The Shimmering Road
Written by Hester Young
Narrated by January LaVoy
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
A pulse-pounding mystery from the author of The Gates of Evangeline featuring Charlotte "Charlie" Cates, an unforgettable heroine whose dark visions bring to light secrets that will save or destroy those around her . . .
When soon-to-be mother Charlotte "Charlie" Cates begins to have recurring dreams about harm coming to her unborn daughter, she knows these are not the nightmares of an anxious mom-to-be. They are the result of her mysterious gift. But before she can decipher what these dreams might mean, Charlie learns that the mother who abandoned her when she was a toddler is the victim of a double murder in Arizona. The other victim--Jasmine, a half-sister Charlie never knew she had--has left behind a child, a little girl who speaks to Charlie in her dreams and was present on the night of the murders. Convinced that she must help her orphaned niece, Charlie travels to Tucson, Arizona, where she must confront her painful ties to her mother and delve into her sister's shadowy past.
To untangle the web of secrets that will reveal the truth of her nightmares, Charlie can no longer avoid her family's checkered history. Who is in the racy photos that turned up in Jasmine's apartment? Where is her niece's father, whom Jasmine was rumored to have been seeing again on the sly? Was her mother's charity work in Mexico really as selfless as it seemed? And most important of all, what did her niece really witness on the night of the murders?
The search for answers leads Charlie across the Mexican border, from the resort town of Rocky Point to the border town of Nogales, and elucidates the meaning of her dreams in most unexpected ways. Ultimately, to protect her niece and her unborn child, Charlie must battle not just evil but the forces of nature, in one final terrifying encounter in the Tucson desert.
A thrilling mystery that combines literary suspense and romance with a mystical twist that is unputdownable. If you love Kate Atkinson and Alice Sebold, you should not miss Hester Young.
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Reviews for The Shimmering Road
19 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the second book with Charlotte Cates. I hope there are many more. This storyreally had me guessing the whole book. I did not want to put this book down. Can her new life really be what she wants or is she only dreaming? I received an ebook copy from Firsttoread for a fair and honest opinion.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shimmering Road by Hester Young is a highly recommended mystery and the second book in a series featuring Charlotte "Charlie" Cates. The Gates of Evangeline is the first book in the series - and I immediately bought it after reading this second book first. You can enjoy The Shimmering Road without reading The Gates of Evangeline first, but I predict you will want to read both books in order to prepare for the planned third book.Charlie has left her job as a journalist and the East Coast behind to start a new life in Sidalie, Texas, with Noah and the daughter they're expecting. Charlie is recovering from the death of her son and, while Noah is committed to her and is proposing marriage and house hunting with her for a home for them, she is uncertain about living in Sidalie with so many reminders of Carmen, his first wife, there. Charlie has dreams that are premonitions of events that have happened or will happen. Currently she has been having a recurring dream where she and her unborn daughter die while taking a shower. She and Noah carefully check out the showers in the houses they are looking at, but she hasn't seen it yet.Then she gets a call from her aunt. There has been a double murder in Tucson, Arizona. Her estranged mother, Donna, who abandoned her as a toddler, and an unknown half-sister, Jasmine, were both shot. Left behind is Charlie's 6 year-old niece, Mickey. Charlie is convinced that Mickey is the girl Charlie has a vision of leaving bloody footprints across a floor, so she and Noah travel to Tucson to see if they can help and perhaps adopt Mickey, as well as confront Charlie's past. Charlie assumed the murders were drug-related, but when they get to Arizona, it appears that her mother was clean and working for a nonprofit charitable organization that helped impoverished women in the border town of Nogales, Mexico. So were their murders tied into something her loser half-sister was involved in, or had her mother started using again? Charlie is still having dreams/visions and while she is meeting the friends of her mother and sister, she needs to try and figure out where the truth lies.This is a compelling story and Charlie is a likeable character. You will want to find out what happened to Donna and Jasmine, if only for Charlie's peace of mind and so answers will be available for Mickey someday. The plot does get a little convoluted and complicated, throwing out red herring about what may have happened, but the writing is very good and you will want to find the answers to solve Charlie's visions. Young does an excellent job with the descriptions of the settings and characters, making this novel come to life for the reader.Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin/Random House.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Charlie has a gift. She sees things that have happened in her dreams. She dreams her niece witnesses a double murder. Those killed are her mother and half sister. Charlie travels to Arizona to confront her family's demons. Her journey takes her into Mexico and the desert lands. This mystery has mysticism and evil forces at its root. My thanks to the author and the Penguin First to Read program for a complimentary copy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In The Shimmering Road Hester Young provides another chapter in the life of Charlotte “Charlie” Cates, first introduced in the novel, The Gates of Evangeline. Charlie is now pregnant and lives in Sidalie, Texas with Noah Palmer (also introduced in the first book). Recently Charlie has been disturbed by nightmares of a pregnant woman being shot to death in a shower. She receives a call that her long-absent mother and a half-sister she was unaware of have been murdered in Arizona. Left behind in the wake of these murders is a six-year-old niece Charlie also has never met. The murders, these dreams, and many unresolved questions surrounding her mother’s life and work in Tucson put Charlie, Noah, and their unborn child in increasingly dangerous situations as they travel first to Arizona and then across the border into Mexico in search of answers. This is a good follow up to the first book, but I see no reason it can’t be read as a standalone. I actually enjoyed this book more than the first. While the plot may be a bit predictable, the relationships, I felt, are well developed and I appreciate Charlie’s premonitions. I enjoy what they lend to the story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is there such a thing as a Southwestern Gothic? If so, this is it. THE SHIMMERING ROAD is an intriguing sequel to Hester Young’s first book, THE GATES OF EVANGELINE. (Read GATES first, so you’ll know the backstory.) Charlie’s paranormal gift brings her and fiancé Noah to Tucson, Arizona, and straight into a complex murder mystery that hits close to the heart. The story grabbed my attention pretty quickly, and of course, Charlie’s dark visions gave me the creeps. I was surprised by Charlie’s initial reaction to her orphaned niece, though by the end I could understand where she was coming from.I enjoyed the desert setting of this book, both in southern Arizona and just across the border in Mexico. The author did a great job incorporating life in a Mexican-American border town into the mystery. Lots of interesting twists in the plot, and I was never sure what characters could be trusted. Definitely a page-turner!Disclosure: I received a copy of this book through Penguin’s First to Read Program in exchange for an honest review.