Northern Lights by Nora Roberts

Editor’s Note: Kaetrin hoped Northern Lights would prove to be one of her two favorites for our Month of Romance Audio Favorites. You’ll see that it didn’t turn out that way…

Narrated by Gary Littman

I first read Northern Lights some years ago. I remember enjoying the story and being uncertain who the villain was up until the end. (I am generally hopeless at mysteries though). For our Month of Romance Audio Favorites, my second book is one I’ve not actually listened to before but, because I had read it and I remembered it fondly, I thought it could sneak in under the radar so to speak. (Don’t tell anyone).

I couldn’t remember who the villain was and that was an advantage. I spent most of the listen being just as mystified as the first time, which certainly served to keep my interest up.

The romance wasn’t quite as enjoyable for me this time round though – I found Nate a bit too pushy and a bit too demanding/dogmatic. On the other hand, I found much more to love about Meg Galloway.

Ignatius “Nate” Burke moves to Lunacy Alaska to take up the newly created position of Chief of Police. He is suffering from depression following the death of his cop partner and he thinks a change of scene might just save his life.

Meg Galloway is a bush pilot based out of Lunacy and when the two meet, sparks instantly fly. Meg is not the usual heroine though. She’s frank in her sexuality and open about her desires. I actually loved how she had no shame (and neither did the narrative) about enjoying sex in the abstract and enjoying Nate in the particular.

Meg’s father “left” 16 years ago. He was a bit of a free spirit and, when he didn’t return, it was assumed that it was his choice. A missing trio of climbers leads to the discovery of Patrick Galloway’s body in an ice cave on No Name, a mountain near Lunacy. He has an ice axe embedded in his chest so it is pretty clear that he was murdered.

As Nate investigates, it becomes clear that the killer is still in Lunacy and does not want to be found. This puts both Nate and Meg in danger as they race to identify the murderer before it’s too late.

This is my first experience with narrator Gary Littman. His narration was okay, sometimes even better than okay, but he had a habit of not pausing long enough between sentences which had the effect of making everything seem very rushed. The actual words were spaced well enough, but he didn’t leave enough of a gap between sentences and paragraphs to let the words sink in properly and the emotion of some of the passages was lost in what I felt was his race to the finish.

I’m also not a big fan of narrators telling me about an action and then doing the action – eg “He coughed” followed by a coughing noise. Or “she laughed” followed by a laugh. One exception occurred when Mayor Hop laughed the first time because it sounded so unusual. Littman did a good job depicting it but the other stuff I could have done without.

The female characters were fairly well done – softer in tone than in pitch (except for Mayor Hop who sounded like a 3-pack-a day-smoker – which fit the character entirely) and I thought the Native American characters were portrayed well without being caricatures (although I’m really not an expert here and stand to be corrected).

If Mr. Littman had just slowed it down a bit, Northern Lights could have been a much better listening experience – maybe even a B. As it was, he did a fair job of delivering the accents and character voices, with a decent depiction of the emotions, but not quite enough to lift it into the B range for me.

Kaetrin

Narration:  C+

Book Content:  B-

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Fighting

Genre:  Romantic Suspense

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio