Life Mirrors What We Hear

My brother in law has to drive a lot.  I mean way too much.  He is always on the road going across Texas and I tell you our state is pretty darn big.  Well I gave him one of my books on CD last month.  He loved it!  So as he came flying through this last week he grabbed another one.

Now let me first tell you he is a big burly guy.  You know the type.  Has his Harley bike as well as a job working for the Army Corp of Engineers.  He has traveled all over and can bar-b-que with the best of the Texans around us.  He favors spy novels.  So when he grabbed Barbara Taylor Bradford's newest book, Secrets From the Past I was rather surprised.  

I can't wait to find out what he thinks about it.  But in the meantime let me tell you a lil about the story line.  

Secrets from the Past:

At thirty, American photojournalist Serena Stone has already made a name for herself with her unique and dramatic coverage of wars in the Middle East, following in her famous father’s footsteps.  But after his unexpected death in France, she has left her job at the renowned photo news agency that he founded, weary of years of dodging bullets and exploding landmines. Leaving the front lines behind, Serena returns to New York where she starts work on a biography of her celebrated father.  When Serena discovers that her former lover Zachary North is in trouble overseas, she's forced to leave the safety of her new life, and head back to a place she was trying to escape...and her life will never be the same again.  She brings Zac back to health, first in the agency’s bolthole in Venice, and later at her family home in France. It is there that she discovers a shocking secret in the huge photographic archive of her late father’s work.  It is a secret that will propel her back to war-torn Libya, risking her life looking for clues that she hopes will piece together the mystery surrounding her parents’ marriage and the part of their life together she never knew about.

Now I thought that my brother in law would have chosen Lisa Scottoline's Don't Go.  This is one that he might have felt closer too with the main character Dr. Mike Scanlon.  My brother in law knows the pull of family life here at home and needing to go overseas to do his job.  He recently had to make several trips back and forth to Afghanistan.  While doing so, his life here at home was not able to keep up with his travels overseas.  It is very hard to keep that balance.  You might see for yourself when you listen to Don't Go.

Don't Go:

From The New York Times bestselling author of Come Home comes a riveting thriller about one man's search for his wife's killer.  Lisa Scottoline's Don't Go introduces us to Dr. Mike Scanlon, an army doctor called to serve in Afghanistan, who is acutely aware of the dangers he’ll face and the hardships it will bring his wife Chloe and newborn baby. And deep inside, he doesn’t think of himself as a hero, but a healer.

However, in an ironic turn of events, as Mike operates on a wounded soldier in a war-torn country, Chloe dies at home in the suburbs, in an apparently freak household accident. Devastated, he returns home to bury her, only to discover that the life he left behind has fallen apart. He’s a stranger to his baby girl, and his medical practice has downsized in his absence. Worse, he learns a shocking secret that sends him into a downward spiral.

Grief-stricken, Mike makes decisions upon returning to Afghanistan which will change his life forever.  It’s not until he comes home for good that he grasps the gravity of his actions, and realizes he must fight the most important battle of his life, to reclaim his life and his daughter. Along the way, he discovers that everything is not as it seems, and he learns ugly truths about those he loves the most, as well as the true meaning of heroism.

Thanks so to MacMillan Audio for sharing with me.  I received both of these books on CD in exchange for this review post.  No other compensation was given or expected.  And all opinions are my own.

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