Category: audiobooks (Page 7 of 93)

Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean, narrated by Mary Jane Wells

October 12, 2022 / Kaetrin

Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean, narrated by Mary Jane Wells. Great narration and a cracking story.

When I heard that Heartbreaker was a road trip book where the love interests were together for most of the story and that Mary Jane Wells was narrating, I knew this would be a good first Sarah MacLean historical for me to try. Until now I’ve only listened to one other MacLean – a novella length contemporary – A Duke Worth Falling For – which I reviewed here as well. I was not disappointed.

Heartbreaker is the second book in the Hell’s Belles series but it stands alone well. I didn’t have any trouble following the story at all and there were precious few spoilers for the prior book too, for extra bonus points.

Adelaide Frampton (aka Addie Trumbull) grew up in Lambeth, the daughter of the leader of the local gang, the Bulls. That didn’t make her protected or pampered. Instead, she was required to earn her keep by picking pockets and she became a most excellent “South Bank nipper”. After she’s grown up, her father, Alfie Trumbull, arranges to give her in marriage to the leader of a rival gang – the Boys – in order to unite the two groups. Adelaide isn’t keen on the match but doesn’t have much choice. However, at the wedding ceremony it’s clear that a takeover is planned – by her would-be-husband over Alfie’s gang or vice versa – and in the violent fracas (which ends with Alfie the victor and king of the merged “Bully Boys”) she is offered an escape by a mysterious woman.

That woman is Duchess of Trevescan, the leader of what will become the Hell’s Belles.

Five years later, when the main action of the book begins, Adelaide is well established in London society as a distant relative of the duchess and is close with her and the other Belles – Imogen and Sesily. The women have a powerful network of informants and helpers all over England, their goal to take down powerful men who, without their interference, would face no consequences for their terrible actions.

In Sarah MacLean’s Victorian England, a group of overtly feminist women are kicking arse and taking names. It’s fun to read about and obviously influenced by modern (and current) sensibilities. Heartbreaker is not designed and doesn’t promise to be truly authentic to the period.

The Belles’ network includes some rather improbable conveniences but it worked for the story and I was having a good time so it didn’t bother me other than that I noticed them.

Adelaide and the Belles are involved in a plan to take down the Marquess of Havistock, an evil man who makes money from child labour (something quite legal at the time, the story notes) and who has various other nefarious activities. His daughter, Helene, witnessed her father murder another peer and if the Belles can protect Helene long enough to bring the matter before the law, this time, Havistock is going down.

Helene however, has other plans, which put the Belle’s to scrambling. She is in love with Jack Carrington, the younger brother of the Duke of Clayborn. Rather than hide at the Duchess of Trevescan’s house, she and her beloved elope to Gretna. Hired by Havistock, members of the Bully Boys are following. If they’re caught, Helene’s life is forfeit and probably Jack’s too and Havistock will likely get away with it all.

Adelaide follows to ensure Helene and Jack’s safety but on the pretence of stopping the match (her alter ego being “the Matchbreaker”). The duke follows to stop Adelaide from stopping the wedding – he knows nothing of the Belle’s plans for Havistock and the other context around the pursuit – so as to ensure his younger brother’s happiness.

Thus the promised road trip begins, with Adelaide and Clayborn sparring (verbally) and trying their best to one-up the other. Mostly it is Adelaide who is the victor.

As it happens, Clayborn has had his eye on Adelaide for the past couple of years. He thinks she’s beautiful and clever. He’s even noticed her nimble fingers picking ton pockets a time or two and that hasn’t put him off. Adelaide for her part, admires Clayborn’s staunch advocacy in the House of Lords to end child labour but thinks him rude personally as a result of some interactions they’ve had on social occasions. (Of course, Clayborn had his reasons.)

Over the course of their journey, their latent attraction comes to the fore but a HEA for them seems impossible. Adelaide is the daughter of a criminal – indeed she is one herself. She still picks pockets (only for good, not evil these days). The duke has his own secret which led him to vow never to marry but even leaving that aside, he’s a duke.

However, in this universe there is a way for them to be together and over the course of their whirlwind romance (about 10 days I think) the barriers are brought out, considered, strategized upon and, eventually surmounted. It is, after all, a romance novel.

