Tag: Donnabella Mortel

Even if the Sky is Falling by Taj McCoy, Farah Heron, Lane Clarke, Charish Reid, Sarah Smith & Denise Williams

September 7, 2023 / Kaetrin

Even if the Sky is Falling by Taj McCoy, Farah Heron, Lane Clarke, Charish Reid, Sarah Smith & Denise Williams, narrated by Adenrele Ojo, Soneela Nankani, Karen Murray, Marissa Hampton, Donnabella Mortel, Joy Beharie & Teddy Hamilton. Loved the premise and there were some real gems in the anthology.

Even if the Sky is Falling is an anthology of stories by BIPOC authors which all have the same basic premise: an alarm blares alerting everyone that some space junk (or worse) is imminently going to crash into the earth and everyone should take shelter. Only the people in the first story know that it’s a false alarm and there’s no risk. Each story takes the forced proximity trope and the setup and takes it somewhere different. I love this idea; it’s illustrative of how romance itself is so diverse – just because the ending is the same doesn’t mean the stories are. Here the premise is the same but the stories are all very different.

Some of the stories are Black romance, others feature at least one character of colour, most are MF, one is FF. It’s difficult to talk about each story in detail here but I’ll at least mention each one briefly.

Taj McCoy’s All the Stars, narrated by Adenrele Ojo, kicks things off and sets up the world. NASA employees are putting the finishing touches on a nationwide emergency alert system for space debris, part of a wider worldwide effort. An accident happens and the alarm goes off. This story was the weakest of the anthology for me; the incompetence of the character who messes up (neither of the love interests fortunately) was astounding; I didn’t get how, in a team of four, the FMC and the MMC had so much downtime; especially as the FMC was the Team Leader. When the crap hit the fan why was she able to go for a nap rather than pitch in to help? This novella also featured a second chance trope and I found the reason for the break up unconvincing – I’m not sure the MMC deserved to be given that second chance. The narration was very good though.

Keep Calm and Curry On by Farah Heron, narrated by Soneela Nankani, was in my top two novellas from Even if the Sky is Falling. Set in a large undercover market, the protagonists, both of Pakistani heritage and the children of immigrants and former best friends each have a food truck. Their dads are no longer friends but can Tariq convince Maya that their generation doesn’t have to be at odds? Can Maya’s Masala Girls food truck coexist beside Tariq’s Curry Junction? Do they need to be in competition? There is also a hot guy in a Henley with the sleeves pushed up and a (the same) hot guy reading a romance novel! (I believe it’s a Tessa Dare book but it’s never named). There’s also a cat. I haven’t listened to Soneela Nankani before but her narration was excellent. She had great characterisation and bought into the somewhat meta nature of the story, adding a touch of humour to those beloved tropes so it never edged into too much.

My Lucky Stars by Lane Clark, narrated by Karen Murray is the only queer romance in the anthology. The only two Black girls in their law school class do not get along. Jones is prickly and aggressive, Diana is not. Enemies to lovers is something of a tricky trope for me at the best of times; I don’t like it when characters are mean to each other. Here, Jones was pretty mean to Diana and I didn’t really like her which made it difficult for me to root for them as a couple. I figure that people who don’t struggle with E2L will like this one a lot better than me. The narration was good though. Karen Murray is also a new-to-me narrator but I’d happily listen to her again.

Bunker Buddies by Charish Reid, narrated by Marissa Hampton was my other favourite of the anthology – my first story from this author. A bookshop owner with a bunker underneath (inherited from his prepper grandad) has been crushing on a customer for months. A university professor who keeps coming to the bookshop to order obscure books just to have an excuse to see said hot bookseller happens to be the only customer in the shop when the siren sounds. All alone together in the bunker while the world may or may not be ending. All that unresolved sexual tension has to go somewhere, right? The only thing that let this one down was the speed of the narration. Ms. Hampton’s pacing was too fast for me. Otherwise, her characterisation and voice differentiation were very good.

Interlude narrated by Sarah Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel – a composer and jingle writer spends the maybe-end of the world in her basement with her cat and the hot contractor who, when the alarm went off, was at her house to give her a quote on replacing her kitchen cabinets. I found this difficult to get into because precious word count was wasted on things which didn’t really matter. There was too much time spent on things which didn’t really impact the story and it made my eyes glaze over a bit. On the other hand, the narration was great. Ms. Mortel is another narrator I’ll be looking for again. The story didn’t work super well for me but she kept me entertained nonetheless.

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better by Denise Williams, narrated by Joy Beharie & Teddy Hamilton was another that suffered (for me at least) as a result of the enemies to lovers start of the story. I’m not sure I really bought why she didn’t like him in school when he didn’t do anything beyond being related to the founder of the university. Trapped in an empty college together, the pair eventually work their way through the misunderstandings that plagued their school years (I’m also not a fan of the Big Mis) and find their way to a HFN – and likely HEA. The narration by both performers was very good, with solid tone, pacing and emotion. It’s difficult to say new things about Teddy Hamilton – AudioGals readers know he’s a favourite here!

