Understory

By: Lisa J. Lickel

Narrated by: Eric Allen

When nobody loves you, you have nothing to lose.

Lily Masters is not getting involved with any fake job scheme covering a sex trafficking operation supposedly cooked up by her stepbrother, prison guard Art Townsend. Hoping to get help at a friend’s place deep in the woods of northern Wisconsin before a blizzard, Lily loses her way. At first, she doesn’t realize how fortunate she is to be found by Cam Taylor, a poetry-spouting former lit professor. Cam has his own reasons to hide while writing a biography of his civil rights activist grandparents and accidentally stirs up a cold case murder involving a potential Supreme Court judge. When trouble follows, either of them is the likely target.

Beneath every story is layer upon layer of trust and lies. Whom can they believe when things go from surreal to devastating?

©2016 Lisa J. Lickel (P)2019 Lisa J. Lickel

A blizzard, frostbite, and murder

The beginning 40% of the book was captivating and I couldn’t stop listening. The description of the blizzard, the cold, was so realistic, I felt like I was there. I literally felt swept up in the storm. Narrator Eric Allen was on point.

Though I wish the book would have focused more on the intrigue and romance of the two main characters, Cam and Lily, and less on the government agents, murders, racism, and a flashback story about civil rights, I understand the author was trying to get a point across.

I wish I could have stayed in Cam’s cabin and not have needed to deal with the sadness and murder that lay await through the rest of the book.

The issues of human trafficking, an underpinning of the plot line, are very real, and unfortunately, there is rarely a happy ending. It seemed like there were just a few too many social issues to handle in one book.

And, I wonder if perhaps I am just a simpleton yelling at my audiobook for Cam and Lily to get some private time without someone shooting at them or a bad guy trying to kidnap Lily’s nephew.

It lost a star on me with the indeterminate ending on the romance. It also seemed like Mr. Allen had a bad cold toward the end of the narration.

Would I listen to it again, despite my personal preference for escapism and adolescent desire for a super happy ending? Absolutely. For someone that scours the earth for good quality, “well-written” audio books, this was a long and enjoyable “read” for me. It was well done and held my attention.