Audiobook Blog Tour | “Next Stop Chancey” by Kay Dew Shostak (narrated by Suzanne Barbetta) This is Southern Contemporary Fiction I love finding as it’s written in the same vein as Sherryl Woods’s The Sweet Magnolia’s series!

Acquired Digital Audiobook by: I am a blog tour hostess with Audiobookworm Promotions wherein I have the opportunity to receive audiobooks for review or adoption (reviews outside of organised blog tours) and host guest features on behalf of authors and narrators alike. I have been hosting for nearly a year now and I appreciate the diversity of genre selections and styles of stories to choose from whilst I navigate the audiobook realms!

I received a complimentary audiobook copy of “Next Stop Chancey” via Audiobookworm Promotions in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Why this particular audiobook interested me:

I personally love small towne fiction! If there is a story set in a small towne, odds are strong I am going to find it and hopefully fall in love! I love reading serial fiction for giving me the chance to soak inside a small towne where the quirky characters and the atmosphere of small towne living can be explored and pulled through the various ways in which layered story-telling can excel in this format of exploration! I have a particular attachment to Southern small townes and Southern Lit in general – which is why realising how attached I am to Sherry Wood’s Sweet Magnolia series, I had a hankering to give a new author a chance at wooing me with a new small towne I might come to find myself equally attached too!

Next Stop Chancey

Looking in your teenage daughter's purse is never a good idea.

After all, it ended up with Carolina Jessup opening a bed & breakfast for railroad fanatics in a tiny Georgia mountain town. Carolina knows all about, and hates, small towns. How did she end up leaving her wonderful Atlanta suburbs behind while making her husband's dreams come true?

The town bully (who wears a lavender skirt and white gloves), an endless parade of teenagers through her house, and everybody's talk about a ghost have Carolina looking for an escape, or at least a way to move back home. Instead, she's front and center for all of Chancey's small town gossip.

Unlike back home in the suburbs with privacy fences and automatic garage doors, everybody in Chancey thinks your business is their business and they all love the newest Chancey business. The B&B hosts a Senate candidate, a tea for the county fair beauty contestants, and railroad nuts who sit out by the tracks and record the sound of a train going by. Yet, nobody believes Carolina prefers the 'burbs.

Oh, yeah, and if you just ignore a ghost, will it go away?

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ASIN: B01N5HHFQP

on 22nd December, 2016

Length: 10 hours, 8 minutes (Unabridged)

Self Published Audiobook

my review of next stop chancey:

Carolina is a wife whose troubles have only just begun when she agrees to move to a small quaint Georgia towne whose welcoming sign not only causes her more grief from her teenage daughter but it serves as a catalyst of thoughts cascading through her mind – of how making life altering decisions can sometimes have repercussions one cannot foresee! As a mother and wife, Carolina tries to make the best out of a situation she never felt she’d find herself in whilst noting her daughter’s keenly motivated to make the move more caustic than necessary (as she lets the music rage in the speakers). As they start to enter into Chancey, the realisations of how drastically different their lives are about to become is quite evident in their initial welcoming party – where the boys on the street cannot believe they are meeting the new owners of the one house in towne no one thought anyone would be foolish enough to purchase! (herein I thought of Baby Boon) You gather the house is part of local lore – where ghosts populate urban culture and where the sounds of the railroad only add to the reasons why the house has stood uninhabited for as long as it has!

Chancey is a place where time overlooked it’s beauty and the merits of what it could contribute – where a river and a rail line could have given this small towne a bit more commerce than the state of things it’s now presenting to Carolina and her family. You see a lot of this whilst your travelling through different states and make your way through the small townes which are barely a dot on the maps your using as a guide on your travels, but each of them, offer something unexpected; something new or something naturally curious to take your breath away whilst pausing your trip to take in the wonderments you’ve discovered.

You have to love a character like Carolina who loves being wrapped up inside a wicked good story whilst life is placed on pause for a moment where the reader can find themselves re-inspired by the story their consuming before they need to go out and tackle their real-life affairs which are no longer on ‘hold’. I also liked how some of the Southernly specific humour peppered into my own childhood memories comes through like a shining light of familiarity – such as the phrase ‘stick a fork in me, I’m done’ referring to how you cannot go any further along in what your doing because your knackered beyond repair! I had a small giggle over this as Carolina was realising after unpacking for a few hours, she was ready to throw in the towel and get dinner sorted (by way of takeaway!).

Carolina is finding her sanity is slightly off-kilter when she keeps returning home to find a man on her front porch – at first she was grieving the sight, as she wasn’t in the proper mood for ‘visitors’ but the second time she saw the unknown visitor – she was questioning if the rumours of the house being haunted might have more weight to them than a flippant rumour to scare new residents. If it was a ghost, how would Carolina deal with a resident ghost!?

