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    What Doesn't Kill You
    What Doesn't Kill You
    What Doesn't Kill You
    Audiobook10 hours

    What Doesn't Kill You

    Written by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant

    Narrated by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "I really thought I had a handle on life—then it broke off."

    Opinionated, straight-talking, and witty, Tee is a fly forty-something. Divorced since her daughter, Amber, was young, Tee has been "handling her business," supporting herself after her would-be songwriter husband took off for L.A., and she's done all right. Organized, responsible, hardworking, and loyal, Tee went from being the first employee of a start-up purveyor of organic lotions to the right hand of the president of what became a major player in the home and personal fragrance market.

    But then everything changes. First, she's outplaced from her longtime job and doesn't tell anyone. Then she gives her daughter the wedding of her dreams and, after overindulging in champagne, Tee wakes up in bed with the younger best man.

    For the first time in twenty-five years, Tee doesn't know who she is or what she's going to do every day. Deep in denial, she continues to live her life as if nothing has changed. After a series of financial mistakes, miscalculations, and missteps compound her already shaky situation, she's soon teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. That's when Tee decides that it's time for her to wake up and face reality.

    Beyond "making money," Tee never really decided what she wanted to do with her life. Then she just stopped thinking about it and invested her hopes in someone else's dream. Now it's her chance to invest in herself. Can she step out on faith to follow her own dream?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 6, 2009
    ISBN9781423362043
    What Doesn't Kill You
    Author

    Virginia DeBerry

    Virginia DeBerry is a bestselling, award-winning author. With her co-writer Donna Grant, she is the author of Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, which won the Merit Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Blackboard Bestseller List. They are also the authors of Far From the Tree and Better Than I Know Myself, both Essence bestsellers. A graduate of SUNY at Buffalo, Virginia worked for 10 years as a high school English teacher in Buffalo, before moving to New York to start a successful career as a plus size model. She met Donna while they were both working as models, and what should have been a rivalry ended up as a decades-long friendship. Virginia lives in New Jersey.

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    Reviews for What Doesn't Kill You

