The Whiskey Women

ALC provided by NetGalley

Author: Victoria Wilder

Narrators: Samantha Brentmoor and Connor Crais

Thanks, @NetGalley for the ALC. 

We are introduced to Wyn Crowne (or Naomi) in a harrowing prologue that gives you an idea of the journey you are about to embark in. Flash forward and Wyn is back in Rumor, TN, where her family has a bit of a reputation. She’s back at her tenured job as organic chemistry teacher at the university and her family has no idea of the ordeal she has been through when she vanished.

Enter Julian (or better yet, re-enter Julian, because Wyn has met him as Naomi while she was ‘away’ ) and what the hell is he doing in her town?!

The web of mystery starts to get more and more complicated…

This romantic suspense is brilliantly narrated by Samantha Brentmoor and Connor Crais in a pairing I have come to love listening to. Samantha is her amazing self as a woman who has been through unimaginable trauma and still has the strength and the grit to move on. Connor’s Julian is dangerously alluring as the deceptively innocent, charming and sexy jeweler with a ‘secret job’ he inherited from his father. The two of them create magic as always. 

This is a long audiobook and I understand that you need to establish the ground rules to create the suspense and build the foundation for a new series. The romance is top tier and sexy AF, but I am not sold on the suspense and mystery part though. I was at the edge of my seat with the prologue and it felt exactly like that – it edged me but never really delivered. The revelations were all expected and the resolution was too quick and not very satisfying because the ‘why?’ question kept bothering me. 

Nevertheless, the book is filled with remarkably intriguing characters (the mom and the grandma sent me right to ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’ IYKYK) and we get to visit some characters from the previous series. 

I am sure the next book in the series will be fun with this crowd and their activities. 

Content notes (including but not limited to): death, murder, torture, kidnapping, loss of parent, captivity, body dismemberment, PTSD, violence,  mentions of domestic violence, cannibalism, grief, drugs without consent

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