As Carolina tries to find her rhythm in Chancey, she finds everyone in Chancey has their own time-frame of when to ‘drop-in’ and when to give people their privacy. Chancey happily hasn’t quite caught-on to the fact that if you’ve relocated from the suburbs of the city, you might not feel as welcome to find everyone standing on your door awaiting to chat and share the goings-on of your life at whichever intervals the locals felt was best suited to them! Laughs. One interesting thing to note though – cities might allow more personal freedom of space, but one thing they get wrong is never knitting together any sense of community if the neighbourhoods are unfriendly or rather, the people who live inside them are so used to being ‘on their ownsome’ you could go a lifetime before you ever learnt one thing about your next-door neighbour outside of ‘waving’ your ‘Hallos’. When Carolina had her first drop-in meet and greet, I smiled because even though they might take you off-guard, having neighbours who feel comfortable enough to walk over, say ‘Hallo’ and enter your home as if you’ve known each other longer than a day is far better than the neighbours who only wave from afar! As an aside – I would have loved to have tasted those home-grown tomatoes!

When the representative of the Women’s Historical Society visits Carolina – she starts to see how her sudden move to a small towne was going to have far reaching after-effects – as she was unprepared for how Chancey believed they were inheriting a family who would re-bolster the efforts of raising historical significance about their Civil War roots, the railroad legacy and the historical elements of the house itself – all of which meant Chancey could be put on the radar for tourists who might consider skipping visiting the towne for another one which might hold greater appeal! No pressure, of course I believe was the running anxiety of concern in Carolina’s mind!

The closer Carolina gets to meeting more of the folks from Chancey, the closer so comes to realising how everyone is awaiting her or her family to start to disclose their paranormal experiences! Not that the towne is coming right out and ‘asking’ them to talk about the (perspective) ghosts but it’s surely implied! This makes it a bit hilarious to listen too – as Carolina is still uncertain how she feels about small towne living (she has issues from her past) and small towne gossip mills whilst trying to contend with the fact her husband Jackson has one dream in his life which is an equal match to Chancey’s hope for survival: a Bed & Breakfast focusing on local lore & history with a focus on the rails!

Before Carolina could process what she had done – Chancey was celebrating the new business coming into their fold by way of Carolina’s passionate argument for ‘train-watching’ experiences where people could take a respite from their lives and soak into the joys of observing trains! What was so delightful about this unexpected change of events is how innocently she broached the topic herself and how well she defended the point about why this kind of business would be a viable choice for a family who needed to be solvent and self-sufficient. What shocked her is why she felt the desire to be so open about her feelings about a business she herself hadn’t truly resolved should be in her life at all! She is a character who has conflictions in her heart and she doesn’t like confrontations – which you can observe as sometimes she places more obstacles on her path by not finding her voice – not only to broach a topic in public, but to have an honest heart-to-heart with Jackson (her husband).

Carolina settles into a table at the local diner (every small towne worth their salt has a ‘meeting place’ like this one!), where Laney and the other Chancey women take her into her the fold – where they discuss everything from food, to teens who give back to their neighbours (by doing chores) and the curious manners of (said) teenagers! As Carolina tries to fit in, she starts to remember all the reasons why having an anonymous presence in the city (or the outskirts therein) are sometimes akin to sanity – as now the local fodder of gossip is aiming their eyes on Carolina asking her which church she will be attending and of which denomination of faith she identifies. In a stroke of quick-thinking, Carolina dodges the answer by suggesting she visit the church of one of the women; therein giving her a small buffer to sort out how to deal with the curiosities of the personal variety her new ‘home’ is going to be providing her rather consistently.

Time starts to escalate forward – where Carolina starts to see how life in Chancey is helping her spirit and the lives of her children. I thought it was quite fitting one of the novels she would start to read as the seasons ebb away the edginess she first felt when she arrived in Chancey was Anne of Green Gables* – as it’s the perfect compliment to absorbing yourself into the backdrop of nature. Chancey like most small townes in the South, hold within it’s grasp some of the most beautiful palettes of the natural world. You can see why Carolina feels quite at home here despite her initial misgivings about living in a bowl of fish where everything would be known before you could gasp at letting go your private affairs to the ears of the community! It was here, in Chancey she found herself not as worried about her daughter Savannah as she previously had been – mostly due to meeting the boyfriend who gave her heart the original jolt of dread and finding he was not quite how she imagined him!

