Narrated by Patrick Lawlor
Blurb for Dark Legend
My take on the story: Feehan created a paranormal world in the Dark series in which vampire-like creatures called Carpathians roam the earth. Like vampires, they feed on human blood; like vampires, they live an extraordinarily long life. But Carpathians consider actual vampires unclean and undead, and spend a lot of time ridding the world of them (in graphically violent ways).
Gabriel awakens after two hundred years asleep underground and is immediately thrown into turmoil: he needs to feed, he needs to save the world from his slightly-more-powerful twin, and he has an imperative to claim his life mate Francesca. Francesca is also in turmoil – she already knows Gabriel is her lifemate but she had long given up on him. Not only has she been “passing” as human, but she’s even considering taking a human mate, until suddenly Gabriel is in her life again. The concept of the story sounded like it would be entertaining. But I found it difficult to follow the arc of this story – was it about the conflict between Gabriel and Lucian? Was it about lifemates Gabriel and Francesca, trying to overcome the differences in their lives?
And it might have been more entertaining if I could get past Feehan’s writing. She has a tendency to repeat. She repeats a word:
“he thought of that long ago battle nearly two centuries ago.”
“Power clung to him as if he were power come to life, power personified.”
“so pure and beautiful it was hard to forget. His voice was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard in her life.”
“a dark, dangerous predator. His black eyes glittered dangerously…’You will not endanger my life mate’… ‘It was you who brought her to danger’…” [this was all within about 20 seconds]
She also repeats concepts, as if we had all forgotten that Lucian was Gabriel’s twin who had turned vampire and needed to be terminated, as if we couldn’t remember that Francesca was a healer, as if we could ever forget how long ago Lucian and Gabriel started this duel.
She uses superlatives so often that they ceased to have any meaning – everything is the most, the worst, the best ever ever ever: “lost for all time” “the most beautiful … in her life”. The dialogue is stiff, without contractions, and seems to go on and on – lots of exposition, telling and telling and telling (and repeating). And maybe because I wasn’t engaged enough, here was a phrase that really set me off: “creamy with need” – [cough] ’nuff said.
My take on Lawlor’s narration: I really like Lawlor’s narration for Suzanne Brockmann’s works – he has a warm delivery that sounds like he’s sitting next to me, talking to me about mutual friends. But I’m not sure his narrative style was a good fit for Feehan. He uses a number of techniques to differentiate between characters – his vampire villains are pitched low and he adds a gravelly note; Francesca’s voice is softer and pitched just slightly higher than Gabriel’s; the teen-aged Skyler is pitched even higher. But the dialogue comes across stilted and unnatural, which I believe is how it’s written.
Lawlor gave it his best shot – his characters were all consistent and well-thought-out; his delivery of different kinds of scenes contained appropriate emotions. He put urgency in high-action scenes, and he attempted to put feeling into scenes where that would have been appropriate, if only Feehan had written them with more warmth and sentiment. I just couldn’t get past the storytelling, or lack thereof, and I really can’t blame the narrator for that.
Melinda
Narration: B
Book Content: D
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: Graphic – paranormal graphic, but still icky
Genre: Paranormal Romance – vampire
Publisher: Harper Audio
Dark Legend was provided to AudioGals for review by Harper Audio.
