THE WEEKEND WIFE

This short, sweet story is one of the new romance titles in James Patterson's BookShots endeavor, which promises "a cinematic storytelling experience in 150 pages." For this audiobook, that's about 3.25 hours. Beth Ciotta packs a lot into a short amount of time, and the story does have the pacing and structure of a movie. Narrator Ellen Archer's conversational style is the perfect complement to this story, giving a very natural feel to the first-person point of view. Newly unemployed Megan takes her hunky neighbor up on an offer to pose as his wife on a visit to his dying grandmother in Tuscany. After much carryings-on, everything is tidily wrapped up with a bow by the end. A perfect weekend listen. L.C.L. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2017]