Perfectly Famous - Emily Liebert

I've been listening more and more to audiobooks. The other thing I've noticed is that I'm trying out a lot of new to me authors and many books that I might not have picked up in print form.

My latest listen is Perfectly Famous by Emily Liebert.

Ward DeFleur (a nom de plume) is a successful author who seems to have it all.....until her teenage daughter is murdered. The killer was never found. With her life in shambles, Ward goes into hiding of her own volition.

Bree Bennett is newly divorced and is a also mom to a teen daughter. Bree is bored with her life and decides to try and rekindle her career as a journalist by writing for the local newspaper. What she focuses on is telling DeFleur's story. And that focus becomes an obsession with finding the author.

I liked the premise. Where is DeFleur? Why is she hiding? It is grief or something else? How is the investigation into her daughter's murder progressing? Will Bree find her?

What I had a hard time with? The main character. I found Bree to be so...well to be a lead I just couldn't get behind. She needs to have a new man in her life and Liebert's storyline gives her two to choose from. Cameos from former hubby. Her daughter is angry and is acting out. And this is when Bree decides she has to travel and leave her child with a friend for a few days. Honestly she just seemed full of herself and I never really understood why she was so driven to find Ward. Bree's investigative skills need some work as well. She takes information from someone she's just met as the gospel truth without even following up on her own to confirm. The whodunit is telegraphed long before the reveal. And really, Bree? You should have seen that coming. Now, with that reveal, I thought the book was done. But things keep going with a few more threads that just felt like weird add-ons. The whole book seemed very "Days of Our Lives" soapy. With a side of  'it was only a dream". I do have to say, I really liked Bree's Mom - she had some great lines.

Not that being said, I did listen to it in its entirety. There were two readers for this novel - Tavia Gilbert and Natalie Naudus. Both are award winning narrators and both turned in excellent performances in Perfectly Famous. Their voices are pleasant to listen to, easy to understand and clearly enunciated. They both captured the emotion of the characters and the action of the plot very well. Hear for yourself - listen to an excerpt of Perfectly Famous. 

This may be a case of me not being the right listener for this book. I'm a bit of a pragmatist. And I do love a good mystery. Perfectly Famous started off strong, but ended up being just an okay listen for me.