Love With A Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche

Narrated by Candice Moll

At age 24, Australian Torre DeRoche went to the US to live there for a year and have some adventures. She promised her mother she would come home at the end of that year and would definitely not fall in love with an American man (who would tempt her to stay).  Well, she didn’t fall in love with an American. Sort of. She met Ivan from Argentina (during the course of the book he does get US citizenship – so that’s why I say “sort of”). Ivan is planning a round-the-world sail so Torre thinks he’s a safe bet. They will both be leaving around the same time allowing them to indulge in a “no strings” affair. Except the strings form pretty quickly and it is not long before they are living together and Ivan is trying to gently, but persistently, charm Torre into accompanying him on his voyage of adventure.

So, breaking her other promise to her mother, Torre sets out for the South Pacific and places beyond with Ivan on his 32 foot 1970s yacht, Amazing Grace. The story charts their adventures as they travel and how Torre learns to cope with her anxieties because, believe it or not, she is afraid of the ocean.

It is a biography and adventure story, which also charts Torre’s personal growth during the voyage, with a dash of romance too. Ivan is a fairly opaque character – he does sound charming and fun but I can’t say I felt I really knew him after listening to this book. Ivan’s dream is to live on the sea. Torre wants to be with Ivan but she doesn’t want to be on the sea forever. In terms of the romance, that is the central conflict of the book.

I found the story so engaging and interesting, I raced through it like the Amazing Grace in the trade winds (do you see what I did there?). I will say that before I accepted the book for review, I did a bit of Googling, so I had a fair idea of how the central romantic story ends here. Hint: I still requested the book.

As much as I enjoyed Candice Moll’s narration overall, there were quite a few mispronounced words:

– Grimace is pronounced “grim-uss” not “grim – ayce”

– Windlass is pronounced as if you are talking about a day with no wind blowing, rather     than “wined- lass”

– Linseed is with a short “I” as in “Lyn”

 – And I’m pretty sure that Ivan is pronounced the Spanish way with the emphasis on the second syllable and a short “I” (as in win) – “I-vahn” rather than “Eye-vin” which is the more Anglicised way of saying it. I can’t imagine Ivan introducing himself and mispronouncing his own name – and when introducing someone, don’t you usually say their name the same way they do (don’t you?).

There were other examples of mispronunciation but I think you get the idea. I suppose many of the listeners will be from the US and may not know that most Australians would not speak this way.

Most of Ms. Moll’s accents were good – her Latin-accented English for Ivan, her native Australian accent, and the California US accent of her San Franciscan friends, the French of the Polynesians. There were some that were a little inconsistent but they didn’t feature strongly in the story so it wasn’t a big deal.

There wasn’t a huge differentiation in pitch between Torre and Ivan – this was mainly done by accent –but it was nonetheless an effective way of distinguishing the two and I had no trouble working out who was speaking.

Ms. Moll voices conversational interruptions very well. When one character talks over or breaks into another’s speech, she delivers this at the right speed to make it clear what is happening. And, while the mispronunciations did drive me a little crazy, her ability to express the emotional tension, her pacing, and the excitement of the general narrative, kept me engaged the whole way through.

I can’t imagine myself living on a 32 foot yacht (even a luxury yacht) for the best part of two years but it was fascinating to listen to the experiences and adventures Torre DeRoche had doing so. It’s a great book and I really think the best way to experience such a story is on audio.

Kaetrin

Narration:  B

Book Content:  B+/A-

Steam Factor:  You can play it out loud

Violence:  None

Genre:  Biography/Memoir, Non Fiction

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio

Love with a Chance of Drowning was provided to AudioGals for review by Brilliance Audio.