Like many anthologies, Even if the Sky is Falling was a bit of a mixed bag but I loved the premise and I did find some new-to-me authors and narrators to follow which was an even bigger plus.

Grade: B/C

On Location by Sarah Echavarre Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel

April 13, 2022 / Kaetrin

On Location by Sarah Echavarre Smith, narrated by Donnabella Mortel. Great narration but I had mixed feelings about the story.

Alia Dunn is a Filipino American working as an assistant producer for the Expedition TV network which specialises in travel-related shows – I imagine it something like a boutique Discovery channel. She dreams of running her own show and when On Location begins, she’s despairing that she’s blown her chance. Her pitch for a series “Discover Utah” about the national parks in that state was turned down by the boss and she’s feeling glum on the subway heading home. She’s particularly crushed as the series was inspired by summer trips she took with her brother and her Apong Lita (her grandmother) as a child when her parents were away in the military and the series was to be dedicated to her beloved and much missed grandparent. All is not terrible, though, as a handsome and built guy gives up his seat for an elderly woman, partially because it was the right thing to do and partially because he wanted to stand next to Alia. Inspired by a comment the boss made, she decides to “take a risk” and ends up going on the best date of her life with the “subway hottie” who identifies himself as Drew.

Unfortunately he ghosts her the next day so it goes nowhere. Alia puts it down to her viral tweet of the subway hottie (a photograph of him she took and posted without his knowledge or permission I might add – way not okay Alia!). She thinks he’s seen it and was unhappy about the invasion of his privacy. (Well, duh.)

The next week at work things take a turn for the better when her Discover Utah series is suddenly un-rejected. Alia has everything she’s ever wanted professionally at her fingertips. There’s only one catch: the boss chose the host and he’s a D-List ex-reality TV star with a massive attitude, an arrest record and a drug and alcohol problem. Alia does get to choose her crew however and her mentor recommends a freelance field coordinator to round out her team. His name is Andrew. I think you see where this is going, right?

As it happens, Drew didn’t ghost Alia at all. He also wasn’t upset about going viral on Twitter (why?). No, he had a tragic phone accident which not only ruined his phone but also the SIM and as a result he lost her contact information. As they had not exchanged surnames he had no way to find her. Jaded Alia thinks it’s a line at first but it becomes apparent that Drew is not like that.

Alia has a lot of trouble with Blaine, the host. Drew steps in and guides Blaine through his lines on every take. Drew had always longed to be a host but has terrible stage fright. However, when he’s guiding Blaine, no stage fright is obvious. Mostly this is because he’s not “on” for these performances but the rest is the ease he feels with Alia. For her part, Alia sees in Drew a natural charisma and screen presence. Drew is fantastic at everything he does. I think you see where this is going too.

As Drew and Alia get to know one another at the various beautiful Utah locations, their mutual attraction blossoms and they begin a fling. She had a bad experience with a cheating director earlier in her career and it has made her very relationship-shy so she’s very sensitive to being gaslit and lied to – to the point where she protects her heart rather than take a risk.

The thing is, Drew is so nice and practically perfect in every way that listeners know Alia’s fears are unfounded. I liked him quite a bit for the most part but I admit I lost some respect for him when he was just too much of a doormat with Alia at the end.

Drew is wonderful all the time – except when the plot calls for him to do something a bit not nice. It didn’t fit his character at all and jarred.

Alia repeatedly (why did she not learn??) misunderstands Drew’s words or actions and this leads to my least favourite trope, the Big Mis. Only there are multiple “mises” – mostly fairly small, leading up to the big one near the end. I didn’t like how Drew just accepted Alia’s actions as perfectly reasonable. She mistrusted him and, for the most part, didn’t use her words to clarify things and thought the worst of him over and over again. But Drew is all “I understand and it’s okay.” In the end, I thought he was just too nice.

The middle of the book dragged a little with not much happening except a lot of sex and sneaking around so the rest of the crew wouldn’t twig to their relationship. Interspersed with creative and hot sex scenes was a lot of “I’ll tell him I want a real relationship tonight” followed immediately by “Obviously he doesn’t feel the same way as me because I’ve just read into something he’s said or done so now I’ll stay quiet” – rinse and repeat. I was frustrated by it the first time but it kept happening. Thank God for assistant producer and best friend Hayley who said what I was thinking – “just talk to him, you dummy!!”.

The narration was quite good and made a lot of difference to my decision to persist and finish the book. There were a few small errors here and there and one or two occasions when the syntax of the sentence was altered by too long a pause at the wrong place but for the most part, Ms. Mortel’s performance was very good and I’d happily listen to her again. Her male character voices were different and believable and didn’t hinder me sinking into the listen and she had a good range of accents and character voices generally.

Ms. Mortel is a Filipino American actress and, given that the main character in On Location is also Filipino American, this worked very well. Her knowledge and familiarity with the Tagalog sprinkled throughout the novel was obvious. I appreciated the representation in addition to Ms. Mortel’s overall skill.

There were parts of On Location that worked well for me and the narration was certainly a plus but there were story aspects which didn’t work for me at all.

Grade: B-/C+