Gail Vida Hamburg

This wasn’t the book I was expecting but it turned out to be interesting. The story opens with Gabriel who’s just gotten off the bus in Azyl Park with no Green Card, no family or friends, no references. Within a few days he has a job working at an upscale store that sells diamonds. In fact, within the first week of working there, he’s trusted with access to the diamond vault. This seemed quite a stretch for me and I worried how the rest of the story would go. After all, Gabriel isn’t related to anyone at his new job, he’s not friends with the boss, and he arrived with no references. It’s just Gabriel’s good nature that prevents him from stealing some diamonds and running off.

Despite that unrealistic opening, the rest of the tale was endearing and rooted in reality. Gabriel went on to be one of my favorite characters. We also meet Neena who is a professional match maker, Tina Trang who works in real estate, Angeline who is a professional journalist, and an Australian celebrity in hiding. Tina often came off as a little mean and yet I still liked her. I could see why she was frustrated with her husband, who was stuck on searching for spiritual balance and peace instead of living life. I also really liked the Australian bloke (sorry I forgot his name) because he made the hard choice to walk away from his ridiculous celebrity life in search of something more meaningful.

Neena became the heart of this story but at first I wasn’t sure I would connect with her. I tend to view professional match makers with a bit of skepticism. While Neena’s truly in it for true love, not all her matches are twin soul matches. I especially became interested in her family. She and her husband emigrated from India and now their grown children need to be reminded of their heritage. I was quite attached to her by the end of the tale.

Angeline has been researching her own heritage as well as Alexander Hamilton. She comes from the Caribbean island of Nevis by way of Louisiana and Washington D.C. Gabriel has great respect for her work, especially covering Palestinian affairs. Initially, I was intrigued by Angeline and I thoroughly enjoyed the little snippets on Hamilton. However, there were several moments where I found Angeline to be a little immature and emotionally insecure. That bogged the story down a bit.

Over all, it’s a tale where not much happens but you fall in love with several of the characters anyways. It’s all about character development in this book. 4/5 stars.

The Narration: Colleen MacMahon has a very pleasant voice to listen to. While she has a nice light English accent, her accents for many of the characters didn’t come through at all. Since so many of the characters are newly immigrated to the US, I expected to hear those accents reflected in this narration. Indian, Palestinian, Korean, Australian, etc. And since this story takes place in the US, I expected to hear an American accent but several words, like turquoise, were not pronounced in the American way. Her best accent was the Australian one, though it did fluctuate a bit. Sometimes I could hear that she was attempting the others, but they weren’t clear or consistent. Her pacing was also a little slow. There were no technical issues with this recording. 3/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Gail Vida Hamburg. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.… (más)