Narrated by Alan Nebelthau and Kate Skinner
This is a story about the devil. In that inimitable Deveraux way, she has written a story like no other – it’s a romance, contemporary, with a pinch of paranormal. When I read the book in print, I noted that I started crying – twice – in the first 26 pages.
The book is written in first person, from two POVs – Ford, a middle-aged widower who is a best-selling author, and Jackie, Ford’s young assistant and also his portal to the devil story. It begins with Ford telling his side of the story about his life with his wife (where my first tears came) and his journey to becoming an author. When Jackie begins her part of the story, she is just about to get married, and turns down Ford’s job offer. But Jackie is an unusual woman with an unusual past, and joins Ford on a journey anyway. Is it a journey to remove his writer’s block? To find love again? To meet the devil?
The audiobook is performed by two narrators, one speaking from Ford’s POV, the other from Jackie’s. The two narrators were both competent – their voices were age-appropriate, their characters meshed with the text, both deliveries good. Narrating in first person isn’t quite the same as third person – there’s no need to develop numerous separate voices since they are speaking from that person’s perspective.
That being said, I did allow my mind to wander some. The devil is in the details, after all! Ms. Skinner’s voice has a slight raspy sound that smacks a little of vocal nodes – I’ve never been one who admires the huskiness of that sound. She has a tendency to hesitate or pause slightly too long between sentences, which makes the delivery a little choppy. It made me think several times that a particular sentence or action was done when it wasn’t. These kinds of details make me lower the narrator’s rating.
Mr. Nebelthau was fine – he didn’t have a deep, young, heroic voice, which fit his character. In addition to Ford being close to 50 (I guess), he’s also described as out of shape and perhaps carrying a little more weight than he should. It’s that quirky Deveraux way – why go for tall, dark, and handsome every time? The relationship takes the entire book to completely define and, listening to the story, it almost seems as if it’s imposed on the plot more than being the focus. But there are so many themes: first love, family, tragedy, and prominently, the lengths someone would go to for love.
I enjoyed it again, this time as audio, but I only recommend it to you if you are looking for something unusual, not run of the mill, while realizing it’s not that satisfying in the soulmate-love department.
Melinda
Narration: C
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: You can play it out loud – mostly. Nothing graphic.
Violence: Minimal: off-screen violence
Genre: Contemporary Romance/paranormal
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Wild Orchids was provided to AudioGals by Simon & Schuster for review.
