Moonrise

By: Cassandra King

Narrated by: Jennifer James Bradshaw, Willow Hale, Elle Newlands

When Helen Honeycutt falls in love with Emmet Justice, a charismatic television journalist who has recently lost his wife in a tragic accident, their sudden marriage creates a rift between her new husband and his oldest friends, who resent Helen's intrusion into their tightly knit circle. Hoping to mend fences, the newlyweds join the group for a summer at his late wife's family home in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Helen soon falls under the spell not only of the little mountain town and its inhabitants, but also of Moonrise, her predecessor's Victorian mansion, named for its unique but now sadly neglected nocturnal gardens. But the harder Helen tries to fit in, the more obvious it is that she will never measure up to the woman she replaced.

Someone is clearly determined to drive her away, but who wants her gone, and why? As Emmet grows more remote, Helen reaches out to the others in the group, only to find that she can't trust anyone. When she stumbles on the secret behind her predecessor's untimely death, Helen must decide if she can ever trust - or love - again.

©2013 Cassandra King (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

King’s latest novel takes inspiration from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, keeping the best of the latter’s atmospheric tension without falling into melodramatic cliché...A suspenseful Gothic that gives a nod to its predecessors while still being fresh." (Publishers Weekly)

“Moonrise touches all the night notes to make it a suspenseful story and also a romantic one. Kudos to Ms King for getting it right…this is a story that impacts the reader, and its mixture of emotions will linger long after you have closed the book." (Huffington Post Books)

“Though darker than King’s other novels, Moonrise succeeds at what she does best: masterfully weaving a story with threads that bind some characters together while pulling other strands loose. Moonrise dives into the waters of women’s friendships with the same level of honesty readers admire in Margaret Atwood’s “Cat’s Eye” and “The Robber Bride.” Moonrise further cements King’s high standing as a writer of contemporary women’s fiction.” (Charlotte Observer)

Having a hard time...

What did you like best about Moonrise? What did you like least?

I haven't finished the book yet. I'm struggling through the Tansy parts, which I find VERY irritating! Lilting one's voice up and down the scale does not equal expressive! I find the reader's performance overblown, with too many long, dramatic pauses, and so many vocal acrobatics that my ears have a hard time following the story.

What three words best describe the narrators’s performance?

Tansy reader: Overblown, sing-song, excessively dramatic.

Any additional comments?

Listen before you buy!

Cannot listen to this narrator

I realize narration is very personal. She has a professional manner. But whatever it is that is annoying me...I just cannot take it. Sorry, maybe you could read this book.

Narrator for Tansy Awful.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I would definitely have a different narrator for Tansy and the male characters. She read in a monotone, emphasized the wrong words and used a sing-songish method that was very annoying. The narrator for the males made them sound like women which really detracted from their characters. It detracted a lot from my mental vision of the characters.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

How could anyone be as naïve as Helen? The portrayal of her as a bright intelligent woman was not consistent with her naivete' in not seeing the motives of Kit nor would she not be able to figure out that copying a cake recipe from her grieving step-daughters dead mother might not go over so well.

How could the performance have been better?

Different voice for Tansy.

Do you think Moonrise needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No.

Any additional comments?

I have enjoyed Cassandra King's previous books. This one not so much.

Pretty torturous for the most part

The story, as mentioned elsewhere, is not all that interesting. The voice of Tanzy is awful to listen to for the most part. But, overall, the mean, petty behavior of these so-called adults just drove me up the wall. Not sure I can finish it as it feels like a waste of my time.

Moonrise: "Rebecca", it is not

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Remembering how much I loved "Rebecca" by Daphne DuMaurier when I read it in high school, I quickly purchased this book because the description compared it to the beloved classic. Perhaps I was younger and more naive when I read Rebecca, however I found Moonrise to be annoyingly predictable in it's plot and I did not care for the narrations nor most of the characters. The narrators did a reasonable job with the women's voices, however the narrator who read Tanzy's part did a poor job with the men's voices. Those parts were difficult to listen to. She reminded me of Ethel Mertz imitating Fred, which is funny in an "I Love Lucy" episode, but not so fun in this performance.

It was also difficult to tolerate the characters except for Willa and Linc, and the plot did not keep me interested. Helen's naivete was overdone for someone in her 40's, and Kit was over-the-top self-centered. Tanzy added some comic relief, but far too late in the book; however her character had the potential to be one of the stronger and more interesting characters in this book, but she came off being superficial, which was disappointing. The men's characters, except for Linc, were completely underdeveloped.

What could Cassandra King have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Remakes of classics are so hard to get right. Perhaps more plot twists or better character development of the men in the book.

Would you listen to another book narrated by the narrators?

no.

Do you think Moonrise needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. The "mystery" was solved, and I don't care enough about the characters to follow them through another summer. Actually, I take that back: it would be nice to follow Willa's story in a follow up book.

Hard to listen to.

I have always liked Cassandra King books, but this was not as good as expected. Also, the narration was chopped up and many of the accents were really hard to listen to. I stayed with it until the end thinking something earth shattering would be revealed but if just fizzled out.

Can’t get past the too-many-characters start

I really wanted to love this book, having read the author’s story of her life with Pat Conroy. But I have listened to a few hours and am lost with all the characters— too many details and I can’t envision anything.

Not very good

I decided to get this because it was 1 of the 3 in the banner on the homepage of Audible. It seemed like it would be a suspenseful story with good characters. The plot was weak and it just never picked up. The main character is gullible beyond belief and with the exception of Lync and Willa, the characters are not anyone I would ever want to be around, much less socialize with. They are all shallow and the 2 women (Tanzy & Kit) were just plain mean. From their interactions, it seemed impossible to believe that they'd remained friends for so long. The narrator that did the voice for Tanzy was SO ANNOYING. She talked entirely too slow, putting odd emphasis on certain words, where no emphasis was necessary. Sentences that weren't questions ended as though they were. I suffered through the chapters she read. The other 2 narrators were good, but, again, the plot was just weak. The ending left me feeling a bit cheated. There were many loose ends, not enough to warrant a sequel, but enough to make me feel that the book ended entirely too abruptly. It was also a very anti-climactic ending. There was so much build up and then it just fell flat. I would not recommend this book.

Why don’t producers use actual Southerners to portray Southern characters?

This is the first audio book I’ve read where I think the voices of the readers negatively impacted my opinion of the story. The characters in this novel are from Georgia and Florida. I am from Georgia myself, and the made up Southern accents used by the readers are inaccurate at best. And the actor who played Tansy, well her performance was comical. Her male voices were just silly.

This was the first fiction I have listened to by Cassandra Conroy. Wish I had read the book instead.

completely shallow characters

I thought the narration of this story was well done, but the story itself was dumb. I hoped there would be more of a story about Rosalyns ghost to finish up the book, but there wasn't a great story about her either.