Mary Jane Wells is a favourite narrator (I have a lot of them, it’s true – I contain multitudes) and I knew I was in safe hands with her. As expected, she gave a very enjoyable performance, with good accent work, character voices, emotion and pacing. I had some mixed feelings about the character voice she gave Adelaide. Clearly, Ms. Wells wanted to make each of the Belle’s distinct. This left Adelaide with a bit of a wobble in her voice – the kind I associate with difficult spinsters from Jane Austen movie adaptations – so it took me a little while to get into the groove with it. However, Adelaide herself won me over and by about a third into the book I just accepted the voice as “her”. On the other hand, Ms. Wells’ tones for Clayborn, while familiar, were very very good.

There were a few occasions where Clayborn’s voice was used when it should have been Adelaide’s or vice versa and there was one time where there was a clear error but I don’t know whether it was the text or the narration. Otherwise however, Mary Jane Wells delivered a great performance and remains high on my list of favourite narrators of historical romance.

I’m very much looking forward to Imogen’s book which I think must be next. I believe she will be giving a certain police officer from Scotland Yard continued indigestion and it promises to be glorious. I can’t help but wonder if the mysterious Duke of Trevescan may turn up in book four?

Heartbreaker was a lot of fun. I think I need to check out book one, Bombshell, soon.

Grade: A

In His Protection by Sandra Owens, narrated by Patrick Zeller

September 28, 2022 / Kaetrin

In His Protection by Sandra Owens, narrated by Patrick Zeller. Enjoyable romantic suspense (mostly romance) and great narration but would have liked more of the dog!

I’ve enjoyed romantic suspense by Sandra Owens before and I love dogs so In His Protection caught my eye when it popped up at Audible. Unfortunately, there’s not quite enough of the dog – Fuzz – as I’d have liked. He does have a couple of pivotal scenes but the story is not very much about him.

Tristan Church is the chief of police in Marsville, North Carolina. The county sheriff is Skylar Morgan. (I admit I don’t understand why such a small area has two separate police forces but I’ve seen it in other books so I guess it’s a thing in the US, or at least some parts of it.) When Sky came to town to interview for the job, she met Tristan in a bar and they had a hot and steamy night together – first names only (her rule). Tristan was deeply smitten from the jump but when Sky returned to Marsville and realised who they were in relation to one another professionally, she pretended they’d never met and gave him the cold shoulder. Tristan has been trying to get her attention for a year.

Sky left Florida where she held a Chief Deputy position after a bad break up with a fellow cop. That man bad-mouthed her to her colleagues and started rumours she was dirty. She faced an investigation (she was cleared of any wrongdoing – she was actually innocent) and her reputation was severely damaged. She wanted a clean start but vowed not to date another cop. And what is Tristan? Argh.

However, the attraction between them won’t go away and when they are teamed up to plan the reopening of the Marsville UFO Museum (yes, that’s why it’s called Marsville), they’re forced into one another’s company even more and Sky’s fragile shield against his charm fails.

At around the same time, her ex turns up in town and someone burns down her apartment. Plus, there’s a deputy in the county sheriff’s department who has it in for her as well and after she fires him he makes threats against her. So there is a plethora of potential suspects available. It’s soon clear that someone is after something from Sky and won’t stop until they get it. This is where my biggest bone to pick with the story arises. Sky is an experienced and accomplished law enforcement officer. When Tristan asks her not to go anywhere alone it’s only because she’s a woman. There’s just no way he’d have made the same request had Sky been a dude. And, Sky went along with it rather than calling it out as the gendered BS it was! *frowny face*

The author does turn some things around though and Sky does get to do some heroics – just not without some Special Forces officers to help. Male of course. (Tristan’s brother Kade is a Ranger. He has another brother, Parker, who is the fire chief and a talented artist.)

The problem with the plot is that for Tristan to be protective of Sky and do any rescuing (and really, rescuing is one of my very favourite things in romance!) because she’s as talented and experienced as she is, it only serves to diminish her. Not entirely and not always a lot – but enough that I noticed and it grated a little.

The push/pull of the relationship is Sky’s reluctance to get in a relationship where, if it all went wrong, she’d have to leave town and start all over again AGAIN. This a real risk for her. Tristan does not think the town would turn on Sky if they broke up but he’s 100% all in anyway and wants her to be his forever. I do like a man in pursuit romantically (and respectfully) speaking. There again, sometimes Tristan made choices to withhold information from Sky that may have spooked her relationship-wise but which she had a right to know professionally so that was a minus in his column. It wasn’t egregious though and, lucky for him, it wasn’t anything that put her at risk.