The country aesthetic in the rooms of the B&B were such a lovely treat to listen to how they were outfitted, arranged and developed! I personally love home renovation with a particular passion for historical renovation where you can pull forward the personalities of the past and merge them straight in the modern age! Developing the theme and feel of a Bed & Breakfast is half the fun – setting the mood of the atmosphere through furnishings, flowers, knick-knacks and linens not only helps the visitors feel what you hoped they would but it allows everyone to feel the relaxed spirit of the B&B which is meant to lend a hand towards finding personal R&R.

After the first weekend where guests were staying as a courtesy to help get the word out the new business – the matter about is he or isn’t he a ghost not only pops back into Carolina’s life but it makes a splash all over towne! One of the guests spies the ‘ghost’ and makes quite a stink about making sure everyone they know has heard the ordeal of how she and her husband were caught in a compromising position whilst attempting to sort out where the ‘ghost’ had gone! This local chatter was enough to get into the papers and the depth of how this might ‘elevate’ the B&B’s popularity was enough to give Carolina a slow groan – as everyone knows when it comes to Southern legends and lore – ghosts have a way of sticking round whether or not one can prove it actually resides with you! The speculation alone is enough to keep the goose birds arriving to find more gossip about the particulars of said ghost!

Willow trees are mentioned more than once in such a poetic and creative way – it was nice finding another writer who has spent time musefully in front of a weeping willow and found a way to bring their spirit into a story! There is a lot of descriptive narrative details in this audiobook – the kind which can not only help you suspend yourself into a story but fuse you directly into a setting you can nearly believe you’ve visited IRL! I even love how the author captured the essence of the South – specifically the urban city of Georgia, the countryside of rural Georgia and the regional inclusions of South Carolina and North Carolina – anyone who has spent even a holiday in the Southern states would recognise the setting here. If you have seen the film “Doc Hollywood” you also know why Chancey has such a strong appeal to it just like Grady had for the Doc!

Something which surprised me quite a bit is how Jackson could not understand why Carolina believed in the ghost and why Carolina felt the ghost was actually a benefit to their lives; at least to her personally, as she found the ghost to be a familiar friend who could keep her secrets. Jackson and Carolina had a very open relationship – except for the fact, in some regards they compromised more than they agreed on key issues. One rippling fracture to their relationship is how Jackson felt the ghost was an indication Carolina needed psychoanalysis! Can you imagine?! I was so gobsmacked he felt that way!

*(Anne of Green Gables) having just listened to this story myself!

And, this dear hearts is nearly everything I experienced of Chancey – except I did get quite a bit further than my notes elude too, as Savannah was nearing her ‘big’ debut and Mrs had gotten herself into such a pickle in regards to putting Chancey on the map, it was going to be interesting to see how she could either back-peddle out of the misunderstandings about her actions or to see if she actually did cross a line and went too far to help her local community. This is my second migraine in a week as ironically or not, the first one started on a Sunday (the 20th!) and this one started on a Monday (the 28th) – combined with the lightning storms which have kept me offline this Summer (especially this month, where I was off more than on; you might have noticed I stopped posting my Sunday journals?) I wasn’t able to get to the ending of this lovely audiobook!

I heard enough to know I’m a ready fan of Chancey being a bonefide series – I also know, I’ll be listening to this audiobook for a second time whilst I knit and will be posting an update about how I loved hearing how the story ends – will it be a cliffhanger, I wonder!? Hmm. This is why I am choosing to post my review now and not hold it until I can finish listening to it. I didn’t want to rush the story and with my migraines – it’s hard to speculate good/bad days transitioning out of them – which is why I felt after looking over my notes, I had enough written down to express why I love this audiobook! This might be a break from my traditional reviews as it’s the first time a migraine interfered with completing one but I’m hoping something I’ve related in this review will give someone the encouragement to know if you love Contemporary authors like Sherryl Woods or Mary McNear (see my posts for McNear) – you will definitely appreciate reading or listening to the world of Chancey!

on the contemporary small towne styling of ms Shostak:

I was happily finding myself appreciating how the author was including life lessons into her narrative – especially in regards to ‘first impressions’ which too often can become outright judgement against people’s character? In this regard, she had a clever way of looking ‘past’ outward appearances and quick assessments by showing the heart of who her characters are by their actions and their gifts of being the kind of people who you wished lived in your own hometown; as they knit together the kind of community spirit you’d love to embrace as your own.

She also included a lot of rail history sprinkled throughout the narrative – where you can find yourself learning quite a bit about the railroad and how train travel used to be quite popular as a main source of transportation. Including how some trains were especially made for an upgraded experience of riding in style and of being entranced by the luxury of how the trains themselves were presented for a higher level of comfort than the regular trains which were served best as commuters and/or long distance travel. You even get treated to what ‘humping’ refers to in the world of trains – which is a very technical term for how trains are ‘switched’ not only by track but by car!