    4/5

    132 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Absolutely love the story and the way in which it is told. Thank you.
    • 4/5
      In this book we are first introduced to the main character Tee the morning after her daughter's wedding in the bed of the best man. She has paid a lot for the wedding and we find out at the end of the first chapter that she has lost her long time job the previous week. She has to cut back on her free spending ways and learns the hard way that she needs to learn how to save money. We see her through her job search and her personal downsizing. Through this time of trial she discovers who her true friends are. This story can ring true with many people today no matter what their age, sex, or race.
    • 4/5
      This was a really cute book and I really like the characters in it. It starts out with Tee being at her daughter's wedding. She has way too much champagne and finds herself the next morning in bed with the best man, the groom’s cousin. We learn that Tee was with a company and spent twenty years there and the founder of the company, Olivia dies. Soon thereafter, Olivia’s daughter takes over and Tee is without a job. Tee then has to file for unemployment. It seems that it is one thing after another and she goes on a cruise that she had booked when she had a job. Her former husband who she would have brief flings with ends up getting engaged and with her daughter gone, she is in a bad place. Tee is spiraled into a very bad economic crunch and is constantly harassed by bill collectors. Finally she lands a job at Derma-Teq, but by then her financial damage is already done. Through these experiences, she becomes stronger and the reader can see her transformation. It took going thru hell to make her into the person she is today. Each event helped shape her into a more focused and driven person, even starting her own business. I liked this book so much that I want to get the authors upcoming book as well.
    • 5/5
      Great book! Very well written and such great story lines!
    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My desire when reading fiction is to be entertained and receive a message. This book is so relevant in the current economy as so many people are facing what Tee faces. I felt refreshed when I finished...and encouraged.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this story situations like real life. Kept my interest. Not boring at all.
    • 4/5
      New characters to get acquainted with, but Johansen pulls it off. For suspense/thriller fans, this one will keep you turing the pages.
    • 4/5
      At once both hilarious and sobering, What Doesn't Kill You has definitely made me take a look at my own problems through a different lense. Through Tee's longstanding feud with Murphy and the small, subtle gestures of true friendship from unexpected sources, this is a profound look at how an indepentdent woman can get so caught up in her own pride that she inevitably stumbles...all over the place. I love her journey through denial to realization and then finally getting proactive (in retrospect) about her finances. And her runaround with Ron is sweet in a just-grow-up-and-admit-you-like-him sort of way. In all, a book I plan to read again and again, every time I start to take my finances for granted.
    • 5/5
      Another great Iris Johansen novel. I learned more about Catherine Ling, CIA agent, former street kid from Hong Kong, and devoted mother to Luke. She is tough, smart, and deadly. I also got to meet the enigmatic Hu Chang, master apothecary of Chinese medicine and manipulator, and Catherine's true friend. The story centers around a deadly undetectable poison created by Hu Chang. A vial of the poison has ended up in the hands of a ruthless, power-hungry criminal who wants not only more of the poison but also the formula. He will not stop at anything to get to Hu Chang or anyone who is close to him. I loved the twists and turns in the plot, the tension between the characters, and the ending.
    • 3/5
      Catherine Ling is a CIA operative who has just returned from a mission but gets a call that her friend and mentor, Hu Chang needs her help. Actually the CIA wants to use Catherine to draw Chang out in the open so they can either catch him or kill him. Chang has created a poison that leaves no trace, which of course someone wants to use to kill somebody Important. This is a fast-paced story even though it has a lot of background information about how Catherine and Chang meet. Enjoyable read and has made me want to read the previous book that included some background about Catherine's son's rescue.
    • 4/5
      Pretty good, I really enjoy Hu Chang.
    • 5/5
      This is her most recent book, the paperback published Oct 2012. Riveting suspenseful, keeping you wanting to see what happens next. True to all her books, a strong female character with a villainess' foe. Excellent read.
    • 3/5
      I somehow missed the release of this book so I was glad when I stumbled across it in my Internet wanderings through the book world. I loved Catherine Ling when we first met her in Chasing the Night and then when we meet John Gallo in the Eve Duncan trilogy about Bonnie I became fascinated by the undeniable attraction between Catherine and John. When I read this book was focusing on Catherine and that John Gallo was back I was over the moon!Sadly I ended up with mixed feelings when I finished this book...See my full review at Debbie's World of Books
    • 4/5
      Once I got used to the characters in this one I couldn't put the book down. What took me a while was that the main characters - Catherine Ling and Hu Chang - both had sort of strange reactions. I almost had a feeling that they were autistic because of the lack of emotion. Catherine had been on her own in Hong Kong since she was a young child. Her mother was a prostitute who died when Catherine was only four. Another prostitute took her in but there didn't seem to be any emotional attachment. Catherine learned to survive on the shady side of Hong Kong by selling information to anyone who would pay her. When she is fourteen she meets Hu Chang who is an apothecary and doctor of Chinese medicine who is clearly a genius but who also has an odd way of thinking. He determines that the two of them will be friends and he guides her to work with the CIA. He has some interesting morals as he creates and sells poisons among other sorts of potions. Years pass, Catherine joins the CIA, marries, has a child who is kidnapped by a monster when he is two, and has now recovered her eleven year old son. Her son Luke is another character who is extremely bright but has no concept of emotions or attachment. Catherine is determined to protect him and is gradually forging a relationship with him. She gets a call from her CIA boss to tell her that he needs her in Hong Kong again because Hu Chang has created a potion that has made him the target of an extreme villain named Nardik who will do anything to get the potion from Hu Chang.Catherine goes to protect her friend and asks her CIA boss to find someone who knows Mardik. Enter Gallo. Gallo and Catherine have met before and both been attracted to each other. Catherine isn't going to let any possible emotion sidetrack her from her quest and Gallo has his work cut out for him to try to find a place to fit into her life. The most intriguing character in this one is Hu Chang. He is the one who precipitates the actions through his various manipulations. Catherine is often torn between wanting to kill him herself and wanting to protect him. One thing is certain though, Hu Chang always has what he sees as Catherine's best interests in mind as he manipulates those around him. While she loves him, Catherine doesn't agree with many of his choices. There was lots of tension in this one and lots of suspense as Catherine, Gallo, and Hu Chang have to find out who Mardik's intended victim is and to save him. There are chase scenes, kidnapping, fires and other exciting events in this one. I found this one a satisfying way to spend a few hours. It does make me want to look for the other books in which Catherine appears and see her again now that I know her better.
    • 4/5
      Catherine Ling needs help, it seems her long time friend and once mentor Hu Chang has gotten himself into a heap of trouble and in the sights of some very bad characters, but it’s who the CIA sends to help her that’s not sitting too well. John Gallo is the one man she can’t seem to forget ever since they met on the case involving his and Eve Duncan’s daughter.John Gallo knows what he wants but Catherine is an enigma and he knows he can’t push her or she’ll run and he only wants her running towards him not away. He also knows that the relationship between she and Hu Chang is complicated and he’s not sure where they all stand. Right now they must focus on getting Hu Chang out of harms way and keeping his potentially Pandora’s box of a potion out of the wrong hands before they can even start to explore the attraction and sexual pull they have towards each other.Iris Johansen has thrilled fans for decades and this fan was indeed thrilled by this her newest release. In her previous trilogy she formed the sexual tension between her characters John Gallo and Catherine Ling and in this one she increases that tension by putting them in yet another impossible situation and inventing a plot that encases the aspects of a thriller and mystery mixed with romantic tendencies. Her characters are as usual over the top and yet she gives them humanity, humbleness and vulnerability, her villains are as nasty as can be and her supporting characters are just as important as her stars, you’ve noted I didn’t say hero and heroine because there seem to be multiple heroes and as she sometimes does I was left with more questions than answers regarding where these characters are heading next. The action is non-stop, edge of your seat and always imaginative and the narrative flows beautifully.If you’re a fan of Ms. Johansen you will not be disappointed, if you’ve never read her (you must live under a rock) and you like your thrillers mixed with a bit of romance this is your read.Ms Johansen wherever you take these characters I will follow as I look forward to their next impossible mission.