Holiday Illusion

Refuge from Danger Series, Book 3

By: Lynette Eason

Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger

Her life for a child's.

To save a sick, orphaned boy, Anna Freeman must risk her own life. Little Paulo desperately needs a new heart. It's his only Christmas wish - well, that and building his first snowman. For the surgery, Anna must take him to a hospital in the city she once called home. A place she fled in fear years ago. Which means telling Dr. Lucas Bennett that the woman he's known all this time as a caring orphanage worker is really someone else. Someone with a very frightening past. And that the danger stalking all of them won't take Christmas Day off.

©2008 Lynette Eason (P)2019 Tantor

Great and moving book

This is the best book I have heard in a long time. Paulo was an unbelievable character. I couldn't help but cry at times. I highly recommend it! The characters are well rounded and believable. The performance was also great.

A great book

A book filled with hope and promise. Suspense with an unexpected villan. loved it all.

Excellent

I really loved this audio book, the plot was excellent, characters were well developed. And Romy Nordlinger did an excellent job as narrator.

Excellent

The third in the series is wonderful! I loved seeing how Ms. Eason weaves Christ throughout ‘the story. It was amazing to see the incredible faith of the characters.
I love the narrator.

Just couldn’t get into this one

Wasn’t happy w/the narration either - this can make or break a book - too bad as I love the author

Poignant story

This one is a tear jerker! It’s a sweet love story between God, man and woman, and a little boy. The details about organ transplant are few but accurate and tactful. As a family member of an organ recipient, I really appreciate that.

Audio needs to be cleaned to remove breaths by the reader. The storytelling also doesn’t translate well into audio because the protagonists THINK information rather than SPEAK it so listeners know more than the characters do. The problem with this from a storytelling perspective, is that the audio makes it sound as if the characters spoke the information not just thought it. The listener ends up thinking that the characters know more about each other than they really do. I got to the end of the story not realizing that Lucas didn’t know about the lasting impact of Anna’s gunshot wound until his brother’s jealous old girlfriend told him. I thought Anna told him at the beginning of the story.

This is part of the reason why I dislike stories where characters keep secrets from each other. It just doesn’t make good audio and confuses plot details and character motivations. Another reason why I don’t like secrets is that it makes the characters seem like teenagers, unable to deal with problems like adults. It doesn’t help readers & listeners know how to deal with their problems in a healthy manner. Characters look instead like children who run away, unable to deal with their problems.

In this story, though the secret Anna is keeping from Lucas is really confusing, most of the secrets are revealed at the beginning and naturally throughout the book, making the story sweet and better than the last book. The point about one person giving their life for another speaks to the heart of true love. Audio is listenable and mostly accurate so probably worth the listen for people who like the genre of women’s Christian fiction.