch, or sitting by the pond with a glass of wine. Most of the inspiration for her writing comes from stomping about on the mountains being serenaded by skylarks and buzzards.

In 2007 Paula was short listed in the Creme de la Crime search for new writers. In 2010 her book 'Nutters' (writing as PJ Davy) was short listed for the Mind Book Award, and she was selected by the BBC under their New Welsh Writers scheme.


About Marisa:
Marisa Calin is an actress, screenwriter, and novelist. She grew up in Bath, England, and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Her debut novel for Young Adults, Between You & Me, was a Kirkus ReviewsBest Book of 2012. Between You & Me was also selected for the American Library Associations’s 2013 Rainbow Book List and as a Kobo dazzling debut. She is the narrator of numerous audiobooks. She also wrote, produced, and appeared in A Million Happy Nows, a character-driven feature film released in 2017. She lives in New York City.

10 comments:

  1. I always wanted to try that first one

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    1. they were all fabulous Blodeuedd. And I love how she puts Welsh legends into her stories

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  2. It is the first I am hearing of this one. It looks intriguing.

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  3. I've just added it to my Audible wish list, for when I feel like a little magic - and I do get the urge for that every so often.

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  4. I think I would enjoy this. I have read some of her previous novels.

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  5. Everytime I read the name, I wanted to read Little Shop of Horrors and then I would start singing it in my head. It is now stuck and I blame you. :-)

    Melanie @ Hot Listens & Books of My Heart

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