Until Fountain Bridge by Samantha Young Audiobook Review

Until Fountain BridgeBook: Until Fountain Bridge by Samantha Young, Penguin Audio, June 18, 2013

Book Info: Romance, Audiobook received for review from Penguin Audio. Running time: 3 hrs, 4 mins. Read by: Ruth Hopkins. Also available as an e-book from InterMix.

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars

More Info:  Goodreads | Audible | Amazon | Facebook

Publisher’s Summary:

From the New York Times best-selling author of On Dublin Street and Down London Road comes a new novella about finding love in familiar places….

Ellie has been in love with Adam Sutherland for as long as she can remember. What started as a childhood crush on her older brother’s best friend soon bloomed into full-blown infatuation. Unfortunately, it also meant full-blown heartache, as Adam refused to fall for Braden’s little sister.

But it took a crisis to make Adam realize he’s wasted too much time denying his feelings for her. Unwilling to waste a second more, he decided to make Ellie his, no matter the consequences. Now happily settled with the woman he’s pined after for years, he’s about to find out what their 10 year courtship was like for her, through the journals she kept during their ups and many downs. And though Adam may have Ellie now, he has no idea how close he came to losing her….

It was such a treat to listen to Down London Road and Until Fountain Bridge back-to-back. Now I feel satisfied enough to be able to wait for the next book in the series. Until Fountain Bridge is an On Dublin Street novella about two of the side characters from the ODS series- Ellie Carmichael and Adam Sutherland.

I liked getting to know Ellie and Adam better in this story. The storytelling device is really sweet and uses Ellie’s journals to give us a peek at the couple’s backstory. Ellie has had a crush on Adam since she was a kid, but he was her brother’s friend and always played the role of the protective older brother. Things changed as they got older, and got a little messy with mixed signals and third parties. Ellie let’s Adam read her some of her journal entries so he can see how he was always on her mind.

The story navigates through Ellie and Adam’s past and present to show us just how far they’ve come. It is fun to revisit scenes through Ellie’s POV and to get her take on the other characters in the series.

It’s hard to say who is my favorite couple in this series, but it’s probably whichever one I’m reading at the time. Ellie is one of the nicest and sunniest characters in the series, and she and Adam are so cute and solid together. I didn’t know that they had such a history and it’s interesting to learn about their rough patches.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Ruth Hopkins. Her voice sounds very much like the narrator of Down London Road, with her great Scottish accent. When I looked up the reader’s name I was surprised the narrators were different! I guess I need to get my ears checked. Hopkins connects well with the characters and conveys Ellie’s state of mind over many years. Sometimes books with diary entries are tricky to listen to in audio format because the transitions from past to present are not always clear. However, I did not have that problem with this book at all. Hopkins brings both Adam and Ellie to life with her reading, and at only 3 hours long I listened to this book in one afternoon.

I recommend reading (or listening to) this book after On Dublin Street to get a more meaningful reading experience. The novella length (about 100 pages) is perfect for this story, and told me all I needed to know about Ellie and Adam. Book three in the series is called Before Jamaica Lane, and is due out in January 2014.

Ornament

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.