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    Hell or High Water
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    Hell or High Water
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    Hell or High Water
    Audiobook12 hours

    Hell or High Water

    Written by Joy Castro

    Narrated by Roxanne Hernandez

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Nola Cespedes, an ambitious young reporter at the Times-Picayune, finally catches a break: an assignment to write her first full-length feature. While investigating her story, she also becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in the French Quarter. As Nola's work leads her into a violent criminal underworld, she's forced to face disturbing truths from her own past. Vividly rendered in razor-sharp prose, this haunting thriller is a riveting journey of trust betrayed - and the courageous struggle to rebuild. Fast-paced, atmospheric, and with a knockout twist, Joy Castro's Hell or High Water features an unforgettable heroine as fascinating and multi-layered as New Orleans itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateJul 17, 2012
    ISBN9781611208887
    Unavailable
    Hell or High Water
    Author

    Joy Castro

    Joy Castro is the award-winning author of the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thrillers Hell or High Water, which received the Nebraska Book Award, and Nearer Home; the story collection How Winter Began; the memoir The Truth Book; and the essay collection Island of Bones, which received the International Latino Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology Family Trouble and served as the guest judge of CRAFT’s first Creative Nonfiction Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Senses of Cinema, Salon, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, and elsewhere. A former writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University, she is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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    Reviews for Hell or High Water

    4/5

    6 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      From Lilac Wolf and StuffVery well written and edited. I read this book without even one hiccup. Well except for the short people who had to smack my arm to get my attention. I stayed up so late last night because I wanted to finish it, not because I had to.The main character, Nola felt like a soul sister. She had a few friends but everyone was kept at a distance. They did all appreciate that she could keep a secret. Considering she is a journalist, that's an amazing skill!She loves the written word and doesn't like a lot of fluff language. That's the reason I suck at writing business correspondence. They LOVE fluff. I just want to get to the point and get out of there.The story keeps you guessing all the way through. I wish I could tell you more but I can't. I can only say that it's a roller coaster ride. It's listed as a thriller, but I wasn't so much afraid for Nola as worried about her sanity. When the author described Nola's descent into depression, it felt familiar.There is the thriller element, but it's also highly political. Highlighting not only the vast chasm that exists between whites and non-whites and the poor and wealthy. When speaking to the disparity between the races with regard to jail time, the old lady who used to watch Nola said, "In this world, baby girl, there's no such thing as justice. You got to make your own."When she starts interviewing people about the sex offender registry she finds a sickening disparity. Wealthy mothers are educated about the registry, and work like hawks to protect their children. The mothers from the 9th ward, have never heard of the registry and don't have computers anyway. Plus they treat sexual abuse as a reality, and while they won't tolerate it they also feel their daughters need to learn to protect themselves. (I don't think either is particularly healthy.)I will give only one warning. If you've ever been sexually abused, this might be a difficult story. There's nothing too graphic, but the feelings and realities in this story are hauntingly familiar. It could easily pull some triggers.
    • 4/5
      Very good. New Orleans, post Katrina is the setting. Main character is a news paper reporter who wants to be writing the news not fluff. The book hurts, the details raw. I knew I did not like the MC and pretty much had figured out her story but the ending was more than I anticipated. I wonder if this could be a series? Should be interesting to follow this author.
    • 1/5
      So the second time is not the charm with this book. In fact, I was more turned off by this book this time then I was the first time. The first time just like this time I was not intrigued by the characters or the storyline. Yet, this time I actually was comprehending what was happening in the story so I was able to focus on the words being said. All of the language with the "f" word I felt was un-needed. Which I am not a prude about language but only when it is required as part of the story. Ok, in a way it was as it showed how some of the inmates in prison felt about child molesters. However I still felt the story was going no where with just a lot of talking as a filler. After trying again with this book and only getting to chapter 8 I was not interested in figuring out who Nola Cespesdes is.
    • 4/5
      The book jacket promises: A gripping, rich psychological thriller set in post-Katrina New Orleans that introduces an intense and spellbinding protagonist.

      Allowing for the usual hyperbole, this isn’t too far off the mark. Nola Cespedes is a reporter at the Times-Picayune, trying hard to get off the “lifestyle” page and onto the city desk. Finally, she gets the chance – when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans many formerly registered sex offenders were evacuated and no one kept track of their locations. Sure, some have re-registered, but many have “gone off the grid.” As she begins to research the story, the city’s attention is captured by a new disappearance – a young tourist has been kidnapped in broad daylight from a popular French Quarter eatery.

      There were several things I liked about this thriller. I liked that Nola is a pretty strong female lead; she tackles her work (mostly) like a responsible adult, and she has a good network of girlfriends to hang with. I liked also that she maintained contact with her mother, though she seemed to resent their weekly church-going, and that she was trying to be a good “big sister” to Marisol. I liked the pace that Castro set for this novel, although some of the sidebars giving background information on politics, or the Cajuns, or environmental issues did slow the action. Still these elements also enhanced the sense of place. (I definitely felt the torpidity of a New Orleans’ hot humid day; I think my hair even frizzed just reading about the weather!)

