Hole in the Woods, Jennifer Graeser Dornbush
Hole in the Woods, Jennifer Graeser Dornbush
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Hole in the Woods

Author: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

Narrator: Marni Penning, Byron Wagner, Elise Randall, Timothy Howard Jackson, Lauren Ezzo, various narrators

Unabridged: 9 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/07/2022


Synopsis

July 1989, in a sleepy Michigan town, high school grad Nina Laramie heads out with her friends and is never seen alive again. Months later, her skeleton is found near a remote party spot in the forest.The ME determines Nina has been brutally raped and bludgeoned to death. Fear and anger ripple through this tight-knit community when the case goes cold.Thirty years later, Riley St. James, a Detroit PD assigned to Nina’s case, is determined to get her first big cold case win despite having a similar past to the victim. Relying on her investigative prowess and gut instinct, Riley tracks down a witness, who saw Nina Laramie’s murder. But as the truth comes to light, Riley must face the killers who want their secret to stay in the Hole in the Woods.Based on the 1989 true-life murder case of Shannon Siders of Newaygo County, Michigan. After the case went dormant, a Michigan cold case team formed in 2011 and uncovered new evidence that enabled them to arrest, try, and convict the killers, who were sent to prison for Shannon’s murder in 2015.

About Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

Jennifer Graeser Dornbush works as a screenwriter, author, speaker, and forensic specialist. She has developed film and TV projects, is the author of numerous books, and frequently speaks around the world on crime fiction and forensics. She and her family divide their time between Upper Michigan and Arizona.

About Marni Penning

Marni Penning is a classically trained, award-winning stage and film actress who has performed in fifty-four productions of twenty-three of Shakespeare's plays to date. On the small screen, you may have caught her appearances on Guiding Light, All My Children, Law & Order: SVU, Saturday Night Live, or The Sopranos. Marni has been a voice-over artist for many years and was a disc jockey in college; she studied voice-over for animation with the legendary Pat Fraley, so her specialty is character voices and complex accents. Marni got into narration through the Library of Congress Books for the Blind program, and has appeared in over 100 large-cast recordings for Graphic Audio. Her warm, rich, inviting voice adapts equally well to cozy mysteries, sci-fi thrillers, YA fantasy, and quirky romances. She lives just outside Washington, DC, with her husband, son, dog, fish, and chickens.

About Byron Wagner

Byron Wagner is an audiobook narrator and voiceover artist based in Los Angeles. He began his career in entertainment at age eight, performing as a magician and ventriloquist for children’s parties, then graduated to theater, radio, TV, and film. After living in the UK for several years, his continuing love of acting and reading have happily led him back to the other side of the studio glass, doing voice acting and narrating, directing, and producing audiobooks.

About Elise Randall

Elise Randall Modica is a professional voice actor. Trained at The Theater School at DePaul, she narrates audiobooks, acts in television commercials, and records podcast ads, meditation tracks, and more. An indigenous artist with an in-home recording studio, she lives in Chicago.

About Timothy Howard Jackson

Rich. Robust. Rugged. Smooth as the velvet night sky, gritty as the mean streets . . . Timothy Howard Jackson has had a strong interest in creative pursuits all his life in areas such as theater, choir, orchestra, and dance. That said, his original career was in the tech sector for twenty years. When he realized that he really needed to be creative again, he found his outlet in audiobooks. He traded a keyboard for a microphone, and he now works full-time as an audiobook narrator at the foot of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains in Utah. He possesses a rich, robust, rugged voice that lends credibility and interest to all types of materials. Recording sci-fi, mysteries, thrillers, and edgy nonfiction under his name and romance under a pseudonym, he has completed ninety-five books and counting.

About Lauren Ezzo

Lauren Ezzo is a Chicago-based audiobook narrator and commercial voice talent. A Michigan native and Hope College alumna, at this writing she has narrated over 100 titles for authors including Catherine Ryan Hyde, Georgia Clark, Adam Rapp, M. Dressler, Christopher Rice, Kirk Lynn, Lauren James, and Dot Hutchison. She has won multiple awards for her narration, including several "Best of the Year" lists, and several Earphones Awards. In 2016, her performance of The Light Fantastic, by Sarah Combs, conarrated with Todd Haberkorn, was named one of AudioFile's best books of the year. She was accorded the same honor in 2017 from School Library Journal for her narration of To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party. In 2018, she was Audie Award-nominated as part of a full cast of narrators for Best Original Work, Nevertheless We Persisted, performing two pieces-one of which she authored. She is a proud member of the Audio Publishers Association, and a lifelong bookworm.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Crookedhouseofbooks on July 28, 2020

This is such a hauntingly beautiful story. Listed as true crime but so much more. The story centers around a tragic murder of a young girl in a small town. Her death goes unsolved for decades until a woman who is fighting her own demons is handed the cold case file. What she uncovers are not only lon......more

Goodreads review by Steve on April 11, 2021

Hole in the Woods is a fictionalized account of the real-life murder of Shannon Siders, an 18-year-old from Michigan who was attacked and killed by two brothers in 1989. The case went unsolved for 25 years. Author and Forensic Specialist Jennifer Graeser Dornbush changes names (Siders is "Nina Larami......more

Goodreads review by Patricia on October 20, 2020

A Hole in the Woods gripped me from the beginning. Jennifer Graeser Dornbush took the facts from the real case of Shannon Siders and wrote a book that stayed true to the investigation. I could not put it down. While it is gritty, Dornbush draws you into this haunting tale and gives a satisfying endi......more

Goodreads review by Gail on August 26, 2020

If you want to read a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat, this is the book for you. I liked the way that Jennifer took the true story of "Shannon Siders" and turned it into the fictionalized version of the story. The story will hold your interest so that you will not want to put th......more

Goodreads review by Emily on January 29, 2025

I think that this is a hauntingly beautiful retelling of a tragic story, that affected so many lives. Was it my personal preferred genre? No. Did I read it and finish it because it was a book club choice? Yes. Did I enjoy it in the end? Absolutely! 4 stars for me because I felt that the fictional as......more


Quotes

“Rife with suspense, Hole in the Woods will keep you guessing until the end. An engrossing must-read for fans of the crime genre that will chill readers to the bone.” Tosca Lee, multi-award-winning New York Times bestselling author

“Hole in the Woods is powerful, painful, and completely compelling. I loved it.” Ellen Byron, Agatha Award–winning and USA Today bestselling author

“Hole in the Woods is a gut-wrenching, physical force.” Don Bruns, USA TODAY bestselling author

“A haunting and gritty tale of a real cold case murder that is sure to keep you up at night.” Patricia Bradley, winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice Award