Editor’s note: Although William Dufris narrates One Silent Night, Audible lists Scott Brick as narrator. We have verified – this is a Dufris narration.
Narrated by William Dufris
I am a reader of series books – love them – and look forward to the next book in any of the sagas that I follow. There are few authors that I anticipate a new book release with the avid attention of a teenage girl waiting in line for Bieber tickets and Sherrilyn Kenyon is one of those authors. I am a total fan of her Dark-Hunter series and watch the ticker on her website counting down the days, hours, minutes, and yes, even the seconds for the release of her newest book. I have lost sleep because I can’t quit listening to one of her stories (Acheron
But I have to say, as far as audiobooks go, there are a few duds in the series. If Holter Graham or Fred Berman is the narrator of one of her books, there is no question, I own it the second I can purchase it. If the narrator is neither of those, I really hesitate over the purchase and consider just buying the Kindle version.
One Silent Night centers on Stryker, the villain in a good number of the series’ entries. He is reunited with his ex-wife, Zephrya, and together with his army of demons and daemons, moves along his plan for the end of the Dark-Hunters and for TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION (I can just hear that in a movie trailer’s narration voice, with a follow-up of maniacal guffawing).
I’ll start with my thoughts on the book’s content. The story itself is fantastic but then Kenyon books rarely disappoint. I can only think of one that was just “m’kay”. And the thought of a book featuring the notorious baddie Stryker made me purchase it, even though my rule about narration (see above) should have stopped me dead in my tracks and had me downloading the print version instead. One Silent Night fills gaps of other storylines, answers questions about why Stryker is the way he is, and gives a voice to the villain that I love to hate. Kenyon is also a master of writing powerful and flawed characters, ones that stick in the mind and make me understand what makes them tick, good, bad, or indifferent. So as far as the writing goes, the book is a good representation of what I expect when I buy something from Kenyon. (I don’t want to pack this full of spoilers for those who haven’t yet read anything in the series…start with the first book and go in order.)
That said, the narration was awful. Seriously awful. I honest to God wish I could bleach my ears out – it was that bad. William Dufris took a book that could have been a pleasure to listen to and made it a total waste of my time. Every single character sounded awful (maybe use “dreadful” this time? Or another word?). All of them. Stryker sounded similar to a villain on Spongebob Squarepants or some other children’s cartoon. It was so bad that I did something that I have never done before – I returned it. Thank the good Lord that Audible has a return policy, because I felt bamboozled out of my money. Yes, I should have known better (see rule above). And yes, I really should have listened to the Audible’s sound clip before actually purchasing (something that I do for every single book I buy now). I’m not sure that I will ever want to listen to another Kenyon book if it isn’t narrated by Graham or Berman as this one experience has completely turned me off any other narrator being paired with Sherrilyn Kenyon’s work.
Minnie
Narration: F
Book Content: A
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: Graphic
Genre: Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
I am also a Minion. I will just warn you that he did another of her books; Dream Warrior. I totally agree that the narration is bad. for both. I wonder about your opinion of the few women narrators in the series.
Thankfully, I noted that he narrated that one too, and loaded it on my Kindle. The only problem with that is that I can only really read in small increments, so I am working my way through it a few pages at a time. I find the women narrators ho-hum. They don’t exactly distract as bad as this guy did, but the action stuff was not nearly as exciting. While I thoroughly enjoyed the stories, I can’t help but think that they would have been so much better with Graham or Berman. When the perfect story meets the perfect narrator, it is a magical thing (like Johanna Parker/Sookie Stackhouse). A great narrator can turn bad writing into something wonderful. A bad narrator can really stink a book up.
Welcome to AG! This was my same reaction to Dufris narrating Book 1 of Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series! He mispronounced names, and in general did a major disservice to romance in general and Brockmann in particular. And yet, he’s got a TON of experience, with a list of titles longer than most narrators at Audible. I think his voice is better suited to other genres, maybe more MANLY genres like, uh, thrillers, Dean Koontz and, I dunno, John Scalzi? I DNFed book 1 long before I could bother to review it, cuz life’s too short to suffer through an audiobook when the book itself is good!! But I know your motivation (what’s better than a favorite book? an audiobook of it!!) and feel your pain.
LIstening to the sample does not always stop me – sometimes the sample isn’t really indicative, doesn’t contain enough dialog to let you know how the narrator will handle character voices. I listened to an audiobook recently where the only part the narrator did well was the narrative – her characters were awful – but the sample had no dialog at all.
Exactly! I think you’re right about a genre switch. Actually, children’s books with evil characters would probably be better. The man is certainly well-suited to cartoons, so maybe a career change would work?
Thank you for the warm welcome!