After Caroline (1996) - Kay Hooper

Category: Adults, Mystery, Suspense
Language: English
Keywords: Dreams Haunting Murder

Written by Kay Hooper
Read by Valerie Leonard
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: October 1, 2003
Duration: 10:42:35

Joanna Flynn and Caroline McKenna have more in common than their age, 29, and slim, fine-boned beauty. Though separated by 3000 miles, each suffers a fatal accident at exactly the same moment. Joanna instantly returns to life, however, surviving electrocution by a downed power line in Atlanta, while Caroline sleeps forever in a Cliffside, Ore., graveyard. Or does she? Bits of her seem to have taken up residence in Joanna, who now feels an inexplicable urge to wear skirts instead of pants and has a sudden hankering for secondhand cigarette smoke. More tellingly, she finds her own sleep wracked by a recurring nightmare that delivers a haunting message.

As the dreams become more torturous, Joanna sets out to investigate this mysterious woman-a journey that takes her three thousand miles from home to a picturesque town where everybody seems to have a conflicting opinion of the woman who haunts her dreams. All too soon, Joanna realizes that unraveling the mystery of Caroline means uncovering secrets someone may have killed to hide. And that someone appears all too willing to kill again.

She goes to Cliffside to probe the mystery that was Caroline. Was the dead woman good, bad or an unsettling mix of both? Did her husband love her or hate her? Was her death an accident or murder? ….

… This novel would make a satisfying abridgment even though Valerie Leonard gives a spirited reading. Leonard’s verve carries through all of the material, which is often recapitulated. But because of this repetition between actions, one tends to forget which character is which.The narrator colors the scenes well; however, the suspense of the plot would be heightened by a shortened version. J.P. (c) AudioFile 2002