Category: audiobooks (Page 6 of 93)

Falling by TJ Newman, narrated by Steven Weber

April 19, 2023 / Kaetrin

Not a romance but a ripping thriller which is basically an elaborate trolley problem with someone who really does not want to play the game.

I picked up Falling after a promo video by the author about her next book (Drowning – not yet released) was retweeted into my Twitter feed. I clicked, listened, was intrigued and then went and looked up both books. Falling is apparently being made into a movie and I think it will be a cracker.

The set up is fairly simple: Bill Hoffman is a commercial airline pilot. After he settles into the cockpit for a fairly routine flight, he receives a message from his wife’s phone. His wife, Carrie, 10-year-old son and infant daughter are being held hostage. He has a simple choice to make: crash the plane and his family will live. Don’t crash the plane and the terrorist will detonate the suicide-bomber vest Carrie has been forced to wear and Bill’s family dies. Of course, he’s forbidden from telling anyone – or his family dies. Bill is also told he has to slip an unknown, but fatal, powder into the co-pilot’s drink and release a deadly gas (specific chemical unknown but I inferred Sarin or similar) into the plane’s cabin at a specified time during the flight. There is a “Plan B” on the plane – someone assisting the terrorist who will make sure that the gas is released if Bill doesn’t do it.

Bill has about 6 hours of flight time to come up with a plan to save the plane and his family. All while knowing that an unknown someone else on the plane is actively working against him.

There is POV from Bill, his wife Carrie, a flight attendant and an FBI agent, as well as brief cameo POVs from both terrorists.

I didn’t love the way the book began. Bill has a graphic nightmare about a plane crash. It doesn’t really relate to the rest of the book and it was a pretty gory way to start. Then, when each character is introduced, they have a flashback to something important in their life, a memory which is relevant and pivotal. Only, it was at first difficult to tell that’s what was going on and even when I did work it out, it felt more like an interruption to the story rather than helpful information.

However, after that first chapter, once Bill got on the plane, things took a turn for the better (bookwise – not so much for Bill!). The device of the flashback was used throughout the book but after the initial rush, the introduction of characters was more tempered and so the whole thing was less jarring.

I won’t give away spoilers as to what happens. Once Bill understands that his family are in jeopardy the action is pretty much nonstop from there, with twists and turns as the story works itself out. It’s easy to see how it could be a movie.

There’s perhaps a pinch of romance in the book but it’s not a romance novel. I can’t even say it has a romantic thread. Bill and Carrie love each other and are generally happy together. The morning of the fateful flight they are at odds because Bill is working instead of spending agreed time with his family. But it’s clear the couple are devoted to one another.

I liked the various characters and the tension kept me on the edge of my metaphorical seat throughout the listen. In fact, I raced through the audio because I wanted to know what happened!

I also liked that the author humanised the terrorists and showed that, while what they were doing was wrong and bad, they had reason to feel abandoned and despairing. Why Bill and not someone else, was never really satisfactorily answered. I suspect there are other things in the story which don’t quite hold up when viewed carefully. But the pace of the audiobook didn’t really lend itself to that kind of introspection.

The narration, by Steven Weber, was very good. He’s an experienced narrator, good with character voices and accents, and well able to differentiate age with his voice also. He didn’t overplay the performance, letting the text do the work and not falling into melodrama. There was emotion and tension in his delivery which fit the novel and worked well with the story.

I have already pre-ordered Drowning. And, I expect I’ll see the film of Falling when it comes out too, even though I know how it ends already.

Narration: B+

Book Content: B+

Steam Level: 0

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Hard Job by Annabeth Albert, narrated by Kirt Graves

April 12, 2023 / Kaetrin

Hard Job by Annabeth Albert, narrated by Kirt Graves. Enjoyable but not my favourite.

Hard Job is the second book in Annabeth Albert’s A-List Security series. This time, Duncan Lubov finds his HEA with rock star Ezra Moon.

The first book in the series, Rocky Start, Duncan’s younger brother, Danny, ended up with Duncan’s good friend and contemporary, Cash. It was a best friend’s younger brother, with a bit of age gap story. This time it’s younger brother’s best friend (Ezra is Danny’s BFF) and age gap.

There were enough similarities to the storyline that some of the conflict felt forced to me. For instance, why would Danny react badly to finding out Duncan and Ezra are together? He didn’t like it much when Duncan reacted badly to him being with Cash – but then he did the same thing!