Ms Shostak created such a lovely ‘small towne’ to hug inside, I daresay, if my migraine had been a throbbing nightmare to work round, I would have loved finding out all the lovely twists and turns she etched into the backdrop of this first installment of Chancey! I am on eager pins awaiting news about the rest of the series and seeing what happens next for the residents!

specifically in regards to the audiobook:

As I am relatively new to reviewing audiobooks and listening to them with a greater frequency than of the past, I am appreciative of Ms Jess providing a cursory outline of how best to articulate my listening hours on behalf of this audiobook and the others I shall be blogging about or reviewing in future. I’ve modified the suggestions to what I felt were pertinent to respond too on my own behalf as well as keeping to the questions I felt were relevant to share.

Listening Habit:

I coloured within the pages of the following colouring books whilst I listened to Next Stop Chancey: A Giving Heart: Heroine’s of the New Testament Colouring Book by Betsy Karounos as well as some of the patterns within Wonders of Extreme Colour Art. I developed a migraine whilst I was listening to the story which is why I had to offset colouring with simply listening to the story and trying to pull notes together in a rather unorthodox method for me as I generally colour or knit as I listen to audiobooks nowadays – both activities helps me tune into the stories whilst allowing them to feel as if I’m seeing a story come alive like a reel of film in my imagination. This time round – parts of the story were growing a bit lost on me (due to the migraine) but I was not deterred because I loved the style of how this story was written!

Number of Narrators:

Like most of my favourite audiobooks of the past year – the narrators who make such a strong impression on me are the ones who can capture the lead characters and supporting cast in such a fashion as to give me the illusion the cast is an ensemble rather than a singular narrator! I loved how Ms Barbetta found a way to not only embrace the Southern personalities she was bringing to life but she found a way to make each of them ‘sound’ individually unique and altered her voice in such a way, you could tell when she ‘stepped into character’ and when she was ‘stepping back into the narrative bits’ giving you a truly balanced listening experience.

Number of Times I’ve heard the Narrator(s):

This is my first experience of Ms Barbetta’s narrations and I am so wholly impressed by how she performed this story, I cannot wait to find other titles she’s narrated! Especially as this is going to be a series of stories set in Chancey, I am hoping Ms Barbetta will be able to continue the whole series rather than having a new narrator step in after her exit – I truly felt she brought Chancey to life in such a way as to give you a living impression of how Chancey isn’t a fictionalised small towne but a towne you can readily bring to mind – you know what it looks like and what it would feel to walk it’s streets.

Regards to the Narrator’s Individual Character performances:

I loved how the narrator drawled the opening chapter – given a depth of Carolina’s character – you can tell she’s a Southern bourne lady – where her wit and the sharpness of her impatience with herself is evident just as easily as the influences of her speech! She is a complicated character first and foremost – she is endearing as well to the listener but you quickly see how complex she is written and how these complexities knit through the narrative!

Each time a new supporting character came into a scene, I had to smile and sit back enjoying how the narrator approached differentiating between them whilst giving them all a Southern sensibility by voice and personality! Susan was a delight to listen too – she was definitely the kind of neighbour you’d expect would drop-in on Carolina!

The Women’s Historical Society sent a representative who would charm your smile and give you a hug of warmth of how Southern hospitality loves to come out and welcome in new residents in townes like Chancey who have a strong community spirit! The way in which the narrator voiced her – ooh, my, it was so brilliant because she sounded just as I expected she ought to have! She goes by ‘Mrs’ due to an ill-fated naming ritual in her family wherein every offspring in her lineage must be a variant of a name no one wanted to uplift into their ancestral stories – however, it was hinged to inheritance and this is when families make compromises. For her credit, once she was married – her first name was properly shunned and silenced in her life and she simply took on ‘Mrs’ as a proper ‘first’ name. Quirky, yes, but wickedly clever of how to step out of your past and re-set your future on your own terms!

Laney has such a honeyed voice – a bit higher pitched than the other ladies, as she gets caught up in the bursts of joy which envelope everyday life. She also has more tricks up her sleeve than your average fox and she’s the type of friend you’d want in your corner even if you are not entirely certain of her motives for the actions she takes at moments where you feel you’ve missed out on something important!

Carolina’s mother is such a sweetheart! I loved how she was invested in her daughter’s life but also how she sounded so full of life at the same time! It’s a credit to how narrators can change their voices to suit the characters and allow new layers of insight into the stories themselves!

