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    Fast Women
    Fast Women
    Fast Women
    Audiobook13 hours

    Fast Women

    Written by Jennifer Crusie

    Narrated by Sandra Burr

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Crusie returns with her most hilarious, sizzling novel yet

    Nell Dysart’s in trouble. Her divorce is 18 months old, she’s been sleepwalking through life, and the best job she can get is with a detective agency that specializes in relationship work. Determined to turn her life around, Nell flings herself into making McKenna Investigations a better place.

    On day one, she uncovers an embezzler. On day two, she turns up bribery. On day three, she has sex with the wrong man. On day four, she steals a dog. On day five, her boss tries to fire her…and fails miserably. Because even Gabe McKenna has to admit that no matter how much he hates the confusion she’s brought into his life, Nell shares his passion for making things right. It’s not long before they share another passion, one they can’t ignore—even in the face of distractions like adultery, blackmail, arson, murder, and really bad business cards.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMay 16, 2017
    ISBN9781543611397
    Fast Women
    Author

    Jennifer Crusie

    Jennifer Crusie was researching her dissertation on the differences in the way men and women tell stories when she got sidetracked into writing romance novels. Her first book was published in 1993 (which pretty much finished off any hope of her getting that PhD) and her twenty-second book, Maybe This Time, came out in August of 2010, all of which she considers a minor miracle, especially since she is also a New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author and a two-time Rita award winner.

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    Reviews for Fast Women

    4/5

    663 ratings36 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Emotionally numb from her divorce 18 months earlier, Nell Dysart takes job as office manager for a private investigation firm. She suddenly is in the midst of a passionate romance, investigating embezzlement and murder, dealing with her son, her ex-husband, and her ex-in-laws. Thought provoking.
    • 5/5
      Had me laughing aloud listening to this on a very challenging day. Love this book.
    • 3/5
      A good mystery with just the right amount of who-done-it and relationship stuff to keep you interested.
    • 3/5
      Probably not my favorite book. It’s funny, but I don’t like the many uses of the F word I don’t think it’s necessary a little bit confusing, but still kind of fun to listen to.
    • 3/5
      Another great Crusie with a mystery subplot.
    • 5/5
      Love this author - her characters are great and funny
    • 3/5
      Good fun. Very light read but not sappy and a quirky element to it.
    • 3/5
      More than one romance wrapped up in a mystery. This was an excellent book with offbeat characters who have married wrongly for the wrong reasons. In that, it’s as though they’ve taken years to grow up enough to recognise true love when it comes along. Nell is an excellent main character, although the relationships circle around three women. I like all the parts of this book, but I didn’t love it as much as I feel I should and find it hard to say why. Maybe because it contains darker themes than some of her other books, and it takes a long time to find an answer to the mystery involving a lot more characters than most of her books contain. Characters from wealthy backgrounds who are terribly conniving, though they’ve met their match when they attempt to manipulate Nell. Or because I sometimes got a little frustrated with Nell and Gabe, which made me wonder if their relationship could ever work, but I liked how Nell changed. It’s still a fabulous book despite my feelings. And Crusie’s dog stars are always good for a laugh.
    • 5/5
      I've been talking up Agnes and the Hitman lately, and it got me in the mood for a re-read. I wanted something slightly less madcap than Agnes though, so I went with Fast Women. I've read this book at least half a dozen times - it's one of my favourite Jennifer Crusie books - and it never gets old for me. Its three female leads are all extraordinarily three-dimensional; their marriages extraordinarily realistic; their coping strategies extraordinarily commonplace. I love the interaction between the women, and between the women and their men. What keeps this book from becoming a dreary, depressing drama is the humor that is constant throughout; these people are struggling, but they keep it in perspective. Add to all of this a delicious murder mystery and for me it was, and still is, love. The mystery is so well plotted, that even when you know how it's going to end, Crusie leaves you surprised at the end. Chick-lit isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy some dramedy with strong female characters, tossed in with a murder mystery, I don't think you can go wrong giving this a try.
    • 4/5
      Crusie expands her usual chicklit screwball romance here to include some mystery elements, but the whole thing remains pretty frothy.

