After all the drama of last week I hope we’ve all settled into ‘less-fraught’ mode – and given today’s date, I’m not going to push it! Here’s what the Gals are listening to this week – drop by and tell us what’s keeping you sane right now.
BJ
Narrated by Seraphine Valentine
Caz
Narrated by Emma Wilder and Brian Pallino
Em
Narrated by Kate Reading
Kaetrin
Narrated by Iggy Toma
Melinda
Narrated by Anna Fields
Well, I’ve finally finished listening to ‘Finding Joy’ by Adriana Herrera. The narration did grow on me a bit, but listening to the book had nowhere near the impact that reading it did.
I decided to try some books with narrators with proven track records, so bought ’65 Hours’ that was reviewed recently and ‘Tinderbox’ by Rachel Grant, narrated by Greg Tremblay. I decided to listen to Tinderbox first, as I haven’t read that book, and I am enjoying it.
The one good thing to come out of being in National Lockdown is that I’m back to going on the exercise bike every day – and I can only do that whilst listening to an audiobook!
I finished Finding Joy at the beginning of the week and have sent in my review, so stay tuned. But yes, the narration did the book a grave disservice, IMO.
Greg Tremblay/Boudreaux is awesome- he’s my “yardstick”, the narrator by whom all others are judged ;). Tinderbox was the first time I listened to him and his performance just blew me away. (Rachel Grant is a favourite author and that whole series is superb). It’s entirely due to him that I started picking up more m/m in audio, and then in print as I discovered new authors because he was narrating their work. Any author or publisher who underestimates the power of the narrator (the good ones, anyway) is making a serious mistake, because I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom the discovery of an excellent narrator has had that effect.
Greg T/B is awesome.
I just listened to Call Me Maybe, which is being promoted on Audible right now and is free to members. I believe they are using is as an inducement to explore the Plus program they now offer. It is written by Cara Bastone, and narrated by Luci Christian and Neil Hellegers. All 3 are new to me. While there is nothing particularly new in the story, still it is quite charming and immersive. It is performed duet style and has subtle sound effects, so the overall feel is movie-like. The price was certainly right and I genuinely enjoyed the book. The writing is crisp, the narration was excellent, and the production values are very high. This is a great example of what can be done with audiobooks if more effort is made on the recording. This particular book is also pretty ‘clean’, there is no sex, but there are a few F-bombs and other swear words, but nothing shocking. There are cyber threats against an animal, but they are not graphic and nothing happens to the animal.
I’ve discovered I’m not the biggest fan of duet narration – I still prefer a single really good narrator who can do it all!
That’s usually my preference too, but I have always liked the idea of duet narration where a man has all the male roles and a woman has all the female roles. But the actors have to be well matched, and the reactions to one another’s remarks have to feel genuine. I have heard very few examples where it has worked, but in Call Me Maybe I felt it worked beautifully. The narrators are very good voice actors, the laughter sounds genuine, the word emphasis is correct, and the dialogue feels like a real conversation. And I normally hate sound effects in my audio books, but they got it exactly right this time. I was impressed with the quality of this book, and even the story, while simple, is fun and has enough surprises that it kept me engaged. Plus, its a book you can share with a teen daughter or aged grandmother and except for some swearing they are unlikely to be offended.
I think the only time I really consider duet narration is if I’m listening to a dual or solo narration where the narrator isn’t very good with the voices for the opposite sex and I wish it had been done differently!
I’ve slowed way down in my listening since AE was cancelled. But that’s fine.
Last Friday I finished up A Week To Be Wicked by Tessa Dare, narrated by Carolyn Morris. I wrote a review which Goodreads ate, so basically, I loved it and had so much fun listening to it. Definite A grade book and listen.
I again tried a “hot” contemporary that is getting a lot of buzz, this time Dirty Letters by Vi Keenland and Penelope Ward. The narration by Andi Arndt and Jason Morgan was quite good, but the story was not. Slut-shaming by the hero was a big turn-off, as was the fact that while it was ok for the hero to be a man whore, we are supposed to be glad (along with said hero) that the heroine had very little experience. Gag. C- for story.
