Narrated by Alexandria Wilde
Wild is the story of forensic pathologist Eve Thomas and mysterious shapeshifter Selene Rhodes. These women, though from very different worlds, are drawn to one another in ways neither can explain. Can they overcome all odds in order to claim the HEA that has eluded them both for so long?
Eve is a strong believer in science. Even so, she is very open-minded. Her parents taught her that not everything can be scientifically proven, and Eve took their lessons to heart. Even now, as she performs countless autopsies on San Francisco’s corpses, Eve is aware that the world has more to offer than the things she can prove.
Grieving after a difficult breakup, Eve is trying to find herself. To this end, she takes a walk in Golden Gate Park just before sunrise, a practice her ex always hated. While walking, Eve is attacked, taunted, and nearly raped. It is only when an enormous, silver wolf comes racing out of the trees that her attacker runs off. Sure she imagined the wolf, Eve is grateful to have been spared. She’s even more grateful when a beautiful passerby offers to aid her. It never crosses her mind the woman who lends her clothing and gives her a shoulder to cry on is actually the wolf who saved her.
Selene Rhodes has carried her secret around since the age of eight. When she was sixteen, she killed her family’s livestock while in wolf form, causing her parents to disown her. Ever since, Selene has led a solitary life, working from home, never getting close to people, relying only on a variety of call girls to restrain her on the night of the full moon. There’s something about the power of the moon that Selene can’t fight, and so, she spends one night a month bound to a steel table. One night, something goes wrong. Selene’s bonds aren’t tight enough. She breaks them and her wolf roams free.
Before rescuing Eve, Selene found the dead body of a woman in the park. At first, she fears she killed the stranger in her wolf form. She comes to realize she couldn’t have done this, and calls in an anonymous tip to the police. She’s returning home from the payphone when she hears Eve’s frightened shriek. Going against all her instincts, Selene allows her inner wolf to take control.
It soon becomes clear that a ruthless killer is stalking the women of San Francisco. Is he also stalking Eve? If so, why? To add to the turmoil, Eve can’t get Selene out of her head. Soon, they’re spending every spare moment together, falling deeper in love with each passing day. Will Selene’s secret and the deranged desires of the killer come between them?
This was my first experience with narrator Alexandria Wilde. For the most part, her performance was good. However, a few verbal ticks kept it from being truly excellent.
Ms. Wilde did a marvelous job differentiating the various characters. This couldn’t have been easy, given that the book is comprised mostly of women. Even so, I did not have to rely on dialogue tags, except for a few occasions. Selene is given an Italian-sounding accent that makes her stand out from everyone else. Eve speaks in brisk tones, with hints of vulnerability peeking through. Eve’s ex-girlfriend is given a cocky sound that fits Ms. O’Brien’s written description to a tee. Every once in awhile, Eve would be speaking in the voice Ms. Wilde reserved for Selene, but I can count these occurrences on one hand.
Ms. Wilde has a habit of drawing very audible breaths in odd places. This gave her reading more of a stilted quality than I would have liked. It also caused me to be pulled out of the story in order to think about what I heard and make sense of it. Certain sentences ran on forever, even though the written text split them into several shorter sentences, while others were broken up in a way that was most unsuitable. I would imagine some of this could have been edited out. Why it wasn’t is a mystery to me.
There were also a few very noticeable mispronunciations of rather common words. I’m not sure why this happened. However, it was not as annoying as the breathing issue.
Despite my complaints, I must give Ms. Wilde credit for bringing Ms. O’brien’s words to life. She allowed me to feel like I knew Eve and Selene. I was very invested in their relationship, and this is due, at least in part, to Ms. Wilde’s narration.
A couple of things bothered me about the story. Selene is a shapeshifter. That’s all very well and good. However, she can change into any animal she wishes. This seemed a little far-fetched. There’s being a werewolf, or werecat, or whatever. I can deal with that. In fact, shifters are among my favorite paranormal characters, but I found it hard to swallow the idea that Selene could visualize any animal and become it. I found it equally strange that Selene’s ability to shapeshift was the only paranormal element in the book. There weren’t other shifters. There were no vampires. Selene never questioned why she had the ability she had. It never seemed to occur to her that she was the only person who could shift. I would have liked to see a bit more of a paranormal setup. Without it, Selene’s shapeshifting seemed kind of jarring. Ms. O’Brien definitely worked it into the story, but I prefer paranormal things to appear in paranormal romance rather than romantic suspense with a single nod to the existence of the paranormal.
If you’re a fan of lesbian romances, I definitely recommend Wild. Despite my complaints about parts of both the story and the narration, I definitely do not regret listening to it. In fact, I see that more of Ms. O’Brien’s work is available at Audible. I’ll definitely be grabbing it soon.
Shannon
Narration: B-
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: For your burning ears only
Violence: Escalated fighting – some talk of rape
Genre: General Fiction
Publisher: Audible
Wild was provided to AudioGals by the author for review.
