Tag: AudioGals (Page 4 of 68)

Spare Me by Tara Sivec, narrated by Tim Paige & Kelsey Navarro

August 16, 2023 / Kaetrin

Spare Me by Tara Sivec, narrated by Tim Paige & Kelsey Navarro. Enjoyable but the humour (always subjective) was at times a little overbroad for my taste.

I haven’t read or listened to a Tara Sivec book before. I know fellow AudioGal, Melinda, enjoys her books so I thought I’d give Spare Me a try when the blurb caught my eye.

Humour is very subjective of course. While I did laugh occasionally and overall, enjoyed the story, some of the humour was a little too much for me. I can (and do) enjoy a joke about balls from time to time but perhaps not as many as are crammed into Spare Me. It seems trite to say, but for those whose humour aligns more strongly with Ms Sivec’s writing, this book is going to be more successful. The reverse is also true. Me? I think I’m somewhere in the middle/middle-positive range.

Ryan Hutton is an amateur ten-pin-bowler and maths teacher on Summersweet Island. He is kind and nice and, frankly, a bit of a doormat. People walk on him all the time and in return he continues to be kind and generous. So, when a frenemy from college asks Ryan to let his little sister move into his (Ryan’s) house, sight-unseen, Ryan says yes. Because that’s a thing that happens.

Said sister, Danica Brewster, is an artist who has broken away from her rich, corporately-minded family. Her brother (Ryan’s frenemy) completely mischaracterises Dani to Ryan and so he thinks she’s in dire need of being talked into returning to the bosom of her family.

Dani is wild and free and spontaneous. She also isn’t afraid to call it how she sees it and over the course of the book, Ryan finds himself picking up some of her traits. The Ryan of page one would never say “choke on a dick, Chad” but he certainly does later on.

In Ryan, Dani finds a personal cheerleader and a sense of home, acceptance and belonging she has been unable to find within her own family.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that they are 100% hot for one another from the beginning.

Ryan is expected to take over his father’s mantle as the Mayor of Summersweet Island. Ryan doesn’t want to but hasn’t been able to tell his dad – he doesn’t want to disappoint. However, as time passes, it becomes an unavoidable conversation.

Ryan’s autocorrect woes are amusing even when they are also occasionally implausible and the wider cast, including an ex-football star who likes to craft add to the overall zaniness of the story.

Spare Me is a light-hearted romp and not meant to be taken all that seriously. There are some unlikely things within the story which don’t bear close examination. I admit, there were times I did examine a little too closely. (For example, I think a maths teacher who is arrested for indecent exposure would have some career issues as a result.)

The performance is good from both narrators but I preferred that of Tim Paige. Kelsey Navarro has a vocal fry (at least I think that’s what it is) which is not to my taste. I found it kind of wearing after a while. It was far less noticeable when she was speaking dialogue from a male character. That helped. Of course, this is very much a personal taste thing so other listeners will have less of an issue with it. Otherwise, Ms Navarro’s character differentiation and pacing were very good. I got a strong sense of who Dani was from her performance. So, even though I didn’t exactly like it, I can’t say it was, by any stretch, bad.

Tim Paige does “nice guy” really well and Ryan is, squarely, a nice guy. His earnestness and puppy-like qualities were obvious not just in the text but also in my ears. I could tell Mr Paige had a lot of fun leaning into these traits, but always keeping it just the right side of caricature. (The same can’t always be said of the text but that’s part of the schtick of the story.)

I can see that for some listeners Spare Me will be a complete giggle-fest. I wasn’t quite in that camp but I was nonetheless entertained and count the listen as a positive. That said, I think that Ms Sivec’s books are likely to become the kind of treat I’ll consume sparingly for maximum enjoyment.

Grade: B-

Drowning by TJ Newman, narrated by Steven Weber & Laura Benanti

August 7, 2023 / Kaetrin

A ripping thriller that kept my earbuds (metaphorically) glued to my head.

Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent – Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife – who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them – against impossible odds.

Review:

I really enjoyed TJ Newman’s debut novel, Falling, which I also listened to on audio and reviewed here and I’ve been looking forward to her sophomore book, Drowning. Both stories are set in and around commercial airliners and both are ripping thrillers but they’re nonetheless quite different.

Drowning is about the rescue of people trapped within a plane which has crashed into the ocean off the coast of Hawaii. The story mostly takes place over the course of just a few hours. The blurb (above) describes the story very well so I won’t add to it here. My earbuds were glued to my ears and I kept finding excuses to listen, I was that engrossed.

The narration by Steven Weber was superb. He had a great range of character voices and his pacing and tone were fantastic. Mr. Weber narrated most of the book, including POV from the lead character, Will Kent, and also from one of the rescuers and briefly from another male character too – I’d estimate approximately 60-70% of the listen.

Laura Benanti narrated the sections from Will’s not-quite-ex-wife, Chris Kent’s perspective, plus that of a female Navy officer involved in the rescue attempt. It was good but not quite to the standard of Mr. Weber’s. I thought her character voice for the Navy officer was too high-pitched and girlish for the way the officer was described in the text. There was also not quite the same character differentiation in Ms. Benanti’s range as compared to Mr. Weber. Rating her narration separately, I’d give her a B and him and A, so it averages to a B+.

I don’t want to give away what happens at the end but I will say that it does end well. I believe Falling is being made into a movie. Drowning would also be great on the big screen – the way the story unfolds is very cinematic.

The tension is pretty much constant and the story is action-packed. There is also time spent on characterisation; I cared about these people and what happened to them.

The recent loss of the Titan submersible made some of the subject matter in Drowning even more topical and, due to the YouTube rabbit hole I fell down learning about implosions, pressure and deep water diving, I probably understood it better overall. Not only that, I could also tell that much of the technical aspects were accurate, which made it easier for me to go along with other things in the story which either seemed a little unrealistic or where I had no clue whether it was realistic or not.

I don’t listen to many thrillers these days. I think I lucked out when Ms. Newman’s promo tweets about her book made it into my Twitter feed because both of her books have been crackers.

Narration: B+

Book Content: A-

Steam Level: 0

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

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

Point Last Seen by Christina Dodd, narrated by Vanessa Johansson

June 20, 2023 / Kaetrin

Point Last Seen by Christina Dodd, narrated by Vanessa Johansson. Not my favourite.

I used to read a lot of Christina Dodd contemporary romances back in the day so when I saw the prequel novella Welcome to Gothic for her Last Seen in Gothic series on Audible as a Daily Deal I decided to give it a go. It was one of those rare prequels which was a complete (if condensed) story, complete with HEA and it inspired me to request Point Last Seen for review – officially book one of the series.

Whereas the novella included a time travel aspect, Point Last Seen doesn’t.

Gothic is a quirky town near Big Sur, basically owned by a famous acting family. The current “heir” is more of a self-help guru rather than an actor, with many businesses, a line of clothing and ready-to-eat meals. She owns most of the businesses in the town and leases them to the locals.

Adam Ramsdell moved to Gothic for unknown and secret reasons. He’s basically a loner and he likes it that way. He’s an armourer/metal artist. His introduction is more mysterious than it needed to be.

Despite Adam’s reluctance, he’s clearly been adopted by the town and whether he likes it or not, he’s part of them.

Adam is told by “Madame Rune” the local psychic to go to the sea and find a “lost soul”. He does, because reasons, and he finds a woman washed up on the shore. She’s bruised and battered, having clearly been the victim of some violence before ending up in the ocean. He can’t find a pulse but when he lifts her body to transport it, she spews out water and returns to life.

She is “Elle”. She knows there is more to her name but she cannot remember it. She cannot remember very much actually, the trauma of her “death” having caused amnesia.