Duncan owns A-List Security and is trying to grow the business. He is the son of a famous and notorious movie producer/director who has had multiple marriages and scandals. Duncan wants nothing to do with dear old dad and actively tries to avoid trading on the Lubov name.

Ezra and Danny used to be a on a TV show called “Geek Chorus” – I imagine it to be something like Glee – and have remained friends. Ezra went on to become a successful rock star with his band We Wear Crowns but he’s in trouble with his record label after an incident where a fan was injured at a concert. Ezra is in need of new security and does not wish the record label to choose who that is. Danny persuades Duncan to do the job personally.

Duncan ends up joining the We Wear Crowns tour and is therefore in close proximity to Ezra. Each has secretly been attracted to the other for some time and Duncan is a closet Crowns fan. Duncan doesn’t believe in love and relationships, having seen the example of his father and is generally a reticent type of guy. Ezra grew up with loving and supportive parents and is extroverted and open.

After some initial differences, Duncan and Ezra give in to their attraction. Duncan does not want to get a reputation for sleeping with his clients and does not think there can be anything long term for them anyway, so they keep it a secret.

Over the course of the remainder of the tour though, their feelings deepen and grow. But Duncan is stuck on what people will think if he’s in a relationship with Ezra. Ezra is hurt that Duncan puts his business and rep over their happiness.

I admit I was a little lacking in sympathy for Duncan here. I didn’t quite see how it was a big deal for him to be in a relationship with Ezra. In fact, I thought it was better that it was an actual relationship rather than just having a fling.

Duncan and Ezra were both likeable enough but there wasn’t anything in the story which truly grabbed me. It was enjoyable enough but it didn’t wow me.

Kirt Graves’ narration was good but there were a few vocal errors and a couple of instances of unusual (to me at least) pronunciation. Also, and maybe this is just me, but it sounded like Mr. Graves spoke with this jaw clenched sometimes and that was not my favourite. I found it easy to tell when Ezra or Duncan was speaking – the character voices were well differentiated – and the emotion and pacing was fine too. Like the story, the narration was enjoyable but not a standout.

Grade: B-

The Wrong Bridesmaid by Lauren Landish, narrated by Teddy Hamilton & CJ Bloom

March 7, 2023 / Kaetrin

The Wrong Bridesmaid by Lauren Landish, narrated by Teddy Hamilton & CJ Bloom. It was okay.

Wyatt Ford returns to the small town of Cold Springs for his brother’s wedding. His brother, Winston, said please. That’s the only reason Wyatt deigned to return after leaving town after dropping out of college. He wanted to get away from the Ford family influence and make his own way in life. But Hazel Sullivan, BFF of the bride (Avery) has Wyatt rethinking his plans in The Wrong Bridesmaid.

A large portion of the town of Cold Springs regards the Ford name as an epithet nowadays. Wyatt’s father, Bill, the mayor is no longer popular. He has spent too much time and effort in supporting his brother Jed, a developer who wants to make a lot of money and doesn’t much care who he hurts while he does it. Jed’s latest scheme will see families turned off their farms to make way for a new housing development and there is a significant protest movement about it.

Wyatt has no idea of course but he walks smack bang into the middle of the controversy when he comes back to town. Hazel and her family are solidly team no development and, to add to the angst, Hazel’s beloved Aunt Etta is #NotOverIt about her breakup with Jed decades before when they were engaged and he cheated on her with her best friend.

You’d think then that there would be more resistance to a relationship between Wyatt and Hazel but such resistance as there is is over fairly quickly. Wyatt proves himself to be no friend of Jed’s and he’s clearly his own man.

The attraction between Hazel and Wyatt is off the charts so after a bit of dancing around one another, they can’t help but give in.

The conflict then becomes mostly about the development and the upcoming town council meeting which will vote on rezoning to make way for Jed’s housing estate and just a little bit about whether Wyatt will be leaving town to return to his bespoke carpentry business. (Apparently Wyatt can just leave his business for weeks on end and this isn’t a problem.)

The romance is fairly low conflict once it gets going which I liked but the story itself was fairly generic. Nothing offensive or bad, but nothing particularly new or fresh either.

The narration was better than the story but that’s to be expected with performers the calibre of Teddy Hamilton and CJ Bloom. Both are very experienced and talented, with a good range of accents and character voices, great timing and tone. But even as good as they were, I still found myself interrupting the listen for other things – podcasts or music – because the story wasn’t holding my interest.