I then tried Dirty Exes by Rachel Van Dyken, another author getting buzz, and stopped after just a few chapters. I’m finding this groups of authors, which include Lauren Blakely, rarely work for me. They seem to rely heavily on a few tropes, and are pretty shallow. I’ve kept trying after reading the Him trilogy, but can’t seem to find anything else with that depth.
I listened to Below the Bones, the 5th entry in the novella series Widow’s Island. This installment was written by Kendra Elliot and narrated by Christine Williams. It was a free listen through Kindle whispersync. I’ve enjoyed this series so far, but this was the weakest installment. Not a whole lot of story; only a little over 2 hours on audio. Williams’ narration was fine, but sounded a little automated at times. B-
Now I’m listening to Off Base by Annabeth Albert, narrated by Tyler Stevens. I’m about half way through and it’s been slow going for me. I’m finding it easy to put down. Tyler Stevens has a way of narrating with short pauses between groups of words, I guess for emphasis. I find it distracting at times. I’ve read reviews for the series and see they narrator changes.
I loved A Week to be Wicked and think it’s by far Tessa Dare’s best book. I stopped reading her recent books as, IMO, they got too silly.
I agree about AWTBW – it’s her best book and she’s yet to top it, IMO. I’ve read/listened to some of her other books, but her recent ones have been pretty meh. She’s another of the big-name HR authors I’ve given up on :( I think the narration in Off Base is the weakest of the set, but it’s not horrible. If you work through the series, you’ve got Cooper North and J.F. Harding (who I like a lot) and then it’s Greg B all the way ;)
I think we touched on the current crop of big-name CR authors a few weeks back; I listen to one of their books occasionally as a sort of “palate cleanser” because those authors usually get the best narrators, so you know that at least the performances will be decent. But stories? Yes, they’re very same-y. LB has a new m/m book out with Teddy Hamiton and Jacob Morgan (dream team) next week, so I’ll be giving it a try solely on account of their involvement.
If you’re looking for something contemporary and fairly substantial, check out my reviews for Marie Force’s Five Years Gone and One Year Home. Very poignant and meaty stories with excellent narration for the most part.
They really do get some of the best narrators. I guess since these writers are prolific and popular, it makes for job security.
I expecte it does, for the authors and the narrators. Teddy Hamilton is probably the only one of that group of male narrators (Joe Arden, Shane East, Zachary Webber, Jason Clarke etc.) I listen to fairly regularly because he does sometimes record stuff ‘outside’ that small group of authors. I wish the rest of them would do the same – they’re a really talented bunch and it would be nice to listen to them in something different occasionally.
I agree. But I think its hard for narrators who are ‘typecast’ as romance narrators to find work in other spheres. Joe Arden actually does a lot of work under another name in other genres. I think that’s why he’s so protective of his identity. Shane East works under a different name too, but he has fewer recordings. He has some good historicals under that name, and some non romance stuff too. I’d like to see Zachary Webber get work narrating a detective series or some thrillers or something. He has a great voice, is quite expressive, versatile with doing ages and genders…I don’t know why publishers and authors aren’t beating down his door, quite frankly. Give him yet another pseudonym and let him go to town! I think he’d be great narrating something like John Sandford’s Prey series or some of Lawrence Block’s work. In my opinion he’s the best American male narrator of contemporary fiction working right now and its just a shame no one is offering him work in other arenas.
Yes, I’ve listened to Joe Arden under his other name, and Shane East, too – SE started out being a bit coy about his alter ego, but has become less so recently; he’s actually recorded more (so far) under his ‘original’ name than he has as SE, but it won’t be long before he catches up with himself! I really think there’s as much of a stigma attached to narrating romance as there is to reading and writing it – which may be one reason JA is so protective, and why there is still a shortage of really GOOD male romance narrators – although I think that’s slowly changing. But it may also be a reason they don’t get offered much work in other genres. I also think that the handful we’re talking about get so MUCH work from that small number of big-name authors that maybe they’re too booked-up to do anything else. Maybe as things move on and newer voices come in to replace them, they will be able to branch out a bit.
I’m part of a Facebook group called Aural Fixation and the narrators you mentioned are pretty much treated like rock stars there! They have live interviews with them and such. I know Joe Arden, at last, posts regularly, too. I generally just skim because it’s mostly about the hot contemporary writers that are popular now, but I’ve enjoyed learning more about some of the narrators, and there has been good info on alternatives to Audible. I think I learned about Aural Fixation here.
