The First Time I Saw Him (Hannah Hall #2) by Laura Dave

 I was looking for a pulse-pounding follow-up to the first book (The Last Thing He Told Me) but that wasn’t what I got with this sequel. In the end, it was a yawner. 

It’s been a little over five years since Owen, Hannah’s husband and Bailey’s father, went on the run from the mob determined to punish him for turning them in. They’ve not seen or heard from him in all that time after settling in California where Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey (now a college graduate) have relaxed a bit and even formed a wary relationship with Bailey’s grandfather, Nicholas Bell, the former lawyer to the syndicate that Owen outed. 

Now, however, Owen suddenly reappears and gives Hannah a signal that informs her that the deal Nicholas made to keep them safe has collapsed. When they hear that Nicholas has died, they realize that the crime family is coming after them and they need to go on the run —again. 

Well, that should have been exciting and action packed with a lot of skillful maneuvers and contingency plans to evade capture and harm. It wasn’t. There was a huge amount of backstory explaining all the things that happened to bring them to this point and tons of characters. Hannah spent way too much of the book waxing philosophical about family and love and protection. Always reminding us what a great relationship she and her stepdaughter have. And how smart and clever she is to be taking on this protective role for Owen’s daughter. Their travel and evasion efforts sometimes were almost laughable, as when they leave a taxi after arriving at a hotel only to be running down the streets and in and out of shops. Umm where’s all your baggage including that laptop? Anyway, it was actually rather boring. I didn’t feel engaged nor did I really care about the characters except for Nicholas who actually seemed like the only one who understood this whole sorry mess and his responsibility for it. It wasn’t suspenseful. Ultimately, I was just disappointed but glad it’s over.

I was able to listen to the audiobook I obtained from my local library while also following along in the e-book ARC that was provided by the publisher. I’d like to say that the production enhanced my enjoyment of the book, but that wouldn’t be true. Despite a full cast of narrators, the voice of Rebecca Lowman was jarring. She sounded old and tired, not like a 43-year-old Hannah should be. The other narrators did OK with their speaking parts but since Hannah was the main character, even those changes in point of view didn’t help that much. Give it a pass.

This was the follow-up sequel to The Last Thing He Told Me (which was a better book). Definitely read it first.

Genre and tags: mob, on the run, family, thriller