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- NadeneWhat measures would you take to save your business? Would you sleep with your ex to save your family legacy? Well, Justine Lavoie faced this dilemma. Justine is the publisher for the Times a well-established newspaper in the city of St. Augustine. Unfortunately, it is plagued with financial difficulties forcing her to seek a bailout from an equity firm. It so happens that the firm, which chose to invest in the newspaper, her ex Raphael Menendez de Aviles recently purchased it. Now Justine faces her biggest challenge coming to terms with her past while trying to save her family legacy.
The story told from Justine’s POV provided insight into her current and past feelings for Raphael. It is clear she never stopped loving him as such accepting his proposal of spending a month with him in exchange for him helping her business was not a hard feat. However, will she be able to walk away at the end of the thirty days as she did fifteen years ago?
I became absorbed in Justine’s life. I may not have agreed with some of her actions, but her motives were clear. I think that having the story told from her perspective helped, as I was privy to her thoughts and feelings. Sometimes I sympathized with her then next I wanted to shake her. Why would she allow him to treat her that way? I know she wanted to save her paper, and she never stopped loving Raphael but no woman worth her salt should allow any man to treat her like a whore no matter the circumstances.
I found Raphael cold and distant, and as a result, I had a hard time connecting to him. It would have been great to get things from his perspective. It appears revenge motivated his actions, but was it because Justine walked away ending their relationship or did it go deeper? One thing that came out in all of this was Raphael’s fear of having his heart broken once again. Despite this, I still did not understand who he was as an individual.
These two frustrated me at times. They kept blaming each other for their breakup, but never tried to discuss the issues that led to the demise of their relationship. I kept wondering what could have caused the break up seeing they love for each other was so deep. My frustration with them increased when the reasons for their relationship ending came to light. If only they had communicated with each other, then they could have avoided their current situation.
I like the fact the story went back to their days in college providing insight in to how their love for each other developed. These were the scenes that convinced me of their love for each other. A love that intense would definitely stand the test of time. Due to the slow pacing I had a hard time getting into the story at first (the narration did not help) eventually things picked up and I hoped these two will get it right the second time around.
Narration
Unfortunately, the narration did not work for me. I tried listening at 1.5x and the narrator sounded like someone pumped on helium. I ended up listening at1.20x. At this speed, she sounded flat, and the narration had no life. Her male and female voices were distinct; however for Raphael the Spanish accent was non-existent. Her pronunciation of the Spanish words needs work.
What saved this for me was the fact that read and listened to the book. If I had to rely on the audio solely, I would have given upon the book.
Conclusion/Recommendation
Overall, this was a good story, I am not sure I would listen to more from the narrator but I would definitely read more from this Tamara Lush.