That said, Tristan also overtly recognised that she needed to stand on her own with her deputies and not interfere with her work and he did treat her with due professional respect most of the time.

The narration was really good. It’s been ages since I’ve listened to Patrick Zeller and I had to ask myself why that was. He has a great range of character voices – from Parker’s 5-year-old daughter, Everly, to the old town matriarch, Ms. Mabel Mackle, to different tones for each Church brother and beyond. His pacing and tone are great and I really liked the emotion he brought to the performance as well. Not overdone; just right.

I’m sure I enjoyed In His Protection more on audio than I would have in print because of the narration. Some of the things which bothered me about the story were easier to manage with Mr. Zeller in my ears. In fact, I liked his performance so much, I immediately went and bought another Owens/Zeller audio collaboration.

Some of the suspense plot stretched my credulity to the breaking level but I enjoyed the romance and I liked Sky and Tristan (most of the time) and I liked them together.

Grade: B-

The Best Man Problem by Mariah Ankenman, narrated by Charlotte North

September 15, 2022 / Kaetrin

The Best Man Problem by Mariah Ankenman, narrated by Charlotte North. Didn’t love the conflict at the end but otherwise a fun listen with great narration.

I’m a big fan of Charlotte North’s narrations and this led me to try a new-to-me author so I can get more of her in my ears. The Best Man Problem is book two in the Mile High Happiness series but can be read as a stand alone with no problems at all.

Lilly Walsh and her two BFFs run Mile High Happiness, a wedding planning business in Denver. (I admit I don’t know much about the wedding planning business but the setup of Mile High Happiness seemed a little unusual to me in that it seems that Lilly does the actual wedding planning and the other two women run other aspects of the business.) The book starts with what I assume is the wedding of the couple who were the protagonists in book one. Lilly is a bridesmaid for her best friend and has a hot one-night-stand with a handsome man she meets in the hotel bar after the event. It’s unusual for her (not that it matters if it wasn’t) but Lilly had an amazing time and can’t stop thinking about the man she only knows as Lincoln. From their conversation in the bar, she believes he’s in town for business and isn’t staying so she doesn’t think there is any chance a relationship could come of it.

Then Lilly’s next clients come in and introduce their best man – and you guessed it: it’s Lincoln! Not only is he the best man but he’s moved to Denver after a messy divorce (two years ago) and in fact there is no barrier to a long term relationship for he and Lilly except for two things: Lilly has a strict “no dating a member of the wedding party” rule and Lincoln is soured on relationships and happy-ever-afters following the implosion of his marriage. Still, the attraction between Lilly and Lincoln is intense and they keep being thrown into one another’s orbit. Add to that a matchmaking bride and BFFs who don’t mind meddling and, as the wedding draws near, the couple are rethinking their attitudes.

I enjoyed the banter and the chemistry between the love interests and I liked the humour of the story and the general feel-good vibe of it. What I didn’t love is the conflict near the end. Lilly’s rule about not dating a member of the wedding party is as a result of a lesson hard learned and when she tells Lincoln about it, after the wedding and they’re free to explore things with each other, his reaction is pretty terrible. Lincoln’s ex-wife was a cheating cheater who cheated and he clearly has some work to do to put it behind him and be able to move on. As we all know, just because one relationship ends doesn’t mean they all do. The way he took his ex-wife’s behaviours out on Lilly was not okay with me. And, I didn’t really see him doing the work of processing his feelings so that I had confidence he wouldn’t massively overreact again. Lilly was altogether too forgiving in my view.

Still, overall, I did like both Lilly and Lincoln and I wasn’t unhappy they ended up together. It’s just that I’d have liked Lincoln to have either not freaked out the way he did or, having done so, made better reparations than a grand gesture. The man needed therapy!

Charlotte North’s narration was, of course, a delight and that made the story all the more enjoyable. Ms. North has a lovely tone and cadence to her voice generally which makes it pleasing to hear but she also delivers on character voices, emotion and humour. Her comedic timing is very good. I especially liked here that she had a distinct voice for all three of the ladies of Mile High Happiness.

The only thing I don’t love about Ms. North’s narration is a personal pet peeve when it comes to audiobooks. When there’s reference to a chuckle or a cough or similar, I want to either hear it in the dialogue or hear it described in words – but not both. She will do the “he coughed” and then make a coughing noise. Do not like. Like I said, this is a personal pet peeve and probably plenty of other listeners could not care less about it.

