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Guide Star

A Gripping and Emotional Roller-Coaster of a Novel About Love, Life, and Not Giving Up

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About this listen

Stella won't give up, but she doesn't know how to go on.

Stella North, a rising star in the police, has her life torn apart by a gunman's bullets. She has often faced danger, but these injuries mean she must give up the job she loves. Her grandmother Beth is her rock. And Beth is no ordinary woman. At 70, she runs marathons and has a past that Stella knows very little about.

Beth calls in her friend, Michael, to help with Stella's recovery. But this man means a lot more to Beth than she reveals. And Stella's ex-husband, Edward, and old police partner, Robbie, want to help, but Stella puts up emotional barriers, and they have problems of their own. Her old friends from her days of Urbex (exploring old abandoned buildings) offer a glimmer of hope for the future.

©2017 Joy Ellis (P)2020 Tantor Genre Fiction Psychological Women's Fiction Fiction Feel-Good
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My very first audiobook and by default my first audiobook review so I will start by saying I don't have anything to compare it to so this is completely unbiased and my own personal opinion.

Stella is a successful detective, happy with her life until she wakes up in hospital. She is lucky to be alive but was shot in the head and side so she has brain damage and a long road to physical recovery and an even longer one to mental wellbeing.

Her life as it was is in shreds she can no longer do the job she loves and is mad at the world. Taking it out on her friends and family is not helping. At her wits end Stella's grandmother. Beth, picks up the phone and rings the one person who may be able to help but the one person who will crack open the break in her heart. But she will do anything for Stella.

As the tag line says this book is an emotional rollercoaster but not so much in the romantic sense. It follows a young woman's struggle to rebuild her life and it is told with such compassion and knowledge it had me in tears at times and smiling at other times.

As Stella struggles to find the way forward she contacts her old Urbexing friend, Tom. Now urbexing is something I knew nothing about so I was immediately drawn in to learn more. Photographing decaying buildings to capture something that will be slightly different every time is, I felt, amazing. The idea of having a physical record of wonderful old buildings preserved for future generations must be so rewarding and this brought a new level of interest to the story.

I loved the narration I think the narrator 'got' the accents perfectly especially Michael - not German not English but something that worked perfectly. Also the other characters each voice slightly different. I thought it all worked brilliantly.

5 stars for the awesome writing and 5 stars for the audio - A very enjoyable book in every way.

An addictive story

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Different from the other books, but still very enjoyable with a couple of well loved names creeping in.

Made my Saturday very enjoyable!

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wonderfully astute and emotionslly uplifting book. I love all Joy Ellis's books and her different storylines.

Wonderfully astute and emotionally uplifting.

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great background story gives a lot about Stella's story with all that happened in they disappeared

good back story

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I enjoyed the Jackman and Evans books so looked forward to this back story, but was disappointed on several counts. The narration was annoying, like reading a story to a child with almost no pauses between character changes so sometimes confusing. The plot was a bit low key and too Mills and Boon for my taste, and the character of Beth the supergran was unlikely and too sugar sweet to be likeable. I was hoping for another police plot and this wasn't one.
In my opinion it was not a patch on the detective novels the author writes.

OK but disappointing narration

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