How the Novel sounded to me as it was being Read: (theatrical or narrative)

Definitely very theatrical – almost as if it were a story set to the stage – where you have all the different characters moving in and out of scene! Again – I did not feel this was a one narrator audiobook adaptation – it felt so wholly real and authentic, of how each character could claim his or her presence in the story-line, you overlooked the singular voice bringing it all to life! I loved how this had it’s own rhythm and pace – it moved along with good energy and an encouraging nudge of curiosity to keep you guessing about what was going to ‘come next’ whilst you resided in Chancey!

Regards to Articulation & Performance of different sections of the novel:

There is a bit of character growth threading through the story – especially for Carolina, as she changes her fierce opinions on some topics which she felt she would never sway nor feel inclined to alter her mind. There are patterns of growth for the towne of Chancey and of how neighbourly curiosity can either make or break newcomers who are attempting to come into a small towne where there are no strangers and no news which hasn’t made the rounds of the residents. You can pick up on all of this – the nuance and the sublime right in step with the dialogue and the arc of the story itself. It gives the impression the narrator knows how to develop a story to where it feels bigger than itself (ie. an audiobook) and can take you visually right into it’s sphere.

Notes on the Quality of Sound & the Background Ambiance:

I hadn’t noticed too much about background ambiance – only that I do notice there is a slight shift in vocalisations on some audiobooks? It’s hard to put into words – I’ve only noticed this a handful of times (say three?) where the voice is strong and sounds as similar as any of the voiced narrations on the piece I’m listening too but then, there is a moment where the voice sounds more in the foreground than the background, where it’s slightly out of sync with the rest of the vocals? It’s hard to pin point – and it’s so minute in this audiobook, I was nearly questioning – is that a slight difference in voice overlay or is my migraine playing tricks on what I’m hearing!?

Preference after listening to re-Listen or pick up the book in Print?

Of course, I am well known for vacillating about whether or not I’d read a book in print, re-listen to the audiobook or read a print copy whilst listening to the audiobook – since I did not get to listen to the last bits of the story of this audiobook, I have quite a bit to look forward to still in listening from the point in which I had to stop (as migraines get to be such difficult beasts to work through!) – for now, I will say, I’ll keep Chancey (the series, not just this first novel of it) as an audiobook preferred format of experience! It goes back to the narrator – she totally won my heart!

In closing, would I seek out another (narrator) audiobook?

I am itching to find out if Ms Barbetta is going to read the rest of the Chancey series – as to me, she is what makes Chancey so very special to listen too! I am uncertain without her presence if it would feel the same to me – however, despite saying this, sometimes I find narrators are switched out during series, and I’ve entertained an open mind for those series, so I will remain open about Chancey, too, as it’s so very easy to get attached to the person who ‘introduces’ you to a new beloved favourite small towne! Irregardless of Chancey, I would like to explore more of her titles!

 This blog tour is courtesy of Audiobookworm Promotions:

Whilst participating on:

I do apologise for those who are following the blog tour – as I was meant to interview the narrator, however, somewhere along the way this Summer – between the lightning storms, my Dad’s health issues and the return of my migraines – I simply overlooked what I had signed on to do with this tour! I lost a lot of hours to listen to the story itself – which is why I disclosed not being able to finish my listening experience at the time of this review as well. I journalled so much about what I did love about the bits I had listened too – I decided to post my review as it was being written because honestly I am so very attached to Chancey, I wanted others to find this story & keep an eye on the author who will be turning this into a series! I am so delighted by that news!

UPDATE: Hmm. How did I think this wasn’t a full fledged series? I love migraines, truly I do! This is a bonefide series right now – I am simply going to have to be patient to await the five novels to become audiobooks!

{SOURCES: Cover art of “Next Stop Chancey”, book synopsis, author biography, author photo, Audiobookworm Promotions badge and the audiobook tour badge were all provided by Audiobookworm Promotions and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Audiobook Review Banner and the Comment Box Banner.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2017.

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Audiobook Blog Tour | “Next Stop Chancey” by Kay Dew Shostak (narrated by Suzanne Barbetta)… https://t.co/e0mygIP5CG pic.twitter.com/sdMNKsYNkZ

— Jorie Story 📖🎧 (@joriestory) August 29, 2017

Positively loved spending time in Chancey (??) as this #audiobook is a golden example of #Contemporary #SouthernLit I love #amreading! ???

— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) August 29, 2017

*waves!* @SuzyBarbetta heap of gratitude to you for giving such a resoundingly wicked introduction to Chancey by @kaydewshostak! #audiobooks

— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) August 29, 2017