Most of The Best Man Problem was a lot of fun, though not without touching on some heavier topics (the bride Lilly is working with is a cancer survivor, cheating ex-partners on both sides and a problematic parental relationship) and the narration was very good. Lincoln showed his feet of clay near the end though and didn’t quite manage to convince me – though the epilogue some months later did help a little.

Grade: B-

Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan, narrated by Julia Whelan

August 30, 2022 / Kaetrin

Thank You For Listening by Julia Whelan, narrated by Julia Whelan. A delight for my ears.

Julia Whelan has long been one of my very favourite narrators. I love the way she presents characters, her emotion, her style, and, at base, I just like her voice. It’s very pleasing to my ear. She’s a talented actress who brings those skills to her performances as well and that combination is just killer. Any romance narrated by Julia Whelan will get my attention and so, as soon as I established that Thank You For Listening does in fact have a HEA, I was all grabby hands.

Sewanee (pronounced “Swanny”) Chester is an actress who lost her career when she also lost an eye in an accident seven years before the book begins. She turned to audiobook narration, at first in romance, under the pseudonym, Sarah Westholme. But Swan, as she most commonly goes by, doesn’t believe in love and happy ever afters and got out of romance and into general fiction, using her real name.

While at a book convention in Las Vegas, she meets “the rake” (the chapters have titles) and they have one hot night together. She uses the alias, Alice, on the basis of “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” and only knows Nick by his first name. His Irish charm is winning though and Swan keeps thinking about him when she returns to LA.

Swan’s beloved grandmother has dementia and is an assisted living facility. She will soon need more care and that is going to cost a lot of money she doesn’t have, so when a fantastic offer is made to revive Sarah Westholme one more time for a duet narration with the fan favourite, Brock McKnight, Swan says yes.

Brock is famously secretive about his true identity (think someone like Sebastian York – although Brock is emphatically NOT York – more on this later) but his voice has apparently melted panties all over the USA and probably parts of the rest of the world too. For myself, I don’t think of narrators quite that way. I do appreciate a sexy voice (I mean, who doesn’t?) but I don’t then sexualise the narrator. Apparently there are a lot of (mainly) women who do. There’s a whole world over on Facebook I’m only peripherally involved in. Brock is uncomfortable with the way he’s been sexualised by his fandom and doesn’t really love audiobooks or romance but he’s good at it and it’s a living. Brock has his reasons for the way he feels which I won’t go into here because spoilers but I admit I had mixed feelings about both narrators in the novel not liking romance. To be honest, I couldn’t help but wonder…

Which brings me to that “more on that later” I mentioned earlier. Right at the end of the audio is an author’s note chapter titled “on Autobiography” where Ms. Whelan talks about how the book came to be and specifically says that Swan is not her (even though they do share some commonalities, which she details) and that Brock is not based on any narrator from real life. Brock is a work of fiction and so is Swan. I was relieved to hear that Ms. Whelan loves her job. I’m really glad she included that chapter because as she mentions at the beginning of it, the nature of her actual job and the characters in the book mean there will inevitably be questions about just how fictional the story is.

Some of the book is nonetheless fairly meta – discussion about not outing a narrator’s pseudonym for example (don’t do that) and about some of the more rabid areas of the romance fandom are true, and the nuts and bolts of audiobook narrating are rooted in reality. Because of that mix of real and fictional, it was, I think, especially important for her to be clear and I’m glad she was.

Back to the book. As Sarah and Brock begin to record their duet narration for what is a serial to be released weekly in eight parts, they start to trade texts and emails and build a connection outside of work. It’s flirty and fun and sexy. They grow closer and eventually they decide to meet. In person. In real life. This is a BIG deal. Both are nervous.

For the listener there are many questions. Brock’s voice is not Irish so he can’t be Nick, so who is the HEA going to be with? Will there be a love triangle? Is Brock good-looking or does he just have a sexy voice? What will Swan think of him when they actually meet? Where’s Nick? Is he coming back or was Nick kind of a breaking of a seal which enabled Swan to open herself to Brock? Where, exactly was this promised HEA coming from? So many questions!

There are also family issues with Swan’s father and grandmother, unresolved issues related to Swan’s accident and her grief about it, the possibility of acting again with her best friend and fellow actor, Adaku. I have to mention that I fell a little in love with Swan’s mother’s new partner, Stu. He was so funny and sweet. I laughed hard at the text messages he sent.

