"The Guardian" by Sara Mack Audible version read by Sarah L. Colton

Emma has just lost the love of her life and is facing the nearly impossible task of learning to continue living without him. They had known each other for almost their entire lives. To have lost him in a car accident so suddenly, how could she be expected to go on? Her depression was so severe that her parents were at a loss as to how to help her recover and managed to bring home her closest friend to try and help her work though it.

Then Emma starts hearing James speaking to her. Was she going crazy? Was she imagining his voice simply because she missed him so? Or was there something more going on? Could he actually be talking to her? And if so, how?

Overall I enjoyed listening to this audiobook. It was well written and and the narrator did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life for her listeners. Each of the voices was unique and distinct enough to not confuse any of the characters with another. And as much of this story dealt with Emma trying to recover from a tragedy, her emotions were so clearly rendered that parts of the tale made me want to cry for her pain. I do, however, need to offer a trigger warning to those listening to this tale as at one point in the story there is a rather violent attempted rape that takes place.

There is a slight problem with the chapter numbers. While the chapters do continue in the correct order, when listing them at the beginning of each subsequent chapter, the book goes from Chapter 8, to Chapter 7, and then continued counting up from there. The listed chapter numbers continued through in the correct order and number. It was only in the narration of the numbers where they were incorrectly listed.

I believe this is a story worth listening to. It has definitely sparked an interest with me to learn more about the rest of the trilogy as well. I will have to look for the next book in the series to find out how Emma continues on her road to recovering from the loss of her true love, as well as to wanting to learn more of what comes of his journey as while may have died, he is not completely gone from her life. Recommended.