The Silent Bluebird – 3.5 Star Book Review

Welcome to the June 16th stop on the blog tour for The Silent Bluebird by Elle M. Holmes, organized by Audiobookworm Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, audio excerpts, reviews, author & narrator bonus content, and more!

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Author’s Dream Cast

Sadie: I’ve said it before I will say it again, this is the hardest dream cast member. But gun-to-my-head-opinion, I think as far as characterization goes Naomi Scott is probably the closest to the embodiment of Sadie. 

Killian: Colin O’Donohue. He may be a little old for Killian now, unfortunately, but in my head, Colin is Killian.

Desmond: I think Dwayne Johnson would be an amazing Desmond. He’s got the commanding presence of a general, but can also play off the dad jokes and would be a great supportive big brother to Killian.  

Valerie: Emma Thompson. Done. She is, was, and will forever be Valerie Stead. I wrote her with Emma Thompson in mind and it would be incredible to see her in the movie adaptation. 

Bruno: This one has always been sort of fluid in my head, but if I had to choose, it would be an Andy Garcia type. 

Petey: If I’m completely honest, Petey is actually based on a friend of mine (and he knows fully knows who he is and absolutely loves it as he’s a character in and of himself), so he has his own presence, but in my head Petey is very similar to a young Luther from Mission Impossible. So if I could time travel and get a young Ving Rhames, I’d have found my Petey.  

Michael: While Michael may be a small character in this book, his role grows throughout the series. And in my head, I only heard Kumail Nanjiani while writing Michael.

About the Book

The Silent Bluebird
by Elle M. Holmes

print/eBook
Published 17 November 2020
Page Count: 276

audiobook
Published 29 April 2021
Narrator: Linnea Hubbard
Length: 7 hours and 29 minutes

Genre: Science Fiction
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

The stories we read have the power to change our lives. 

Sadie Smith lives an ordinary life, unlike the extraordinary ones of the characters in the books where she finds an escape. She dives into her stories with wanton abandon.

Until one story changes it all.

The story of the impetuous Killian Quinn: an agent for the Zeta Defense Agency, determined to avenge his fallen partner. As she follows him further down the rabbit hole, worlds collide when she awakens with her hands tied to a chair in the face of armed men. Sadie finds herself dropped in the middle of a battle between secret agencies she didn’t even know existed, but maybe where she’s belonged all along.

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My Review

My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Consider liking my review on Goodreads.

I was granted complimentary audiobook access to The Silent Bluebird as part of my participation in a book tour for this title with Audiobookworm Promotions. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

When a museum employee falls for a secret agent and follows him into his world, nothing will ever be the same again.

The concept and world-building for The Silent Bluebird are fascinating, and I look forward to reading more from the brilliant mind who created them! I also must give my compliments to the cover artist, as this cover art is the reason I finally agreed to review the book. I’ve seen this book on offer for review in several places over the last few months (maybe even a year?) and when I saw it offered for review in audiobook format, I couldn’t pass it up anymore.

The plot isn’t at all what I was expecting, but I liked it nonetheless. If you love espionage action adventures, this book has a lot to offer you. The characters, on the other hand, didn’t win me over. Sophie is flat and average. The rest are hard to keep track of and tend to blend together at points. This is a debut novel, so I do expect issues like this will improve in future books, but for these reasons, I can’t rate this as highly as I think the concept deserves.

In terms of narrative performance, this book was easy to listen to and plays well at different playback speeds. The performance is fine, neither spectacular nor poor. I wouldn’t go out of my way to find books read by this narrator, she didn’t drastically improve the experience, but she certainly wouldn’t scare me off books either. Although I found some characters hard to distinguish from one another I think that’s a writing issue, not a performance issue.

About the Author

Elle M. Holmes was born in Florida, and has been writing both professionally and recreationally for years before publishing her debut novel The Silent Bluebird. When she’s not writing she has her nose buried in a book, taking in the sun at the beach, or finds herself stalking dog adoption sites. Oftentimes all three concurrently. She and her husband foster dogs whenever they can. 

You can find her on Twitter and Instagram if you enjoy silly observations and bookish things.

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About the Narrator

Linnea Hubbard is a voice actor based in Southern Indiana. She has a BFA in Theatre from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, with a special focus on voice and dialects, and has performed in over 100 projects including audiobooks, video games, plays, films, and commercials. Linnea was born in North Carolina and divided her youth between Raleigh and Los Alamos, New Mexico before spending much of her adult life in Seattle. A relatively recent transplant to the midwest, Linnea spends her free time enjoying the outdoors, studying public health, and fixing up her little mid-century modern house. She has two young kids and too many cats.

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Tour Schedule

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