Thank You For Listening is a hybrid of women’s fiction and contemporary romance but there is definitely a romance and a very satisfying one too. In some ways, it is two books, smushed together; there are particular sections which are very romance-y and others which are not. As for heat, there’s not a lot of on-page sex but what there is brings some steam. I didn’t feel robbed.

The narration, of course, is stellar. I very quickly cared about the characters and Julia Whelan’s vocal performance only added to my enjoyment. Because Ms. Whelan also wrote the book, she knew the characters inside out and that had to be an advantage when she was performing them.

Audio narration is acting and the best narrators do more than just read us a story. There’s a bit of discussion in the novel about AI maybe eventually being a significant player in audiobook narration and I cannot tell you how vehemently I rejected the idea. But, as the novel points out, there is an entire generation of listeners who may not know the difference. How sad that would be for them.

Grade: A

Bet On It by Jodie Slaughter, narrated by Angel Pean

August 25, 2022 / Kaetrin

Bet On It by Jodie Slaughter, narrated by Angel Pean. Much heavier in tone than I expected.

I’m usually really good at ignoring a cover image and not falling for the “illustrated cover equals romantic comedy” trap but with Bet On It I slipped and fell in. To be fair, there is a content note right in the beginning saying that the book deals with mental illness, which I knew already from the blurb:

The first time Aja Owens encounters the man of her dreams, she’s having a panic attack in the frozen foods section of the Piggly Wiggly. The second time, he’s being introduced to her as her favorite bingo buddy’s semi-estranged grandson. From there, all it takes is one game for her to realize that he’s definitely going to be a problem. And if there’s anything she already has a surplus of, it’s problems.

In Walker Abbott’s mind, there are only two worthwhile things in Greenbelt, South Carolina. The peach cobbler at his old favorite diner and his ailing grandmother. Dragging himself back after more than a decade away, he’s counting down the days until Gram heals and he can get back to his real life. Far away from the trauma inside of those city limits. Just when he thinks his plan is solid, enter Aja to shake everything up.

A hastily made bingo-based sex pact is supposed to keep this…thing between them from getting out of hand. Especially when submitting to their feelings means disrupting their carefully balanced lives. But emotions are just like bingo callers—they refuse to be ignored.

but I really wasn’t expecting the book to be as heavy in tone as it was. After all, there’s a sex pact! Those expectations affected my experience of the book. Dear AudioGals reader, if you do not have the same expectation going in, this book may well work for you much better than it did for me.

The mental health representation in the book is excellent. It’s accurate and sympathetic. And detailed. At times it felt more like a primer for how to be friends with someone with a mental illness than a romance novel. The focus on mental illness and mental health took up a lot of real estate in the novel which I also wasn’t expecting.

There is a strong focus on Aja making friends in her new town, which was incredibly important to her but it, too, took up a lot of space in the story which wasn’t time she was with Walker. I love strong female friendships, but I really love a lot of the main characters together and given a choice I’ll pick the latter most of the time. This is very much a personal preference so YMMV.

There were some laughs for me in the book (the reference to an intervention for example) but they were few and far between.

More than anything else though, it took a long time for anything to happen and there was a lot of detail about the things that did, which only served to slow the pace down. I found myself getting bored and interrupting the book to listen to other things instead. Always a bad sign.

I’ve read and listened to plenty of novels with great mental health rep which were also moving, entertaining, funny and/or otherwise very enjoyable. But Bet On It felt very dense to me (mostly because of that slowness factor) and there were too-few lighter moments to break things up. I had been hoping for lots of snappy banter; more zing and sizzle, less internal monologuing.

The sex was scorching hot though. Ms. Slaughter sure knows how to write a sex scene.

The narration was good but not good enough to get me over the hurdle of the slow pace of the story and its density. The character voices were well differentiated. I particularly liked Miss May’s characterisation.

I’m honestly not sure if Ms. Pean’s pacing was just a little slow or if it was entirely the story but either way, I found myself impatient for things to move faster.

I liked the accents used for the various characters and the differentiation given to them. I would certainly listen to Ms. Pean again.

I’d also listen or read more from Jodie Slaughter but I might do a bit more research first so that my expectations were better calibrated beforehand.

Grade: C

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan, narrated by Hillary Huber

August 9, 2022 / Kaetrin

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan, narrated by Hillary Huber. I was worried about a bait-and-switch there for a while but everything turned out okay in the end!

