Ricki Sparks knows she can make a mean red velvet cake but
can’t believe she’s let herself be talked into a blind date. When she opens the
door to see the man she’s been secretly sweet on since the first day he walked
into her bakery, she fears her heart will be demolished. At least she knows
she’s in for a wild ride.
With a past like his, private investigator Garrett McBride doesn’t feel he’s worthy of a good woman’s love. Especially not Ricki, the sweet, beautiful baker. But it's not just her delectable baked goods that keep him coming back and it isn’t long before he admits to himself that he wants her for his own. He never suspects that the greatest danger to her may come not from himself, but from the deceitful woman Ricki has befriended.
Love may not be the only thing Ricki falls into along the way as she finds herself in a world of deceit and betrayal that may cost her life. While Ricki is fighting for her life, Garrett must find her, before it’s too late.
Audiobook Details
Length: 6 hrs, 45 mins
Narrator: David Quimby
Book 5
Audiobook Buy Links
Amazon Audiobook ~ Audible ~ iTunes
Ebook Buy Links
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B&N ~ Google Play ~ iTunes ~ Kobo
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
With a past like his, private investigator Garrett McBride doesn’t feel he’s worthy of a good woman’s love. Especially not Ricki, the sweet, beautiful baker. But it's not just her delectable baked goods that keep him coming back and it isn’t long before he admits to himself that he wants her for his own. He never suspects that the greatest danger to her may come not from himself, but from the deceitful woman Ricki has befriended.
Love may not be the only thing Ricki falls into along the way as she finds herself in a world of deceit and betrayal that may cost her life. While Ricki is fighting for her life, Garrett must find her, before it’s too late.
Audiobook Details
Length: 6 hrs, 45 mins
Narrator: David Quimby
Audiobook Buy Links
Amazon Audiobook ~ Audible ~ iTunes
Ebook Buy Links
Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon Au ~ Amazon Ca
B&N ~ Google Play ~ iTunes ~ Kobo
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Angela – ☆☆☆☆
Playing with You is a first for me for both the author and the narrator. When the opportunity arose to review the audiobook, I listened to the sample and found my interest piqued and the narrator’s voice pleasing, and I jumped at it. Despite this being book five in the Riding Tall series, I had no issue listening to it as a standalone as any references to past events are designed to entice new readers and listeners to check out previous installments and have no bearing on the current book (at least none that I detected). That’s not to say that series fans won’t be excited by some of the news that is shared by whom I’m assuming are couples from previous books, but their news doesn’t impact Ricki and Garrett’s romance.
I found Ricki and Garrett’s first interaction to be rather cute and thought it did a good job of setting the mood for the book. While it made the identity of Ricki’s blind date predictable, her school-girl crush reaction upon opening the door and finding Garrett there made up for it. Yet what starts out as a seemingly sugary sweet romance, Playing with You takes on a slightly sinister vibe with the appearance of a stalker. Typically, I don’t enjoy getting the point of view from the bad guy unless I’m reading a psychological thriller, but McCray does a great job with her villainess’ point of view. And the twist with the stalker was quite literally, jaw dropping for me – I actually replayed the reveal scene to make sure I heard what I thought I heard because I did NOT see that coming. I’ll be honest, that twist is a large part of the reason why the storyline is keeping its four-star rating despite there being a couple of scenes that had me wanting to throttle Ricki and Garrett, especially the too-stupid-to-live decision toward the end. I get why the author wrote the scene that way, but the level of stupidity exhibited had me rolling my eyes at the characters… repeatedly. I may have even told one of the characters that they deserved to die (sorry). Fortunately, the action scene that followed allowed Ricki and Garrett to redeem themselves for me as I stopped what I was doing so I could listen intently to make sure I didn’t miss out on a second of the action. And the icing on the cake (pun intended), was the final chapter that delivered on the toothache promised in the first chapter as Ricki and Garrett get their happy for now ending.
As for the narration, I thoroughly enjoyed David Quimby’s performance. The narrator has a very smooth voice, in my opinion, and it made listening to his narrative performance effortless. I was quite impressed with his voices for the female characters, something I expected based upon the audio sample and was glad to learn extended beyond the voice for Ricki, especially with as pivotal of a role Denna played in Ricki’s life. While the primary cast is limited to three, there is a rather large supporting cast and the only time I didn’t know who was speaking was when I hadn’t met the character yet. Overall, Playing with You was an enjoyable listen and I’ll be checking out more of McCray’s work and keeping an eye out for other audiobooks narrated by Quimby.
Cheyenne McCray is an award winning, New York Times and USA Today Best Selling author who is a rare native Arizonan but refuses to be put behind glass as an endangered species.
In her spare time, she loves to torture characters—whether they're misbehaving or not—and kill off deserving individuals. She also totally gets off on blowing things up. All fictionally, of course. She'd rather chew glass than write sweet and sugary. Give her a hideous demon or particularly nasty villain to slay any day.
Chey enjoys creating stories of love, suspense, and redemption. She enjoys building worlds her readers can get lost in.
If you would like to find out what odd and unusual things Cheyenne is up to these days, cruise her website any time, take a look at the bizarrely normal yet strange FAQs, and even drop her a line or two.
Connect with Cheyenne
Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Website ~ Goodreads
Google+ ~ Instagram
Husband, father, middle school teacher, scooter enthusiast (Vespa), Air Force veteran, book nerd, and... Audible Approved Audiobook narrator.
Connect with David
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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free audiobook copy of Playing with You (Riding Tall #5) by Cheyenne McCray, narrated by David Quimby to listen to and review.