I can’t complain about the narration – there was nothing wrong with it. The performances were very strong. But the story’s path felt well-trodden and a little tired.

I did like that Hazel was something of an unusual character; confident, sex positive, tough and self-sufficient and a shark at pool. But overall, The Wrong Bridesmaid was just okay for me.

Grade: C

Ex Appeal by Cathy Yardley, narrated by Jenapher Zheng and David Lee Huynh

February 9, 2023 / Kaetrin

Ex Appeal by Cathy Yardley, narrated by Jenapher Zheng and David Lee Huynh. Not as successful for me as the previous book in the series and the narration was just okay.

Last year I read book two in Cathy Yardley’s Ponto Beach Reunion series – Gouda Friends – and loved it so I was keen to try book three (I have yet to backtrack to the first book but I’ve heard good things). I decided to try Ex Appeal on audio because why not, right?

The “Nerd Herd” is a group of friends from Ponto Beach California who went to school together and have remained close. Vinh and Tam Doan are twins. Tam’s HEA came with Josh in Gouda Friends. In that book I learned that Vinh had dated Emily MacDonald throughout high school and into college but they had split up very acrimoniously. Vinh had stayed in New York after college and worked in a high powered finance job. Emily returned to Ponto Beach and they had not seen each other since the break up apart from at their 10 year high school reunion. It did not go well.

Emily is an amateur hacker. She came from money but when her father died shortly before she and Vinh broke up, she returned home to find that the family were deeply in debt. Emily has taken on the role of family caretaker. This includes being responsible for the drain that is the money pit of the family home. Emily’s mother is flighty and not terribly competent. She’s never had to be; first her husband looked after her, now it is Emily. Emily’s dream of becoming a professional “white hat” hacker went by the wayside because there was no money to pay for the necessary qualification. Instead she picked up a series of low-paying call centre helpdesk jobs.

While Emily struggled career-wise, Vinh’s star continued to rise. He’s making a lot of money and toeing right up to the ethical line to keep his client’s finances how they like them. He’s been made a vice-president of the company he works for and things are looking good for him. If he’s lonely and isolated, well that’s just his life.

Things take a turn when the book begins, about a year after the 10 year reunion which (I believe) started off the series. One of Vinh’s big accounts is missing $10 million. Only Vinh has access to the account. Suddenly instead of being successful, he’s suspended and accused of stealing. He heads home to Ponto Beach for “Friendsgiving” to lick his wounds and make a plan. In order to prove his innocence and get some payback (hopefully) against whoever hacked his account, Vinh asks Emily for help. He knows, despite everything, that he can trust her.

At first, Emily is not just “no” but “hell, no” but she quickly sees that Vinh is in a world of trouble. She’s soft-hearted. As much as Vinh broke her a decade earlier by splitting up with her and putting his career before their relationship, she cannot stand to see him lose his career and potentially more, when she can help. She’s not above a bit of payback herself while she’s at it though. So she makes a deal with him; she’ll help him discover who hacked his account and stole the money and he has to do whatever she says. And, when it’s all over, he leaves and makes sure they never see one another again.

Vinh and Emily have never stopped loving one another. Vinh had his reasons for breaking up with Emily. Some of them were even good. I liked that neither one of them were perfect and that there was a great deal of nuance about their relationship then, what went wrong and why Vinh did what he did. But Vinh made mistakes nonetheless – neither he nor Emily were completely right or completely wrong.

As Vinh and Emily work together to clear his name, their forced proximity works its magic and they find their old chemistry is even stronger than it was.

Both have grown over the intervening decade and Emily is more open to seeing herself as part of the problem rather than the victim. Vinh is finally willing to tell Emily what really happened.

Still, Vinh is significantly career-driven and is quite single-minded about it. The core conflict harks back to their original breakup – will Vinh finally choose Emily over his career?

The subplot involving Vinh’s work and the trouble he’s in was resolved by a bit of deus ex machina which felt a little bait-and-switchy. On the one hand, it is probably realistic that Emily could not have done everything on her own with the equipment and time constraints she had. On the other, the introduction of a new character whose role it was to solve the problem and nothing else felt way too convenient.

The relationship stuff was more compelling to me and more successful. I was glad that Emily and Vinh met each other halfway and had honest discussions about what they both wanted and what would make them happy.