Nora Goes Off Script is fairly simple in its premise. A woman who writes a screenplay and the production uses part of her house for some of the filming. The lead actor asks to stay on for reasons and offers to pay an exorbitant rate per day for the privilege. She could use the money so says yes and while he’s staying in her “tea house”, they fall in love. (The road to true love never runs smooth of course, so there’s a bit more to it than that.)

Nora usually writes scripts for The Romance Channel and she uses a fairly similar formula so there’s something a bit meta about it all – something which the author and Nora lean into over the course of the book. I didn’t take it as a dunk on romance; the formula works for a reason. But with all that foreshadowing about how romances usually work, it stands to reason that there’d be a plot twist here.

In fact, for quite a while I wondered how it was going to work out. For a reasonable amount of time in the latter half/third of the book I didn’t think much of Leo Vance and did not see how a HEA could happen that I could accept – at least, not with him. But then I’d look at how much I had left of the listen and started to stress about whether there’d be time for a believable romance for Nora with someone else. I wondered if this was a “women’s fiction” book mislabelled as a romance; I wondered if it was a romance at all (yes, I went to some dark places!). I wondered if there’d be a bait and switch and a new love interest would turn up in the last chapter. I wondered whether I’d need to throw my iPod across the room.

I’m here to tell you that the book is not mislabelled. The romance is ultimately very satisfying and I did not see what I’ll call the plot twist coming. (I’m calling it that because I don’t want to give spoilers away not because that’s necessarily the best term for it.) I ended up enjoying the book more because I didn’t know how it was going to end so I don’t want to ruin it for others.

Nora Hamilton is a divorced mother of two. She’s been pretty much the sole parent even before her husband, Ben, left her. He was a jerk who wanted everyone to do everything for him and who thought the world revolved around him. To process her feelings, she writes a script, based on the breakdown of her marriage. It’s most definitely not a romance and her agent shops it to a major studio which snaps it up. Big Hollywood actors are cast and they want to use the tea house on her rural property to film some pivotal scenes. Leo Vance plays the “Ben” character – although in the movie The Tea House, his name is Trevor. Leo is clearly struggling with something while he’s there filming but seems to find a measure of peace in the sunrise. In the words of Nora’s 8-year-old daughter, Bernadette, the sun “comes up here”. Of course it comes up everywhere every day but there is something special about Laurel Ridge, New York, and their house in particular. Leo clearly sees it so he makes Nora an offer she can’t refuse; he will pay her a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week.

Arthur, Nora’s 10-year-old son, has been cast as Fagin in the school musical Oliver! and as Leo begins to learn the rhythms of Laurel Ridge and Nora’s regular routine, he finds himself helping Arthur run lines and then agreeing to stay until opening night three weeks away.

Nora, Arthur and Bernadette all fall in love with Leo. He’s gorgeous and funny and he’s self-deprecating in a way that’s unexpected for a such a big star. I did have a little trouble believing he didn’t really know how to go grocery shopping (surely there was a time before fame for him?) but it was amusing anyway.

It’s hard to imagine Leo actually staying in Laurel Ridge though. Nora has a very strict routine, built to keep her life running in all the ways and its equally hard to imagine Nora changing her life to be with Leo.

There’s far more about Nora than anyone else in the story which is to be expected given that it’s told in her first person (present tense) perspective.

When things inevitably fall apart (because of course) there’s a large portion of the book and quite a bit of time (months and months of time) where it’s just Nora and the kids. The longer this section went on the more worried I got. And this was also where I didn’t like Leo much. I had reasons.

The narration by Hillary Huber is very good. She gives Nora a cynical, somewhat jaded edge which was in keeping with the text but turned up a few notches. The cadence of the performance is a little different; sometimes it felt more like Ms. Huber was reading a list but this worked as well. Nora is kind of like that.

I liked Ms. Huber’s male character voices (although they mostly sounded the same, with Martin, the director of The Tea House, being the notable exception) and her kid voices were solid as well.

There were some moments I laughed out loud, mostly because of Nora’s dry wit and, rendered in Ms. Huber’s tone, I think it worked even better for me than it would have on the page.

Ordinarily in a romance I prefer to spend more time with the love interests together and, as a hero-centric listener, I prefer a lot more of the hero. Here, it was sometimes difficult for me to tell who that actually was or even if there was one. But the structure of the story required it and in the end it paid off for me.

Grade: B