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Review at Dear Author

July 19, 2023 / Kaetrin

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of The Summer Girl by Elle Kennedy. I made the happy book noise.

The Witch King by Martha Wells, narrated by Erik Mok

July 12, 2023 / Kaetrin

The Witch King by Martha Wells, narrated by Erik Mok. Sadly, a DNF.

Publisher’s Blurb:

A story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.

“I didn’t know you were a… demon.”

“You idiot. I’m the demon.”

Kai’s having a long day in Martha Wells’ Witch King….

After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.

But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?

Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.

He’s not going to like the answers.

Review:

I loved the Murderbot books and was excited to dive into Martha Wells’ latest release, Witch King. It’s fantasy rather than sci-fi but I like both genres so my hopes were high.

The first problem was that the book starts with a “dramatis personae” – ie a cast list. It is long. Many of the names are complicated “fantasy names”; some of them are very similar and, there was just no way I was going to remember almost any of them. The cast list describes who they are, their race and/or role and where they might fit into the story. Or, at least, I expect that’s what the intention was. It’s completely useless on audio.

In a print book, one can go back and forth from the story to the front matter to refresh one’s memory about who is who. In an ebook, it’s harder but possible. (I think it would be annoying though.) On audio it’s just not an option.

Consequently, I started the book with only the blurb to help me. There is no explaining – I was just plunged into an entirely different world with many characters, most of whom I could not place. And, apart from about five or six of them, when they came up again, I couldn’t remember exactly who they were. I made it about a third of the way into the book but really at that point I was so lost and I had no real hope of ever being found. It’s not enjoyable to spend hours listening to something where my prevailing thoughts were “who is that?” and “what is happening?”. Most of the time, I could not answer those questions.

Added to that, the narration was unevenly paced with some parts being at a good speed and others being way too fast. It meant I couldn’t slow the entire listen to fix the problem. Mr. Mok had little differentiation between characters of different genders and that made it even harder to work out who was who. After a third of the story I really didn’t know all that much more about the world or the story than I had from the blurb.

Possibly Witch King is a great book. But it’s best read in print I believe. Maybe once a listener is familiar with the story and the cast (ie having read the book already) the listening experience would be entertaining. But for me, it was not.

I’m sorry to say Witch King was a DNF for me.

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren, narrated by Cindy Kay and Jonathan Cole

July 4, 2023 / Kaetrin

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren, narrated by Cindy Kay and Jonathan Cole. I loved it. One for the best of list.

I’ve had some great success with Christina Lauren books in the past – whether reading or listening to them and something about the blurb for The True Love Experiment called to me. A TV producer (single dad!! Yes!) and a romance author pair up to create a reality TV dating show, a la The Bachelorette. I’m not even a huge fan of reality TV, let alone dating shows. Still, I was super keen to try this one.

Connor Prince III is an English guy who has been living in the US for some years – he still has his yummy accent though. (Another yes!) He is divorced and has a remarkably great relationship with his ex-wife, Natalia– who is more like a best friend than anything else – and together they share custody of their 10-year-old daughter, Stevie.

Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is a popular romance author who is in both a dating and writing slump. She’s bubbly, energetic, generous and fun. She has never really thought that there would be a soulmate or “the one” for her but she likes romance and sex and is pretty disappointed that she’s had a significant dry spell.

Connor is a producer at a TV production company which had been specialising in environmental documentaries. Only, the boss, Blaine, has decided they need to get into reality TV to make a lot of money and Connor has been tasked with making a reality dating show. He’s not enthused but there is not a lot of work for producers in San Diego. If he leaves for LA where there is more work, he will be too far away from Stevie and that’s not what he wants at all. He’s a hands-on dad who sees his daughter every weekend (although there is a large amount of flexibility between him and Nat, as required, when one or the other has something on). His own father was absent and Connor will not be that guy. Plus, he loves Stevie to bits. He’s been promised money for his next nature documentary if he comes through on the dating show so he’s going to suck it up.

A chance encounter at a bar when he sees Fizzy across the room inspires him and before you know it, Fizzy is the lead in the dating show and, at her suggestion, he’s casting hero archetypes as her potential love interests.

Prior to the show commencing filming, Fizzy challenges Connor to undertake joyful (non-sexual) activities together and over this time each begins to feel more and more the pull of attraction.

Once filming starts, things only get worse – while the “heroes” are all well and good, none of them are Connor. What to do?

It was a delight.

Special shout out to River Pena, the hero from The Soulmate Equation (which I now definitely have to read) who is one of Fizzy’s BFFs. Her other BFF is his wife, Jess. Fizzy is not at all shy – about sex or anything else. She is delightfully blunt. Poor River tends to walk in on Fizzy and Jess in the middle of an explicit conversation – “It was the size of my fist!” – and immediately, without a word, turns around and leaves. It made me laugh out loud in glee.

The romance between Connor and Fizzy is wonderful. Sexy and charming and sweet and just great. I enjoyed the characters separately but together they were something even better.

I loved the narration. If I had one tiny criticism it would be that very occasionally – and I mean very occasionally, I thought the way a certain line was delivered didn’t quite fit the text but that is a tiny criticism as compared to my overall enjoyment.

Cindy Kay does a great English accent for Connor – this actually feels pretty rare to me. Commonly, a British narrator will do a good US accent but the reverse isn’t as often true. Her deeper tone for Connor worked great for me too. Fizzy is well named – she has this chaotic energy about her and Ms. Kay imbued her voice with just that quality without making her annoying or over the top.

I just went and checked my audio file because I could not for the life of me remember if Jonathan Cole used a US accent for Fizzy’s voice. And do you know, he does not. And I DID NOT NOTICE when I was listening. I did not care. How weird is that?? Ordinarily I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to accents. Perhaps it was merely that I found Mr. Cole’s accent overall delightful to listen to – he definitely had a touch of the Richard Armitage’s about him – that I was in a daze the entire time. Whatever is the case, I ought to probably have liked the listen less on the basis of Mr. Cole being unable to or choosing not to use an American accent for the American Fizzy. I ought to have but I didn’t.

Both narrators delivered on character. Mr. Cole was as able to express Fizzy’s energy as Ms. Kay. And Ms. Kay was as good at embodying (emvoicing?) Connor as Mr. Cole was.

I raced through this listen. Just about everything about it worked for me.

In hindsight, I would have liked to have had a little bit more information about how Blaine reacted to the denouement and what consequences, if any, it had (and if none, why) but when I was listening I didn’t really feel any lack.

The True Love Experiment is definitely going to make my best of list for this year, no doubt.

Grade: A