      I wasn’t so happy with Nola’s bad behavior and risk-taking. Although I do appreciate that Castro was showing us her underlying psychological issues rather than simply telling us about them. Still, there were sections where Nola seemed far too damaged to be able to hold it together at all. I wondered why the three girlfriends all had to be from upper-middle class families, with no financial worries. Then again, hanging with these girls may be another way for Nola to hide her own background.

      There were several loose threads at the end, leaving me wondering but hopeful. I’d certainly be willing to give another book a try.
    • 4/5
      In "Hell or High Water", Nola is a reporter for the city's big newspaper. But Nola (New Orleans, LA - get it?) is a bit of a foul-up to put it nicely, socially, sexually, and professionally. The story starts with the abduction of a young woman from a restaurant; her body is found several days later in the river, raped and mutilated, the third such victim in recent times. Sounds like a good beginning for a crime fiction story, but then the book becomes a bit of a travelogue, a rather good one by the way. The reader learns a ton of interesting stuff about NOLA's history, architecture, food, neighborhoods, Katrina etc. I found myself putting the book down several times and running to Google Maps. Maybe a bit too many times. Back to the crime story. Well Nola gets assigned to do a major piece on the city's sex offenders, and she begins to interview psychologists, ex-cons, neighborhood Moms.....but then the story diverts to Nola's rather lurid sex life, a series of one night stands (literally) with total strangers, often with guys who have just finished participating in a local soccer match, and in one she is braced against a dumpster in an alley (who says romance is dead). Well back to the story.....Nola buys a gun then Nola becomes a Big Sister then Nola gets chewed out for mishandling another assignment, then Nola tells us that "papaya" is Cuban slang for a certain part of the female anatomy but we all know that because Mitt Romney innocently used the word in a recent interview with resulting snickers from some of the crowd. And one of her girl friends is getting married and she discovers something shocking about her mother, and new bf Bento goes to the wedding. Whew! Well, the book is good but tries to do way too much. But I will read Joy Castro's next one. I don't think this will be a series but who knows, the only place Nola didn't take us in this book was the Saints' locker room.
    • 4/5
      Some scars never heal, but not all. Some will start to heal when forced. That's the theme of author Joy Castro's well-written and provocative new thriller, "Hell or High Water." This dark novel is set in New Orleans in 2008, three years after Katrina savaged the city and everyone in it. It's a tale of self-discovery and redemption centering on New Orleans Times-Picayune style section reporter Nola Cespedes. Nola is a fiercely independent young woman, armed to the teeth with a Tulane journalism degree but not quite sure how to use it. She has a deep understanding of her hometown wrought from being raised nights in its dangerous Desire Projects by her single mother (a refugee from Fidel Castro's Cuba), while spending her childhood days in an expensive private Catholic school in the French Quarter courtesy of an educational grant. Grown up and longing to leave New Orleans for the seemingly brighter pastures of Manhattan and The New York Times, Nola is ecstatic when she lands an important assignment to write her first full-length feature --- a piece on what happened to New Orleans's sexual predators and their victims in Katrina's disastrous aftermath. Done well, the story could be her golden ticket out of New Orleans. But first she must complete her research and writing about rapacious monsters haunting the wounded city while a female tourist ominously disappears from the French Quarter in broadest daylight. In an increasingly desperate struggle against New Orleans' devils, and her own, Nola battles to unearth stories that have no desire to be pried from their grim hideaways.
    • 5/5
      Nola Céspedes wants a real story to work on, not the society fluff that her editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayunens keeps giving her. Problem is she sometimes can’t rein her temper in. Even when handed a great story, a feature about sex offenders now off the grid because of all the dislocations after Hurricane Katrina, Nola initially back talks and tells her boss it’s not real news. She changes her mind and throughout the book she is putting her first serious piece of journalism together, interviewing offenders, victims, and professionals to create a wide-ranging article she hopes will be her ticket out.In spite of her occasional temper Nola is a warm and very appealing first person narrator with a unique perspective on the city she both loves and hates. Nola’s mother escaped Cuba and followed a man from Miami to New Orleans only to have him leave when she got pregnant. New Orleans doesn’t have much of a Cuban American community and being poor Nola grew up in its projects. With her job at the paper Nola can now afford to live in a nicer part of the city, but she often can’t relate to the lives of her wealthy girlfriends and, ironically considering the story she is writing, she engages in some very risky sexual activity. Though she’s a straight talker, Nola still has secrets. Lots of information about New Orleans and Sex Crimes is woven almost (but not quite) seamlessly into the narrative, and the lively colors, flavors and sounds of New Orleans are so vividly described the city practically vibrates to life on the page. The story is fascinating and suspenseful, with a twist at the end I didn’t see coming. A couldn't put it down book.