The narration was okay. There was nothing particularly stellar about it. It was serviceable but not great. Of the pair, I preferred David Lee Huynh’s performance to that of Jenapher Zheng. Ms. Zheng had an uneven pace which did not always work for me. There were times when the flow of the sentence was interrupted which, while not actually changing the meaning of the text, made it a little harder to understand. It was the story rather than the narration which kept me listening. Even so, I did find myself taking some breaks along the way. The audiobook was one I found it easy to put aside. Largely that was due to the narration but there was some contribution from the story as well; it was too long.

I can’t say the narration was bad. But it was just okay for me. It did not particularly add to the story but it did not significantly detract from it either. We have said before at AudioGals that when it comes to audio, it’s all about the narrator/s. What makes me want to listen to a book as opposed to reading it, is all about that narrative performance. For me, I think I’ll be reading the other books in the series rather than listening.

Grade: C

Project Hero by Briar Prescott, narrated by Kirt Graves and Joel Leslie

January 4, 2023 / Kaetrin

Project Hero by Briar Prescott, narrated by Kirt Graves and Joel Leslie. Enjoyable story but it made me feel a little old!

Project Hero is my first Briar Prescott book. I’m starting to wonder if I may have aged out of college-set romance because this book felt a little young to me. Perhaps that was more down to one of the characters himself though – I lack additional data points.

Andy Carter is apparently a neurodivergent college student studying graduate physics. He believes himself to be in love with his best friend, Falcon, ( now that’s a name!) but is firmly in the friendzone. Andy is shy and has very little sexual experience. Andy has few friends and suffers from extreme social anxiety. The idea of “performing” in front of a crowd (this may be anything more than talking to 2 people at once, so “crowd” is doing a bit of work here) terrifies him.

Lawrence “Law” Anderson is also a student at the same college but his passion is hockey. He is the assistant coach for the college hockey team after a medical diagnosis meant he could no longer play. Law wants to coach hockey professionally – something which has put him at odds with his high-achieving and very business-oriented parents.

A number of rookies on the team are flunking physics and are in desperate need of tutoring in order to maintain the necessary GPA so they can continue to play. Law identifies that the best option to keep his guys playing is to convince Andy to tutor them. Andy’s social anxiety is such that this seems unlikely however.

Still, Law is persistent and comes up with a potential solution. In the meantime, Law has cottoned on to Andy’s infatuation with Falcon (a basketball player and “enemy” of Law’s for reasons).

Andy and Falcon and a couple of other guys on the basketball team share an apartment. Andy is staying at the college for the summer as he’s doing some work for his physics professor and Falcon is going home to work in the family business. Andy decides he needs to stop being the “sidekick” and become the “hero” while Falcon is away. Law volunteers to assist Andy with his project in return for Andy tutoring the rookies in physics. In that way, there is something that put me in mind of the set up Elle Kennedy’s The Deal. Project Hero is a very different book however, not least because it is MLM.

Over the course of the summer, Andy finds himself growing closer to Law and vice versa. When Andy learns that Falcon won’t become involved with a virgin and, realising that he’s come to trust Law, he asks Law for “sex lessons”. Law is already in deep with Andy at that point even though he thinks it’s useless given Andy’s feelings for Falcon.

But does Andy really love Falcon romantically or is it something else? Is what is developing between Law and Andy the relationship he’s been looking for after all? (It’s a romance so I probably don’t need to say where this is going.)

Andy often felt very young to me. I don’ believe it was his neurodivergence per se which gave me that impression; I’ve read plenty of autistic characters before and haven’t had that reaction. Perhaps it was something about his sense of humour. Which I liked – it was amusing – but which also tended to the hyperbolic and exaggerated.

Law, on the surface, was the more mature of the pair. He was more experienced in almost every metric but there were times when even he felt a little immature too.

Maybe it was just the set up. Maybe the entire concept of “Project Hero” was a little too young for me. This is where I wonder if it’s just me and I’m too old for college-set books now. I don’t know!

There were however plenty of things to like nonetheless. While I found my attention wandering from time to time, for the most part, I enjoyed the story. (Even though I rolled my eyes here and there.) The narration was very good and that certainly helped my listening experience.

Of the two performer I generally preferred Kirt Graves’ narration to that of Joel Leslie but that was more personal taste than anything skill related. I’m used to hearing Joel Leslie speaking with a British accent in audiobooks – even though his natural accent is American – so hearing him voice a US character feels a little weird to me. That’s unfair I know but there you go.

