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Dragonfly Summer
- Narrated by: Natalie Gold
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
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Dragonfly Summer
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Publisher's Summary
The perfect next listen for fans of Wendy Walker and Shari Lapena, Dragonfly Summer is a gripping thriller that asks: What happens when the past comes back to haunt you?
Jo Carter never thought she'd return to Clear Springs, Minnesota. But when the former journalist receives a cryptic note about the disappearance of her friend Sam twenty years before, she's compelled to find out what really happened. During her investigation, she learns another high school friend has died in a mysterious accident. Nothing is as it seems, and Jo must probe Clear Springs' darkest corners and her own painful and unreliable memories to discover the truth - and save herself from the killer who could still be on the hunt.
Deliciously twisty and suspenseful from the first minute to the last, Dragonfly Summer proves that no small town’s secrets can stay buried for good.
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What listeners say about Dragonfly Summer
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- AB Communication Services
- 2021-07-09
Good but not great
Bought this on a daily deal. So was worth the discounted price as was a good listen to pass time, but not a book that I will be talking about or recommending to others.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Kelly
- 2021-07-07
Not what I expected
Not a terrible book not a great book. Sometimes the tone of the novel took that of a 20 something and not that of a middle aged women. Wouldn’t be something I recommend.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- rebecca hughes
- 2023-07-20
Great book
Keeps you guessing until the very end.
Quick and easy listen. Definitely recommend this book!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2023-05-12
Worth the price but not worth the time
I don’t usually write negative reviews I usually just let the book go. But this isn’t a bad book and the reader did a good job. But two things bothered me 1) the mystery was a little shattered with “surprise “ ending . Involving two out of the blue characters a bit of poorly used McGuffin .
2) it drive me crazy that at least twice the main character said something to the effect of “it was late October and colder then I thought it would be“ then goes on to say “I was worried about the bugs” 🤯 no bugs in October if your town is on “the Canadian Shield “
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Charlotte W.
- 2022-12-11
Review
Good story but the reporter was portrayed as being kind of clueless for a reporter. Plot obvious but main character can’t figure out obvious twists
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Solange Keller
- 2021-08-12
Dragonfly Summer
Delightfully twisty and suspenseful from the first minute to the last, this novel proves that no small town's secrets can stay buried forever.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Reviewer
- 2021-08-07
Loved it!
This was an awesome thriller/suspense story. I will be recommending it to my friends
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kim K
- 2021-08-03
Nicely laid out suspense.
A part of the story was predictable but all in all it has good twist ending.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2021-07-23
Not worth it
Nothing worth recommending in either the story or the narration. The plot was uninteresting and the characters were in no way compelling.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Leaine lodoen
- 2021-07-22
This one was a struggle.
The type of memory loss experienced by the main character was not really consistant with ECT. None of the characters had any substance to them. The story did not seem well thought out.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- shelley
- 2020-02-15
Home is not always where the heart is...
This is my first read by J H Moncrieff. It will not be my last! This is a very well written book with believable characters and a great plot.
Jo Carter left home and swore to never return. She hated her father and the small town she grew up in. Her dreams for her future were in NYC. Although never realized, she finds herself drawn back to her hometown over 20 years later. As a teenager Jo had two best friends. One disappeared during their senior year of high school. The other recently died in a suspicious car accident. She had been receiving letters encouraging her to look for their missing friend (Sam) and she was afraid someone was going to kill her. Now Jo is getting the same letters and a dragonfly pendant belonging to Sam. She’s also been getting threats and someone tried to run her off the road. Is Sam dead or alive? Jo needs to find out one way or another and doesn’t know who she can trust after all these years. I enjoyed the entire book up until the last 1/2 hour when it dove into the paranormal. But overall good story.
Natalie Gold does an excellent job narrating.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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115 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- peschner
- 2020-04-26
Dark and dreary
There was nothing uplifting here. Very dark story with description of rape. People should be warned.
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73 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nikki
- 2020-02-15
You Can’t Go Home
They say you can’t go home but that’s not always true. It’s just sometimes not recommended, depending on what you left behind at home and what parts of your past will be there to greet you. This book was full of aching history, mysteries galore and many lives impacted by a singular tragedy that took place years ago. The narration was impeccable, and the narrator managed to convey emotion and varying voices in a subtle and brilliant way. It gave personality and faces to the characters. I’m a fan of Moncrieff already but this shows how diverse her talent is and how capable she is of writing deeply emotional stories that seep inside your bones.
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53 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- DLW
- 2021-01-29
Ugh
When you can’t resolve a story in a realistic way, write some ghosts in. Yeah that’s the ticket. For a lead character that was supposed to be an investigative reporter, she was a knucklehead for most of it. Beyond her memory loss knuckleheaded-ness! Just so unbelievable. The characters were totally unlikeable and the timeline which the author could have controlled just added to the stupidity of the story. The reader didn’t change voices enough and half the time you didn’t know which character was even speaking in the dialogue moments. Just a giant run-on of dialogue between two people. I hated this book and that’s the best thing I can say. Save yourself the hours and pass this one by.
