Tag: AudioGals (Page 6 of 68)

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

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-