I have only a little experience with Kirt Graves’ narrations but each time I listen I know I want more. In this book I particularly liked the way that Mr. Graves delivered Andy’s catastrophising humour.

I enjoyed watching Andy “blossom” under Law’s attentions in all the various ways and the epilogue which takes place 10 years later showed just how successful “Project Hero” actually was – albeit not quite the way Andy had originally planned.

Grade: B/B-

So This is Christmas by Jenny Holiday, narrated by Cynthia Farrell

November 15, 2022 / Kaetrin

So This is Christmas by Jenny Holiday, narrated by Cynthia Farrell. I found the narration a little cold. (Pardon the pun)

So This Is Christmas is the third book in Jenny Holiday’s A Princess For Christmas series. This time, the starchy Mr. Benz, equerry to the King of Eldovia, gets his HEA. He’s played a pivotal cupid-like role in the earlier books, A Princess For Christmas and Duke, Actually but apart from that, until now, readers knew little about him. I’m here to tell you he’s a complete cinnamon roll. Not grumpy, but stiff and a little awkward on the outside and all marshmallow on the inside.

Cara Delaney is a change management executive from New York. She’s been supervising a subordinate, Brad, leading the project to modernise Mornot, the company wherein the Eldovian Crown holds a major stake and which is the main driver of the Eldovian economy. Mornot makes luxury watches but business hasn’t been good and the country’s economy is in danger. Brad broke his hip after falling from a roof and Cara had to take over the project at the last minute. She will spend the next month in Eldovia, flying home only on Christmas Eve. She will meet with the Mornot board, unions and employees and deliver her report of recommendations before she leaves. She’s sad to miss Thanksgiving with her parents, with whom she’s very close.

“Modernise” of course, usually means downsizing and layoffs so Matteo Benz is not happy to meet Cara. It’s not personal – he didn’t want to meet Brad either. When Matteo picks Cara up at the airport, he’s not only starchy, he’s outright prickly. He’s very open about not being happy to meet her.

Cara is pretty starchy herself, just in a different way. She’s very business oriented and doesn’t let a lot of feelings out. She avoids romantic entanglement.

Of course, romance listeners know that the sparks which fly when Matteo and Cara are in each other’s orbit means they’re destined to be together. I think I’d have been unconvinced in real life though.

Over the course of the month, Cara and Matteo are thrown together in various ways, going from a cold low-key hostile relationship to a truce, to a friendship to more. Even though they do get thrown together, there seemed to be a lot of time when they were doing things separately. I would have liked more of them together. They go from FWB to HEA at lightning speed. Their declarations of love felt hasty. There was an epilogue a year later which helped to embed the relationship but I felt like I missed the bit where they really fell in love. I did see their move to friendship and their blossoming attraction. It’s just that they jumped straight to the end from there and I had a kind of whiplash about it.

Possibly that was affected somewhat by the narration. Cynthia Farrell is a new-to-me narrator. She has a pleasing voice but it’s also a little on the strident side. The softer emotions were less impactful as a result. I didn’t warm as much to Cara as I think I may have in print.

Technically, Ms. Farrell performed well. There were no audible breath sounds or annoying tics. Her pacing was good.

There were however, multiple times where Cara’s voice and Matteo’s voice kind of blended and when one character began to talk it was not always clear to me who it was. Their voices were different but it felt like Ms. Farrell was a bit confused at times about which voice she was supposed to be using, so at the beginning of a piece of dialogue it would be equivocal and then settle into the right character. It was a little jarring.

Mostly though, I felt a certain lack of warmth in the story coming through the narration.

Having listened to all three books in the series now, my fondest wish is for all of them to have had the same narrator (preferably, the first one – Charlotte North). We now have three books where the character voices and their accents are all different. There is no narration consistency within the series – here, for example, Princess Marie had a thick German accent unlike in A Princess for Christmas and Imogen, the owner of the local pub did not have the Irish accent I expected to hear.

Ms. Farrell’s narration wasn’t bad. But I wonder if she might have been a bit mismatched to this project.

I enjoyed finding more out about the mysterious and stiff Mr. Benz and I’m glad he got his HEA. But So This Is Christmas didn’t have quite the warmth and charm of A Princess For Christmas had. That first book remains my favourite of the series and not inconsequently, it also has my favourite narration.

Grade: B