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47 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Michael Hicks
- 2020-02-21
Excellent Mystery With A Dash Of The Supernatural
J.H. Moncrieff may be best known for her horror works, like her recently released Those Who Came Before or her Ural Mountains creature-feature, Return to Dyatlov Pass, but as her Audible Original Dragonfly Summer proves, she’s more than adept at tackling a straight-up murder mystery.
When she was a teenager, one of Jo Carter’s best friends was murdered. Now, thirty years later, she receives a strange newspaper clipping and news of another friend’s death that urges to return home to Clear Springs, MN. Although Amanda has died in a tragic car accident, it has never been entirely clear what happened to Samantha when they were children. After a series of strange occurrences, and the discovery that Amanda had been investigating Samantha’s disappearance and presumed death, Jo, a former newspaper reporter and war correspondent, is determined to get to the bottom of things and find out the truth about what happened to Samantha.
Dragonfly Summer is positively loaded with plenty of intrigue, small-town mysteries, false leads, and red herrings. Moncrieff layers the story with question after question, leading listeners down a rabbit hole of discoveries that constantly provoke further questions. She also injects a few light supernatural elements into the proceedings, adding yet another level of mystery to the proceedings. Her protagonist, Jo, is nearly every bit a mystery herself as Samantha’s cold case, given her strange, broken memory. Jo had vowed never to return to Clear Springs, although she can’t quite remember why, and the two girls she had been so close to as a teen are people she barely remembers now. Whatever she had done as a young woman, though, has earned her the ire of several Clear Springs residents, and she’s met with hostility at several turns. This is further compounded by other oddities, like the strange notes and packages being left for her.
Worse, still, is the revelation that there are a surprisingly large number of suspects that would or could have potentially caused harm to Samantha, and the investigation into the girl’s death or disappearance has put Jo in the crosshairs of a killer hellbent on keeping the truth buried.
Moncrieff does a fantastic job building suspense throughout the course of Jo’s investigation, slowly pulling back the curtains to reveal the various tragedies that have befallen this small town and those left behind in the wake of whatever it was that ultimately happened to Samantha. The author lines up a number of plausible connections and red flags, peppering in a decent amount of action and hairpin thrills that keep you guessing. This is a solidly crafted whodunit, and Moncrieff seemingly effortlessly keeps the reader engaged and curious.
On narration duties is Natalie Gold, a new-to-me performer, who does an excellent job keeping the book moving and capturing the sense of confusion, loss, bullheadedness, and occasional wonder exhibited by Jo in her quest for answers. Jo’s a strong woman, and having formerly covered the Syrian civil war right from the frontlines, she’s not easily rattled. Gold does a great job capturing her sense of character, making her a familiar presence to the listener, while Moncrieff’s words show she’s not a woman to be trifled with, either. Between the author and narrator, Jo really comes alive as a fully-realized, three-dimensional heroine.
Dragonfly Summer is a deft, surprising, and captivating audio-only mystery, and Gold makes for a perfect reader of Moncrieff’s prose. While this story works perfectly as a standalone one-and-done story, I certainly wouldn’t mind reading another Jo Carter mystery, and I’m certainly one hundred percent all-in on another J.H. Moncrieff Audible Original.
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38 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Diane
- 2020-04-01
Mediocrity
Another disappointing “thriller”. I am getting so tired of the repeated overuse of the plot devices of memory loss, mysterious love triangles and family secrets. I suppose in the hands of someone more skilled, it could make for a good book, but this is not the case here. When the big reveal happens it’s about as exciting as paint drying. The cameo ghost appearances were unnecessary and confirmed the book as a cliche through and through.
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31 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2020-02-18
Randy
Slow and drawn out very predictable also the idea of memory loss and gradually regaining it is way overdone my wife and I listened to it together In the last 3 hours of the book she kept saying get on with the story and blah blah
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31 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Outlaw1776
- 2020-04-03
Cliche/Rushed
*SPOILER-ISH* I'm getting tired of all of the cliches that authors feel the need to include to further a plot. From the use of someones past that they so conveniently cannot seem to remember, the seemingly perfect family that doesn't have ANY skeletons in their closet(sarcasm), and the supernatural again only when the plot needs it. Honestly I had to wait a day to write the review so that I was certain about how I felt about it. The book was narrated fairly well although there were some moments where I had to rewind to figure out who was talking. As for the story.... like I said cliche and rushed. It was almost as if the author didn't have an ending thought up and just decided to conjure the last chapter up out of nothingness. The last chapter lacked thought and just gave the story an end. While I almost enjoyed the book i could not say that I would recommend it to anyone.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Janice Grant
- 2020-03-19
loved it
what a twist. I was wrong about who done it. great book, riveting, thanks to the author
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Carol L. Riegel
- 2020-02-28
Don’t Dismiss This Book Based on Earlier Books by Same Author
This book was exceptionally good. I haven’t read the earlier titles as I don’t like paranormal or horror. I hope the author will write more mysteries.
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10 people found this helpful