Wicked by Jennifer Armentrout

wicked armentroutNarrated by Amy Landon

Everyone show my home girl some love! Not that I know Jennifer Armentrout personally but she is from West Virginia—my home state—so I have to give her a shout out whenever I can. Unfortunately, Wicked wasn’t set in our home state, but in New Orleans, which is another area filled with wonderfulness and weirdness in spades.

Ivy Morgan is not your ordinary college student. Instead of spending her nights partying with frat boys however, she spends her nights hunting down and killing Fae. As a member of the Order, it’s her job to protect humans, ignorant of the Other world and its creatures, from being food for the Fae. It’s not an easy job but she does it, as her parents did before they were murdered.

Out on a hunt, she comes across a Fae unlike any other she’s met – he could pass for a human, super strong and immune to the iron daggers she carries. Ivy isn’t sure what this means and no one seems to believe what she saw, except one person that is: Ren Owens. Ren is a transfer Order member from Colorado who, while extremely sexy with his forest green eyes and shaggy brown eyes, is too Alpha for Ivy’s taste. However, when Ivy is assigned to show him around town, she discovers that Ren is full of hotness and niceness…and secrets. Ren, and now Ivy, know something big is coming to town that they are totally unprepared for. And they have no idea how to stop it.

Wicked wasn’t a bad book to read but I was left feeling as if parts of the book were unfinished. There wasn’t a cliffhanger per se but there were issues that had been brought up that were never addressed. Like Ivy’s parents murder – we know how they were killed but nothing was ever said about how Ivy survived that night. And Tink! We knew he was involved in the issues with the gates but how did he really end up in the cemetery that night. And what did Tink really mean when he said Ren had no idea of what Tink was protecting? Or, how did Ren really know to come to New Orleans? I’m not a fan of books that leave me hanging, so all I can think of were the parts that were wrong instead of right.

This was my first experience with Amy Landon’s narration; I had seen her name on several paranormal romance titles I wanted to try but couldn’t bring myself to buy. She wasn’t bad – there were no mispronounced words or errors in speech or enunciation. I just didn’t feel she was a good fit for this book. She missed the timing of the sarcasm and jokes that I knew were part of the story. I’d catch myself listening for a minute, then going back and thinking “Oh, that was supposed to be funny”. I know I’m not a naturally funny person but it’s statistically impossible for me to have missed as many as I did. Something odd though, she managed to capture this snark with Tink’s character. I have no idea how you can miss it with several characters but get it with one.

Speaking of Ivy, I also felt have Landon’s interpretation of her was off. Ivy was a twenty-something college student but Landon made her sound much more mature. Even Ivy’s friend Val sounded like she was a woman of thirty rather than someone closer to Ivy’s age. I will say that while Landon may not have gotten the humor within Wicked, she did a good job with the smexyness of it. Ren’s character about burned my earphones off my head! To hear him talking to Ivy during the intimate bits was very exciting! Listening to the parts with the two of them together made this book bearable.

As much as I did enjoy this story – enough that I will be keeping an eye for the next book, Torn, supposedly out later this year (according to Armentrout’s website), I think I may read the next one. The narration made the book drag. Three hundred pages equals eleven hours of listening but only three or so hours of reading for me. If I read it and still don’t get the humor, then I only have myself to blame!

Diana


Narration:  C+

Book Content:  C+

Steam Factor:  For your burning ears only

Violence:  Escalated fighting

Genre:  Paranormal Romance

Publisher:  Tantor Audio

 

Wicked was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for review.