Point Last Seen wanted me to accept a number of propositions I struggled with. One was not taking Elle to a hospital or even an actual doctor. No, instead Elle is taken to a vet (at least he was formerly a doctor – in the war in Korea) who does not even examine her. This woman had been strangled and drowned. These are things which need to be checked out.

The next was Adam and Elle sharing a bed almost immediately (non-sexually). I know there are romance reasons but I found it hard to believe someone who had been the victim of violence and who had amnesia would snuggle up to Adam the very same day he found her.

The day after, Adam and Elle were talking and Adam said “you know me” in the context of “you know me, I always do this”. When the fact was Elle didn’t know Adam – at all. There were a number of times things like this jarred me out of the story. It made me crabby.

It becomes apparent early on that Elle had been on a research ship in the ocean and had got into a fight with the funder of the expedition because of something illegal he wanted Elle to do which she refused. He was injured and almost killed. Elle went overboard. NOBODY LOOKED FOR ELLE. Logically the first thing you’d do when there’s such an incident (with funder of the expedition being found on deck nearly dead) is at least do a head count!

The villain was so much of a caricature – my eyes hurt from all the rolling.

But wait, there’s more. There was another villain too. This time it was Adam’s nemesis – he was also eye-rollingly bad.

In between those mysteries and the question of who Elle really is (and it’s clear some people in the town recognise her looks somehow even though they’ve never met her before), there is a lot about the quirky locals. There was a vast tonal shift between the serious danger Elle was in and these parts, which didn’t work for me.

Vanessa Johansson narrated both audiobooks. I enjoyed her performance well enough in Welcome to Gothic but less so in Point Last Seen. One of the reasons was that she chose to present Adam as hesitant and nervous – almost to the point of him having a bit of a stutter – when he wasn’t described that way by the text. There was also occasional confusion between which character was talking. Not often, but sometimes, the wrong character voice was used. The text did Ms. Johansson no favours though. I wasn’t enjoying the listen and that makes me prone to being nitpicky.

Point Last Seen was long. So. Long. The time period of the story was only about 3 weeks but the listen clocked in at 11 hours 19 minutes – but it felt longer than that. It could easily have been cut by a third with nothing significant having been lost. There was too much extraneous detail.

I did not enjoy this one.

Grade: C-

Forgotten in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen

May 30, 2023 / Kaetrin

Forgotten in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen. When I said I was right back into the series, I meant it!

Homicide detective Eve Dallas sifts through the wreckage of the past to find a killer.

The body was left in a dumpster like so much trash, the victim a woman of no fixed address, known for offering paper flowers in return for spare change—and for keeping the cops informed of any infractions she witnessed on the street. But the notebook where she scribbled her intel on litterers and other such offenders is nowhere to be found.

Then Eve is summoned away to a nearby building site to view more remains—in this case decades old, adorned with gold jewelry and fine clothing—unearthed by recent construction work. She isn’t happy when she realizes that the scene of the crime belongs to her husband, Roarke—not that it should surprise her, since the Irish billionaire owns a good chunk of New York. Now Eve must enter a complex world of real estate development, family history, shady deals, and shocking secrets to find justice for two women whose lives were thrown away…

Forgotten in Death is a twofer – two separate crime scenes a block apart, two separate murders decades apart. Are they connected? This one is a less ambitious story than the previous book with a plot which is somewhat disjointed at times but still entertaining. I did appreciate Eve taking the time to go back into the first victim’s past and setting that right (as right as it could be at least).

Susan Ericksen’s narration is a large part of the enjoyment. I recognised the regular characters by voice alone and I love the way she helps me connect to the new characters – some of whom have only very brief airtime. I know that she will deliver a great narration – it’s part of why I keep coming back.

I get through an In Death book very quickly – 3 or 4 days tops – and after 53 books, it’s impressive it still holds my interest so well.

Grade: B+