February Round Up

Moonlight Becomes You by Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea – C  Particularly having read the prequel vignettes first, I was impatient to find out what had happened to Shane and Jesse and it took quite a bit of the book for me to find out.  Jesse is no longer in Luck at the start of this book, which begins some 10ish years after the events of More Than Moonlight.  Shane made promises to Jesse then which he seems to have broken quite spectacularly.  Luck are invited on a tour with Moonlight, the mysterious Kayden Berlin’s band.  As I read, I remembered reading a review of it from about the time the book was released and the plot came back to me.  There’s no prizes for guessing who Kayden really is.  I liked the writing style and the characters well enough but the plot was kind of silly and hard to believe and I thought some of the dialogue, especially toward the end sounded a bit mushy for badass-rocker-type guys.  I’m interested in reading more of the series (all on my TBR), but One Small Thing was much better, in my opinion.

Bodyguard by Suzanne Brockmann, narrated by Carrington MacDuffie – B  The book was originally released in December 1999 – who knew leggings would make a comeback by now?  It is somewhat dated – $1 million isn’t worth as much now as it was then (cue Dr. Evil music).  I read the book a few years ago and I remember it fondly as one of my top 2 Brockmanns (the other one being Heart Throb).  Would it stand up on a return visit?  Would the audio version work for me?  MacDuffie is a very experienced narrator but it was the first time I’d listened to her work.  She reminded me quite a bit of Anna Fields actually.  Her male voices were distinguishable but not terribly low in pitch, her tones crisp and clear and her expression very good.  Harry O’Dell is an FBI agent – think a cross between Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon characters and John McClane – in my head he looks like Bruce Willis even though Harry has messy hair.   Honestly, this book has one of the best ever opening scenes.   I remember wanting to see a movie of this book when I first read it.  I still do.  (although, updated a bit please).

Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs, narrated by Holter Graham – A+  I have been waiting for this novella to be released on audio for so long. It really is an essential part of the story – more like the first few chapters to Cry Wolf really.  I don’t think Cry Wolf can be fully appreciated without having devoured Alpha and Omega first.  Up until very recently though, if you wanted audio, you missed out.  Holter Graham is such an excellent narrator.  His voice for Anna is the closest thing to female I’ve heard from a male narrator in a very long time, possibly ever.  And his Charles voice.  Perfection.  Mr. Graham changed his Charles voice a bit in Hunting Ground (which I was disappointed about quite frankly) but, to my ear, he went back to the original Charles voice for this – which is entirely right as Alpha and Omega precedes Cry Wolf and Cry Wolf follows on immediately (and I do mean immediately) after – so to change his voice in between would have been very jarring indeed.  At least some time had passed between Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground.  I love this series and the narration and the writing are a match made in audiobook heaven in my opinion. Briefly, the story is this:  Anna is a werewolf being abused by her pack. Charles is sent by his father the Marrok to investigate strange goings on in the pack and is asked to protect Anna while he’s at it.   Just excellent.