      When divorcee Nell Dysart takes a "temporary" job in the offices of McKenna Investigations, the last thing she's looking for is a new romance. So of course sparks fly between her and her boss, mostly because she wants to "fix" things he thinks don't need fixing.

      Great fun, hot sex, and an occasional dead body on the plus side; a complicated set of family connections on the minus. Still an entertaining read.
    • 2/5
      I did not find this book terribly enjoyable--not my type of book.
      A bunch of women sit around a lot moaning about life, husbands, men in general.
      The protagonist, Nell, is divorced and walking through her life until she gets a job running a detective agency (much against her boss's wishes--but she's hot and he's hot so it doesn't matter). Much arguing back and forth. A bit of investigation of a murder that stretches through a lot of years. Finished. Thank goodness for that.
    • 4/5
      This was set in a detective agency, where Nell goes to work for Riley and Gabe and helps solve a mystery involving a law firm run by Gabe's father's best friend. I really enjoyed the first half of the novel: Nell sorts out the chaos in the office and falls for Gabe, but then it just kept going for pages and chapters and pages more and the plot was more complicated than I really cared about and Nell kept nearly getting killed and people kept moving boxes and talking endlessly about china. I like Riley and Suze and I couldn't get a grip on Margie - how old was she even meant to be? What purpose did she serve? Fun over all.
    • 5/5
      I really got wrapped up in this book thinking men were scum. The romance didn't get serious until half way into the story but the humor, character interaction and solving the crime kept me interested throughout. Nell gets a job at Gabe's detective agency and they are both alpha types constantly trying to take control.
    • 3/5
      With all this author's popularity and prolific writing career, my expectations were very high. From all her highly rated reviews, I knew going in that she writes romantic comedies; however, I really just didn't enjoy her style of humor. I felt that her constant attempts at silly and farcical humor actually detracted from the romance of the main characters and the story. In the beginning of this book, I was starting to enjoy the "whodunit" aspect of the plot, but it quickly deteriorated from there. The heroine came across as a controlling, bitchy woman, and I ended up disliking her.
    • 4/5
      I really loved this book, Crusie turns so many romantic tropes on their head. Good sex does not equal true love, and true love does not mean no relationship problems. The villains were a bit hard to keep track of, and the timeline was equally slippery, but the lovely main characters and their classic Crusie wit more than made up for any bumps in the road.
    • 5/5
      I love Jennifer Crusie's books...they are always a mood lifter and a fun read!
    • 4/5
      A fun, fast read with recognizable characters, once I started this book, I didn't want to put it down. Even though you know how this will end, the fun is in how you get there. Some suspense, lots of romance and a liberal dose of humor all add up to a great summer read.
    • 4/5
      A Chick Lit Who-done-it.I'm kind of sad that I listened to the abridged audio version of this because it turned out to be a much better book than I had been expecting. The cover had led me to expect Chick Lit but in fact it was a well composed who-done-it written in a Chick Lit style. Unfortunately, I felt the abridged version whizzed past a lot of the explanations of the back-story and I had to repeat several CDs to grasp the necessary facts.The Dysart brothers have married the three main women of the story, Nell, Suze and Madge. When we first meet her, Nell has just separated from Tim, Madge's husband, Stewart, had disappeared seven years previously, and Suze is still with Jack. At first it seems that the story is going to be soley about the relationships these women have with their men and with each other; then it becomes apparent that something more sinister has been going on in the background.Madge is a bit of a vague character, but Nell and Suze are great, and Gabe and Riley, the partners in a detective agency where Nell finds a job, are also well written. It was also unusual in that I did actually chuckle a few times, and it is pretty rare for me to find a book amusing.One of the bonuses of listening to the audio version was the voices introduced by Sandra Burr and this was one of my better read CDs, in spite of the questionable abridgement.All in all, a great new author for me - I shall be looking out for more of her books and also keeping an eye open for more narrations by Sandar Burr.
    • 4/5
      Emotionally numb from her divorce 18 months earlier, Nell Dysart takes job as office manager for a private investigation firm. She suddenly is in the midst of a passionate romance, investigating embezzlement and murder, dealing with her son, her ex-husband, and her ex-in-laws. Thought provoking.
    • 4/5