Yeah, I’m in AF, too, although I tend to avoid all the squeal-y posts and repetition. Joe Arden actually did an FB live in his own (fairly new) group – wearing a face mask, hat and mirrored sunglasses! Bless him though, he was wearing all that for 90 minutes and must have been not too comfortable. He seems like a genuinely decent guy who really loves what he does.
AF can be a bit much, that’s for sure! But its a good place to see what’s in the pipeline and to learn about new narrators. I do like comments from narrators and writers too, since it gives me insight into the audio publishing industry.
Just finished Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. For an m/m it lacked steam but the witty writing and excellent narration still made it a very satisfying listen.
It wasn’t that steamy, true, but the humour and the obvious longing and affection between Luc and Oliver were wonderful!
I’m just settling in with Balogh’s Someone to Romance narrated by Rosalyn Landor. So far I’m enjoying it, but this Westcott family is getting pretty complicated… I’m going to need a scorecard I think!
Haha! But actually, that’s one of the downsides with audio – in the books, there’s a family tree at the front of each of the Westcott books so you can flick back and forth to refresh your memory. I’ve said with Hailey Turner’s current Soulbound series that I’d like to have access to the glossary that’s printed in all the books so I can remind myself who is who!
I did not know that! Maybe I’ll get a hardcopy just for that purpose. Thanks!
I’ve read them in digital format as (even though I’m in the minority) Landor’s narrations don’t work for me. And even with the print books it gets confusing!
One last comment here. I’ve joined a new FB group dealing with the unfair practices at Audible. It’s called Fair Deal for Rights Holders and Narrators. I recommend it if anyone is interested in seeing Audible change it’s predatory practices. Right now Audible is allowing readers to return books at will, and they takes away the royalties from the authors and narrators. Audible is also telling many authors they don’t have data on what books have been returned, or how far along the reader was in the book when returned. so they are basically blocking authors from getting this information. Audible is actively promoting this exchange book for any reason policy and building what amounts to a Audible Escape situation, only authors and narrators get nothing when their books are returned.
This new FB groups is trying to get a wider audience and expose the practices to other authors, narrators and audiobook fans. They are encouraging writing emails to Audible, sharing the emails and responses,and sharing with the details with as many people as possible. Just FYI.
I don’t like the return policy either, it invites abuse. I think a 30 day return period is ample time to decide if you like a book or not. I’ll check South that FB page, thanks Carrie!
Thanks for the info, I’ll check it out. I’m already hearing about authors cancelling or postponing plans to put their books into audio because they’re getting screwed over by this. I confess that I haven’t seen this policy being promoted at Audible UK – but then I haven’t really looked for it… which I just did and it’s in the “Member Benefits” section and called “Exchange”. I’m generally a fan of Audible; there aren’t many alternatives in the UK (my local libraries are hopeless) and the monthly fee is lower here. I buy the one year 24 books subscription which works out at around £4.50 per title and I can buy 3 extra credits for just over £3 each, which I think is very reasonable. I always saw the “return” option as something to be used sparingly – I’ve returned maybe half a dozen books in the more than ten years I’ve been a member, and I think two of those were actually accidental purchases. But to encourage people to use it like a subscription library is disgraceful and will have a really detrimental effect on audiobook production in the long run.
Audible US has a 1 year return policy, and there are lots of folks who use it like a library. I’ve been a member for about 7 years, I have more than 6000 books, and I have returned less than a dozen. I think Audible could offer longer samples that include all the important narrators to help combat this; my reason for returns is always the narrator it seems. But they need to take a hard look at this; pretty soon writers won’t work with Audible if they can’t benefit from it.
I suspect that the narration issue is one that occurs with romance more than any other genre, especially in a dual or duet narration (I don’t know how many of those you find outside of romance). Allowing authors to include samples of both narrators would definitely be a way to combat the return-because-narrator thing. I think all of my returns – bar one – were because of the narration.
Romance readers are voracious too, many read a book a day. Its hard for most to support that habit in audio books because they are so much more expensive than ebooks or even many paperbacks. I’d think that if Audible was seeing someone buy one credit a month and then buy and return 10 books, one right after another, that they’d get suspicious. But people come on Facebook and brag about reading an entire series using one credit. Clearly, its a problem.