The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck

By: Bethany Turner

Narrated by: Jessica Holtan

Becoming a Christian is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to Sarah Hollenbeck. Best because, well, that's obvious. Worst because, up to this point, she's made her very comfortable living as a well-known, bestselling author of steamy romance novels that would leave the members of her new church blushing. Now Sarah is trying to reconcile her past with the future she's chosen. She's still under contract with her publisher and on the hook with her enormous fan base for the kind of book she's not sure she can write anymore. She's beginning to think that the church might frown on her tithing on royalties from a "scandalous" book. And the fact that she's falling in love with her pastor doesn't make things any easier.

Secret Life

Funny, charming, touching, and heart-wrenching, yet clean, Sarah Hollenbeck will delight and enchant anyone! You’ll love the HEA! Excellent narrator too!

Good Start

A loved the premise of this book and I think it does a good job of giving us an explanation of the real author and the books she writes later which are excellent and I seem to like better.

It was fun!

I liked there were things left to the imagination!
A fun listen! Great characters and plot.

Juvenile, immature, frustrating

I found this book annoying on many levels. The title summary sounded promising but I thought the characters were shallow and acted like they were in high school. The main character Sarah quickly got on my nerves with her constantly making jokes and her insecurities. I thought the writing was lacking and felt amateurish at times. multiple times characters laughed for minutes at a time while the other person stood by waiting. this just isn't realistic-people don't giggle and laugh for minutes at a time. they were many other examples of overly emotional scenes involving holding hands, kissing, and standing nearby as a silent offering of so-called support. The whole thing just felt poorly executed. Ending did get a little more interesting and there was a good message at the end of the book.

Clean, sweet, and fun

I don’t only do Christian fiction, but I really enjoyed this one. Very slightly preachy but very real at the same time. No one was portrayed as perfect or without flaws but it also didn’t feel too heavy or dramatic. The book still has some funny moments to break up some of the more complex aspects. Narrator was great. If you like clean and don’t mind some scripture references, I think you’ll like this listen.