      When her husband of fifteen plus years dumps her for a younger model Nell Dysart needs a job - the seedy, rundown detective agency Gabe McKenna manages isn't perfect, but it's a paycheck. Blackmail, embezzlement, adultery, diamonds and bodies in freezers - learning to live again may be the death of her, but Nell's up for the challenge.Not as appealing a cast as Crusie usually assembles, but entertaining, nonetheless.
    • 4/5
      I like romances and Jennifer Crusie is among my favorite romance authors. This book didn't disappoint.
    • 4/5
      I am a huge fan of Crusie, with her unconventional heroines and witty quips (and steamy scenes, to be sure). There were many things I liked about Fast Women, including the Maltese Falcon-eqsue vibe of the McKenna's agency, as well as Nell's lovely 1940's-style apartment. It took me awhile to figure out how everyone was related, which threw me off a bit. Overall, however, I did really enjoy the book. I think I was just spoiled by having read "Bet Me" before any of her other works, and now nothing will ever really live up. :) Still, a fun, if sometimes chilling (pun intended) read!
    • 3/5
      A book about a group of older women. Interesting, but not really my thing. There was a very confusingly large cast of characters, which distracted me a bit. I had huge troubles distinguishing between the men in this book. I loved the women though, and the two leading men. And Crusie's style is always enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Nell has been wasting away since her divorce and her friends have become worried enough that they've prevailed upon their significant others to secure her a job at a private investigative agency. Gabe needs a new secretary, but what he winds up with in Nell is something much more overwhelming than he expected. When co-workers, business associates, friends and relatives all become embroiled in a potential murder mystery all bets are off when it comes to love and justice.I'm not really a huge fan of chick lit and rarely enjoy it as much as I did this book. This author worked in enough ironic humor and twists to keep me interested and even though I didn't really care for the character's personalities they were intriguing enough to keep me stuck to the story. I can honestly say that if I had ever had to either work with Nell or work for Gabe (or at the O&D Law Firm for that matter) I'd have quit so fast it would have made their heads spin.I liked all the character development which seemed to be the focus of the story, even the dog's personality undergoes a significant change LOL! The murder mystery wasn't overly complex although I can't really say that I had the whole thing figured out so it was still a surprise at the end. All in all I felt that this was a chick lit story with more substance than some I've read and with a bevy of strong, if not particularly appealing (IMHO), personalities to make it a pretty good read.
    • 4/5
      Divorced and frustrated with life, Nell Dysart took a job at McKenna Investigations. The whirlwind cleaning and remodeling that Nell undertook was changing everything in Gabe McKenna’s office and everything in his life. Her discovery of a document from the 70’s sparked an interest in old cases that connected Nell, through her in-laws to Gabe and his father (Patrick), leaving them with the mystery of two missing persons, and an apparent suicide that seemed to all be connected. Along with Riley (Gabe’s partner and cousin) and Suze (Nell’s fellow Dysart wife and best friend), they all searched for the answers to the questions the past had brought to life again.**** 4 - Good characters, followed for several months and several changes in life as well as love. The fact that these families are all so intertwined and connected in the end was predictable but fun to get to anyway. The mystery of who and why these things are happening now and what they have in connection to the past was pretty good, and the china obsession was different, in a fun way.
    • 5/5
      Such a good book! I could read it over and over!
    • 5/5
      Another outstanding read from Crusie. I laughed so hard my sides hurt! Crusie's books are always funny, but beneath the humor is so much truth that her stories always make you feel and think both. Her style is exuberant and fun, but Fast Women is also about the prices of divorce--and marriage--and what love really means. Highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      It's hard to choose, but I think this might be my favorite of all of Crusie's books. The sheer number and complexity of the relationships between the characters, the way that Nell and Gabe learn how to deal with their past and express what they need from each other, and the gradual unraveling of the mystery all add up to a terrific, satisfying reading experience. And the sex ain't bad, either.
    • 4/5
      The ever excellent Jennifer Crusie has a complex story about divorce, friendship (male and female) family history and marriage. Not your standard romance, it works wonderfully, with full rich characterization and witty, fast dialogue. Set in a detective agency it covers all sorts of matters, from dog napping to the perils of not cleaning out your freezer. I love it and reread frequently.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely adored this book, it grabbed me from the beginning. It has romance, mystery, and humor.