Taken in the Cold by Roger Stelljes Blog Tour for Booktoure

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Taken in the Cold by Roger Stelljes Synopsis: "Make sure you wrap up warm for school, honey. A blizzard is on the way." Ten-year-old Teddy rolls his eyes at his mother. But then he hears a bang... By the time police arrive, Teddy's mother is dead. His open school backpack is strewn across the hallway. And Teddy is nowhere to be found.   When gunshots ring out from an exclusive family home on the edge of Northern Pine Lake,  Agent Tori Hunter  races through the gathering snowstorm to discover that  ten-year-old Teddy Marist has disappeared . His mother and her new boyfriend are dead in the family kitchen, breakfast still cooking on the stove. And racing to track down Teddy's father,  Tori finds he is missing too.   Local police are certain this is a simple case of a jealous ex-husband turned violent over his recent divorce. But interviewing everyone she can about Teddy's father, Tori's gut has her questioning if he would really kidnap his own child?  An...

Stay Awake by by Megan Goldin Narrated by Imogen Church; January LaVoy (Audiobook)

Title: Stay Awake
Author: Megan Goldin
Narrator: Imogen Church and January LaVoy
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Format: Audiobook
Listening Length: 11 hours and 59 minutes
Date of Publication: August 9, 2022


Description: A murder she doesn’t remember committing. A killer she doesn’t remember meeting. Megan Goldin’s Stay Awake is an electrifying novel that proves memory can be deadly.

Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers—a stranger who claims to live in her apartment. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing. In its place is a bloodstained knife. Her hands are covered in scribbled messages, like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE.

Two years ago, Liv was thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. Catching a glimpse of the local news, she’s horrified to see reports of a crime scene where the victim’s blood has been used to scrawl a message across a window, similar to the message that’s inked on her hands. What did she do last night? And why does she remember nothing from the past two years? Liv finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember committing. But there’s someone who does know exactly what she did, and they’ll do anything to make her forget—permanently.

A complex thriller that unfolds at a breakneck speed, Stay Awake will keep you up all night.

My Thoughts: This is my second book by Megan Goldin as I had read her debut book which I thought was grippingly good. This one did not disappoint. Stay Awake follows Liv Reese who wakes up with no memory of how she got to where she was. She goes back to her apartment only to find strangers answering the door who claim to live there. She goes to her place of employment and they say that she had moved out of the country to work. Nothing is what she remembers it to be. She is also starting to fear that maybe, she could have killed someone because she finds a bloody knife on her.

Stay Awake is filled with a lot of present day and flashbacks to 2 years earlier. It takes a bit of time to get used to and being able to keep track of what is going on. I will say that I felt the two parts were written well and that it was a continuous transition between both present and flashbacks.

The idea of what is going on with Liv Reese is very interesting and made for a good plot. There is a lot of action and  mystery in this story. How Liv Reese was able to evade the police for so long is also interesting and makes the game of cat and mouse fun.

When it comes to the narrators for this book, I have to be honest that I didn't realize that there were two of them. I thought it was one narrator throughout. This makes me ask the question of what was the purpose of two narrators and were they both really needed. I would have to say no given that I didn't realize it until I looked up who the narrator was. 

Given the above, I thought that the narrators did an excellent job in telling the story of Liv Reese and keeping your attention throughout.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Many thanks to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for this review copy. This is my honest opinion.

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