A Fair Trade

By: Laylah Abrams

Narrated by: Cassie McClellan

RONE AWARD FINALIST

"A delightfully lovely read sure to steal the reader’s heart! " --InD’tale Magazine

Raised by his fur trapper father and uncles, Jack Briggs has always made do with little more than a knife and flask. Alone now, he searches for a place to call home. And refined and beautiful Penelope Findley may be the person who can help him find it as he guides the Findleys’ wagon to Oregon.

A loyal wife, Penelope snubs the rugged wagon leader whenever he shows an interest in her. Secretly, she is haunted by the choices she made when she was just a desperate orphan instead of Oliver Findley’s prized possession.

When Penelope is widowed during the journey, Jack tempts her with the means to remain independent: protection in a temporary marriage and payment once he receives the free acreage allotted to married settlers in Oregon.

Penelope doesn’t realize all Jack really wants is her. All she wants is the freedom he promised. After all, could he ever love her if he knew about her past?

©2018, 2025 Laylah Abrams (P)2025 Laylah Abrams

Ok

I got this ARC via audiobook boom and this is my voluntary review. This story started out pretty good. I got lost somewhere in the middle then it ended pretty well. The wagon train experiences were a bit off as well as the death of the husband. But overall I enjoyed the story. the narration was good and kept the story moving along.

slow development

the story was interesting I wouldn't say it wasn't it was a slow development and it was very very special story but sometimes you felt like it stretched a little bit too far the story might be a little bit shorter but I did enjoy it a lot and overall it's a great story
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Narration definitely took away from the story.

It took several restarts as I would lose interest because of the stilted, robotic narration. I found that I liked the characters and the story but feel I would have gotten more out of the story with a professional doing the storytelling. With a better listening experience, I believe my rating would have been higher. This is a perfect example of when authors choose to go with inexperienced narrators . . . including if they decide to do their own narration. Just because you can write and/or read a story does not mean you can effectively tell a story well enough to capture the listener.